Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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At the same time, with the release of two shooting games, "Gundam Battlegrounds" and "Girls Siege".

The popularity of the Spark platform is also steadily increasing.

For any platform, the extent to which top-performing works break out of their niche directly determines the platform's overall popularity.

Last year, many experts were pessimistic about Spark's future, and the core of this pessimism was that Spark's games were relatively "single-faceted".

However, as time has passed, no one mentions this anymore.

Even the Tsinghua professor who had previously been making a fuss has now lost all his popularity.

By this point, Spark had actually entered the final stage of snowballing, and with its own size, it had gradually formed a steady state.

Many external influences, and even attacks from other competitors, have become less impactful.

For example, after Spark, Tencent also announced a new game with gameplay similar to Girls' Frontline: Siege, and its model is basically the same as before.

However, as the coverage of Spark itself increases and the influence of Douyin grows, most domestic players, even those who don't play the game, are aware of "Girls' Frontline: Siege".

Even if Tencent uses its own traffic to conduct another round of coverage.

The result was that, apart from a barrage of criticism, it barely caused any ripples.

There are also some trolls, I don't know which one, claiming that some map designs in "Girls' Frontline: Siege" plagiarized a foreign indie game.

Before Xinghuo even took any action, some players helped him investigate and discovered that the so-called foreign indie game was actually started much later than "Girls' Frontline: Siege".

Moreover, when the project was initiated, Xinghuo had already published promotional images of this so-called plagiarized map on its official website.

In other words.

This is indeed a plagiarism incident, but the plagiarists are reversed; it is the other party who plagiarized Xinghuo.

~~~

As the sparks of hope rise ever higher.

The atmosphere inside Xinghuo is getting better and better.

Every department is operating at high speed, and every cog in the machine is working towards the same goal: to maintain Spark's leading position and continuously break through its own limits.

However, within this enormous "machine," at this time of great prosperity, one studio found itself in trouble.

Sunlight streamed through the glass window onto Han Xiangqiao's desk, and the air was filled with the dry heat of early summer.

As the person in charge of the campfire studio.

Han Xiangqiao has done a remarkable job in the past two years, with many of Xinghuo's activities achieving great success.

Especially the summer stars.

Even now, you can still see a lot of clips on Douyin, Bilibili, and YouTube, and it's the most viewed event video on Xinghuo's own platform.

It's also a summer sparkle cosplay swimsuit show.

Note that this is the most viewed video, bar none.

It just goes to show that human interests are interconnected.

The immense popularity of these events propelled Han Xiangqiao to the pinnacle of her life.

Some media outlets even interviewed Han Xiangqiao specifically to ask her about the secret to her success. This kind of close attention from the outside world is actually quite normal.

Essentially, this is the same logic as when Alibaba's top executives were portrayed as mythical figures after the company's initial success.

This is especially evident in South Korea.

Because Han Xiangqiao had previously worked as an idol in South Korea, many South Korean media outlets loved to report on her success story.

However, because Han Xiangqiao is indeed beautiful, and because she is the main creator and executor of Summer Spark, she is very popular in China.

But at this moment.

Han Xiangqiao, who was described by the media as the most beautiful executive at Xinghuo, has fallen into confusion.

Han Xiangqiao gently rubbed her temples, her gaze falling on the unfinished summer event plan on the computer screen.

The summer of 2020 was destined to be different from previous years.

The shadow of face masks still looms over the world, and news of lockdowns and their lifting in China comes sporadically, although Shanghai has not yet been locked down.

The recording of various programs by Xinghuo can still proceed normally.

However, offline activities have no choice but to be suspended, and for Campfire Studio, their core business depends precisely on these offline interactions.

Xinghuo adopts a studio profit-sharing system.

However, the profit-sharing system also means that the studio needs to be responsible for its own profits. Even if the company can cover some losses, there is no profit.

This means that the entire campfire studio cannot afford to pay bonuses, there is no work, and naturally there is no performance evaluation to speak of.

In the city of Shanghai.

It's clearly not enough to just take a fixed salary.

Moreover, from a personal perspective, as Bonfire Studio is Han Xiangqiao's own business, she cannot allow this situation to continue.

Chapter 617 Categories

Normally, from a timing perspective, at this point in time, the Bonfire Studio would not only be preparing for summer activities, but would even be starting to prepare for the Spark Carnival.

Both of these events are very large-scale, involving a great deal of coordination work in terms of venues and personnel.

But now, the entire campfire studio is in a very delicate state.

There are still a lot of players outside looking forward to the summer events and carnival, even with masks on.

On the Xinghuo Forum, including the various official accounts of the Bonfire Studio, there are still a lot of people asking when tickets will be available this year and whether a nucleic acid test is required...

However, Han Xiangqiao was somewhat hesitant. She stood up, walked to the window, and gazed at the somewhat empty street below, lost in thought.

In fact, Han Xiangqiao was not entirely unprepared for the problems that Bonfire Studio is currently facing.

Lin Li spoke with her when the mask industry first started last year, telling her to be prepared for the possibility that offline events could not be held.

But people...

People always had a sense of complacency, especially in the early stages of the mask era, when domestic border control measures prevented major problems.

Therefore, Han Xiangqiao was very conflicted about whether to scale down the offline activities or conduct online activities. As a result, although the Bonfire Studio had prepared some documents for online activities beforehand.

However, the preparations were clearly insufficient.

Good news, it's still May, there's still time before the event.

The bad news is that face masks are clearly not going to disappear in two months.

Han Xiangqiao had already decided that the event could only be held online, but she had no idea how to do it.

"There's no other way, we have to use our ultimate move."

As the saying goes, when in doubt, consult General Manager Lin.

Now that things have come to this, Han Xiangqiao can no longer care whether President Lin thinks she is incompetent, and she has no choice but to bite the bullet and go to Lin Li.

~~~

So what is Lin Li doing at this moment?

answer.

Lin Li was sitting in his office reviewing a proposal at that moment.

Specifically, they were looking at the operation plan for the public beta of "Adventure World," following the success of "Gundam Battlefield" and "Girls' Frontline: Siege."

At this time, a strange atmosphere of "internal competition" inexplicably formed within Xinghuo.

This trend, in turn, puts pressure on various studios, and the concentrated manifestation of this pressure is "launch phobia."

Just like Wang Wei, the producer of "Gundam Battlegrounds", when he sees other studios launching their games, he laughs and says that they are too nervous.

During monthly meetings, they seize every opportunity to make a few jokes.

But when it came to actually doing it herself, she instantly transformed into a "social butterfly," constantly seeking out other studios to piggyback on their publicity efforts, even in Spark's producer work group.

Whenever a game is about to launch, they start shouting in the group, asking others to help forward the message. They not only ask people to forward it using the studio's account, but also ask them to forward it using their own account.

Especially those producers with high popularity, you can see that their Weibo posts have an incredibly high "broad reach".

However, for Lin Li...

In his words, the real effect of these promotional efforts is more psychological than practical; it would be better to use that time to polish the game properly.

Let's take a look at all the games that Spark is about to launch.

They can be roughly divided into these categories?

One type is games that Lin Li personally initiated, or games with a basic creative concept and core, and games that he is relatively frequently involved in managing.

Games that haven't been released yet include *Adventure World*, *Future Defense*, *Sky Maiden*, and *Lost Paradise* (which was recently renamed *Death Game*), as well as the PS5 launch title *Ark Project* and the newly announced *Changjin Lake*.

Lin Li is either the main creator of these games or has been highly involved in them. However, besides these games, Spark has many other projects under development.

For example, the mobile game "Girls' Frontline" has recently started its promotional campaign, highlighting the "Girls' Frontline Showdown" mode, which separates the "Girls' Frontline Auto Chess" gameplay from the main game.

Another example is the upcoming third spin-off single-player game, *Arknights: Silence*.

There's also the spin-off bullet hell game that Touhou Fantasy World Studio is currently preparing.

In other words, it returns the main gameplay to a more serious style, but incorporates many elements of the more accessible bullet hell shooter genre, such as *Touhou Fantasy Mirror*.

There's also a sequel to "My Perfect Strategy," as well as a whole host of interactive animated games that have been initiated by other Japanese animation companies in collaboration with Spark.

In addition, the development team of "The Wandering Earth: Home" has also started a new project called "Governing Broadcast". The core gameplay has been tested to some extent in the new version of "Girls' Frontline".

It's essentially a simulation management game, but with the addition of a broadcast element, giving players a more immersive experience and feedback on their construction.

In addition, as the various studio groups under Spark gradually completed their integration, many studio groups are also gradually streamlining their human resources. After the integration is completed, they are also launching new game projects one after another.

Not to mention that at this time, Spark also had several game remake studios.

While these new games will still have to go through numerous approval processes before being approved, as this large number of games are gradually launched in the future, there will definitely be various products with mediocre performance, scoring 6, 7, or even lower.

Even if Lin Li were a superman, he couldn't change this situation.

Of course, he himself has no intention of changing.

For him, his job is to prioritize the quality of the direct works he is deeply involved in. As long as these works do not fall apart, these games will become anchor points similar to sparks.

Not every game from Spark in the future will be a hit, but as long as Lin Li can consistently guarantee a game with a score of 8 or higher each year.

The entire platform of that spark.

The process of attracting traffic and snowballing will never stop.

It is precisely based on this logic that, although Spark has many game projects underway, Lin Li's workload has gradually decreased.

Of course, while Lin Li wouldn't actively inquire about the game, that didn't mean he would completely ignore it.

Essentially, Lin Li at this moment is more like a high school teacher with dozens of students in his class. If a student takes the initiative to ask him a question, he will naturally help if he has the time.

Not to mention projects within Spark, even the Candlelight Project and games on the Spark platform, Lin Li would occasionally click on them.

At the same time, he would also pay attention to these projects and read some online discussions when he had free time.

Simply put, Lin Li is quite sensitive to the market.

Han Xiangqiao entered the room.

Lin Li quickly realized what the other party wanted.

As expected, the two had come for Summer Spark.

Chapter 618 Online Activities

"What kind of time is this to still be clinging to wishful thinking? Didn't I tell you to prepare for the online event before? Why are you asking me this now?"

Many of Xinghuo's employees believe that Lin Li is omnipotent.

But Lin Li never thought that way.

Including the Bonfire Studio, Lin Li had actually told Han Xiangqiao at the beginning of this year that after the New Year's Eve event, all the activities for the entire year of 20 should be prepared online.

In February, Lin Li again asked her to consider online options.