Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 379

In the present year, 2018.

E3 continues to maintain its immense popularity.

Lin Li even clearly remembers that the number of attendees at E3 that year reached a record high of 69200, although this was also E3's "last glory".

Chapter 458 Hindsight is always 20/20

Although Lin Li already has the idea of ​​replacing it and bringing together global manufacturers to create a summer-like game festival.

But the time is not yet ripe.

Moreover, Spark is still in the early stages of developing its platform strategy.

Therefore, Lin Li is still thinking about how Spark will play this crucial game at E3 this year.

Lin Li found a whiteboard.

I drew three circles on the whiteboard.

Facing the core members of Xinghuo, led by Su Shanshan, in the conference room, she explained the current situation to them while also outlining her own thoughts.

"Now, it is certain that both EPIC and STEAM will hold pre-show press conferences."

"At the same time, Bethesda and Paradox Interactive, these mainstays, were almost completely uninvolved."

"Their lack of participation does not mean they do not promote their products; it's because someone has approached them and wants to pay them to promote their products."

"Both EPIC and STEAM are expanding their reach. EPIC is mainly targeting Unreal Engine developers, and I've heard they've already reached a cooperation agreement with Bethesda."

As Lin Li spoke, he drew a circle around EPIC on the whiteboard, pulled out a line, and wrote "B社" (Bilibili is a company name in China).

"So EPIC's strategy is quite clear: use Bethesda's game booth, then combine it with low-tier platform subscriptions, and maybe even feign a partnership with Bethesda for Unreal Engine..."

"The core idea is..."

[Major titles + low commission rates + support for Unreal Engine game developers]

After writing this on the whiteboard.

The group exchanged bewildered glances; this was far too detailed.

It was like the EPIC boss was holding a meeting with them.

Lin Li didn't pay attention to everyone's expressions, and continued to analyze STEAM's strategy.

"From the current perspective, STEAM will also adopt EPIC's strategy, but their gameplay will likely change."

Speaking of it.

Lin Li first dragged an arrow below the words "Masterpiece" onto the STEAM circle and wrote "Count to 3".

"STEAM is very likely to use its own works to create hype, thereby accumulating popularity and the platform's expectations."

Then, Lin Li clicked on the words "low commission".

"Regarding the commission, I don't think STEAM will make any changes. However, they will probably describe a bunch of support programs for developers at the launch event to cover up the high commission."

"As for the last one, if nothing unexpected happens, Steam might bring back a game that previously topped the Steam sales charts, while also promoting new titles from those developers."

"Of course, there could be other ways."

After Lin Li finished speaking, applause rang out in the conference room.

Amidst applause.

Shimoda Shota, who was following Shiokawa back to headquarters for a work report, whispered to Shiokawa.

"You're really amazing, Mr. Lin. You're just like Zhuge Liang from ancient times."

The story of how Shimoda Shota, who later became the production manager of "Blazing Sky," came to Starfire is quite legendary.

In March of this year, Spark Japan launched a new round of recruitment expansion.

Because of the very low turnover rate of employees in Japan, Spark Japan was only able to recruit suitable people relatively easily through headhunters during the initial period after its establishment.

As Spark grows larger and larger.

The shortage of experienced hires is also growing.

Therefore, in addition to strengthening campus recruitment, Spark Japan has also begun another ingenious way to expand recruitment, namely through acquisitions.

Yao Meng has some experience in this regard.

The targets are companies that have achieved some success, but often not too much. After acquiring them with a large sum of money, the employees are then dispersed and expanded into various existing project teams at Spark Japan.

WFS was acquired by Spark under these circumstances.

After being acquired, it didn't even cause a ripple.

After all, by this time, Spark Japan could be considered a truly large corporation.

Lin Li only glanced at it when he signed the document.

That day, I didn't even realize that WFS was the studio that would later create "Blazing Sky," a game that was quite popular in Japan...

It wasn't until a week later, after reviewing some WFS project materials, that I realized what was going on.

Lin Li felt it was a pity that such a studio was directly split up.

However, he sighed and wrote the "Blazing Sky" project into his notebook.

Then he went off to attend to other matters.

Following the acquisition, Shimoda Shota, with his experience in operations and planning, was transferred to Spark's FGO department as Shiokawa's assistant.

Logically speaking, as Shioda Shota's deputy in the operation of FGO, he should not have been qualified to attend this core meeting.

However, Tomohiko Deguchi, who was originally temporarily in charge of developing Destiny's Path, began to form a new project team.

As the development of Destiny Trajectory gradually becomes routine, it's time to start preparing for the operational aspects.

Shiokawa is spending more and more of his time on the Destiny Track project.

So, starting in May of this year, after two months of observation, Shiokawa gradually handed over the affairs of FGO to Shimoda Shota.

As the largest project in the FGO project, the role of the game planner is quite important.

Therefore, before Shimoda Shota officially took office.

I still need to come back to report on my work.

However, before the performance review had even officially begun, General Manager Lin pulled everyone aside and started a meeting.

Thus, Shimoda Shohiro was able to get a glimpse of the whole picture through a small part.

Upon closer inspection, it was indeed quite surprising.

Like many Japanese game industry professionals, he wasn't particularly familiar with the global game industry, and many things were new to him, but that didn't stop him from feeling like he had traveled back to the Three Kingdoms period.

Listening to Zhuge Liang's pre-battle plans.

Although the two seem to have nothing in common, he just feels they are similar.

Although Shimoda Shota's voice wasn't loud, Lin Li still heard it.

Not only did I hear it.

He also replied with a sentence.

"I am not Zhuge Liang, I am Zhuge Liang after the fact."

He said a lame joke that only he could understand, and everyone else found it incomprehensible.

The atmosphere suddenly became a little awkward.

However, Lin Li didn't care about any of that.

He circled everything on the whiteboard and began to focus on the real issues of the meeting.

"What should we do in this situation?"

In the current platform war.

The path that Xinghuo has taken can be described as the most difficult.

The battle of platforms.

Ultimately, it's a battle of momentum, a battle of players, and a battle for traffic.

At this time, the world was divided into three.

STEAM has the strongest muscles. On the one hand, STEAM's self-developed capabilities have not completely deteriorated. On the other hand, STEAM has already formed an ecosystem.

There are a lot of players who spend money on Steam, and changing spending habits isn't something that's easy.

EPIC is not bad either.

With Fortnite's resources, traffic, and Unreal Engine, plus Bethesda's backing, it's really hard to imagine them losing.

In this round of "networking muscle" demonstration.

The Spark gaming tournament was somewhat useful, but the tournament schedule meant that this card couldn't be played during E3.

In the realm of anime-style games, Spark is an absolute powerhouse.

However, it will still be somewhat difficult to use anime-style games to boost traffic at E3.

and so.

Lin Li still needs to break the deadlock, and the catalyst for that breakthrough, judging from the current situation, still lies with Japanese game companies.

After all, Japan has the highest coverage of anime-style games.

Spark's foundation is in anime and manga games, and what it needs to do now is to quickly increase the intensity of Japanese game companies and bring more shock value to anime and manga games.

At this point, things have actually come full circle, which is why Lin Li felt that [Summer Spark] and [E3 Exhibition] were two separate events.

Yet they are also closely connected.

Chapter 459 Let this summer spark ignite the world

Lin Li attaches great importance to this year's "Summer Spark".

This is because the original schedule for the Summer Spark event was two weeks before E3.

For Xinghuo.

This is an opportunity.

Whether it's war or battle, in any business conflict, the key to winning is simply to leverage your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.

Specifically regarding Spark.

Avoiding weaknesses essentially means focusing on mainstream games to compete for the current Steam market.

From the Spark Games Competition to the layout of Spark single-player games, everything is based on this direction, but it takes time to make up for one's weaknesses.

And now, E3 is just around the corner.

If Xinghuo wants to seize this opportunity, it needs to focus on leveraging its strengths.

"To give the world a shock from the world of anime games."

This is Lin Li's core requirement for "Summer Spark".

Through the Summer Spark event, we aim to boost the flow, impact, and influence of our efforts.

Let's make this momentum bigger.

Then use this momentum to influence Japanese manufacturers.

Currently in Japan, Spark's main impact is on small and medium-sized game developers, as well as large corporations, especially those focused on single-player and console games, regarding Spark's success in mobile games.

It's just attracting attention.

Only a few people, like Kazuo Hirai, with an exceptionally keen strategic sense, would actively seek out the spark.

but.

Even so, the current cooperation between Sony and Spark remains superficial.

Kazuo Hirai is no longer the CEO of Sony.

Lin Li needs to demonstrate something further if he wants to gain Sony's full support.