Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 8

"Traitor? What traitor?"

Yao Meng woke up early in the morning and was inexplicably scolded by Yu Zhong, which made him a little unhappy. However, he didn't understand what was going on, and the third test started today.

He forced himself not to lash out.

He frowned and picked up the document.

The contents of these documents are very simple.

The first few pages contain daily game data analysis reports from Qimai Data.

He occasionally reads this report.

Today, however, this report specifically highlighted a game called "Battlefront Girls".

The report briefly analyzed the game and gave it a very high rating.

Some believe it has the potential to become the next "Warship Girls" or even surpass it.

Meanwhile, due to the performance of "Girls' Frontline" on its first day, Qimai Data once again improved their analysis of the market popularity of the entire ACG mobile game industry.

"Girls Frontline had no prior publicity before its launch, yet it still managed to generate 30 RMB in revenue on its first day. Besides its outstanding quality and excellent gameplay, the unique player acquisition mechanism of its producer Lin Li, as well as its anime-themed content, likely played a significant role in its success."

The report concluded by elevating the popularity of anime-themed mobile games to an A-level rating.

"Is this 'Battlefront Girls' game that went into open beta yesterday? It's making 30 RMB a day! That's pretty impressive," Yao Meng remarked as she looked at the game.

Then, after seeing the final summary of the seven wheat data, he looked up at Yu Zhong, still not understanding what was so infuriating about it.

"Isn't it a good thing that anime-style mobile games are becoming more popular?"

"Good news? How about you take a look at this?"

Yu Zhong threw out another stack of documents.

Yao Meng was speechless. "Are you crazy? Didn't you know to bring the documents along?"

These files aren't data analysis; they're just screenshots from some games.

Judging from the screenshots, at first glance, this game looks somewhat similar to Girls' Frontline, which they are currently operating, and both seem to focus on the theme of gun girls.

The character art is dazzling at first glance.

It's like playing a game at home.

However, upon closer inspection, some differences emerge; the character illustrations in these screenshots exhibit a more consistent style.

Like most anime-style mobile games at the time, Girls' Frontline adopted a commissioned model. The advantage of this model is that the cost is controllable, the efficiency is high, and multiple characters can be commissioned at once.

At the same time, characters drawn by high-quality illustrators often generate extraordinary popularity.

However, the downsides are also obvious: the lack of a unified standard makes receiving submissions feel like a lottery, and the styles of the dolls are completely inconsistent.

Besides commissioned projects, another mainstream practice in the industry is conventional development.

For example, the Honkai Impact series features characters created by miHoYo itself, and the style is very consistent.

However, adopting a unified style places high demands on developers.

Small workshops typically struggle to produce character illustrations that are both aesthetically pleasing and have a consistent style.

However, the screenshots that Yu Zhong brought, printed on A4 paper, not only had a highly consistent style in their character illustrations, but each character also had its own unique characteristics.

"The character art is of very high quality."

The further down the page Yao Meng scrolled, the more her brows furrowed.

What's the biggest fear when making mobile games?

What I fear most is the emergence of a game with the same theme as yours, but one that completely surpasses it in quality.

"Is this the Battlefront Girls game that Qimai Data Analysis is working on?"

"Still pretending with me? Dare you say you didn't leak our internal information to this company?"

"Yu Zhong!! Speak properly to me, do you think I'm that kind of person?"

Yao Meng was in a state of confusion. The sudden appearance of a high-quality competitor was already a headache for their operations, and now there was also a troublesome developer back in their hometown.

Therefore, the tone of voice was also raised considerably.

At this moment, the people in Yao Meng's office saw that the two bosses were arguing and hurriedly came out to mediate.

"Um, Yu Zhong, didn't we start closed beta testing last September? Is it possible that someone saw us during the closed beta testing?"

"Who do you think you are? Do you have the right to speak?"

Before Yu Zhong could speak, a man in a suit standing behind him spoke first.

"I, you..."

The junior employee opened his mouth, but ultimately didn't say anything and sat down.

Yao Meng rubbed his forehead. He had known Yu Zhong for several years and knew that the guy would have a fit from time to time, but this was the first time he had a fit during a publicly paid test.

Yao Meng was speechless.

Furthermore, there are recent rumors that many investors are still trying to contact Yu Zhong, so now is not the time to turn against them.

What else can we do but endure it?

"Alright, this game has nothing to do with me. The game launches today, and I have a lot of things to do. You go back first, and I'll treat you to dinner tomorrow after I'm done."

Logically speaking, Yao Meng had already given him a way out, and even if a normal person was still angry at this point, they would probably have accepted it.

However, Yu Zhong was no ordinary person.

In his past life, he was able to single-handedly drive almost everyone who had started the business with him out of the company and gain sole ownership of all the company's shares.

His desire to embezzle the company's assets certainly played a part.

His personality also plays a part in it.

After all, those who were at odds with Yu Zhong in their past lives weren't just those with vested interests; many artists, programmers, writers, and other staff who didn't have any vested interests were also inexplicably laid off after the game started generating profits.

All of these things point to problems in Yu Zhong's management.

Chapter Eleven: How did he do that?!

as predicted.

Hearing Yao Meng back down, Yu Zhong's momentum, which had already weakened, surged again.

"You're not? How do I know if you are? You really didn't give them the initial drafts of the character art for '95?"

"The character art on the other side is 80% similar to ours, and you have no part in it!?"

"I knew it! I knew you had ulterior motives all along, that's why you kept coming to our development department."

The already sarcastic remarks became even more sarcastic when they came out of Yu Zhong's mouth.

"As the operations manager, am I not supposed to review the game content before launch? Or not use character art for promotion?"

"I asked you for the data, did you give it to me? I really don't know how the data was leaked. I've been busy ensuring the safe operation of the game, how could it be me!?"

"Besides, open your eyes and look. The character art on the other side is clearly better than ours. The 95 character art is only similar in clothes. How can that be called plagiarism?"

Yao Meng tried to hold back, but in the end, she couldn't help herself.

He was also very angry about this.

Since the beginning of this year, Yu Zhong, I don't know who he listened to, has started to constantly nitpick at operations.

Yu Zhong, who works in development, is always interfering with operations.

As for Yao Meng, who was in charge of operations, she wanted some high-definition character illustrations for promotional posters, but Yu Zhong didn't provide them.

Even if he really betrays us, we still need to give him something.

Yu Zhong clearly knew these things as well.

But he didn't care about that.

"Yao Meng, you are a despicable and shameless traitor! We have all put so much effort into this, and you have ruined everything!"

"Don't you dare spout such nonsense again."

The atmosphere in the office instantly became extremely tense, and the confrontation between the two seemed to fill the entire space with electrical charge.

Seeing that Yao Meng was truly angry, Yu Zhong actually backed down.

He sneered.

"Slander? Don't let me find any evidence, or everything between us ends here."

After saying that, Yu Zhong slammed the office door shut and his figure quickly disappeared down the corridor.

Yao Meng, left behind, sat in her office, her heart filled with helplessness and regret.

His regret wasn't about anything else, but about why he had cooperated with Yu Zhong in the first place.

~~~

After Yu Zhong left.

They quickly assembled the FlashBlast development team.

The reason he argued with Yao Meng today was not only because he felt panicked after discovering the competitor and wanted to find a place to vent his frustration.

It's also to find an excuse when things fall apart in the future.

Yes.

Putting aside his character, Yu Zhong is a game producer.

I have a basic understanding of game development.

Yu Zhong also took a look at that game.

Although I hate to admit it, in many details, it has been polished to a higher level than Girls' Frontline.

Moreover, apart from the theme, the entire game has absolutely nothing to do with Girls' Frontline.

Therefore, although Yu Zhong criticized Yao Meng, he was actually very clear that this was just a coincidence.

It's just that our ideas happened to coincide.

The success of the Battlefront Girls also proves Yu Zhong's market judgment and vision, and his foresight.

Therefore, Yu Zhong was even pleased when he saw the data analysis from Qimai.

It was only later, after he left the front line, that he gradually began to feel some panic.

After all, the quality of the girls from Girls' Frontline is just too high.

"Yu Zhong, with such a competitor suddenly appearing, will it have an impact on us?"

The meeting began with a question.

"Don't worry, I've looked into it carefully. What is this 'Battlefront Girls' game? It's essentially a game that panders to otaku."

Yu Zhong shook his head, then said rather smugly:

"Although their combat system and humanoid design are somewhat similar to ours, their character art is also quite good."

"But it doesn't have a strategy game system, so it's essentially not on the same track as our hardcore games that don't pander to otaku."

"However, we do need to speed up our development. Once we start the public beta, everything will be fine."

"Also, Hai Mao, go find Yao Meng later and have them prepare some promotional copy for the other side that they copied us. If the other side becomes popular later, release it to ride their coattails."

"Ah? This."

Hai Mao wanted to say that this was shameless, but in the end he didn't say it.

I just asked one question

"From what angle should we write about it? Plagiarism?"

Hai Mao was someone who was dragged out of bed early in the morning by Yu Zhong to play a round of "Girls' Frontline".

Based on his own experience.

Besides sharing the same theme of gun girls and having similar character illustrations, "Battlefront Girls" is also a good game.

In terms of both overall gameplay and storyline, they are completely different.