Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 808

"Huh? The Spark server crashed? Global maintenance compensation is being released!?"

"A free 10-pull plus a 10% off monthly card coupon?"

"It's trending on Weibo? Really? That's incredible."

"How did this happen? I need to check the announcement..."

After Huang Wenfeng finished playing a Holy Grail War game, he had just switched out of the game when he saw the chat barrage refreshing with the same message: the Spark server had crashed.

I logged onto Weibo and took a look.

Hey, believe it or not, the top trending topic on Weibo is that the Spark server crashed.

"Wait a minute, I've been playing since the server opened, and it hasn't crashed yet!"

"Oh, the Japanese servers crashed?"

After searching for a while, Huang Wenfeng quickly found the source of the information: Xinghuo's server had indeed crashed, but it wasn't a Chinese server; it was a Japanese server.

According to the announcement posted by Spark Japan.

The entire Starfire Japan Destiny Trail server began to experience continuous fluctuations in the third hour after its launch, with network instability and recharge system outages lasting for about thirty minutes.

Spark Japan sincerely apologizes for this and has issued compensation to all servers.

Due to Spark's global operating strategy, even though other servers were not affected by server fluctuations, they still received compensation.

It's like having benefits fall from the sky while you're sitting at home.

Spark Japan subsequently explained why this situation occurred.

In short, there were too many people.

Even though Spark Japan had made thorough preparations, no one expected that a single server in Japan would reach a peak of 430 million concurrent users on its first day...

The number of PS4 players exceeds 200 million, which is truly staggering, considering that the total number of PS4 units sold in Japan this year is only over 500 million.

In addition to more than 200 million PS4 players, there are also more than 170 million mobile gamers, a number that far exceeds Spark Japan's expectations.

Keep in mind that this is the number of people online at the same time.

This isn't the number of account registrations. If the Destiny's Path server hadn't crashed, this number would definitely have increased.

Although Spark Japan had anticipated that a large number of Japanese students might use their mobile phones to play the game, even the most optimistic person couldn't have predicted this number—it's simply too exaggerated...

Japan's total population is only 100 million, so 4.3 million is roughly one-twentieth of Japan's total population. If converted to the same proportion in China, that number would be 50 million people online at the same time.

Can you imagine a game with 50 million people online at the same time?

The spark of China is beyond imagination.

Japan, too, cannot imagine such a spark.

Logically speaking, given the bandwidth requirements of anime-style games on servers, it should be able to handle at least 400 million bandwidth, or even more.

But unfortunately...

The game includes PVP gameplay, so when most players finished the prologue and started playing other gameplay modes...

Data interaction between servers and players began to surge.

The final straw that broke the server's back was the Japanese players' insane spending on in-game purchases.

Due to multiple factors, Xinghuo's servers in Japan became unstable. Fortunately, Japan and China are not far apart, and there were backup plans in place.

After urgently deploying some servers from the Spark platform, the crisis was resolved.

The crisis was resolved, but the impact was severe. Fortunately, Xinghuo's public relations and operations have always been excellent, and they immediately responded with a ten-pack of coupons.

It immediately put the scene in a state of calm.

As a result, an unusual reversal occurred on the internet, with players worldwide praising the Japanese players for doing a good job, and Japanese internet users even taking pride in how Japanese players' spending money to overwhelm the Spark servers.

Although I don't know what they're proud of... they are indeed very proud.

Chapter 438 Paying the Price for Love

Japanese server players are so enthusiastic they crashed the servers, resulting in massive global benefits...

This is the name given to it by Taiwanese gaming media.

This can also be considered a summary of this inexplicable celebration.

~~~

At this time, the global internet presented a very strange situation: players around the world kept praising the Japanese for doing a good job and for making a fortune in Spark's gold coins.

On the other hand, many Chinese players joked internally that Destiny Trail might be the game least afraid of going bankrupt in the entire Spark game, even if Chinese players don't spend a single penny.

Even those Japanese "pay-to-win" pigs could feed Destiny's Trail...

That's actually a bit harsh.

In a sense, however, this statement is absolutely correct.

Japanese gamers have completely different spending habits than Chinese gamers, whether it's anime or games.

The consumer philosophy of "paying for love" has been deeply ingrained in the minds of Japanese gamers by major Japanese manufacturers through various activities and long-term marketing.

But there's a prerequisite for paying for love: you have to make Japanese players feel loved.

This is something that looks simple but is difficult to do.

But if it succeeds, the loyalty of Japanese players is quite good.

Taking Starfire as an example, for an old game like Girls Frontline, its revenue is basically most stable in Japan globally, if we span from its launch in 16 to 19.

Over three years, Japan's revenue followed a slow upward curve, which flattened out in 18 and remained flat until 19.

Many Japanese players of Battlefront Girls are the type who don't log into the game normally, but when they see an event, they immediately rush back to the game, shout "waifu!" and then spend money on in-game purchases.

Many people who spend money on in-game purchases may not have time to participate in events due to work or other commitments.

You might not want to play the game, but you definitely have to spend money on in-game purchases.

Just like many Japanese artists' parody pictures on Pixiv, whenever there is an event, the mascot of the Battlefront Girls, wearing a housewife's apron, smiles and reaches out.

That means it's time to hand over my wife's salary.

There are also variations, such as wearing a maid outfit to indicate that it's time to pay the required taxes.

Similar memes spread from Pixiv after each new version update of Battlefront Girls, gradually spreading to the Japanese gaming community, and then to the rest of the world.

Later on, "paying off one's wife's taxes" became a famous saying among many Japanese gamers when spending money on in-game purchases.

"Am I spending money on in-game purchases?! I'm just paying my wife's dues!"

Whether I play it or not is secondary; I definitely have to spend money on in-game purchases for my wife.

This is why, even three years after the game's launch, whenever 95 releases any new events, skins, or even new merchandise, the amount of money spent on Battlefront Girls skyrockets.

There's even a legend circulating in the surrounding industries.

Do you want to sell your products at a higher price? Then go talk to EVA about a collaboration.

Do you want to sell more products? Then look for collaborations with Battlefront Girls.

It might seem absurd—why would you spend money on in-game purchases if you don't even play the game?—but in reality, Japanese players are quite like that, and this is reflected in the operation of FGO.

Ultimately, for many Japanese gamers, this game has become a way to satisfy their spiritual needs as they play it.

There are many similar games in the entire Spark ecosystem.

Some of the credit goes to Xinghuo itself, while others are the combined power of the IP and Xinghuo.

Eastern fantasy worlds and Destiny's Path can both be considered benchmarks in this regard.

Among them, Fate/stay night, thanks to the Fate IP it's based on, became an instant hit, especially in Japan.

The game's fate was sealed with a simultaneous global launch. On the second day after the launch, it reached its peak concurrent online users. This was highlighted by the official Spark website, Spark platform, Spark mobile app, Spark TV app, as well as on Douyin and Bilibili.

A major announcement was released across all channels.

That is, the number of concurrent online users of "Destiny's Path" across all platforms worldwide exceeded 800 million.

This figure surpasses the 750 million concurrent players worldwide achieved by League of Legends in 2016, ranking third in global gaming history.

Above this number of online players, only Minecraft has achieved 10 million, and World of Warcraft achieved 13.1 million concurrent online players globally during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in August 2009.

800 million! Simultaneous online viewers!!

This data spread like wildfire, quickly engulfing the entire gaming industry.

Lin Li himself was somewhat surprised, considering that in his previous life, the highest number of concurrent online users for Genshin Impact was only around 300 million, less than 400 million.

The previous version of Xinghuo's Eastern Fantasy World, Xinghe Paradise, only had a peak of over 500 million concurrent users, and it gradually declined after reaching its peak.

The fact that "Fate/stay night" was able to surpass 800 million copies sold in one go is largely thanks to Japan. While Fate's IP has influence in China, it certainly doesn't have that much influence.

Of the peak of 8 million, the entire Japanese server contributed 4.5 million, while the Chinese server, which is 10 times larger than Japan, contributed less than 2 million. The remaining servers around the world contributed more than 1 million to the Divine Realm server.

This analogy is the exact opposite of "Galaxy Paradise," where Chinese players contributed the majority of the revenue, while Japanese and other regions contributed a smaller share.

But no matter how you look at it, 800 million is 800 million.

Because of this remarkable achievement, Destiny's Path once again offered a ten-pull, and the subsequent promotional focus was also placed on the eight million simultaneous online viewers worldwide.

Especially for the China and Europe/America regions.

The marketing strategy focuses on leveraging players' herd mentality, capitalizing on the fact that so many people are playing it, so I'll download it and give it a try too.

This trick is quite effective.

Although the number of concurrent online users gradually declined, the number of registered users for "Destiny's Path" continued to climb. On the third day, Spark issued another announcement.

The same channels were used as before, and the announcement contained only one message: congratulations on the number of registered users of "Destiny's Path" exceeding 20 million, followed by another 10-pull event.

However, this time the promotion is not for external audiences, but rather for internal audiences to retain the current game users.

The biggest difference between anime-style games and other games is their fan base, or what we might call fandom culture.

Many people dislike fan culture, but in fact, the term itself is neutral; it's just a definition. What's truly annoying are those who use fan culture to attack others and gain traffic through these attacks and slanders.

The reason they can generate traffic is because anime-style games naturally have a fan base.

In Spark's timeline, if we look solely at fan culture, Spark itself is the leader in fan culture, and this is not something Lin Li intentionally did.

Can Lin Li change fan culture?

Obviously not.

In fact, Spark has quite a few fans in this timeline, and Spark's game community can be said to be a relatively active community worldwide.

Chapter 439 Misawa Sachika

The fandom itself implies that fans trust the manufacturers.

The collapse of fan culture often doesn't come from external attacks, but rather from manufacturers betraying the players first, which then causes the fan culture to split.

Some players turned against the game, while others fiercely defended it. The intense conflict between the two sides ultimately led to pressure from public opinion within the community, resulting in the collapse of the game's reputation.

This is unavoidable because the core logic of paying for anime and manga games—the desire to play for love—predetermines this outcome.

Players who enjoy traditional pay-to-win games might get annoyed and complain about the developers, but that's it; they might just quit playing.

If players of anime-style games feel disgusted, they will feel betrayed by the developers and have lost their trust, leading to strong rejection.

This is the ultimate reason why manufacturers need to be more cautious about the content they produce, given how many anime and manga companies have gone bankrupt in the past.

It's because when they are successful, or about to succeed, they forget that they are a company that profits from creating paid content for love.

When you yourself don't love this thing, when you treat anime and manga as a commodity, then your product will definitely be devoid of love.

How can you expect players to pay for something you yourself don't like?

When it comes to taking responsibility for content, Spark is arguably the most cautious and responsible in the industry, including real-name registration of copywriters, selection of copywriters, copywriting guidelines, art principles, and even the upper and lower limits of character illustrations for each game.

Many employees within Xinghuo don't understand why this aspect is so strict. Fortunately, over the past three years, Lin Li has repeatedly emphasized that the core of paying for love is content first and service spirit.

By 19, these things had become a kind of spirit or values ​​within Xinghuo.

Therefore, I'm not worried about the proliferation of such places. However, on the other hand, since a fan culture has already formed, especially in a place like Japan...

Spark also helps maintain the community atmosphere, and data reporting is a very effective way to do this.