This Is Not a Bug but a Game Feature-Chapter 184 - 138: Speeding Frenzy
This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival doesn’t coincide with National Day, so the festive atmosphere is quite okay.
Tianba Studio is bustling with activity.
After a round of recruitment, the current total number of employees at the studio has surpassed 20.
These are the core employees. Including the staff from Xianyu Digital and media operations, channel specialists, and so on, the total employee count is nearing fifty.
Of course, mooncakes must be distributed for Mid-Autumn Festival.
To ensure the customized mooncake gift boxes satisfy everyone’s tastes and preferences, Chen Ba organized a public vote, allowing everyone to choose their favorite type of mooncake.
The result was unexpected.
Initially thought to be a frontrunner among mooncakes, the five-nut mooncake seemed a sure winner, but the final voting results showed that red bean paste mooncake was everyone’s favorite!
"Really tired of the five-nut mooncakes."
Honestly, after hearing about the five-nut mooncake so many years, everyone is already unimpressed.
Red bean paste it is!
Since it was a collective voting decision, Chen Ba had no objections and arranged for a batch of custom red bean paste mooncake gift boxes to be distributed to everyone the day before the festival.
With the mooncakes eaten, the short holiday came to an end.
On the first workday after Mid-Autumn Festival, Chen Ba gathered all the core employees of the studio for a new game discussion meeting.
That’s right, a new game!
The official version of "Love Advisor Department" has been released. Although the game’s nature changed during the process and experienced many twists, things eventually stabilized.
Not many people are needed for mobile development anymore, so the next focus for Tianba Studio is definitely developing a new game.
But here’s the problem...
What genre should the new game be?
According to Ba’s description, their next new game is expected to be priced at over a hundred dollars, i.e., three figures.
At this price and scale, there aren’t many theme options.
"Guns, cars, balls!"
Chen Ba knew he had to set a broad range for everyone. Otherwise, if they just discussed aimlessly, they wouldn’t come to any conclusion, even after a year.
So he narrowed it down.
That is the enduring "guns-cars-balls" combo, which has been popular in the gaming world and widely loved by players!
Guns refer to first-person or third-person shooting games like "Half-Life", "Call of Duty", and "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive".
Cars refer to racing simulation games, or you could call them driving simulation racing games, like "Need for Speed" and "Forza Horizon".
Balls are quite unique...
Narratively, ball games refer to sport simulation games like the classic "FIFA" and "NBA".
But since the internet boom and a slight shift in the word "ball", in a broader sense, it also refers to those "18+ only" adult games.
Ahem!
Who says XX isn’t a ball?
In any case, using "guns-cars-balls" as the game trail for Tianba Studio’s first game priced in the hundred range is absolutely suitable.
No one had any objections to this.
However, when it came to choosing specifically within the guns-cars-balls, everyone got into a heated discussion.
"FPS it is!"
Lu raised his hand and said, "Shooter games always have a market. This would definitely be the most suitable to make."
"Makes sense."
"But aren’t shooter games a bit saturated? Whether big or small firms, they all basically have their shooter games. We might struggle to compete."
"Moreover, while the shooter game market is huge, the player base is saturated. It’s hard for new games to snatch users away from those classic shooter games..."
This is indeed a significant issue.
Unquestionably, among the guns-cars-balls, shooter games are the most popular, with the largest player base.
But that field is really competitive!
Even the fearless Chen Ba, when hearing names like "Call of Duty", "Battlefield", "Counter-Strike", "Halo", "Far Cry", "Rainbow Six", "Borderlands", and "Titanfall", feels overwhelmed.
It’s just too hard to keep up... 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
Imagine the immense effort and hard work needed to stand out in the shooting game field?
"Then let’s do a racing game!"
"Ball games are niche on one hand, and on the other hand, they require a high degree of specialization. We don’t have enough preparation and experience to do well in a sports ball game," Yang Dong analyzed seriously.
FIFA is exemplary in this class!
But for a studio that has never developed such a game to start from scratch and produce something comparable to FIFA, the challenge is substantial.
"Sounds good!"
Chen Ba thought about it; although racing games are also quite competitive and new developers find it hard to earn player trust, at least it’s a bit less daunting than shooter games.
"Does anyone have any other opinions?"
After confirming that everyone agreed with the proposal, Chen Ba decisively announced, "Then it’s settled. Next year, we’ll release a racing speed game."
The direction was set.
The next discussion involves some rough framework for the project and the game’s core features and gameplay.
There’s nothing much to say on this front.
Chen Ba had heard a joke a long time ago about a company boss who wanted to make a new game, putting forth many requests for it.
In the end, the project leader or the game’s chief producer didn’t listen to what the boss requested and simply asked, "So, who are we copying?"
