The impact of being able to compete for the eighth place in this selection is still huge.

This list itself is very influential, the credibility is also very high, and the fame is also great, and in China, many old players know this list.

This list has never had anything to do with domestic companies before, no matter how famous you are in China, people will ignore you.

The reason why the distant game can be on the list this time is actually to put it bluntly, the influence of the distant group is expanding. The relationship between the entertainment industry and the game industry is not too far, and now the Yuanfang Media, a subsidiary of the Yuanfang Group, continues to conquer the city in the entertainment industry, and the Yuanfang Games has also acquired several companies in the game industry, and the games launched have a large number of players at home and abroad.

Even if the foreign media block the news about Huaxia in a vain attempt to make foreigners unable to understand Huaxia, after all, it is the era of the Internet, and there are many foreign companies under the Yuanfang Group. It's impossible to completely block you, so it's no longer possible to just shut you out and not take you to play like before.

Now it is the power of the distant group, forcing them to open the door, must open the list, otherwise players will doubt the fairness of this list, if this fairness is hit, credibility is hit, maybe more than ten years of operation once put into the water, who can accept this situation?

Therefore, it is inevitable that distant games will be on the list.

In China, Weibo hyped up the matter.

Players who know the importance of this list are naturally rejoicing, and if they don't know, let you know and join the celebratory team after knowing.

The most direct impact after being on the list is that "Meteor", which has stabilized, ushered in a wave of player explosions, and overnight, there were 100,000 more paying players. Although the number of 100,000 is not much, this is only the beginning, any impact has to be brewed, and when it is brewed enough, are you still worried that it will not break out?

The game company was on the list, and Zhou Fangyuan was also very happy, and he also came to the headquarters of Yuanfang Games and gave everyone a bonus.

Although in terms of games, "Meteor" is on the list, but the success of the entire company is the result of the efforts of all the production teams, and the "Meteor" production team alone will definitely not be able to do it alone. As for the bigger one, the credit of the Yuanfang Group, there is no need to pay bonuses.

After giving out bonuses and encouraging the employees, Zhou Fangyuan came to the conference room with a group of high-level executives from Yuanfang Games.

There are two topics for today's meeting.

The first one is about being on the list this time.

I hope you don't be proud of this, and I hope you will make persistent efforts to create greater brilliance. To put it bluntly, it is some clichés, and it may have some effect on the employees below, but for these executives, the effect is very small.

Therefore, the main content of the meeting is still the second topic.

Single-player game!

In fact, distant games have always had the content of stand-alone games, such as "Plants vs. Zombies", "Minecraft" and even "Meteor Butterfly Sword", which can be regarded as stand-alone games, but Zhou Fangyuan added some network elements to it, but to put it bluntly, they are still a little different from serious online games.

Of course, today is not to talk about this, what Zhou Fangyuan wants to say, what the meeting wants to talk about, is to go further, large-scale stand-alone games.

It is also the so-called 3A masterpiece!

In fact, most of the games and companies in this list are good at making triple-A masterpieces, and the number of online games and related companies is small. In the final analysis, the crown of the game industry, so far, is still worn on the head of triple-A masterpieces. Because only 3A masterpieces can truly represent the hard power of a company. In other words, if a company does not have the ability to produce 3A masterpieces, no matter how famous it is, it will have no roots. If you don't talk about it, let's talk about Blizzard. The era when Blizzard was at its most popular was the era of "World of Warcraft", but it was better to say that it was the era of "Warcraft".

Because "World of Warcraft" is actually a continuation of "Warcraft".

Warcraft, interstellar, including Dark, can be said to be the real foundation of Blizzard.

In fact, just take a closer look.

"World of Warcraft" is very powerful, and when the limelight is at its strongest, it suppresses all other online games enough. But what about when the limelight of World of Warcraft has passed? Although Blizzard is constantly tweaking each new version, it is difficult to recover lost players and regain its former glory. Warcraft Interstellar and other stand-alone games are different, look at how excited players were when Diablo 3 was released?

Diablo 2 was released in 2000 and Diablo 3 was released in 12 years, with a gap of 12 years. In the past 12 years, how many dark die-hard fans have been constantly brushing equipment, gems, and runes? Even if the game has not been updated for a long time, it can't stop the enthusiasm of players.

The same situation is even more thoroughly unfolded in Warcraft and Interstellar.

What if it were World of Warcraft? Try it for three years without updating it, and it would be nice to have one percent of the players who stayed.

This is the difference between online games and stand-alone games.

Online games can make quick money and make hot money, but they can't last, no matter how powerful online games are, there will always be a day when they disappear.

As for stand-alone games, the earning power is not as good as online games, but stand-alone games can cultivate fans. How many years has Tetris been there, how many years has it been like a top mushroom, and isn't anyone still playing it today? Just Mario's game, how many versions have Nintendo launched, and can it be replaced by an online game?

Therefore, stand-alone is a must-do, and this time, what Zhou Fangyuan wants to do is a 3A masterpiece, which is the real king of the stand-alone game industry and even the entire game industry.

However, it is easy to make a stand-alone machine, but it is difficult to do 3A.

The difficulty is not technical.

Even if it's a 3A masterpiece, the whole process is fixed.

The first step is definitely to do research, and a lot of market research is required in the early stage of a triple-A game project to determine what type of game the market is sensitive to. This step usually lasts for a long time, and after a lot of research and data analysis, the sample data is obtained, and the person in charge makes the decision, and then it enters the prototype part.

In the stage of prototyping, the first step is to enter the stage of making the big framework of the game, that is, to design the core gameplay. With the core gameplay, there will be everything behind, including levels, art, and interactions. There is often a core gameplay first, and the story, levels, etc. must be carried out around the core gameplay to ensure that the basic experience meets the standard. At this time, the production staff had not yet entered the project, and the pre-positioning and planning personnel mainly included game directors, creative directors and technical directors. They cooperated with the marketing department, the publicity department, and the operation department to make the framework, and this process took about a year.

These early adopters are constantly outputting prototypes and account for 95% of their working time. During this period, a lot of wild ideas were produced, even if many plans could not be made in the end. This stage is very free and is the most fun. The game director has a lot of responsibility and is responsible for making decisions.

In the early stages of game development, although many prototypes may not look satisfactory at first, all the outputs have the potential to grow into highly creative solutions through continuous iteration and extension. The development of a prototype has its own cycle, and if a prototype can continue to evolve and evolve over a period of time, it will show strong vitality, which proves to be the growth and transformation of the idea.

At the end, the selected solution will be quickly modeled in 3DMAX or Maya to make a video of the game that explains what the art style, gameplay, and style of the game are. According to this video, the marketing department will conduct evaluations and research. After an evaluation, the project will be funded. Not all projects can be passed, because of the large amount of time spent upfront, the market will change to a certain extent, and the project is likely to have to be torn down and restarted.

The next step is to make the specific production. This process is arguably the most comparatively hassle-free.

After the engine, art, memory management, scenes, roles, and division of labor are all clarified. The envisioned game video will be made into a demo, and will be given to the marketing department and the publicity department to see whether the underlying design and market direction are qualified, and judge what needs to be modified after the market changes. At this stage, it is necessary to ensure that all the details and functions of the design are at least a design on paper.

Then the army entered, and a large number of production personnel, such as programs and artists, began to produce continuously, and the project advanced rapidly. This stage is very heavy and takes half a year to a year to complete. However, with specific goals and schedule requirements on paper, simply writing programs and doing art is nothing more than a pile of technology for the majority of programmers, artists and other related personnel, so it is not very difficult.

After the preliminary completion of the game, it will enter the alpha testing stage, which is often referred to as the A test, at which time the game will have various problems and various bugs will continue to appear. At this time, the task of the production team is to continue to do extreme testing, and during the repair and testing stage, the game will still change a lot of things, including gameplay, functions, characters, art style, etc. At this stage, the game can be turned upside down. This phase lasts for 3 to 6 months before entering beta testing.

Beta testing, also known as B-testing, is at this point, and the game production can be said to be coming to an end. At this time, a large number of production staff withdrew from the project and began a "big vacation". In the beta phase, it is generally the elite of the elite who want to stay to check the gates, and this team has to put the finishing touches on the project and fix bugs one by one.

After that, needless to say, publicity, sales, to accept the test of the market and players.

Therefore, in the game production stage, if you say that he is simple, he will be simple, and if you say that he is difficult, he will be difficult.

But for a triple-A masterpiece, the real pressure is never on production.

The real pressure of the 3A masterpiece is in the IP shaping and the return of funds.

There is a saying in the gaming industry that once a triple-A masterpiece has a fund of more than $100 million, then the game has a good chance of kneeling.

Of course, this is not absolute, and there are some exceptions. However, the reason why the special case is a special case is because there are few, such as GTA, everyone knows that it is a safe profit, but looking at the world, how many games can there be?

Under normal circumstances, the cost of an investment in a 3A masterpiece must be controlled below 50M, that is, 50 million. Beyond this number, it will be difficult to make a profit. So what is the concept of 50 million? It's a year and a half of small team production, plus a year and a half of big team production. If the whole production period is more than two years, it is very risky because of the huge cost.

GTA costs a lot, to put it bluntly, it's time + manpower, that's all. GTA5 took a total of 5 years, and the team all added up to 1,000 people. On such a large scale, only R Star can do it. With so many people, for so long, and the development tools are extremely stable, people are just adding content all the time, so there can be countless kinds of details.

If it is replaced by other companies, not to mention being dragged down directly, it is estimated that it will also be greatly damaged.

Why did Blizzard suddenly decline in its previous life, in the final analysis, it was not the failure of "Titan"? "Titan" was a 3A masterpiece in the online game industry in Blizzard's original plan, and the 3A masterpiece of stand-alone games is still so difficult, let alone online games? If it succeeds, Blizzard will become a god and fail, which is the situation like Blizzard in the previous life.

If the online game is done well, you can make a wave of quick money and hot money, and the funds can be quickly returned.

Stand-alone games are not very good in this regard, if a game costs 60 dollars, the real money in the hands of the developer is about 20 dollars. The rest is all exploited by retailers, distribution, logistics, etc., and if it were the publisher's own studio, it could reach $25.

So conservative calculations, how many sets of a game with a cost of 50 million need to be sold to tie? Answer: 2.5 million sets. Is it hard to sell this amount?

The current game market is fighting for product value, and only the top 10 that do well will make money, and the other games will either be tied or lose to death. Then why is everyone still doing 3A? Because the top ten basically make money from the entire market, and divide it into every game, the profit is much greater than ten years ago, so everyone is desperately trying to make quality and squeeze into the top ten. This is a virtuous circle.

And even if it's 50 million dollars, it's actually not enough, because the production costs 50 million, isn't it publicity?

The reason why "GTA" is expensive is also because of the refreshing cost of the game market.

However, the problem is that in general, the market cost is included in the cost of issuance, and is not used as the development cost accounting.

Of the $60 selling price, except for $20 to the developer, the rest of the money already includes the cake that was issued.

The issuance fee still has to be counted in the developer's 20 dollars, so if you want to tie it, you actually have to go further in terms of sales. The market is so big, and in today's popularity of online games, there are countless companies crowded in the field of stand-alone games, so if you want to make a 3A masterpiece to do well or even make money, the difficulty is here. Because you have to compete with countless people, you have to ensure your own interests, and you have to take into account IP shaping. Especially if you start from scratch, can this difficulty be small?

So when Zhou Fangyuan said in the conference room that he was going to do a 3A masterpiece, everyone present was stunned one by one, followed by all kinds of speechlessness, they didn't know what Zhou Fangyuan thought, why he was suddenly going to do 3A, everyone is in the industry, and they all know how deep the water is. At this time, although the development momentum of the distant game is very strong, but 3A is a big pit, it is easy to jump in, whether you can jump out, it is really hard to say.