Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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The discussion in the community shifted to criticizing the production team, mainly focusing on how they could leave clues here, saying, "I've already taken my pants off."

But overall, this kind of cursing isn't really out of anger.

However, the game's development team, as Spark Studio, is quite sensitive to these things and immediately posted a separate statement.

On the one hand, we thank the players for their support; sales exceeded one million on the first day.

Immediately afterwards, it was stated that many aspects of this first work were technical verifications in order to present a better storyline and a better performance.

The storyline that everyone was looking forward to was split up in the second part.

It is the sequel to Perfect Strategy.

On "My Perfect Life," it was mentioned that the project is already in the development stage, and several background art materials for the second work were also shown.

A dynamic playground, a dynamic beach.

Finally, to express their apology, they stated that players who bought the original game would be able to use a 10% discount coupon when the new game is released.

Players saw the new promise and immediately stopped criticizing the development team. In fact, they even encouraged the team to do a good job, demonstrating a complete change of heart.

The matter should have ended there.

However, the players who had just finished playing the game were still feeling excited, and then the official team released these two new clips.

One player, who likes to stir things up, posted, "If you could only bring one person, who would you bring to the amusement park?"

This is the root of all evil in the entire community.

In the end, I don't know how it happened, it turned into a popularity contest.

Each popular character has their own separate post, and it seems that whoever gets more replies to their post is more popular.

It should be noted that there was no character comparison or disparagement throughout the entire process, since anyone who has played the game would not say they dislike any particular character.

It's more like a feeling of both hands being equally precious.

It was precisely for this reason that players soon discovered some people were spamming comments under every post...

After scrolling through the comments, everyone noticed, "Hey? How come we see you shouting 'Long live my wife' in the Yueying fan group, and then you shouting 'Sakurako Banzai' in the Yingzi JK fan group, and then you shouting 'White-haired guy is the best' in the Elizabeth fan group..."

Thus, another political party was born: the Wings Party.

Or rather, the party that accepts all members.

When Huang Wenfeng entered the community, the entire party had gradually begun to take control of the situation.

"What the hell is all this...?"

After reading through all the clues, Huang Wenfeng's mind was in complete disarray, but one thing was certain: the game was indeed very popular.

Because within the entire planetary community, those participating in this global discussion are not only players from China, but also a large number of overseas players.

Chapter 471 The Influence of Spark

"Getting players in a community to achieve something together, or to do something together, can greatly increase player loyalty."

"Let me show you a case from yesterday."

The following day, Paris.

ZA/UM Studio.

Robert is listening to an online class livestream.

Robert's name isn't well-known at this time, and his ZA/UM studio is virtually unknown in the gaming industry.

The game "Disco Elysium," which is currently under development, is also in a state of being ignored. The team is also small, with only a few dozen people including the three main creators.

Although no one was interested, the game had entered its final stages, so Robert started taking some courses on game publishing and operation.

Although he doesn't lead the game publishing process, it's obviously necessary for him to learn some basic operational knowledge, which is what he's currently listening to in his course.

It's a game operations course offered by an organization in Silicon Valley, USA, that specializes in game operations training.

Robert had actually bought the course almost a year ago, but he only started watching it when his access was about to expire.

Before watching today's live stream, Robert also glanced at the course replay. Interestingly, since 19, the content about Spark in the operations course has been increasing.

If we were to select the best game of 2019 in the entire gaming industry, people would probably have to think about it. But if we were to select the most influential game company of 2019, it would definitely be Spark.

Unlike Tencent and NetEase, whose game revenue is among the top in the world, these two companies are not considered top-tier.

However, in terms of influence, even though Tencent has the highest revenue in the world, its influence overseas may not be as great as that of some small and medium-sized manufacturers.

However, Spark is quite the opposite.

Although Spark's revenue is slightly lower than Tencent's, its influence overseas is on a completely different level, especially in 2019.

This includes both the accumulation of Xinghuo's work over the years and the three major initiatives launched in the second half of this year: Eastern Fantasy World, Galaxy Paradise, and Destiny's Trajectory.

These three moves not only left Tencent bewildered, but also left a host of overseas manufacturers reeling.

Game revenue can easily reach hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars a day, and it can generate revenue over a long period of time. More importantly, a significant portion of this revenue comes from overseas users.

Putting aside other factors, just look at the fact that both Sony and Microsoft listed Spark as their best partner for 2019, and you can tell that these two major console manufacturers have made a lot of money from Spark.

Your ability to make money from Chinese people is not considered a great skill by overseas manufacturers. They even view Tencent as a manufacturer with policy barriers.

This means that such manufacturers can make money because of the monopolistic market formed by policy barriers.

Such manufacturers are not replicable.

Just like India's richest man, the reason he became the richest man is because the Indian government entrusted him with a large number of projects and resources. So even if such a company is very successful, it has little impact on the business world as a whole.

But Spark is different.

Xinghuo made a lot of money right in front of them.

As a result, in a very short time, a wave of deconstruction of Spark swept through the American gaming industry, with the Japanese attributing Spark's success to having a good boss.

The Americans' decomposition is a systematic one, and some of their conclusions are quite interesting. For example, Lin Li has seen a special analysis by JPMorgan Chase.

The core logic behind why Spark's games are successful in the console market is that they provide a single-player-level gaming experience while employing a low-barrier-to-entry, pay-to-play approach.

In layman's terms, it's about attracting players to join first, and then charging them with a monthly subscription model, which initially seems cheaper than AAA games.

A game called Spark, if you only buy a monthly subscription, costs about the same for 12 months as a AAA title, but the content players experience is much more extensive.

There are many similar articles, and in addition to articles, a large number of "tutorials" and "courses" have also been released.

In this world, if you dare to say you're sick, there's bound to be someone who dares to say they have the cure.

The success of Spark has also attracted the attention of many overseas manufacturers. Large manufacturers have begun to try to launch their own dual-platform games, while small and medium-sized manufacturers have higher expectations for the Spark platform.

After all, as Spark's popularity grows, the number of players on the Spark platform is also increasing.

"It seems like Spark has released another single-player game?"

Just as Robert was watching the video, Rostov, another key member of the studio, walked over from the side.

"It seems so, but I haven't played it. I heard it's a dating sim? I just checked the news, and it says it's already sold a million copies."

"Really? Speaking of which, Spark is really strange this time. It didn't have any ads at all, yet it still managed to sell a million copies. That's amazing."

When the topic came up, Robert casually pointed to the television that was playing a live online course.

"The reason is that Xinghuo has a stable fan base, so even without promotion, it can rely on its fan base to support initial sales."

"is it?"

"probably."

Neither of them really knew the details. The reason why Spark didn't do a large-scale promotion this time was entirely because Tencent made the first move, and then the Perfect Strategy production team immediately took advantage of Tencent's traffic.

In fact, by that very evening, Xinghuo's publicity campaign had already begun.

It's not true what this training institution said about Spark relying on its fan base. Although Spark does have a fan base, if you don't promote these things, do you expect Spark platform players to actively seek them out?

This is actually how many developers in Europe and America who haven't yet launched their games on the Spark platform perceive Spark: they often hear that a certain game on Spark has become popular or that a certain game has made a lot of money.

There are many courses or opinions analyzing Spark on the internet, but few of them really get to the point.

"Alright, stop looking at these. It's already afternoon, time to get back to work."

Robert and Rostov had similarities in personality, but also many differences.

Before officially making the game, the two published a book together, with Robert writing and Rostov providing the illustrations.

Although the book didn't sell very well.

However, this laid the foundation for their later collaboration.

In terms of personality, Robert has a strong artistic flair... well, to be specific, he's free-spirited, and a certain degree of freedom is helpful for creative work.

However, excessive freedom can also cause problems, but fortunately Rostov was a relatively serious person.

Chapter 472 Cold War?

As friends, Robert listened to Rostov's advice, but sometimes Robert could be quite willful. For example, right now, even though it was past lunch break, he was still watching videos.

“This is what I do at work, Rostov. As creators, we need to take some operational-related courses.”

"Of course, that is one way, but our meeting this afternoon is about operations."

Robert became interested when he heard Rostov say that.

"What meeting?"

“An investor just called and asked us whether we want to log in on Steam, Spark, or both. We have to choose one.”

"Spark and Steam, don't you think this feels a bit like the Cold War? When did game developers have to choose sides...?"

After Robert finished speaking, he pressed the pause/play button on the remote control.

"So, would you choose the Soviet Union or the United States?"

Rostov was clearly also interested in this topic.

Both of them are Estonian.

As a former Soviet republic, Estonia was naturally influenced by Soviet culture. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although Estonia's presence was very weak, its overall development was relatively good.

The Estonian people, like those of other republics, had a rather complex relationship with the Soviet Union.

These are actually reflected in the game.

Therefore, both Rostov and Robert could always ramble on about ideological jokes and topics for a long time.

"Before making a choice, we need to figure out who the Soviet Union is and who the United States is."

During the conversation between the two.

Helen, the screenwriter from the creative team, came out.

He patted the two of them on the shoulder.

"Alright, you two geniuses, there's neither the Soviet Union nor the United States involved here, I'm casting my vote for Xinghuo."

"Helen, did you vote for that Spark Boy?"

The "Spark Boy" Rostov mentioned was a liaison officer at the European branch of the Spark platform. The boy was quite handsome and had a good relationship with Helen.

Like other divisions, Spark Europe has its own account managers, and these account managers do not only serve manufacturers who have joined Spark.

Manufacturers who haven't joined Spark are also their clients, since their salaries come from a percentage of the revenue shared by game developers who join the Spark platform.

This referral model dictates that these account managers must constantly track existing clients and urge those game developers who have already released games to quickly prepare new titles.

For those developers whose games haven't been released yet, we hope they can finish their games and put them on the Spark platform as soon as possible.

For publishers like Disco Elysium, which are about to be released but whose final platforms have not yet been determined, they are naturally the fat pigs for account managers like those at Spark.

The Spark account manager in charge of this area would visit every few days. He wouldn't disturb the normal development process; he would just bring Spark some game development materials.

They would occasionally lend a hand; for example, the Chinese translation of "Disco Elysium" was outsourced with the help of this liaison.

This is a classic example of an open conspiracy.

By trading cost for market share, Spark rapidly expanded its partners globally, forcing Steam to follow suit and establish its own account manager model.

They started investing in attracting developers.

However, judging from the current results, Spark is still more effective. Ultimately, this is because Spark is a new platform and the boss is willing to provide the necessary funding.