Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 471

"People are just like computers; I need to give them a proper restart tonight."

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Resetting the Studio

"Mr. Lin? You wanted to see me?"

Li Mingxuan entered the office.

He also seemed a bit reserved.

It was his first time in Lin Li's office, and he was a little nervous.

Lin Li looked up and saw Li Mingxuan's nervous expression. He smiled and gestured for him to sit down.

"Li Mingxuan, right? Relax, this isn't an interrogation room."

Lin Li jokingly said this in an attempt to ease his tension.

"No, I'm not nervous."

Li Mingxuan smiled awkwardly and sat down in the chair opposite Lin Li.

He was a bit older than Lin Li, wearing a plaid shirt and with a shaved head. Fortunately, he was decent-looking and didn't look sleazy.

She just looks a bit old.

"When did you shave your head? I remember you didn't have this hairstyle when I inspected the engine department last time."

Lin Li looked at Li Mingxuan's bald head with curiosity, his tone relaxed and friendly.

Li Mingxuan touched his bald head, feeling somewhat moved. He hadn't expected that Lin Li would still remember him.

As for Lin Li's question, it wasn't the first time he had answered it: "Oh, this, actually there's nothing special about it. A few days ago, that kid Huang Qiang went bald and shaved his head, saying it was embarrassing, so as his mentor, I simply joined him."

Lin Li laughed heartily upon hearing this.

I've heard of people drinking alcohol and having to drink with someone, but I've never heard of someone getting a haircut and having to drink with someone too.

The two chatted for a bit.

Lin Li got straight to the point.

"You're in charge of setting up the reset studio in Shanghai now, right? How's it going? Is it ready to use?"

Reset the studio.

It is the implementing agency for the Spark Phoenix Project.

After E3, Lin Li had a new idea for the Spark platform: to collect well-known old games from around the world and remaster them for exclusive use.

Lin Li is the type of person who gets things done quickly and has strong execution skills.

While collecting games, the structure of the remastering studios in Japan and China was quickly established.

In Shanghai.

The person in charge of this studio is Li Mingxuan.

"Yes, we've almost finished recruiting people. We're currently preparing for the project launch, and we should be able to finish in two more days."

The establishment of Xinghuo's reset studio in Shanghai was not very smooth.

One major reason is the high manpower required to reset the studio.

Because Reset Studios is not like those single project teams that make games on a single project, once Reset Studios got the hang of it, it became like an assembly line.

It keeps resetting.

The required manpower is naturally quite large.

Logically speaking, given Xinghuo's current reputation in the industry...

Hiring is very simple.

However, as Spark expanded in scale, coupled with the global craze for anime and manga, various companies were recruiting, and the local talent pool in Shanghai became somewhat stretched thin.

The studio, originally planned to have 800 people, only managed to recruit 200 before Lin Li called it off.

It's not that we can't recruit anyone, but rather that the people we do recruit are of very low skill level.

Lin Li doesn't mind turning it into a training course.

One of the goals of resetting the studio was to provide talent for other Spark studios.

but!

There is a selection process for training people. When Lin Li saw that more than half of the applicants in the program department were women, he felt something was wrong.

It's not discrimination, but rather a violation of common sense.

After a thorough investigation, the personnel department quickly discovered that there was indeed a problem.

In short, Xinghuo encountered a fraudulent recruitment scheme.

After a lot of chaos, the entire project team, despite interviewing more than 800 people, ultimately only hired 200 people before stopping.

This is why Lin Li is considering establishing branches in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, and other places.

The talent pool in Shanghai has been completely drained by Xinghuo in a short period of time; there's nothing left to extract from them.

Because resetting the studio doesn't actually require such high-end talent for the work it does.

Once the process of resetting the studio in Shanghai is complete, we can directly replicate the experience, making it much easier to build studios in other places.

It is precisely because of this situation that Xinghuo's human resources department has added a project initiation and preparation period when initiating new projects.

Before officially starting the project, we take a week to assess everyone's skills.

Then, we conducted intensive training on Spark Engine, and invited veteran employees to share their insights on various commonly used skills.

We should try to avoid wasting time on trivial issues after formal research and development has begun.

I took a few minutes to listen to Li Mingxuan's report.

Lin Li nodded.

"Mingxuan, I've heard from other people that you have a special connection with Heroes of Might and Magic, is that right?"

Upon hearing Lin Li's question, Li Mingxuan immediately realized what was going on.

"Is it going to be a reset of Heroes of Might and Magic?" He then nodded firmly.

"Yes, Mr. Lin, my previous work was somewhat related to Heroes of Might and Magic."

To rise to the position of head of the reset studio at Xinghuo, Li Mingxuan was certainly no ordinary person.

To know.

Although Reset Studio uses the name of "reset," it is essentially a studio with its own independent finances and personnel.

Li Mingxuan defeated many competitors to finally get this position.

His ability to obtain this position is largely due to his industry experience and age.

At Xinghuo, the employees are generally quite young.

The majority are in their 20s.

Including management positions, very few are over 30.

Li Mingxuan, who is exactly 34 years old this year, can be described as a complete veteran of the industry.

Twelve years ago, he entered the industry for his first project.

As luck would have it, it was Tianqing Digital, the developer of Heroes of Might and Magic Online.

At the time, he was just a newcomer. The reason he joined Sunny Day was because of Heroes of Might and Magic.

For his generation, the words "Heroes of Might and Magic" seemed to have a magical power, and he himself was a loyal player of Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

For Li Mingxuan, being able to join the Heroes of Might and Magic Online project was, in a way, a dream come true.

After entering the industry with a passion for Heroes of Might and Magic.

And then... there was no "after that".

Heroes of Might and Magic Online made Li Mingxuan understand what dreams and life are.

Later, as expected, Heroes of Might and Magic Online, like other big IP works at the time such as Lord of the Rings Online, failed to make any waves in the domestic market.

It sank directly to the seabed.

Li Mingxuan, thanks to this experience, later came to Ubisoft China.

He also participated in part of the development of Heroes of Might and Magic VI.

More than a decade has passed, and he has become a veteran in the industry. By chance, he joined Xinghuo, relying on his solid programming skills and stronger adaptability than fresh graduates.

He quickly mastered the Spark Engine and gradually became familiar with the Spark Engine department, eventually becoming a division head.

I usually work with Borg to update the game engine, mainly focusing on 3D to 2D rendering.

Originally, Li Mingxuan thought he would probably only work in a second-tier position for the rest of his life.

However, this was followed by an internal referral selection announcement from Xinghuo.

The person to be in charge of the reset studio should be highly experienced, preferably someone who is familiar with, has played, or has even participated in the production of old games.

This referral announcement instantly ignited Li Mingxuan's excitement.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Heroes Are Invincible

Li Mingxuan's excitement had two layers of meaning.

One reason is the desire to improve oneself.

Secondly, there were the four words Lin Li mentioned.

Heroes of Might and Magic.

These four words have different meanings for different people.

For many people, this might just be a game, a label, or a symbol.

But for Li Mingxuan...

These four words have a deeper meaning.

Many people have a first love complex because the memory of first love tends to be romanticized over time.

Li Mingxuan had a similar experience.

But his first love wasn't for a person, but for a project.

This project is the Heroes of Might and Magic Online game that I encountered at Tianqing Digital back then.

It's important to know that Heroes of Might and Magic Online didn't have Bao Si right from the start.

On the contrary, when Heroes of Might and Magic Online was first announced, its influence was quite strong. At that time, the appeal of the Heroes of Might and Magic IP was greater than it is now.

Just like the US dollar when it was still pegged to gold and the current US dollar.

Although it is the same thing, the influence is completely different.

Back then, even online novels like Heroes of Might and Magic could be categorized into their own separate genre.

Moreover, many of these works are of high quality, and these extended online novels have further boosted the popularity of the Heroes of Might and Magic IP.

So much so that when Tianqing Digital announced Heroes of Might and Magic Online, it was truly a highly anticipated event.

In the beginning, there were also many Heroes of Might and Magic fans in the production team, and everyone came up with countless ideas together.

Although these ideas seem outrageous now.

But at that time, the emotion of creating the game together gave Li Mingxuan a great shock.

After leaving Tianqing Digital, he kept thinking about it.

If he could have done this or that back then, with that popularity, he might have been able to do that or that as well.

This mindset is also why he later went to Ubisoft.

Even after joining Ubisoft, Heroes of Might and Magic VI didn't make much of a splash; life defeated his dreams.

Then he turned his attention to the engine.