Almighty Game Designer - Chapter 61
Ip is the soul of card games, and the numerical value is its lifeline. Once the numerical system breaks down, then the whole game will certainly die suddenly.
Otherwise, if the numerical system is perfect, then the card game will have a strong vitality.
A good example is a card game in his previous world, 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》, two years after its launch, there are still tens of millions of monthly revenue, which is an incredible result for a card game.
Although it is a card game, but the IP of 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》 is very poor, basically similar to having no IP, because in the domestic market at that time, the Three Kingdoms theme had been overused. Almost every month, there will be several Three Kingdom games being release, and if it only relied on the IP, then 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》 won’t stand out from those numerous games.
There are many successful Three Kingdom games, such as 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》, 《Junior Three Kingdom》, 《Immortal Conquest》, 《Territorial Siege》, and so on., which gave many players an illusion that the IP of Three Kingdoms is not bad.
But if you really develop a Three Kingdoms game yourself then you will find that this IP is a complete black hole.
Because the similarities are too severe, due to having several Three Kingdoms games being release every month. If the quality of the game is average, then how can you fight your way out?
The IP of popular manga and novels, will be more better than the Three Kingdoms by a huge gap.
For a simple example, now there is a just come out 《One Piece》 mobile game, most players will go play it, but can a 《XX Three Kindoms》 that will come out, attract players?
Even many game companies that do Three Kingdom theme, will specially remove the word ‘three kingdom’ from their titles, such as 《Rage Warrior》, 《Vanquishing Wei Shu Wu》, 《Immortal Conquest》, 《Territorial Conquest》, and so on., and have deliberately emphasize on nation war and city war so that they can reduce the player’s antipathy on the Three Kingdoms themes.
An important feature of good IP is that you can make a profit with the IP and you only just need to make changes. Let’s take One piece and Naruto as examples, as long as you get these two IPs, you can easily make money even if you just make a small difference on the characters.
But for the Three Kingdoms theme, if you just randomly change the characters, you not only can’t make money, but also fail miserably.
All of these can prove that the IP of Three Kingdoms doesn’t have any boost for the 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》.
So, how come 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》 is popular? It isn’t because of its Three Kingdoms theme, but because of its quality.
The system functions, gameplay, and numerical settings of 《Let Go of the Three Kingdoms》 are among the best in all card games. Its success is due to the game quality, and not because of its IP.
Even if you change its name to 《Let go of the Water Margin》, it will also get popular, but it might be slightly lower.
What if you can get the IP of One Piece or Naruto? Maybe it will directly become popular, and the monthly turnover will increase for another 1~2 million at least.
This is what many players ignore, the charm of card game itself.
Why are the domestic card games are the only one that is constantly getting copied over and over again, while there are so many other games on the market. And no matter how much they are copied, the players still love it.
Like the later 《Onmyoji》 which got popular, it is a card game that achieve to show the best art, but no matter what the quality is, its core is still a card game.
Chen Mo started working in the direction of 《Let go of the Three Kingdoms》 and 《Junior Three Kingdom》 and he wants to do what he can as much as possible. Even if 《I am MT》 can’t rely on its IP, but atleast it can also become a fun card game.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Two weeks later.
It has been a whole month since 《I am MT》 was officially started developing.
In addition to making game items, Su Jinyu continued to draw the card concept arts. At present, there are only less than half left on the art resources, and the rules of the game is largely completed.
The rest is just to continuously optimize the numerical structure, finalize the attributes of each card, and other subsequent art resources.
The development of the game’s body is very fast. After all, the rules of this game are not complicated.
The others besides Chen Mo, including Su Jinyu, are not interested in the game itself. Su Jinyu is merely finishing the production of the game project.
However, everyone are getting more and more interested in the anime of 《I am MT》.
“I think that the ‘achievements’ is very interesting. Picturing it, you do something and an achievement box pops up, coupled with a ‘bang’ sound effect, I think the sense of fulfillment would be great.”
“Don’t you think that the settings in this world is very fun? All of these characters will die, but when they die, they will be revived as long as their soul goes to their body.”
“Yeah, this setting is very handy. The characters in other anime can’t die. But here, they can casually die and have more freedom to deal with a lot of plots.”
“I think the ‘hearthstone’ is also very interesting. You can go back to the inn with the hearthstone. It feels like a game property, and it should be very attractive to the players.”
“I just searched it. It’s said that it originated from the tradition in medieval Europe. People who travel far away from home usually takes a stone from their fireplace. When people think of their hometown, they can ease their homesickness just by looking at the stones beside them, and turns out that the anime turned it into a useful item, which is very interesting.”
“I don’t know how the manager manage to come up with these ideas, but wouldn’t it be better if they were used for the game?”
“Not sure what the manager thinks, but the world view is too big, I’m afraid that it will need an A-class or even an S-class game designers to do it. The manager should not be able to do it now, and that might have been why he has to do the second best and go for mobile game?”
“But it can be felt that the manager’s ideas on the anime and the whole world view are indeed much more than the game.”
“What kind of practice is this, even if the anime is done well, but what’s the connecton with the game? If you like the anime, will you buy the game?”
“Who knows…however, I really want to see the world of Azeroth be made into a VR game. Imagine running on the prairie as a Tauren…”
Chen Mo has been paying attention to the response of everyone.
At the start, everyone only watch the anime just because they thought that the theme is relatively novel, but now, they gradually also become curious about the world behind it.
In Azeroth, there are many interesting settings. One of the few examples are returning to the inn with a hearthstone, traveling fast by riding a wywern or a gryphon, just running back to the body when you die and you’ll come back to life, upgrading after completing a mission, completing a special events can have achievements and so on.
Some settings have a strong game feel, but it’s not hard for everyone to understand. After all, everyone is a gamer, and they aren’t surprise to see these settings, but makes them feel interesting.
And Chen Mo has another recent work, and that is: Building the Azeroth Universe.