On February 27, 2023, Xbox head Phil Spencer posted a tweet to tell everyone that he has completed all the current achievements of the game "Vampire Survivor" and praised the game as very good, and the "Vampire Survivor" official congratulated him on this achievement below.
At the end of 2022, Phil Spencer shared his one-year game report, which showed that he spent 641 hours of games on Xbox in 2022, and spent 223 hours on the game "Vampire Survivor" alone, accounting for one-third of the total game time in a year.
From the birth of the world's first game in 1962 to the present year 20223, the game market has developed for more than sixty years, and in these decades, only players can't think of it, and no game manufacturer can't do the game. With the development of science and technology, whether it is the technology of making games or the gameplay, it must be exponentially increasing.
However, in 2022, a pixel-style roguelike game is on fire, and even drives the development of this type of game market, can you believe it? This game is Vampire Survivor.
Vampire Survivor is a time survival game with roguelike elements, the term roguelike originated from the famous video game "Rogue" released in the last century, but the rules of single-player turn-playing games at that time were not perfect, and it was not until 2008 that an accurate definition of the term was given.
The most obvious feature of roguelike games is that they generate random numbers. For example, the game environment, enemies, dropped treasures, etc. are random, which can ensure the sustainability of the game and the player's playability, after all, repeated against a game, no matter how fun the game will be greasy, but if each game is a different environment, enemies, then the player's freshness will be greatly improved, and the game life will naturally be longer.
Vampire Survivor was released on December 17, 2021, and at the beginning of its release, the results were not satisfactory. A month later, YouTuber SplatterCat made a video of Vampire Survivor and uploaded it to YouTube, which immediately aroused the interest of players, and in just two weeks, the number of players online at the same time reached 10,000.
So far, "Vampire Survivor" has received nearly 110,000 reviews and a 98% positive rating, which is not even lost compared to many excellent triple-A masterpieces.
Open this game, at the beginning may be strange players, this style is like the game developed in the last century, neither beautiful game character pictures and images, nor fresh and attractive gameplay, why can it explode out of the circle and get so much praise?
Players need to control the character to move around the humble playing field, survive wave after wave of enemy attacks, and hold out for thirty minutes to win, which has the flavor of an alternative tower defense game.
However, it is precisely because of its minimalism, which is convenient for players to get started quickly, that they can have such a large market.
Take the typical competitive game "League of Legends", if a player is a student party or office worker, after completing a day's study or work, in the few leisure time left, will he choose to play a heavy competitive game such as "League of Legends", or a relatively casual and relaxing game such as "Vampire Survivor"?
The result is self-evident, after all, most people don't have as much energy to spend on the game after a tiring day, and a game like Vampire Survivor that provides leisure entertainment in fragmented time has its unique advantages.
Last year, a game called "Sheep and a Sheep" suddenly exploded in China, whether it was on the subway, bus, or when going to the toilet, everyone would take out their mobile phones to play two.
In just a few days, there was a hot search that the developers of "Sheep and Sheep" earned tens of millions with the advertising revenue of this game.
For many ordinary workers, these incomes cannot be earned in a lifetime, so they will feel that the popularity of this game is a matter of luck, after all, there are so many traditional match-3 games on the market, this card stacking game that relies purely on luck is really not particularly outstanding.
However, looking at the essence through the phenomenon, the fact that this game can become popular can already explain the problem, that is, the game market needs this type of game.
"Vampire Survivor" is the same, does not need too much gameplay and redundant plot, just blindly upgrade and fight monsters, sooner or later will make players tired, in order to maintain the freshness of players, the corresponding difficulty curve is also designed in the game. As the gamer's character becomes more and more powerful, the game will provide difficulty challenges corresponding to the character.
After "Vampire Survivor" became popular, a large number of games of the same type were derived, after all, such games do not need too much cost to obtain benefits much higher than the cost, and the market is huge, small and medium-sized game manufacturers will naturally not give up the opportunity to squeeze into this game track. Even this type of game has spawned a new term called "vampire-like survivor game".
This large number of games from two-dimensional to cartoon, from space invasion to monster mutation, etc., can be described as varied, but game manufacturers have not learned the essence, do not understand the market demand of players, naturally can not go to the end.
The popularity and vigorous life cycle of "Vampire Survivor" is unexpected by everyone, but it is also reasonable, after all, this game has done the subtraction to the extreme, all that can be deleted is deleted, and all that remains is the core gameplay of the game, so it is directly poked into the player's heart.
"More sincerity, less routine", sincerity is always a must-kill, and I hope that other game manufacturers understand that a good game is not to blindly do addition, that will only make the game memory bigger and bigger, less bells and whistles of updates, more understanding of the needs of players in order to go far in the game market.