The exciting "Spark Editor" will be tested at dawn: with the addition of AIGC features, everyone can make games

Last weekend, the annual TapTap game launch just ended.

As many as 42 products were released that night, the largest number ever; The content also highlights a rich: a large number of new games with strength announced the actual screen, test and launch time. Among them, there are not only the exposure of blockbuster products of major manufacturers, but also the appearance of independent games with unique styles.

Of course, every blockbuster press conference is indispensable for the surprise "One More Thing". When it was the turn of this TapTap conference, it was a rather special product - the game creation tool "Spark Editor".

As early as last year, GameLook had a brief report on the Spark editor, which was still in early testing at the time, and found that several works developed using the editor had been put on TapTap for testing.

At this conference, Xindong officially introduced the Spark Editor: a game production tool with visual Chinese language and low-code programming, while also providing a large number of pre-made functions and rich art resources, as well as multiplayer confrontation support, and opening up the closed-loop release loop of TapTap to help the game land quickly. In addition, it was also publicly mentioned for the first time to add AIGC functions to help developers quickly generate art assets and copywriting.

Officially announced, the Spark Editor, which has undergone 26 major version iterations since its release, will soon start the "dawn test". And GameLook also found that not only heartbeat, including Tencent, NetEase and other domestic manufacturers have successively laid out zero-threshold editors, and the stagnant UGC ecology in the past is ushering in earth-shaking evolution.

    Lower the development threshold, help the release of new games, and serve the TapTap ecosystem

At the TapTap game conference, it was mentioned that for traditional development pain points such as long development cycles, difficult team formation, and lack of art resources, the Spark Editor can provide a simple and efficient full-process development experience, without users needing to master complex programming thinking and development language.

First of all, the Spark Editor provides developers with a full-Chinese environment, visual programming, and dozens of pre-made functions, making it easy to start making games. At present, there are a wealth of built-in free art resources, and more than 20 games have been successfully launched using these resources.

Secondly, the Spark Editor not only works on single-player games, but also provides developers with servers and databases, and the game achieves multiplayer at zero cost. Including cloud storage, IM, mall, points ranking, unconditionally provide professional services and support for developers. After that, it also provides developers with full-link services, from server, database, design to development, to internal testing, public testing, and community operation, without worrying about complex O&M links, and can be released in TapTap closed-loop after development.

Since the beginning of this year, in the context of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, with the rapid development of generative AI, more and more game companies have begun to focus on the application of AIGC in the development process. Similarly, for small and medium-sized developers, and even ordinary users with zero foundation, AIGC is a great weapon.

In this regard, the Spark Editor has also added a multi-functional AI tool - TapTap AI in the editor can help developers quickly generate the art resources and copywriting they need. For example, support CG, cartoon and hand-drawn art styles to create a unique visual style; Or generate different styles of dialogue, quests, items, and skill descriptions, such as the description style of the Souls game, the description style of the fairy background, and the description style of the post-apocalypse...

Generally speaking, the main function of the editor is to help large DAU products make UGC ecology, or as a development tool to motivate small and medium-sized teams, or independent developers to produce new games.

The uniqueness of the Spark Editor is that TapTap itself connects a large number of small and medium-sized developers, and the proportion of independent games at this conference is also not low. The way for small and medium-sized teams to reduce costs and increase efficiency, in addition to AIGC, there is only an editor, and Xindong directly integrates AIGC into the Spark editor, obviously in order to directly bind small and medium-sized teams. Fundamentally, it is to serve the TapTap ecosystem.

As a media-like game community, the premise of TapTap's user activity is a continuous supply of new games. However, in the past few years, the total number of version control superimposed product development costs have remained high, and the biggest problem facing the development of TapTap has become how to ensure the supply of new games.

In other words, the new game is a crucial part of TapTap, and increasing the capacity of small and medium-sized teams directly from the source is undoubtedly the direct reason for the launch of the Spark Editor in person. Of course, the normalization and stable issuance of this year's edition has also allowed small and medium-sized teams to see the dawn, and the Spark Editor, which can greatly improve the speed of research and development, will also become one of the best choices.

On the other hand, the Spark Editor is also to serve Xindong's self-developed products. Although only the UGC ecology of big DAU games has value, this does not prevent waiting for the opportunity in advance. Once self-developed large DAU products appear, Xindong can open up the UGC ecology as quickly as possible.

    TapTap launched a creative workshop, and domestic giants entered UGC

Last year, GameLook has reported that products such as the meat pigeon tower defense game "The Twentieth Circle", the indie party game "Castle Party", the survival RPG game "Unknown: Ascending", the action casual game "Thunderbolt Flash", the iO + chicken game "Smash Bros." and other products are all developed using the Spark Editor, and the results are quite good.

For example, 1 person spent 4 months to develop, brush treasure + action roguelike + cultivate RPG "Yang Jian Chuan: Search for Mountains and Demons", which has dominated the TapTap hot list for five consecutive days; The tower defense game "Endless Corridor", which combines card draw, meat pigeon and strategy elements, was developed by a team of 2 people for 4 months and experienced by 240,000 people on TapTap; The meat pigeon action lawn mowing game "Unknown: Ascending 2" has been experienced by 130,000 people.

"Endless Corridor"

It is curious whether there are certain necessary conditions for individual developers or small and medium-sized teams to use the Spark Editor, such as the Spark Editor being connected to the TapTap distribution closed loop, but whether the game can only be released on specific platforms and whether it can be released on other platforms is unknown. In addition, it is unknown whether the revenue share will be similar to Epic's 5% cut for Unreal developers.

    OTHER COMPANY MOVEMENTS: TENCENT ENTRY, NETEASE AII IN UGC

Under the wave of UGC in full swing, more and more domestic companies, including Tencent and Netease, are entering the market.

For example, Tencent announced the launch of the map editor "Tiangong" in "Honor of Kings", which provides four major functions: hero design, scene construction, story writing, and level creation, and developers can DIY gameplay; "PUBG Mobile" launched the creator mode "World of Wonder" overseas, and the similar creation mode "Oasis Qiyuan" of "Peace Elite" has already been launched.

In contrast, NetEase can be said to be the most "ruthless" company among the entry giants.

At the first anniversary celebration of "Egg Party", game producer Kwan announced that the game has achieved the achievement of adding more than one million new maps and more than 10 million creators every week. With the success of the hit "Egg Party", NetEase is even more "All IN UGC", and many of its products have released their own open ecological plans, encouraging players to build and create their own maps and gameplay through the in-game editor.

For example, Ace Racing has added a racing park editor, allowing players to easily create brain-opening tracks; "Werewolf Kill Official" also incorporates editing features, allowing players to make homemade mods; The Epic of Taya not only joins the editor, but also uses revenue sharing to encourage creators; Mission Zero also prepares for the UGC feature.

In addition, NetEase has also launched a new next-generation game editor - "Y3 Editor", which can be developed without programming foundation and has a massive resource library. At present, many map creators have achieved millions, or even tens of millions of stable monthly revenues.

It is worth mentioning that at this year's GDC, a Singaporean company invested by NetEase unveiled with a new UGC editor "CliCli" that is being tested overseas. The editor simplifies the development and distribution of 3D games, truly enabling "anyone can make 3D games".

It is reported that CliCli has a wealth of terrain and character models, particle editors, and an ever-expanding asset library, which can help developers quickly complete visual creative design, gameplay settings, and achieve one-click release of 3D products. Game of Rollink, a medieval PvP card game based on CliCli, is available on Steam.

    epilogue

For ordinary users, the emergence of editors that lower the development threshold is tantamount to accelerating the general trend of the rise of UGC. In the eyes of this part of the creators, games are no longer regarded as simple entertainment tools, but as content carriers for players' self-expression. From the standpoint of small and medium-sized teams, the emergence of more and more fully functional editors is of greater significance for reducing development costs, improving the supply of new products, and achieving cost reduction and efficiency increase.

This means that under the hot trend of UGC, with TapTap's own ecology, Xindong Plus Spark Editor has every opportunity to become a new starting point for TapTap.