Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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"Is the new Spark game too brain-teasing? We'll break it down for you in one video to help you understand the new Spark game."

"Too many big surprises! We can't possibly finish them all. Yesterday's new game leaks roundup."

"Meme Encyclopedia: We also work very hard, look at us!"

penguin.

President Ma Xiao's office.

The atmosphere in the office was quite eerie at that moment.

Ma Xiao sat in his office chair, flipping through the news, sneering as he did so.

In front of him, his two assistants didn't dare to breathe loudly. If Ma Xiaozhen had just lost her temper and scolded him, that would have been fine, but this half-smiling, half-crying look was really creepy.

"This is incredible, truly incredible."

Ma Xiao's hands were trembling as she flipped through these news articles.

He found himself somewhat unable to understand the world; the events of the entire previous night were completely illogical.

Tencent invested so much in promotional resources for yesterday's trendy toy project, but the next day players were more interested in Spark's games, while Tencent's other new titles did receive some discussion.

However, despite the confirmation of the Sony PS5 and the hype surrounding Spark's new game PV, it's clear that these games haven't achieved the promotional effect that Ma Xiao wanted.

It didn't even surpass the discussion surrounding Spark, let alone the meme "Look at me, I'm working hard too."

Penguin's trendy toy project didn't get much attention, but a bunch of random games actually garnered a lot of traffic.

Ma Xiao's fingers swiped across the tablet, his eyes fixed on the scrolling news headlines on the screen. Each headline felt like a heavy hammer blow to his heart.

If you don't search for "Trendy Toys Project," you won't find any news about Penguin's games from yesterday.

"Tell Li Weixi to quickly adjust the publicity and distribution, and stop those idiot media outlets from using the 'trendy toy project' as a pretext. Just publish normally!!"

After a long silence, Ma Xiao finally issued a low command.

The sound was deep, like the low roar of a dragon, filled with obvious anger, but beneath this deep roar lay a profound sense of powerlessness.

Ma Xiao knew very well that Li Weixi had not done anything wrong in this matter.

It could even be said that Li Weixi did a good job; in just a few days, he managed to make the event quite successful.

This practice is also a traditional practice for businesses.

Over the years, when Tencent conducts publicity and promotion, it always includes certain fixed terms in its press releases for large-scale events, such as "trendy toy project" or other terms.

These words are used to enhance the player's perception.

After all, you can see this while watching videos, reading news, and even on QQ. It's like a series of memes constantly bombarding players' minds with a single sentence or word.

This will increase the player's impression.

This approach used to be very effective because when Tencent was doing large-scale marketing campaigns, virtually no other game companies in China dared to launch their campaigns at the same time.

After all, given Tencent's size, even if a typical company does some promotion, it will only be drowned out by Tencent's massive traffic.

But now...

This path suddenly seemed to have become impassable. Despite investing huge sums in marketing and promotion, it was all overshadowed overnight by Spark's new game PV and the confirmation of the Sony PS5.

"Mr. Xiao, Sony is really lacking in sportsmanship. Announcing the PS5 news on this day is just too much."

Seeing that Ma Xiao was frowning, the assistant tried to help ease her mood.

But Ma Xiao sighed.

Losing to Sony might sound more acceptable than losing to Spark, but can that fool others? Can it fool yourself?

Even without the Spark promotional video, Ma Xiao is still confident that Tencent could still generate buzz, even if Sony held its PS5 launch event yesterday.

After all, the domestic console gamer community is not mainstream. For Tencent, there is only one reason why this promotion was unsuccessful: Spark.

After the anger, what remained for Ma Xiao was fear, as Tencent's biggest reliance, traffic, began to gradually become ineffective.

The publicity and promotion efforts were so easily marginalized and ignored.

Other domestic manufacturers, far from being afraid of Tencent's traffic, flocked to join the fray.

This made Ma Xiao feel powerless against Xinghuo for the first time.

Looking at the discussions about Spark's new game, every word seemed to mock his failure, and a suffocating atmosphere filled the office.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

Anger and helplessness won't solve the problem; he needs to calm down. This afternoon, he requested a private meeting with Ma Huateng.

If Tencent Games continues like this, it's going to run into problems.

Ma Xiao stood up, walked to the window, looked at the bustling traffic outside, and began to think about how to explain things to Ma Huateng this afternoon.

Chapter 480 Don't tell anyone else

Compared to Ma Xiao's somber mood.

The situation was much more lively at Xinghuo, as the month drew to a close.

The entire company was like a sports car that had stepped on the gas and was now moving at full speed.

Lin Li was also very busy, so busy that he didn't even have time to deal with the New Year's Eve party at the end of the month. He packed up all those things and dumped them on Han Xiangqiao of the Bonfire Studio.

Over the years, the campfire studio has become quite experienced in preparing for such large-scale events, so Lin Li wouldn't worry even if he didn't interfere at all.

As the company grew larger, Lin Li realized that the underlying framework he had used to allocate percentages among the studios was truly useful.

Although the company's revenue was lower, the management costs were spread out.

It's essentially paying for management.

However, he himself knew that this system was not a panacea.

Fortunately, Xinghuo produces content products, and Lin Li, as the chief product manager, is able to ensure the quality of the company's content products, so even if the company encounters management problems.

Lin Li can also fix bugs at any time.

For example, there was a tacit resistance among middle management to writing player communication logs. In other companies, so many people would object, especially in front-line management positions.

Then the matter might just be left unresolved, but in Xinghuo, resolving it would only take Lin Li a single word.

That being said, Lin Li has been making minor adjustments to the company's management structure, since games need to be updated to keep attracting players.

spark.

Large conference room.

Su Wenxuan sat in the conference room feeling somewhat uneasy. He was the head of the production team for Galaxy Paradise: Survival.

Being able to lead a project at Spark is something to be envied in the entire Chinese gaming industry. Su Wenxuan is always quite proud when chatting with friends about his work.

This feeling of unease rarely occurred to him after he became the producer of the park's survival mode.

Most of the time, he was full of enthusiasm.

Although the development team for Paradise Survival is not large, the promotion of Hu Bing, the head of Paradise Exploration, gave him a great deal of encouragement. Hu Bing is now the producer of The Song of the Holy Maiden.

Within Spark Entertainment, "The Song of the Holy Maiden" is already considered a medium-sized production team, and once it's completed, its future is truly promising.

Therefore, although the "Paradise: Survival" project was small, Su Wenxuan was very enthusiastic about it, hoping to make a name for himself.

You should know that at Xinghuo, because of the powerful backing of President Lin, the probability of making a name for oneself is much higher than outside.

Thinking of this, Su Wenxuan looked up and saw a burly man sitting opposite him, being greeted by a group of people.

The burly man's name was Xia Jinfeng, the producer of "Perfect Strategy". He had the typical build of a Northeasterner, with broad shoulders and a thick waist, and was wearing a down jacket with a strong anime vibe.

Why is it said that the concentration of anime/manga elements is extremely high?

Because the down jacket has full-body images of several female protagonists from the TV series "My Perfect Strategy" printed on the outside.

This is not commonly seen in Spark merchandise. In order to meet the needs of the mass market, Spark merchandise rarely prints complete character illustrations on the outside of clothing.

Not to mention, this down jacket also has such exaggerated anime elements, with almost 70% of the exterior covered by character illustrations.

"Brother Xia, I heard that the outfit you're wearing, which you designed yourself, has sold almost a few thousand sets?"

"No, no, only six thousand sets..."

"Only? Oh, Brother Xia, you're too modest. I heard the designers in the surrounding departments are dumbfounded."

"That's right. We initially only prepared 100 sets of this outfit, but we went through seventeen rounds of restocking, and in the end, we just opened up pre-orders for full payment..."

"This outfit is really popular."

Su Wenxuan looked at Xia Jinfeng, who was surrounded by people and had a big smile on her face, and felt a little jealous.

In fact, he knew very well that the fact that the clothes sold more than 6,000 sets was purely accidental, and while it wasn't entirely unrelated to Xia Jinfeng, it wasn't much.

This outfit was indeed designed by Xia Jinfeng.

After all, although Xia Jinfeng looks strong, he is a well-known figure in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) community within Xinghuo. He studied animation directing and had created and managed many animation forums before joining Xinghuo.

There's even a rumored website for doujinshi (fan-made comics), and I myself have watched countless anime and have a wide range of interests.

Before "Perfect Strategy" became popular, Su Wenxuan and Xia Jinfeng were quite familiar with each other. They were also acquainted with several producers from small and medium-sized game development teams at Xinghuo.

Xia Jinfeng said at the time that the designs of Xinghuo's peripheral department were too conservative, lacked the feel of anime, and did not reflect his love for anime. When he was bragging, he said that if his game became popular, he would definitely design a set of clothes for himself.

However, this outfit did not pass the initial review by Xinghuo Merchandise. Xia Jinfeng himself profited from the studio and took a cut.

The final design was only completed under the pretext of "I'll buy them all if they can't be sold and use them as uniforms for the studio".

However, only one hundred sets were made at the beginning.

Although the outfit was made, no one bought it at first.

Until a few days ago, when CCTV News was interviewing passersby about their New Year's Eve plans, they encountered this amazing person wearing this outfit. During the interview, I have no idea what was said.

But the interview video went viral, and it went viral.

The main problem was the CCTV reporter standing next to the man in the shirt; the image was just too abstract.

People below are commenting that anyone who dares to become famous by wearing this outfit is incredibly daring.

Then, some people actually placed orders out of curiosity. At first, it was just video bloggers and content creators trying to attract attention.

However, after a post titled "You don't even dare to wear your wife's clothes, yet you dare to say you love her!?" went viral on the "Perfect Strategy" forum, the clothes started selling like hotcakes.

In addition, the clothes were in short supply at the beginning, which attracted a lot of naive scalpers.

A combination of factors has led to the current situation.

Su Wenxuan sighed and secretly resolved that once his game became popular, he would design his own outfit so that Fatty Xia wouldn't get to show off all by himself.

Just as I was thinking this, I suddenly heard Xia Jinfeng speak from the other side.

"Old Su, how's your project going? When will it launch?"

"Huh? Me? It might take another two or three months to polish it up, and it'll probably be released next Chinese New Year."

"The period around the Spring Festival is a good time."

"Hey, speaking of which, what did President Lin call us over for today? All I see are heads of various studios."

"You do not know?"

Seeing that Xia Jinfeng seemed genuinely unaware, Su Wenxuan covered his hands and whispered.

"It seems like they're restructuring the studio. Don't tell anyone else; I only heard it from Ming-ge..."

Chapter 481 Internal Adjustments

The "Ming Ge" that Su Wenxuan mentioned is the producer of Galaxy Paradise. As studios sharing the same IP, Su Wenxuan is quite familiar with him.

Although he spoke softly, the first few people in the conference room all looked over when he opened his mouth.

"Really? How do I adjust it?"

"I think things are fine as they are..."

"It seems to be related to Platform 2.0."

Discussions began to rise one after another. As the heads of Spark Studio, they were completely tied to Spark, so they were naturally very concerned about such a major change.

This time, Su Wenxuan wasn't in a hurry.