You must know that most of Mars Entertainment's games have not been developed for more than a year.

For the vast majority of people, more than half a year is enough.

In fact, they have been developing for a long time, although this is not the game development environment that just emerged from the wilderness six years ago, but there are still many game developers, especially some small studios, who develop a game in more than two months, from project approval to completion, and even debugging.

Four years to develop a game.

Not to mention the rest, can you really sell the sales that four games that cost a year can sell?

Even if it is a game developed by Jester with a mortgage, the current console games of Jester will basically not be less than five million units, and if there are four sets in four years, it will be 20 million units, and Jester can really sell 20 million copies of the game I am going to do?

You must know that for so many years, the only one that has been able to sell close to 10 million sets of dìng is the Balotelli series.

Moreover, the Balotelli series was able to do so thanks to the popularity of other games that could not be matched at all, and this character has become almost synonymous with video games around the world.

⌒ ↗ "As for how much money to invest......

When he thought of this, Jester hesitated, because he really couldn't tell these subordinates of his seat the amount of money he was prepared to invest, because it must be a very staggering number, a number that these people would never have thought of.

After a moment's hesitation, Jester decided not to talk about the number, but the size of the team.

"It's a very large project, and the number of people needed is also very large, even so many that you don't dare to think - the previous development team of thirty or forty people, you think that such a team is too large, what kind of game needs such a large team, but. For the game I'm going to develop, it's going to take a team that's several times the size of what you think of as a big team. ”

Jester paused slightly.

Then he stretched out three fingers, shook them in front of everyone, and said in a very affirmative tone, "I need at least two hundred to three hundred people to help me complete this fantasy game." ”

"That is, we don't have enough people at the moment."

Jester finally added that the R&D personnel in Mars Entertainment, plus all the people in the studios directly under Mars Entertainment, must be more than three hundred people, but these Mars Entertainment employees. It's not just the game development department, and not all of them are capable of developing this kind of game.

It's not that all of these people like to develop such big projects, so it's a sure thing to do a large-scale recruitment.

Moreover, because this is a game set in the Spring and Autumn period of the country, Jester must need to go back to China and find a few cultures in this area. Experts in history will help him build this world.

After Jester finished speaking, the audience showed exclamations.

It's the same as when Jester was describing the game he's going to make.

Because of such a scale, it is simply unheard of, and. They all shuddered a little when they thought of the investment amount in this game that they didn't just mention, because it must be an incredibly high investment amount, otherwise. It's simply impossible to maintain a development team of this size.

"That's all for today's meeting, I just have a preliminary idea of the game, but I haven't thought about the specifics yet. We'll talk about that later. ”

Jester clapped his hands, trying to end the discussion.

Still, someone asked the question Jester didn't want to say at this point.

"Boss, with such a large development team and such a long development time, how much do you think it will cost? Do you really think that the game you want to make will recoup your investment? After this question was asked, everyone's eyes were once again focused on Jester.

"The question ......"

Jester groaned first, then sighed, and said: "Seriously, the cost of making this game for Zuò will be extremely terrifying, and I will not let the company make all the investment myself, because it is too dangerous, and it is very likely that if my game does not meet expectations in the end, the company will not be able to bear this loss." ”

After hearing Jester say this, everyone present gasped.

The company can't afford to lose it?

What kind of investment should it be? You must know that according to the profitability of Mars Entertainment now, even if you don't do anything for ten years, it is impossible to go out of business!

Then, Jester said a number, and said that this was only his initial estimate, and that this investment was invested by himself and Mars Entertainment, not only by Mars Entertainment, so that yenenggo9u could better share the risk.

After hearing Jester's number, everyone gasped again.

Because, this number, is really very scary.

In fact, without such a terrible investment, it is impossible to complete such a game in this era, when Suzuki Yu spent 70 million dollars on the first part of "Shenmue", and now to do it, at least double that number, and this is still a conservative estimate.

The final cost may be three times that amount.

More than $200 million.

The GTA5, which sold more than 52 million in later generations, is only a little more than this investment scale, but it is more than 200 million US dollars more than 20 years later, which is not the same as the current more than 200 million US dollars.

However, Jester is really not sure whether the game he wants to make will succeed in the end.

If this fails like "Shenmue", according to the current scale of Mars Entertainment, it will not be like Sega, which almost went out of business, but it will definitely be devastated and most importantly, it will be its own prestige, if a game with such a huge investment ends up failing.

The destructive power of the position and prestige that he has built up over the years is almost catastrophic.

Moreover, it is very difficult to make a profit from this game, even on its own platform, there is no need for royalties, no profit sharing, but this is also at least 15 million sets of sales, so as not to be a loss, 20 million sets ago, to be able to count this investment is acceptable.

And if you want to make a lot of money, the difficulty is too great.

Even GTA5 sold 52 million copies, but the game took four years in development and two years after its release.

That's a full six years.

In these six years, COD, which is jokingly called the New Year's goods by players, ushered in their most glorious period, with an average sales of more than 20 million units of their six series of games, that is, in these six years, GTA5 spent more than 200 million dollars in research and development funds, and finally sold 52 million units.

And Activision's COD, which does not have the slightest technical content and only knows fried cold rice, has sold at least 100 million sets, and even, the development funds of COD, even if these are all combined, may not be as much as GTA5.

Therefore, in terms of profitability, Jester is definitely impossible to achieve the optimal choice.

However, now is not the time to think about these.

The most important thing he needs to think about now is how to avoid a failure like Shenmue's - of course, he is much luckier than Suzuki when he smashed the development of Shenmue, because Suzuki was really crossing the river by feeling the stones at that time, and there was nothing to refer to him.

But he's different.

He is a person who has experienced the explosion of sandbox games in later generations, and in the era when sandbox game development was extremely mature in later generations, some concepts and ideas that are very familiar with thinking may be worth a lot of money in this era, and even bring a game back to life.

Since it was to avoid failure, Jester carefully discussed the Shenmue.

Because this will be the prototype of his game.

Of course, in comparison, it is another sandbox masterpiece of later generations, the GTA series, of course, in essence, these two games cannot be counted as the same game, it can only be said that sandbox games are very common, and there are many things worth learning from.

As the pioneer of this type of game, Shenmue has many advantages, but it also has many disadvantages.

For example, everyone knows that GTA5 sold 50 million, assuming that GTA5 did not move at all in terms of picture sound and scenes, only modified the core gameplay, changed it to be completely unplayable, and finally sold only 1 million copies, this is Shenmue, in fact, one million copies of "Shenmue" is not low.

To be precise, the first chapter of "Shenmue" Yokosuka sold 1.2 million copies, ranking fourth in the entire history of DC consoles, more than 100,000 copies more than the famous Veronica, and the reason why it is said to be less is only because DC consoles have only sold 11 million units in total.

In comparison, on average, every nine people who have bought DC hosts have bought Shenmu, which is really not a small number.

And the difference between "Shenmue" and GTA is that there is nothing to do other than the main story.

GTA You can drive, you can rob, you can make money, you can experience American life, although you are a bad guy, you have time to develop the main story, and "Shenmue" has nothing but the main line. As a sandbox game, its world is not small, and the elaborate process is far from being able to compare with GTA, we all know that passers-by in GTA have their own routines and personalities.

But "Shenmue" is much more awesome than that. (To be continued......)