Recently, there seems to be a perfect game in the minds of players - Souls.
The game promoted by Insomnia Studios shows strong graphics, interesting gameplay, and no liver, no krypton, no ads. Souls is currently in the reservation stage, and so far TapTap has been booked nearly 800,000 times, with a rating of 9.3 points, and the game is also Tap exclusive. The exaggerated heat and the five-star reviews seem to herald the perfect game.
But is this really the case?
The "King of Cakes" on TapTap?
Souls is an open-world multi-platform ARPG game. This genre is not uncommon, but Souls places more emphasis on the importance of multiplayer, with the game Slogan being "an open world where no one is adventuring".
In the description of the development team, players can explore freely in the open world, and can also play different types of NPCs or even bosses in the big world to experience different lives - they can become peddlers, craftsmen to make money, they can also form gangs, build homes, or accept the task of other players to become a "mercenary".
It is also mentioned that the team has developed "Meta Face (3D Face Imaging) technology", which allows players to generate 3D characters that are highly similar to themselves in real time, and can also create on this basis. And said that the current Meta Face has completed the female version, the male version is still about 30% complete to come out.
But these tricks of the game are only on the dictation, and there is no demonstration of these contents in the currently released video display.
The development team released a total of 6 videos on TapTap. Most of these videos are presentations of scenes, but there are also videos that show gameplay such as playing NPCs and pinching faces to create pre-created characters.
Among them, the video of playing the NPC shows the process of releasing the task after the player incarnates as an NPC. From the video, the game is to replace the NPC image with a character image, and the released tasks are not limited to the player, and the player can enter the task content according to their own preferences. Judging from the content shown in the video alone, the gameplay of playing NPCs is indeed novel enough in the game, but it is also difficult to define the level of the overall game.
In the video of the pre-created character of the pinched face, the high degree of freedom of the character pinching the face is shown. Souls provides five different figures and appearances, and players can make subtle adjustments to the eyebrows, pupil color, lip color, decals, and forms of the characters on the basis of the existing images.
But in this video, there are also more fatal problems.
The second half of the video is a part that reflects the posture of the characters when they are in motion. When the character stops while running to the river, the directional joystick on the interface still shows a continuous forward. This also shows that the video is most likely a video that has undergone post-processing plus a UI interface, rather than a real demonstration during the game.
Of the six videos mentioned above, the development team released the most frequently a 26-second video of the male protagonist running on horseback. The content of the video is focused on visual performance. The camera is firmly locked on the figure galloping in the distance, and the reeds fluttering with the wind, the leaves that fall normally, the halo of the sun or the moonlight reflected in the river in the close-up are also quite real. It is undeniable that only from the visual performance, "Soul" has shown a high level, and many players are amazed by the game's graphics performance.
However, after the announcement of this promotional video, some players also raised the question that the game is too similar to "Souls of Tsushima". The official response said that the development team referred to the "color matching style" of Tsushima within the scope of legal permission, but also said that plagiarism and learning from it have clear boundaries in law. The implication is that Soul's learning from Souls of Tsushima has not yet reached the point of plagiarism.
Left: Soul of Tsushima | Right: Soul
Part 1: Soul of Tsushima | Part 2: Soul
"Soul" is suspected of plagiarism and not only "Soul of Tsushima". In the video released by "Soul", it was pulled out by players and similar to the skill icon of the "Tianya Mingyue Knife" mobile game.
Top: Soul skill icon | Bottom: "Tianya Mingyue Knife" mobile game skill icon
The game character graphics released by Souls in April were also pulled out to be excessively similar to the character image illustrations of users on social platforms.
Image source on the left: TapTap users laughing
The alleged plagiarism image has now been replaced by the image on the right
In addition, "Soul" is also known as the "Cake King", which also benefits from the superb cake painting skills of the development team.
In May this year, the development team said that it would release the professional modeling optimization effect, but it has not been released so far, and the player's doubts are currently suspected of being deleted.
The pre-created character face pinching client, which was originally scheduled to be launched on June 28, also promised the player that it would be online the day before, but the follow-up apology announcement said that the manpower was limited and the pre-created character pinching face client could not be launched on time.
In the game introduction, it is mentioned that the official store of Souls cancels all other numerical items for sale. However, in a follow-up announcement, it was said that the development team was temporarily unable to generate electricity for Love, and never promised not to sell the value.
Top: Game Description | Next: Follow-up announcements
When asked by players about the development progress, most of the development team evaded the problem on the grounds of "the gameplay has been developed and the art is being polished" and "the impact of the epidemic". However, when the player asked the development team to publish the gameplay demonstration video on the basis of false publicity, the development team continued to delay on the grounds that the art and performance needed to be adjusted.
All in all, there is a lot to say, and the substance has not yet been seen.
While losing the trust of players, the game's comment area also appeared in the suspected former team members of the user appeared to break the news. One user said that the development of the game was not completed, there was only a basic page, and the existing things were post-production. At the same time, it is also mentioned that the above-mentioned Meta Face technology is developed to obtain user data.
Another user mentioned that there was disagreement on research and development, and also said that the company's financing was not smooth.
The comment has now been removed
What is Insomnia Studio?
The insomnia studio to which "Soul" belongs, its company operates mainly shanghai pure oxygen interactive entertainment technology co., LTD., which was established in January 2022. Although the team has just been formed, according to rumors, the core members of the team are all from Kunlun Wanwei, Hero Interactive Entertainment, Giant Network and other game manufacturers.
The most noteworthy is the founder of the company, Xu Bo.
Xu Bo's most well-known identity in the game industry is the vice president of Giant Network. He initially worked in Shanghai Oriental Zitong Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Sina Legu Information Technology Company (Sina Legu). Sina Legu is a joint venture between Sina and NCsoft, and the company's more important event should be the introduction of the Korean hit game "Paradise" into China in 2003, and now Sina Legu has long declined.
Xu Bo's real big show in the field of games may start from joining Shanghai Moliyou in 2005, Xu Bo said that the company has created a net profit of more than 100 million. In 2007, the company's ESTsoft game Earth-Shattering Online set a record of 300,000 people online at the same time.
In 2009, Xu Bo joined Meifeng Digital as vice president, and during his tenure, the company's mobile game "King 2" had a highest monthly revenue of more than 45 million yuan in the world. During Meifeng's tenure, he once said in public that any publicity or activity, separated from the game itself, will seem pale and powerless, unable to resonate with users.
In 2014, Xu Bo joined the listed company Giant Network as executive vice president; During his tenure at Giant Network, Xu Bo set up a giant mobile mobile game product distribution team, during which he released mobile games with a monthly flow of more than 100 million yuan such as "Journey Pocket Edition" and "Big Lord".
During this period, Xu Bo also mentioned his views on marketing in the interview. He believes that the most successful marketing is of course loved by everyone and widely circulated. The second thing to do is to at least be widely circulated, as long as it is not completely negative, it can be accepted.
In 2016, Xu Bo established Biku Network as CEO and concurrently served as the CEO of May Fourth Interactive Entertainment. Among them, May Fourth Interactive Entertainment holds 10% of the shares of The Proposed Cool Network.
It is mentioned on the public account of May Fourth Interactive Entertainment that the company uses well-known IP as the development matrix to store "The Legend of Chu Liuxiang", "New Shade of Heaven", "Dark Faith" and so on. Its teams are all over Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and other places, and at the end of 2019, the size of the R&D team has exceeded 600 people.
But as a result, we can also see that most of the company's self-developed products begin to fade out of the player's vision at the appointment stage.
The R&D team mentioned on TapTap in October 2018 that the company obtained the authorization of Chendong himself to change the name of its game "Dark Faith" to "New Shade", but due to the version number at the time, the game could not be successfully renamed. In this letter to players, it is also mentioned that Dark Faith will meet with players soon, but in fact, the game has no news except for a deletion test announcement at the end of October 2018.
The self-developed products have not improved much, and the results of the issued products are not ideal. In October 2016, "Shade sky 3D", developed by Perfect World and released by The Kuku Network, was launched. After the game was launched, it only reached 56 places on the iOS best-seller list, and then slid all the way to 1,000 places, only about 2 years ago.
In 2021, Xu Bo also established Haikou Super Bee Network Technology Co., Ltd., from the registration of software copyrights, it can also be seen that the company has developed games such as "Huanhua Xueyue", "New Chu Liuxiang", "Jingli" and other games, as well as social software such as "Pokemi" and "Simplicity", but the information of these products cannot be queried from public information.
In January 2022, Xu Bo established Pure Oxygen Interactive Entertainment. From "Soul" to the current volume, Xu Bo's achievements in marketing have also reached the point of pure fire.
Judging from the proportion of equity in pure oxygen interactive entertainment, the company seems to have received investment at the beginning of its establishment. In February of this year, "Soul" was officially released on TapTap. After that, there was a "Soul" project introduction PPT flowing out in March, suspected of seeking financing. However, it can also be learned from the revelations of suspected employees in the TapTap comment area that pure oxygen mutual entertainment has not been ideal for financing at least until June.
epilogue
Looking back, the game Soul reveals all sorts of strange things.
At present, the game's review on TapTap is 9.3 points, and almost every day many accounts appear to post positive reviews. Most of the users who give praise have no other dynamics other than the evaluation of "Soul", and the praise copy is also based on the opening words of "after reading the introduction and the developer's words", "from XX brush to the back", "I have played a lot of games", and the content is also based on stepping on other products, optimistic about the development team, and being very interested in the game, which also makes the comment area look more like a gathering place for "water army".
Game New Knowledge naturally hopes that the big pie drawn by the development team can be successfully cashed in, but it is more hoped that regardless of the quality of the game, the development team will first achieve "real".