Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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How would you describe Spark's player New Year's greeting event?

Xu Menglu was unaware of this.

But even though he's just a casual observer who doesn't actually play Spark games much, he was still incredibly excited after watching it.

Two things impressed him most during the entire New Year's greeting ceremony.

One is that, whether in China or abroad, people always say "Happy New Year" at the end, and some even specifically mention the Chinese New Year.

As a Chinese person, he felt quite proud of it.

Especially the congratulatory segment with guests midway through the event.

The emergence of voice actors like Nana Mizuki and Miyuki Sawashiro was somewhat expected.

The appearance of Wu Jing and Ng Man-tat from "The Wandering Earth," along with a 30-second trailer, was somewhat unexpected, but it's understandable that they were there to promote the film of the same name.

But when Yui Aragaki and Satomi Ishihara appeared with smiles and offered their New Year's greetings, many people were already surprised.

When the main actors in Marvel were celebrating.

When Robert Downey Jr. said Happy New Year.

The live chat crashed.

[Is Xinghuo really that powerful?]

Isn't this giving away too much face?

Such comments appeared one after another.

But in reality, it's not that Xinghuo has a lot of face.

There's a saying that even the wealthiest people have distant relatives, and the same applies to business.

Given Xinghuo's size in Japan, celebrities like Yui Aragaki and Satomi Ishihara have all worked with them on advertising campaigns.

The US is doing this because Marvel's third Avengers movie is going to be released domestically, which is essentially the same as the publicity campaign for The Wandering Earth.

of course.

Players don't care about all that.

Seeing familiar celebrities come to congratulate you naturally makes you feel proud.

Who cares what their background is, as long as it's fun.

However, there is also a group of people who experience both pleasure and pain.

This group consists of news media outlets related to gaming.

"Damn it, can't people even celebrate the Spring Festival?!"

"Hey, didn't we let you pass? The New Year's greetings were sent out a day early, but not on New Year's Eve. Hurry up and get it done, I don't want to have to work overtime on New Year's Day."

If media work is a mix of pleasure and pain, then most content creators who edit and share clips are genuinely having a great time.

The game's content can be sliced.

Foreign broadcasters and celebrities' reactions to the videos can be used to create another round of video clips.

The reactions to these programs themselves can also be segmented.

There's so much content that we couldn't finish cutting it all from before the Lunar New Year until the end of the holiday.

Imagine.

During this Spring Festival, these clips will spread around the world, eventually converging on the New Year's Greeting Festival itself, and becoming the best promotional video for Spark Games.

At this point, only an hour after Xu Menglu finished watching the entire New Year's greeting ceremony, the number of views had already skyrocketed to tens of millions. In a few more days, it wouldn't be impossible for it to break 100 million.

"Spark Games, that's amazing..."

"This popularity, this level of player support... when will I ever reach that level..."

Seeing the success of others naturally makes one think about one's own situation.

Xu Menglu is the same.

He is the owner of Flashwing Games and also the producer of Steel Rider Girls.

Just at the end of the year, around the same time as Tencent's "Girls' Frontline 2", Flashwing Games' "Steel Rider Girls" had just completed its first test on the 360 ​​Games platform.

If the first test of Girls' Frontline 2 was met with a barrage of criticism...

The first test of "Steel Rider Girls" was even worse; no one even bothered to criticize it.

This outcome is actually quite normal.

First of all, the 360 ​​Games platform itself has a poor reputation.

In the realm of anime and manga games, this approach falls even further short.

Secondly, 360 Games has very few distribution channels, which is a disadvantage for many companies that see the potential of the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market and want to get involved.

360 has absolutely no experience in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market.

The largest source of traffic comes from the pop-up windows of 360 antivirus software.

The traffic brought in through such advertising channels is already limited, and even if it is, it's not the target audience for "Steel Rider Girls".

In addition, the game itself lacked polish, and although the test was eventually completed, the test results were very poor.

The only consolation is...

Players who have played for more than an hour have given it a very high rating, and many players say it has a promising future.

But the problem is.

Capital doesn't recognize any promising future.

Thus, Xu Menglu faced two paths.

One option is to launch it directly as a hardcore, small-scale game, even if it seems risky.

The second option is to start over.

It incorporates more cute girl elements, aiming to emulate the top-tier anime series, Battlefront Girls.

It stands to reason.

360 should support the first point.

Capital pursues efficiency, but this time, things are different.

360 Games, as Flashwing Games' largest investor, also supports a complete overhaul.

At the end of February, Xu Menglu created the first remastered version of the demo.

After seeing this version of the demo, 360 was very satisfied and subsequently decided to sell its shares in Flashwing Games.

...

Yes.

Any talk of supporting a complete overhaul is all fake.

It was just to get Xu Menglu to make the demo.

In the last test, it wasn't just Xu Menglu who saw that 360 couldn't make good anime-style games.

360 itself also felt that this market was not suitable for them.

Instead of continuing to invest, it would be better to take advantage of the popularity of the anime and manga concept and sell the project as a package.

In their past life, 360 succeeded. They sold Flashwing Games to Bilibili for a high price and then used the money they earned to invest in World of Tanks.

But in this world line.

Many more people want to buy Flashwing games, thanks to the existence of Spark games.

The entire ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market is currently booming.

Bilibili is full of all sorts of plans and code names.

Currently, there are at least dozens, if not hundreds, of anime-style mobile games that have been approved for development in China.

For games like Flashwing Games, which already have a demo and can be launched in a short period of time.

Capital can be said to be directly groveling before them.

When 360 Games announced that it was going to sell Flashwing Games.

Bilibili, NetEase, Tencent, Perfect World, and other major companies have all extended offers to us.

Bilibili offered the most outrageous acquisition price, reaching 80 million yuan. This is a studio that only has a demo.

Chen Rui was able to offer this price with such confidence.

It's because Bilibili in this world has a smoother path in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) mobile game channel compared to its previous life.

This trend mainly focuses on FGO.

Apart from FGO, almost all other self-developed games, unsurprisingly, collapsed, just like in the previous game.

However, the revenue from operating just one game, FGO, was enough for Bilibili to seek an IPO this year, even with the support of Spark.

Since we're going public...

Bilibili naturally wants to achieve more, in addition to continuing to act as the agent for the Chinese versions of Naruto and Bleach developed by Spark.

In terms of independent research and development, Bilibili has been frantically recruiting and acquiring talent from all over the world.

However, there are differences between acquisitions.

Chapter 326 Why is there no spark?

In contrast, Xinghuo conducts detailed investigations into every plan and every acquisition.

Bilibili's acquisition highlights the fact that someone is foolish and has too much money.

Throughout 17, Bilibili completed three acquisitions.

They acquired Qianlong Xincheng, the team that later developed the blockbuster IP "Slud".

They acquired Xinyuan Interactive, the development team behind "Chrysalis: Abyss Angel," a project team that had a huge marketing campaign but ultimately failed to launch.

They acquired Huaren Art & Electronics, the team that made "The Tale of the Gods".

Now, an olive branch has been extended to Xu Menglu.

Although Bilibili is lacking in many aspects, it shows a lot of sincerity.

Chen Rui even wrote a personal invitation letter, guaranteeing that he could continue to work on the production team and promising that Bilibili would not interfere with the game's development during the research and development phase.

There is plenty of funding.

but..

When 360 brought back a bunch of negotiation results to Flashwing Games, they confidently handed over cooperation agreements to the Flashwing team.

When it was in front of me.

What they received, however, was a statement they had never expected.

The core members of the Flashwing team were not surprised to receive offers from major companies like Tencent and NetEase.

It's not surprising that Bilibili was willing to spend 80 million.

Instead, it was after quickly skimming through the documents.

They asked the question almost in unison.

Why isn't there a Spark game?

"Didn't Spark Games make a offer?"

"You didn't ask Xinghuo, did you?"

Face this problem.

360 Games initially tried to stall, but the consensus among the Flashwing team was that they would not make a decision without consulting Spark.

Ironically, when Flashwing was sold to 360, it was worried about being taken over, so it signed an AB investment contract.

This is a bit complicated, but in essence, 360 bought the company, but the management rights are still in Xu Menglu's hands.