Lead
| Yimei is a normal game company. |
One month after its launch, the Steam praise rate of "Dream Lantern" is fixed at around 86%, which is still far from the rave reviews of their previous game according to normal thinking logic. But the problem is that the praise rate of "Dream Lantern" is rising all the way, and in the first two days of the game's release, the game's praise rate on Steam was less than 70%, and most players' evaluations were ...... Mixed reviews.
The first day of sale
Right now
I'm too familiar with Yimei, so I know very well that for this company that has made a rave reviews like "Sea Sand Storm" in its first work, it is likely that the reputation and sales of "Dream Lights" at this stage will be difficult for them to be satisfied. But that's secondary, and what I'm most afraid of is that it's going to dampen the momentum and mood of this young team.
My conjecture was completely correct, Huang Jialiang, the head of Yimei Company, told me that most of the R&D-related personnel had suffered varying degrees of blows because of the release of "Dream Lanterns". Although they once comforted themselves that they "already knew the result", their reserve as technical players did not allow them to let themselves go like this.
took the initiative to find Huang Jialiang for psychological comfort one after another - Huang Jialiang, known as "Misaki", known as "Master" by friends, and later referred to as "Master" for convenience. He's always been a bit mysterious and majestic in the company, and during the time when everyone's will was shaken, he was like an arrogant special Gojo Satoru who everyone was in awe, and suddenly turned into a reliable Gojo teacher in the mouth of his students, reassuring everyone that "it will win" (although he later said that he was sorry that he didn't make the players happy this time).
I wonder about this, as the person in charge of the company, you didn't break the defense, right? The master thought about it and replied very ...... Mysterious, he said that his usual Xi is to plan ahead and maximize benefits, the former can allow him to avoid sudden emotional out-of-control, easy to manage emotions, the latter can let him judge whether "venting negative emotions" is beneficial, that is, emotions become a means of doing things, so in combination he now has not many angles to break the defense.
"Not only me, but the producer Shura (screen name "Rumor", the company name "Shura") is also quite ...... giggle with me from time to time", the master told me, and I thought it was time to have a serious conversation with him.
01
"Theory of Sustainable Development"
Teahouse: I'm not verbose anymore when we're all old friends, how are you feeling lately?
Master: I don't feel anything, everything is business as usual, now most of the comrades in the company are doing the project establishment work of the new work, and a small number of people are doing the maintenance of "Dream Lantern" and the porting of the console version (XBOX, PS, NS).
Teahouse: It's quite sudden, after all, the current input-output ratio of "Dream Lantern" doesn't seem to be high, I thought you would stop and think about it, and take a while to review and think about it?
Master: At present, it is all within the scope of imagination, and the logic of this matter is not complicated, and there is no need to focus on a certain point in time to "review". "Thinking" should be a non-stop behavior for a decision-maker, and there is a risk of dereliction of duty if you hesitate for a long time after the end of a project, and I didn't start thinking after the battle of "Dream Lanterns".
Teahouse: I would like to ask you how much "Dream Lanterns" cost you in the end?
Master: It must be tens of millions, and the pure cost is more than ten or twenty times that of "Sea Sand Storm".
Teahouse: Will this cost be slightly higher?
Master: If you take the modern labels of "solo travel" and "national single" as references, it is indeed high. I know you want to say that some friends may not agree with my "profligacy", which is essentially everyone's disagreement with the "precision of social resource allocation", which I can completely understand.
Teahouse: That's kind of what it means.
Master: Indeed, it is a spur. We were too weak, I was just a newcomer to the industry who had made a text adventure game, and most of the comrades in the field had no work experience at first, and their first job was Dream Lights - which is why it was our primary responsibility to complete Dream Lights and live up to the players at the time, rather than the extremely accurate allocation of resources and high input-output ratio.
There is a loss to gain, this is our choice. We will humbly accept the spurs and bear the consequences.
"Dream Lanterns" Ending Animation [Banquet]
Teahouse: I may be talking a little more about this sentence, but the combat system you tried in "Dream Lantern" is actually quite young by the standards of a single-player action game. Judging from the results on my side, this is the main reason for the poor sales of "Dream Lanterns" at this stage.
Master: Well, it's very young, and we're still far from a full-fledged game development team.
Teahouse: Then why add a combat system?
Master: It's because Yimei's strategy is "sustainable development". We need to start from scratch and then beyond, and there will inevitably be a painful period in between, that is, pain points such as poor evaluation and sales, and time-consuming and labor-intensive technological breakthroughs. Sustainable development is not monolithic and content with the status quo, it requires the company itself to be sustainable while responding to and collaborating with the entire industry. Learning Xi and applying mainstream technologies to participate in the development of the game industry is part of the response.
We can really choose to stop building a better technology pipeline and keep making games like "Sea Sands", two or three a year, until the company closes...... Judging from the current technology accumulation, we can still do it. I can even go to the extreme of dismissing 85% of the company's members, and then elaborate a "Sea Sand" ProMax every year, and in the long run, it will be safer and more stable to gain fame and fortune. But just because I have such a "path to peace", I can't give up more dimensional exploration and development. If you have the opportunity, the attempt of "Dream Lanterns" is a must, as for the resulting evaluation and poor sales, my understanding is that "only solve the battlefield and die for the country, why should the horse leather shroud be returned".
The combat part of "Dream Lights".
Teahouse: So if there is a sequel to "Sea Sands", then Crosha will be able to run, jump and fight?
Master: Maybe.
"Sea Sand Storm" CG
Teahouse: Pretty cool. But I still want to say that you want to attribute a lot of the responsibility for the disadvantage of "Dream Lights" to the "company level", can I understand that?
Master: You're right, that's the case, I'm the head of the company, and the responsibility lies with me, and I'm too aggressive.
Teahouse: Radical?
Master: Well, this topic is a bit big, maybe I have to talk about why "Dream Lantern" has been in the project for almost 3 years.
When "Dream Lantern" was not established at the earliest, in the direction of gameplay exploration, it was set as "war chess gameplay". I was not the actual person in charge of the company at the time, and in addition to "relocating" Shura, who was in charge of UI work in "Sea Sands", as a producer, I only provided some technical advice as a consultant in the early stage of "Dream Lights".
Later, our exploration of war chess gameplay did not go well, and I decided to start "aggressive". I went beyond my role as a consultant and began to interfere in R&D, so that everyone gave up the war game and turned to explore the more difficult real-time action gameplay, pushing for "the expansion of game specifications" and "frog jumping of my own technology". After several rounds of verification, I completed the project proposal of "Dream Lanterns" and set the R&D volume of this project at the level of 10 million.
This operation allowed Yimei to determine the development idea and won a lot of "development funds", and I became the actual person in charge of the company. At this stage, there is an introduction to the "sustainable development" just mentioned.
The main interface of "Dream Lights".
The second "radical" was almost 2 years after "Dream Lights", at the end of '22, I almost overturned and remade "Dream Lights", and began to set a series of new R&D goals in January '23.
Teahouse: Wait a minute, you mean that the content we actually played was made in less than a year?
Master: Things like the script, the acting, the sound effects, the battles, the battle scenes, some of the cutscenes, the illustrations, etc., these are really rebuilt in the last less than a year, while the technology that we have accumulated in the first two years, other assets, and the technical pipeline that is not very advanced but still stable, these are still being used and optimized, in fact, the former is also completed because of the support of the latter. In short, in this way, the development goals were achieved in the month before the game was launched.
After that, it was the third "radical" at the level of issuance. From the perspective of all parties, the release of "Dream Lanterns" is equivalent to no release...... It's even a little "irritating". Here I intend to say only the conclusion - within the strategic plan, but with tactical mistakes. You have to believe that we pay equal attention to the distribution battlefield as much as R&D. Maybe one day, everyone will see this strategy come to fruition. Of course, if we die before we get out of school, it can only show that I am personally scheming, but that's it.
So, I am indeed responsible for the consequences of the above radical actions, but I don't think my overall decision was wrong.
Teahouse: I can probably understand the first time, but the second time undoubtedly delayed the launch of the game, from a practical point of view, it was an extra 1 year, and it cost nearly 1 year more, why?
Master: The purpose of doing an extra year is to make the first two years more valuable.
In the first two years, Yimei's R&D comrades were relatively free. I did nothing on the project (relatively) and gave everyone enough room to play, so the "hero group" and "princes and kings" of "Sea Sand Fengyun" rose together, such as Shura, and finally achieved certain results, that is, "2-year version of "Dream Lanterns". My evaluation is that it is useful, but it is the best way to use it directly. The best policy is to do one more year to maximize the benefits in R&D and company strategy, so there is a following year.
The following year, I call it "Great Unification". The core is to rationalize the content produced in the first two years as much as possible through my "director's edit". If the first two years were spent on the hot iron and a bunch of parts were randomly assembled, now this process is more like melting down the useless parts and remaking them, and then adjusting their position, size, and angle with the rest of the parts and modules according to the ultimate design drawing, until the overall benefit is maximized, becoming a "regular", "elegant and vulgar common appreciation space" and "commercial potential" shape. This stage is the most important stage for the team to enter the business, and only by constantly matching the business knowledge that has been explored can it be possible to obtain the qualification for the title of "product". I think this is undoubtedly equivalent to giving the previous two years of R&D a double experience card.
In short, whether it is the "free trial and error" in the first two years or the "remake and assembly" in the next year, whether it is the "huge cost consumption" before the shelves or the "unbearable results" after the shelves, the core purpose is to let everyone grow more. Only by growing can we dynamically match the company's various goals. As a knife bearer, the knife in my hand must be forged sharp enough.
The blessing "Build" system of "Dream Lights".
Teahouse: I've got you covered!
Master: I can't think of any other solution. If I had been working according to the "Sea Sands" model, where I was the center of all the cycles, and the artists and writers didn't even need to communicate to finish the game, then maybe one day I would have been hit by a car and killed by a car, and the company's production line would have been paralyzed. Such a situation is completely inconsistent with "sustainable development". In addition, as an ordinary person, my power is limited after all, and when the project is large enough, I can't turn things upside down. Therefore, it is necessary to organize more people to give full play to their talents and take responsibility, and each module that is subdivided must eventually be self-circulating.
02
"There's a basement in my heart"
Teahouse: During the time when I heard that many people in the company were breaking the defense, you were playing other games "without heart and lungs"?
Master: "Potato Brothers" has been fully achieved, but there is no time to achieve all of them in difficulty 5 for the time being.
Teahouse: How did you feel during that time?
Master: While "Potato Brothers" challenges various genres, he constantly switches characters to listen to everyone's negative voices. At that time, it was just the time of the company's annual conversation, and I talked to everyone in the company. I have to say that it feels like it's taking up a bit of my time playing games.
Teahouse: Can you understand why everyone broke the defense? In my opinion, you may have run too fast, ignoring everyone's self-esteem and feelings as a "creator", and all the strength is shattered the moment you see the bad review.
Master: Emotionally and rationally, I understand, and I respect everyone's "choice".
Emotionally, it's human nature to be hit against your wishes, and you can choose to indulge in these emotions, or you can choose to come out with my comfort. Rationally, you can choose to ignore what is going on outside the window and go on as usual, or you can choose to use these negative emotions to be ashamed and brave, or you can choose to use it as a "means of escape" for yourself to fight in a roundabout way. This is everyone's "choice".
As for myself, I admit that many of my practices are too radical and often change orders in a hurry, catching people off guard. For example, the final price of "Dream Lanterns" was suddenly changed two weeks before the launch, and in the first year or two, I always set it at 58 yuan. I think that such questions can indeed be self-optimized, for example, when I make decisions on major matters, I still try to prepare as much as possible in advance.
Self-spurring is one yard. Sometimes, for the sake of the so-called corporate strategy, dynamic revenue maximization, and goal achievement, as long as it is not involved in illegal crimes or moral turpitude, I should make the best use of it. In other words, there will still be situations of "catching people off guard" and "being aggressive", which is my choice.
So when the emotions are broken, they are broken, and I can't give up on the people who choose to move forward because some people choose to be broken.
With respect given to everyone and everyone having enough choice, what we can do is to compromise, run in, and match each other internally...... And then grow, grow into a real team.
Teahouse: I feel like you've entered a state where you can leave your personal needs behind.
Master: Ah, this ...... Seems right, right? Sometimes it is difficult for me to distinguish between "personal needs" and "missions" given to me by the outside world.
First of all, I think that in order to accomplish the mission better, we must be more fanatical than anyone else, and only in this way can we have enough faith to firm the goal and enough motivation to achieve the goal. Before developing a game, developing a game may not be my favorite thing to do, just like Captain Alvin in "Attack on Titan", who is still hesitant to charge and fight to the death, still yearns for that "basement" full of secrets.
But when developing games is my calling, then I should love developing games, and I should want to know how to develop games, and to what point it takes to "complete my mission". In this darkness, mission completion and game development merge with my personal needs. At this time, he became the commander of the Alvin Regiment who was charging, and resolutely completed the mission.
Maybe this is the so-called "do a line, love a line"...... Well, however, after thinking about it for a while, there is one thing to say, isn't this the professional quality that a person in society should have?
Teahouse: Take you out of line, let's talk about the market and what players care about, "Dream Lantern" has gone from less than 70% praise at the beginning to about 86% now, what do you think you haven't done well just in terms of gameplay?
Master: Look at the standard by which to look at "not doing a good job". If you look at it with the ultimate development skills, then many disadvantages of "Dream Lanterns" are obvious. If you use me as the head of the company, the project leader, the intermediate performer, and the player...... If you look at it comprehensively, then I don't think it's done well, and it's all mentioned in the previous "Listing Announcement".
In addition, after the game was released, we have updated it twice so far, focusing on optimizing the difficulty of early battles and other issues, as well as fixing some program bugs.
Teahouse: There are some things in the listing announcement that I don't quite understand. Then, since you know that there is no way to return and cannot be cured, why do you want to bring it up to the user experience? I hope that players will be considerate of you?
Master: As consumers, players are not rationally obligated to be considerate of game manufacturers. As for "why do you want to give it to the user experience", I think "Dream Lantern" is already a relatively qualified product. The announcement on the shelves is written in this way purely because the producer has the obligation to tell consumers the basic information of the product. Essentially, I believe that players and game manufacturers should maintain an equal and respectful relationship.
As for "hard to return" and "incurable", I can simply give an example to explain:
Some cutscenes can't be [skipped] - this is a lot of hard work, because the priority of this feature is low, and we have a backlog of other more things that need to be solved as soon as possible in front of us, such as various higher-priority features of "Dream Lights", if these functions are not done, the player's experience will be worse, and there are also new project projects, overseas distribution, porting, etc., in short, this function does not solve the compromise plan after our internal trade-offs;
Some cutscenes can't be [fast forwarded] - this is incurable, although our "Dream Lantern" console has the command function of "speeding up the whole game", but this function is only to speed up the development of local speed up to facilitate testing and iteration, and cannot be used on a large scale and for a long time. The reason is that many of our shows are manually configured by the planner, and there are many fatal problems with the use of program acceleration.
Note: "Skip" and "Fast Forward" are not the same function.
Teahouse: What about the pricing, no discount of 108 yuan, do you know what it means in the domestic stand-alone game?
Master: I was speechless for a moment.
Teahouse: Think about it.
Master: Uh, I want to think about it......
First of all, I just said that "Dream Lantern" is a product that can be distributed and sold, so I won't go into details.
Then when it comes to pricing, it is divided into two, and from the bad side, it means that I may have detached myself from the evaluation system of the domestic game market, and betrayed the capital of "solo games" and "national games" - developers - publishers - traditional media and self-media - players...... The whole ecology. It means that I may be a layman who does not understand games, market supply and demand, the global economic environment, and company management. Yimei's decision worries supporters.
From a good point of view, it means that Yimei has built and expanded the strategic depth of issuance, and has the opportunity to iterate on the "global distribution" as soon as possible. Other developers in China have also had "classic failure cases" to avoid making mistakes.
On the whole, I should apologize for the fact that the decision of the United States has worried the supporters, and I think the rest of the "deviant" places can be understood by everyone...... It's not good, but it's not bad.
Above, welcome to correct.
Teahouse: It's very hard and comprehensive, so I think you've really considered setting a lower "market" price.
Master: Uh...... Actually, we did think about more hilarious pricing, such as pricing for 1 dollar, selling millions of copies, and so on.
The 1 dollar tactic has been mentioned repeatedly, but the comprehensive benefit is not large enough, so it is abandoned.
In short, we have considered the sales strategy of low price and small profit but quick turnover.
Teahouse: I think normal readers will feel that you are a little "perverted" when they read this, really, let's talk about the release, why did the release of "Dream Lantern" not do a good job?
Master: First of all, the usual apologies have bothered the players who support us. I think there are two reasons why the release didn't go well:
First, most of the resources have been consumed in research and development, and there is more than enough to do without strength, after all, game development is our foundation, so the resources left for distribution before the game is put on the shelves, such as manpower, material resources, and time, are relatively small, or even none.
Second, "Dream Lantern" has a plan for global distribution, but due to the lack of experience and qualifications in the overseas exploration stage, the time to harvest results and iterate cognition has become very long.
These two points directly caused our entire release plan to be stretched, and there were many loopholes, such as the lack of demo trials to assist players in making purchase decisions. And what these loopholes have led to is what everyone is seeing now, like a pool of stagnant water.
But this does not mean that the release has ended, we believe that there are still a lot of places that can be excavated in the distribution of "Dream Lanterns", and the later release is not necessarily better than the first release, and we will allocate some people to conduct in-depth exploration in the future, and we have already had preliminary ideas.
Teahouse: And the masters?
Master: We have arranged three comrades to be responsible for the porting of Xbox, PS, and NS, and it will take a total of three months to implement the technology. Once the porting is complete, it's time to wait for the release, and the timing of the release will need to be determined after talking to Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and the publishers who may assist us in the future.
If all goes well, then the console version will go live in mid-'24, at which point we'll have a global pitch. The amount of resources we gather will also directly determine the intensity of the publicity, and we will try our best to win the support of people from all walks of life at home and abroad.
We are currently working on a 100-page, free digital art book, which is also intended to provide more possibilities for subsequent distribution.
For partial reference, the actual product shall prevail
We are also working on the other groundwork, so let's do our best.
03
"The Other Side of the Sea"
Teahouse: Let's talk about the new work, according to "sustainable development", is it time for the new work to stabilize? For example, to make a product of the same level but more perfect in "Dream Lanterns"?
Master: I don't dare to use the word "perfect...... After 50 years of making games and becoming a professional developer qualified to enter the international stage, let's challenge ourselves to pursue "more perfection". As for "stability", on the whole, we have always been quite stable, such as "Sea Sand Storm" and "Dream Lantern", we have steadily completed the development and achieved technology accumulation. Therefore, the new work will still carry out some revolutions without affecting the overall situation.
The new work will be greatly strengthened in terms of gameplay and interactivity, which is often referred to as "gameplay". It may even lift the shackles of art and story, and carry out "super-solving".
Perhaps you may be worried about the "commercial results" of the new work, that is, "whether the new work should consider how to make money safely". If that's the case, I can safely say that money has to be earned, but we choose to "accumulate and grow", which is also a safe way to make money - first through technology accumulation, and then technology monetization.
We also believe that when the next project is put on the shelf, the technical cultivation will begin to take shape and the monetary harvest will take shape.
Teahouse: Courageous, but don't you think it's a little too dangerous?
Master: Do you want to say "high diving"? It's too dangerous to focus too much on technological improvement, and not focusing on commercialization will lead to failure.
If it's a stock speculation, first of all, I haven't speculated, no, the pure money game is indeed a bit dangerous at this stage, I can't control the operation of the listed company, and the final income is completely uncertain. But technology is objective, is controlled by us in our own hands, the chain of technology input and output is very direct, not to mention that I am a technical player, the whole company is technology-led, I think the risk is not big.
The "technology" we learn Xi is not so narrow, not just for cultivating that one-third of an acre, it is more like exercising one's "comprehensive ability to achieve goals". At the extreme, if our company unexpectedly fails, there's nothing to regret, because everyone can use the technology to continue to contribute to the game business elsewhere, and I can use the technology to make a comeback.
So whether it's in terms of mentality or investment in risk, there is no need to worry about us.
If we treat each technical challenge as a level, I think we have enough ability to come up with an optimal solution of how many resources to invest in breaking through the current level.
"Sea Sands" is a test of my personal project management, team building, and content creation...... The level is "up";
"Dream Lanterns" is a test of our entire team's collaboration and action technology pipeline construction, requiring us to continue the content creation of "Sea Sand Wind Cloud" and at the same time be able to explore and accumulate levels in gameplay, which is "inheritance";
And the new work, whether it is in the final game experience or commercial achievements, what I want to achieve is "turning"......
We are willing to spend ten years to complete this "beginning and end", and then see if it is a virtuous circle, and whether there is such an alternative path for Chinese single-player games.
Teahouse: I don't have anything to say, let's have a specific goal, such as what level you want to achieve.
Master: The gameplay is at least far more addictive than "Dream Lights". The rest is like stories, images, music, we don't have anything to pursue.
At its core, it's all about fun.
Teahouse: So, the cost of the new game will also be "super doubled", right?
Master: It's hard to say. But at least "small doubled". If I find an amazing profit point in the research and development process, then I will invest more...... Uh, I find that you seem to be always leading to "money", very persistent, where does the money come from?
Nowadays, there may be many friends who label us as "capital players", "rich second generation", "dreamers" and so on...... After all, it looks "very capable". I would like to argue a few words here, first of all, I was just a rural background, and then I moved to the town, grew up in a traditional working family, graduated from a college and worked honestly with some savings, and completed "Sea Sand Storm" at home due to the epidemic and got the "development funds" for the latter two works, relatively lucky, and an ordinary person who is responsible for making the final decision in Yimei. It can be seen from this that the logic of Yimei's behavior is essentially no different from that of an ordinary worker in a traditional factory.
It's not our job to climb high. The factory continues to improve the production level, constantly produce valuable products, strive for the upstream, create brilliance, and contribute to the society is our main theme.
Teahouse: Then let's talk about other people who are different from the United States. Shura is said to be just a child who has just graduated for two years, why did he promote him to become a producer, or even a manager?
Master: It's not that small, it's been 3 years since I graduated, so I should call it a big friend. In addition, words such as "promoting" and "promoting" are not appropriate, and should be used as "placement" and "placement", and anyone in Yimei should be just a part of the operation of this "Chinese culture war machine".
First of all, we should make it clear that "producer" is just a job title, and "front desk" is also a job title, and there is no difference between the two. Then the "producer", the most basic function is to "organize the work". While each company and project is different, resulting in a variety of producer functions, and sometimes even "one person on the whole stack", it is not a very great title per se. Compared with "a game producer", I feel that "Rongcheng Shura" is cooler.
As for entering the management team, on the one hand, he occupied the right place at the time, and on the other hand, he claimed to "blow up a well-known game producer (need to code)", which I think has social value and is quite in line with "sustainable development". In short, the cause and effect of all this and hard work, improving professional skills, and learning Xi the art of imperial scheming...... It doesn't have much to do with that, it's just a coincidence.
Teahouse: I always feel that there is a little less foreshadowing, and I usually have to have a bloody opening and vows at this time.
Master: No. Since you want to "blow up" others, my understanding is to treat game development as a battlefield. There is no need to say more about the short-handed battle on the battlefield of the game, the line of life and death.
Belch...... But then again, I'm not that violent. My idea is more to meet friends with martial arts, make good connections, and encourage people to make progress together, after all, the development of society needs everyone's strength.
Teahouse: Crazy, are there any normal people in your company?
Master: It's all normal, isn't it? Everyone is "alive" as normal.
Teahouse: I don't have a problem, but one last question, the interior style of Yimei Company is quite interesting, are you interested in chatting and wrapping it up?
Master: As shown in the picture (interior style). Although we have always targeted the global market, we have always been based on "Chinese companies".
Closing Words......
The wind is blowing and the clouds are flying, and I hope we can witness the development of Chinese games. Great work!