Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 316

"Go and see."

Although Ayane Sakura doesn't usually like to join in the fun, it's different at carnivals. After all, places with lots of people at carnivals are either places where you can get freebies or places that are fun.

The two went over to take a look.

It's really not simple.

This is actually where you draw cards.

Simply put, Spark has turned characters from its various games into card packs and is selling them.

This is considered to be the main product line promoted by Xinghuo's peripheral operations department this year.

There's really nothing to it.

Many manufacturers are doing this kind of "two birds with one stone" approach.

You can seal the character illustrations into small cards, categorize them into different rarities, and then put them in a card bag to exchange for money.

The world of anime... it's truly amazing...

The card pack drawing process isn't anything special. Logically speaking, even with the added benefit of Spark's IP, there shouldn't be so many people queuing up.

"Why are so many people buying?"

"Wait a minute! There's a gacha animation too!?"

Sakura Ayane saw the images on the TVs on both sides of the queue, and more questions began to pop into her mind. Then, when she saw a new animation...

Sakura Ayane was even more surprised.

"Oh, isn't that the voice I did?"

On the television screens on both sides of the road, a short animation of only a dozen seconds flashed by. The content of the animation was very simple: Type 97 was pulling the Commander in a flower bed and asking the Commander to take a picture of her.

With the commander's click.

A photograph was frozen in time.

This photo is of a card.

"What does that mean? Does it mean every single character illustration has an animation? Wait, that's impossible, the workload would be too much..."

"Wow, it really is."

After walking a few steps forward, Ayane Sakura noticed that there was a KT board next to the TV, which showed how to play the so-called "Star Card".

simply put.

The peripheral operations department of Xinghuo Games created cards for characters from several popular Xinghuo Games games, but these cards are not directly reused game assets.

Regardless of rarity, each one is drawn individually by the artist.

In addition, there is a QR code on the bottom right corner of the back of all the cards. Scanning the QR code will take you to a short animated video like this.

Custom animations for the character illustrations are available on all cards.

The animation is set up so that the protagonists from different IPs suddenly get a camera and start recording their daily lives with the characters.

The content of the animation varies depending on the IP.

Take the Girls on the Frontline as an example.

Just as Ayane Sakura saw, most of the interactions were between the commander and the androids.

There are photos from when we celebrated Suomi's birthday. When these photos are frozen in time, they become the caption: "[Suomi's Birthday]".

There's a photo of me and 95 watching the moon together; once captured, it's simply "Under the Moonlight."

There are also photos of him and OZ-81 Mars visiting a Soviet museum; the snapshot reads, "Comrade, hello."

These animations vary in length from a dozen seconds to a minute, depending on the rarity of the card.

The higher the rarity, the longer it takes.

Xinghuo did not abandon quality control for these animations despite their short length.

After all, having their own animation company allows them to come up with many creative ways to monetize their animation production.

This was their first attempt at something like this, so they naturally couldn't afford to ruin their reputation. Therefore, the animation for each card was of very high quality.

"This is so interesting!! I want photo 95!!"

“I want one too, but I want Saber’s. I’ll go line up over there.”

Faced with such a novel card collection, Ayane Sakura and Maaya Uchida both became interested.

The two began queuing with great enthusiasm.

While queuing, she also learned that the card pack was sold in two ways: one was to buy it directly for 19.9 yuan a pack.

Because the number of card packs prepared on-site was limited.

Therefore, each person is limited to a maximum of 5 packs per game.

Each pack contains seven cards, and one of the seven cards is guaranteed to be a gold card.

Another option is to receive a free bag when you buy merchandise worth 100 yuan.

In fact, the Xinghuo peripheral operations department initially launched this product with the aim of promoting the surrounding shopping malls, so there was no intention to price it for sale.

It was intended as a gift.

However, for something to become popular, it still needs a base of players, which is why offline card pack sales were opened during today's carnival.

Meanwhile, to prevent players at the venue from reselling the cards, card packs were also sold online simultaneously.

Same as offline.

Online, there are also account level restrictions and purchase limits. Each person can only buy five packs of a single work.

This was intentionally done by the operations department.

Other companies are eager to sell more, but Spark strictly controls the flow of cards, ensuring a certain amount of cards are available on the market while limiting the speed at which they are released.

This is how a certain expectation premium can be created.

That's why players will spend money at Spark's merchandise store for card packs.

This open strategy, combined with Xinghuo's increasingly comprehensive peripheral mall, can achieve a synergistic effect greater than the sum of its parts.

What?! You want a card holder? Then hurry over to the mall and check it out!

What? You think you have too much stuff and don't need it? Then take a look at this 99 yuan pack of four large boxes of Oriental co-branded facial tissues!!

[And this, Amiya's milk in collaboration with Yili is pretty good, how about Artoria's shampoo? And Rin Tohsaka's shower gel!]

[If all else fails, there are also garbage bags co-branded by the three AI brothers.]

These are all daily necessities, you won't regret buying them, no cheating, honest and reliable. Since you'll need them anyway, why not buy from Xinghuo? Good quality, collaborations, and most importantly, they even give away card packs! If you happen to pull an SSR, you can resell it on Xianyu (a second-hand marketplace) to recoup some money!!!

Although Spark's official channels wouldn't promote it this way.

However, with the popularity of card packs, their abstract value will inevitably drive up sales of Spark merchandise.

Chapter 382 Catching Chicks

In order for an item to have collectible value, in addition to the quality of the card holder itself and the fact that the cards can be clearly identified as authentic, the market circulation rate must also be controlled.

Spark has put a lot of effort into verifying the authenticity of its cards.

Not only did they choose top-notch printing technology, but they also used some anti-counterfeiting technologies and added an identification code to the back of each card.

As for the circulation rate in the market, the Xinghuo Peripheral Operations Department will also regulate it. If the price of cards in the second-hand market is too high, they will directly release card packs. If the price of cards in the second-hand market is too low, they will release them directly.

Then we need to tighten the reins.

However, Xinghuo itself did not actually want to make money by selling card packs. Its starting point was to expand the user base of Xinghuo's peripheral store.

Only if the official Spark team takes control of itself can this system avoid collapsing.

Only by holding the belief that it's okay to fail and that we can just sell it as a normal piece of merchandise, is there any chance of making this a success.

If this is accomplished, there won't be any real loss for ordinary players.

Because any collectible, in essence, uses the money of wealthy players to balance the spending of ordinary players.

Ordinary players might buy a few card packs at most, hoping to get rare cards, or they might choose the Starfire Shop when buying consumables to get free card packs.

Only a minority of people actually use cash to exchange for specific cards on second-hand websites.

Xinghuo doesn't make money from this, but the foot traffic it brings is something Xinghuo needs.

Who knows, many years from now, Xinghuo's peripheral mall might become an extremely peculiar e-commerce platform.

After all, online celebrities can sell products.

Why can't the mascot of Xinghuo Group be included?

~~~

"Five packs of the same kind, thank you."

After finishing her speech, Ayane Sakura showed the staff her translation software to confirm that her meaning had been conveyed, and then skillfully took out her Alipay account.

The staff member glanced at her with surprise, not because they were surprised that she had bought a family bucket.

After all, Spark only made card packs for 5 different IPs this time.

These are: *Battlefront Girls*, *Fate*, *Touhou Project*, *Azur Lane*, and *Arknights*.

Buy all five IPs, which is 25 per pack.

It adds up to 500 yuan.

This amount is certainly not small, but it's not excessive either.

In addition, although official staff prohibited it, some people at the scene had already started offering high prices to buy gold cards for specific characters.

If it weren't for the security guards on site...

Many players even paid extra on the spot to sell the packs to wealthy players who were addicted to opening them.

Even if they can't be directly transferred, many players choose to buy everything they can, then unpack the items and exchange them.

Therefore, the staff were not surprised that Ayane Sakura bought them all together.

Instead, they were surprised by Ayane Sakura's voice.

It's not a big deal if you don't speak while wearing a mask, but once you start talking, it becomes very obvious.

The staff recognized Ayane Sakura, but didn't point it out.

But a young woman standing behind her also recognized her.

I held back for a moment, but in the end I couldn't help myself and asked a question in slightly broken Japanese.

"Excuse me, are you Ms. Sakura?"

At this moment, if Ayane Sakura reacts quickly, she can say that she made a mistake, or quietly tell others that she doesn't want to be recognized, and there won't be any problem.

But she had just received the cards and was in a moment of excitement.

I answered casually, "Yes."

Then...

And then... it turned into a live fan meet-and-greet.

Good guy.

If it weren't for that sentence that came from afar.

"Look, look! The person with the penguins over there got beaten up!!"

Everyone started looking in one direction, otherwise Ayane Sakura and Maaya Uchida really wouldn't have been able to escape.

"Who got hit?"

"He seems to be a senior executive at Tencent."

"A senior executive from Tencent? What are they doing here?"

"Come on, let's go see some fun."

Domestic gamers are quite excited about watching the fun.