Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 63 Gacha Simulator

Of course, considering that Final Frontier is a 2D game, the difficulty of content updates mainly lies in expanding within the existing framework. StarCraft is also increasing its staff size, so two months should be enough.

Chen Mo felt that with the current capabilities of Starry Sky Games, maintaining updates shouldn't be difficult.

That means that in the future, this game will receive an update at least every two months, and even if one of the updates is not satisfactory, you can wait another two months.

This is why Chen Mo wrote in his article, "Could this be the new future of Chinese games?"

Because Chu Chen's formula for success is so different from that of previous games.

In the past, the pay-to-win system was directly linked to gameplay and numerical values. Thanks to the passage of time, this model has reached its optimal solution.

Manufacturers have basically covered all the pay-per-view points you can think of.

Such games naturally tend to be all the same, and sometimes you can even guess what the game will be about from the moment you start playing.

However, "Final Front" is different.

It offers another approach: the entire game is essentially about constantly reinforcing a single "pay-to-win" aspect, with PVP gameplay being a sticky and engaging feature.

The remaining storyline and PVE content are two sub-categories that continuously reinforce the "character-centric" monetization points.

The purpose of playing through the storyline is to make players develop a liking for the characters, thereby encouraging them to spend money.

PVE is designed to create demand for characters among players, thereby generating revenue through payment.

Regardless of the payment method, it does not interfere with the gameplay of the game itself. In other words, in principle, you can put any single-player gameplay elements into this framework.

As long as your game is fun and can make players feel good about the characters and have a need for them, it can fit into this formula.

"This formula is absolutely perfect."

The thought that this formula might revitalize the stagnant Chinese online game market filled Chen Mo with inexplicable excitement.

but
If Chu Chen knew what Chen Mo was thinking, he would most likely just smile and shake his head.

In the future, while this formula did indeed become an opportunity for anime-style games to subvert traditional pay-to-win games, how many anime-style game developers will truly and completely utilize this formula?
Actually not.

Many developers of anime-style games have overlooked one crucial point: the core premise of charging for "characters" is still the quality of the game itself.

Either your art style is so good that players will want it just by looking at it.

Either your storyline is good enough to immerse players in it.

Either you have a good gameplay style that makes the game fun for players.

But your storyline is weak, your gameplay is unrefined, your framework is loose, your art is terrible, and not a single system is decent. You think you can make money just by learning a "gacha" system? Keep dreaming!
A lot of capital only sees the easy money that anime-style games can make, but that's just the surface.

What ultimately emerged were a bunch of games that only learned the "pay-to-win" character gacha system, but were incredibly boring and ultimately turned out to be terrible.

And then they'll complain that the anime/manga game market is dead and no longer profitable.

But then again.

At least in 2016, none of these things had happened yet, but the appearance of "Final Battlefront" did give many people a rather dreamlike start.

This is why Chen Mo said those words.

~~~
At the same time, at Chu Chen's home.

"President Chen!!"

"It exploded!!!"

"."

"Mr. Chen, this is a huge hit!"

"Hello? Can you hear me? Mr. Chen!! Mr. Chen!!"

Even from a distance of one palm's width, Chu Chen could clearly hear Li Suhao's voice, which sounded like a battle cry.

"Yes, yes, I know the Japanese server is doing well right now, you're getting too excited, Li Suhao."

Perhaps due to excessive pressure, Li Suhao's voice was particularly agitated.

However, Chu Chen understood that the Japanese version of "Final Front" had only been online for a short time when it reached number 27 on the Apple bestseller list. By noon, it had reached number 17, and by evening, "Final Front" had jumped to number 9 on the Japanese bestseller list.

It's important to know that in Japan, Apple's market share far surpasses that of Android. It's no exaggeration to say that Apple's best-selling charts in Japan are essentially equivalent to the best-selling mobile game charts.

Under such circumstances, a new game can jump directly into the top 10 of the Apple App Store's best-selling charts within a single day.

This achievement is beyond praise; it truly deserves the word "explosive."

After confirming that he had indeed entered the top 10 in the Japanese server, Li Suhao called Chu Chen to share the good news.

However, Li Suhao's main motivation was to capitalize on the current hype and demand more resources from Chu Chen, hoping to fuel the fire even further. The entire Japanese server is currently experiencing explosive popularity.

There are two main reasons for this. First, there's the player base of "Final Battlefront" in Japan. Due to the events of the past few months, many Japanese players had actually encountered "Final Battlefront" on Pixiv (a Chinese video-sharing website).

I quit after playing for a while simply because of language barriers, network issues, and payment problems.

Now that the Japanese version of "Final Battlefront" has been updated with new content, these players have naturally returned.

Aside from these players.

There is also a group of Japanese players who have been playing the Chinese version of "Final Battlefront".

They were even more insane.

Because their pent-up demand for in-game purchases, accumulated over nearly three months, was finally unleashed at this moment.

The term "revenge spending" seems tailor-made for them; they were instrumental in the initial success of "Terminator" on the bestseller list.

Skins, rings, characters they didn't get—these people spend money like crazy, as if it's free.

There's a sense that everyone's determined to complete their character collection and get at least one ring by spending real money.

Of course, a big reason why they spend so much money is the price advantage of "Final Battlefront" in the Japanese server.

"9800 yen, standard 100 recruitments, plus various events, can achieve 150 pulls!? And there's a 50-pull pity system in recruitment!!?"

"9800 yen? 150 draws?"

"A ring!! Eh!!! Really?! Only 2900 yen!!? And the skin too!!?"

"Huh?! Is there a bug in the official pricing?!"

"Wow, this is definitely a bug!! Hurry up and pull!! If you don't pull now, it'll be fixed and there won't be any left to pull for!!"

This price was considered a bug by countless Japanese server players.

If you want Chinese players to see this, it's actually quite expensive.

In the current Chinese server, without any event bonuses, it costs 30 RMB for 10 draws, and 100 draws are equivalent to 300 RMB. According to the current exchange rate, that's less than 4500 Japanese yen.

However, the actual price of the Japanese version of "Final Battlefront" is almost twice the exchange rate.

This is undoubtedly a very obvious form of "differentiated pricing," so why are Japanese players spending money like crazy? The answer is simple: because mainstream Japanese games are really exploitative.

For example, among the most popular games in Japan right now, FGO costs 480 yen per draw, Puzzle & Dragons costs 600 yen per draw, White Cat Project costs 400 yen per draw, and even the cheapest one, Granblue Fantasy, costs 300 yen per draw.

Moreover, none of these games offer a guaranteed minimum reward.

There's no pity system, which means that if players want their favorite character, they basically have to spend a lot of money.

At the beginning of this year, Granblue Fantasy, which seemed to be the cheapest game, did something rather shady.

In January 2016, a limited-edition New Year character was released.

Since there is no pity system or exchange, based on the drop rate, it would take an average of more than 2000 pulls, or 60 yen, to pull successfully.

One character costs 60 yen, which is equivalent to 4 RMB to draw one character!
Japanese gamers are known for their big spending, but even the most extravagant spenders can't withstand this kind of exploitation.

therefore.

In the past two years, Japanese players have been complaining a lot about the pay-to-win system in Japanese mobile games, which is why a lot of domestic anime-style games have become hugely successful in Japan.

On one hand, there's the exchange rate, which we've discussed before. On the other hand, there's the fact that domestically, there's at least a guaranteed minimum. Also, since Honkai Impact 3rd in 18, there have been limited character pools.

Compared to the exploitative practices of Japanese game developers, Chinese anime-style games are truly quite generous.

Many Chinese anime and manga games benefited from this trend in the past.

However, Final Battlefront is reaping this benefit even earlier, averaging out to only 100 yen per draw, which is practically free in the eyes of Japanese players.

It's like how a cup of milk tea usually costs 20 yuan, but suddenly there's a shop that only charges 5 yuan!! And it tastes even better!!

How can I bear this?
Even though Final Frontline had far more five-star characters than most mainstream anime games of later generations, with nearly 50 characters in the initial version, including 30 five-star characters.

After the 1.0 update, two more five-star characters were added, bringing the total number of five-star characters to 32.

So, to complete the entire collection, it would actually cost a lot of money, but since the price per gacha pull is very low, and other Japanese games are practically exploitative.

So when "Final Battlefront" came out, it caused an immediate sensation.

Some Japanese streamers don't even play the game; they just download it because it's cheap and use it as a gacha simulator.

(End of this chapter)