Cannon Fodder Genius Game Producer - Chapter 25

Chapter 25: The 25th Day of a Blockbuster

Setting aside how Lin Cheng gnashed his teeth at the words “Bu Shu Studio,” after the meeting between Pei Shu and Wang Fei, Bu Shu Studio—which had previously been in the preparation stage—began to stride forward at a rapid pace. The primary reason was, quite simply, the arrival of Old Wang.

Previously, tasks such as studio registration, selecting an office location, and hardware configuration had been completed during the preparation period. According to Pei Shu’s original plan, the timeline should have been relatively relaxed.

However, he never expected that on the third day, after handling all the handover work for the Super God project, Wang Fei would simply wave goodbye to the old friends he had worked with for years and charge straight into this studio on the 29th floor of the Yuefeng Building without a second word.

“Old Wang, you’re here already?”

The 29th-floor studio was originally a high-end office with “refined decoration.” After purchasing a full set of office furniture, the manufacturer also provided 3D renderings and a simple design layout.

The office floor was bright and spacious, offering an unobstructed view. It featured clean, transparent floor-to-ceiling glass curtain walls paired with a minimalist “cool-toned” office suite and plush carpets on the floor. Additionally, it was decorated with green plants and a leisure coffee area that looked exceptionally comfortable.

Upon seeing this scene, Wang Fei narrowed his eyes and glanced at Pei Shu: “The studio is quite well-furnished, isn’t it?”

Pei Shu also felt the studio was nicely arranged, but the sarcasm in Wang Fei’s voice was almost overflowing. Looking at the studio again, he suddenly felt… for a game studio with a total capital of only 800,000, the office space before him did indeed seem a bit extravagant.

“Your funds seem quite ample, I see?” Seeing Pei Shu’s guilty look, Wang Fei couldn’t resist stinging him again. However, remembering that this office location was sponsored by Li Chuyue, he swallowed the rest of his complaints.

With such a large office space, it was impossible for the studio to consist of only the three of them in the future.

Wang Fei speculated that this might be an all-in-one preparatory step taken by Li Chuyue for Pei Shu’s subsequent studio expansion.

Since he had just joined Pei Shu’s studio and was still under a one-year non-compete agreement, it wasn’t appropriate for Pei Shu to tell him everything, nor was it appropriate for him to know.

In short, they just needed to have this bit of tacit understanding between them.

Wang “The Truth-Ignorant King of Overthinking” Fei persuaded himself thusly.

Pei Shu didn’t mind Wang Fei’s barbs. At the very least, they showed that Wang Fei had quickly adjusted his mindset, switching from the “rich and money-is-no-object” Super God work mode to Bu Shu Studio’s “poor?” mode.

“Ah, Teacher Bu Shu, Teacher Wang. Good morning!”

When Jiang Ziye came up, he saw Pei Shu and Wang Fei talking at the door. Clutching his laptop, he also planned to start his daily work at the studio from today onward.

Seeing that all the current members of the studio were present, Pei Shu clapped his hands and smiled: “Since Old Wang and Ziye are both here, shall we hold our first meeting?”

“Ah! Okay!” Hearing about a meeting, Jiang Ziye felt a bit nervous.

Wang Fei, on the other hand, was so familiar with meetings it was practically an instinct.

The three weren’t picky and sat together in the coffee leisure area, which doubled as a meeting space. As Jiang Ziye sat down, he nimbly poured three glasses of warm water and brought them to the table.

Among the three, Jiang Ziye was the youngest, and he naturally took on the task of taking meeting minutes. But before he could even put pen to paper, Wang Fei pulled out a recording pen.

“Record it directly. After the discussion, extract the audio to text and just organize the key points.”

“Ah! Okay, Teacher Wang.” Jiang Ziye immediately took the recording pen and, after a quick study, started the recording.

Seeing the recording pen Wang Fei produced, Pei Shu also smiled and said, “Teacher Wang is well-prepared!”

After Pei Shu received a glare from Wang Fei while smiling, the first formal discussion belonging to Bu Shu Studio suddenly began.

As the founder of the studio, Pei Shu naturally spoke first. There were no flashy openings; he simply cut straight to the point.

“Old Wang, regarding the studio’s first project, I gave you a brief introduction the day before yesterday. The planned project type is a mobile ‘idle’ game—this has been a very hot category in the mobile game market from last year through this year. At the same time, idle games are, in terms of production difficulty, relatively suitable for a small team like ours.”

Wang Fei nodded. He had heard these details once before at the cafe.

As an ex-independent game producer who had spent the intervening eight years in a muddle, Wang Fei had originally thought that for Pei Shu’s first project plan, he would start with the independent games he was familiar with.

After all, within the studio, the experience, creativity, and ideology of both Pei Shu and Jiang Ziye leaned toward independent games. If they could produce a high-quality, best-selling indie game, the market return rate would definitely not be low.

Furthermore, by focusing solely on creativity and emotional expression, it would be relatively easy to mask Pei Shu’s lack of market exploration during those missing eight years.

However, Wang Fei never expected that Pei Shu would choose to make a mobile online game.

“About ten years ago, I predicted that the future game market would be dominated by mobile games. The two puzzle games I made back then were also carried by mobile phones. Now, eight years later, the development of mobile hardware infrastructure has exceeded even my imagination at the time… I want to try.”

When introducing his goals at the cafe that day, Pei Shu’s face was glowing with spirit, his anticipation overflowing.

Since Pei Shu had this idea, and such commercialized mobile games were indeed the field Wang Fei excelled in, Wang Fei agreed to Pei Shu’s proposal.

Compared to the independent game market, where player tastes are even more unpredictable, Wang Fei was confident that under his management—and with appropriate operation and promotion—the mobile game they released would at least generate enough revenue to maintain the studio’s continued operations, and might even have a chance to become a minor hit.

As Pei Shu mentioned the target game category, Jiang Ziye opened his laptop. The PPT inside already contained a breakdown of existing idle games on the market, including game themes, gameplay, and their historical peak and average rankings on the WG download and bestseller charts.

It was evident that following the explosion of an idle card game early last year, a large number of developers had embarked on the same path of idle game development over the past year or more.

Currently, in the “New Games” section of WG, there are dozens of upcoming games tagged as “idle.”

These developing idle games, targeting last year’s blockbuster as their goal, might have names that seem unique, but setting aside those distractions, keywords like knights, magic, witches, and dragons clustered together make it obvious: they are all Western fantasy themes.

Not only were the themes identical, but the gameplay introductions written on their respective dedicated forums were flashy in their own ways, yet their core mechanics were carbon copies of last year’s hit idle card game.

“The homogenization is too severe.” Wang Fei pointed at these competing idle game products currently in development.

The developer of last year’s blockbuster idle game wasn’t Universal, but Xingyun Games, another one of the industry’s “Big Three.” The industry’s nickname for Xingyun Games is “Lucky Games.” Their blockbuster rate is the highest among the Big Three, but their “failing-out” (bombing) rate is also the highest.

Some of those failed games were projects that everyone within Xingyun was collectively optimistic about, and even player reputation during testing was top-tier. Why they ultimately bombed was something many people couldn’t understand.

Consequently, the first reaction from the industry and players when mentioning Xingyun is: Lucky Games—blockbusters or bombs, it basically depends on fate.

Xingyun’s Sword & Flower & Magic, released last year, was their company’s “Super Lucky Star.” With its unique exotic style and distinct artistic features, the idle gameplay which was then a market vacancy, and excellent numerical and level design, it ignited the entire game market at the start of its launch.

Throughout the entire year of 2020, Sword & Flower & Magic sat in the top five of the WG bestseller list for a full five months. The average monthly revenue for 2020 exceeded 100 million, with peak monthly turnover reaching nearly 1 billion.

Under such insane data, it’s not hard to understand why followers were rushing in one after another.

After all, by following the trend, even if you can’t eat the meat, couldn’t you at least have a sip of the soup?

“Theme, art style, main gameplay systems… how far along are these currently determined?” Wang Fei asked directly.

Pei Shu looked at Jiang Ziye, who nodded and switched the PPT to a new page.

“We talked about this when we met the day before yesterday. The currently selected theme is Eastern Xianxia (Immortal Cultivation). As for the overall scene style…” At this point, Pei Shu took over and switched the PPT to a style illustration on the next page.

“I originally considered making the scenes primarily in an ink-wash style to highlight the ethereal and free-spirited characteristics of Eastern Xianxia. However, over the past month, I’ve downloaded and played most of the games on the bestseller list. An overly pure ink-wash style might fail to hit the mark for the majority of the player base.”

“So, I observed the currently most popular ‘Anime/2D’ art style…” Pei Shu pointed to a diagram on the PPT: “This is a fusion effect I adjusted using Photoshop. Old Wang, what do you think of this?”

What did Wang Fei think?

He thought that Pei Shu had indeed completely exceeded his expectations!

He had originally thought that in today’s first meeting, he would need to constantly veto ideas and content from Pei Shu and Jiang Ziye that leaned too heavily toward independent game styles. He never expected that this guy—who originally focused on reviewing console and indie games and was an indie developer himself—could, when wanting to make a commercial game, unhesitatingly stand at a sufficiently fair and objective angle to perform self-evaluation.

Take the choice of art style before him.

If Pei Shu were still making an indie game, it would inevitably emphasize his personal style and preferences to a great extent; in the choice of art style, he would surely go in the direction of ink-wash impressionism.

But look at the reference image Pei Shu provided now—it was a fusion of “Anime” characters and ink-wash impressionistic style. Exquisite and beautiful 2D Eastern characters, but in the treatment of the robes’ edges and hair strands, there was the ethereal, misty quality of ink-wash painting.

Instantly, this characteristic—which could attract the interest of the general public while remaining independently distinct from other pure anime art styles—sprang to life.

Wang Fei paused, then nodded seriously: “This direction is good. You and Jiang Ziye give me the settings for the scenes and main characters first—the first draft is fine. I’ll go and book the art outsourcing team I’m familiar with and let them give this style a try.”

The smooth selection of the art style at the start of this initial meeting seemed to create a preliminary mutual affirmation and “breaking-in” process between Wang Fei, Pei Shu, and Jiang Ziye.

In the time that followed, Pei Shu began to introduce the gameplay in his plan and one key point even more rapidly.

“This game… does not require ‘pay-to-win’ (Krypton Gold).” Pei Shu calmly dropped this bombshell.

Wang Fei: !

Originally, Wang Fei had been sighing in his heart that Pei Shu indeed had immense potential once his brain was back in order.

Yet in the next second, Pei Shu threw out a sentence that made Wang Fei feel his brain had gone bad again.

Seeing Wang Fei’s reaction from the side, Jiang Ziye rarely covered his mouth with his hand and let out a soft, dry cough. Truth be told, when he first heard Teacher Bu Shu mention this key point, he also found it quite incredible.

But after listening to the full explanation, a subtle thought that he felt a bit embarrassed to tell anyone else rarely rose in his heart: Teacher Bu Shu… your heart is truly black.

Wang Fei didn’t know what Jiang Ziye was thinking at the moment. He only felt that he should fulfill his duty as a senior project manager and scold this guy whose brain had suddenly malfunctioned back to his senses.

“Pei Shu, what do you mean by ‘no pay-to-win’? Are you planning to use built-in ads? I advise you not to do that; for a game, that is definitely not a good charging method.”

“This is Bu Shu Studio’s first game. Since you’ve already prepared to go mainstream, you have to accept the market-standard top-up model. The current game top-up model has been verified by the market for years; making changes in this area is not a wise choice!”

Wang Fei’s tone was serious, his frowning aura suggesting that if Pei Shu didn’t listen to his advice, he would continue scolding him until he woke up.

Pei Shu: “…”

Pei Shu smiled slightly and mused: “Old Wang, calm down. I don’t intend to change the current, highly mature top-up model. What I mean is… for this game of ours, one of the hidden key gameplay points is that players do not need to pay-to-win.”

Wang Fei looked at Pei Shu in confusion: “The key gameplay point is that players don’t need to pay-to-win?”

Pei Shu smiled: “Of course. This is a casual, idle game, and the theme is Cultivation and Xianxia. For a cultivator, one must first cultivate the heart. As the saying goes, ‘When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a person, it must first frustrate their spirit and exhaust their muscles.’ Since one wants to be a cultivator, one must naturally be able to endure loneliness.”

Wang Fei: …

Wang Fei seemed to faintly understand something—since this game was a cultivation theme, the direction for spending money would naturally involve things that increase one’s cultivation level.

But if one wants to be a “Cultivator of Immortality,” one must have a resilient mind.

If you want to cultivate, then cultivate; spending money to buy cultivation levels… could your mental state and cultivation ever be good?

Pei Shu saw the look of sudden realization on Wang Fei’s face and let out a humble smile.

As Wang Fei looked at that humble smile on Pei Shu’s face, his expression immediately went blank—if things went according to Pei Shu’s idea, the resulting “fun points” would be numerous.

And given the habit of most players to at least pay for a “First Top-Up” when playing games… once they enter this game…

This fellow Pei Shu… when it comes to trapping players, his heart is quite black!

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