The Souls game was not very successful at the beginning, it also experienced a process of sales from low to high.
From the earliest "Demon's Souls", to "Dark Souls", "Bloodborne" to "Dark Souls 3", and finally to "Sekiro", overall, the difficulty is gradually decreasing.
While retaining the essence of the Souls-based game, the difficulty is gradually reduced, and sales are steadily increasing.
This shows that increasing difficulty can indeed reduce sales.
Moreover, the success of soul-based games varies by region.
The game "Demon's Soul" was originally completely contrary to what the publisher required. Miyazaki was careful during the development period and did not completely follow the above requirements. Instead, he made a game that was completely his own.
style game.
By the time the top management discovered this problem, Demon's Soul had been largely completed. The people above were furious, but had no choice but to treat the problem as a living doctor.
Initially, even the publisher was not optimistic about it. If project leader Ken Kajii had not persisted, it might not have been possible for the game to be released to players.
On the eve of its release, the famous video game magazine FAMI gave it a low score of 29 points (out of 40 points).
This game was quite popular in China. Miyazaki tried his best to contact European and American publishers, but it became an unexpected hit!
The key factor in this is that the Soul series games just meet the tastes of hardcore European and American stand-alone players.
The Soul series of games became really popular in China, basically only around 15 years ago.
The current domestic game environment is generally consistent with what Pei Qian remembers. High-difficulty games are relatively niche games and are not popular.
In this case, wouldn't it be enough to make a difficult soul-based game and only publish it in China?
Moreover, in order to prevent this game from being discovered by European and American players, it was deliberately made into a Chinese background to increase a cultural barrier and make it difficult for European and American players to play it!
Pei Qian couldn't help but feel very proud. Sure enough, human creativity is infinite.
If it weren't for the loss, he wouldn't have known that he could have come up with such a good idea!
…
Pei Qian explained the positioning of this game to everyone very concisely, summarizing it into five requirements.
First, this is a game with a Chinese background, which should be filled with a lot of puzzle elements, and a large number of puzzles and text content should be written in ancient Chinese.
This is mainly to prevent this game from being discovered by European and American players and becoming popular.
When the time comes to solve the puzzles, you will need excellent skills in classical Chinese, which will definitely make it impossible for those foreigners to play for even a minute!
Since this game is mainly sold in China, even if it is not released in other languages, it will not be judged as illegal by the system.
Second, this is a very difficult game.
Pei Qian asked Bao Xu and Lu Mingliang to rack their brains and think of every possible way to make the player fail.
Discouraging as many players as possible is their first task.
Third, this is a large-scale action game.
The game must have a large number of models, actions, scenes, and the budget for all art resources must be fully occupied!
Try your best to spend more money!
Of course, this so-called extra money is based on the previous investment in Tenda Games. In fact, Pei Qian's psychological limit is only 20 million.
No matter how much it is, he would still like to spend it, but the system funds may not be enough.
If you compare it with super masterpieces from abroad that often spend tens or hundreds of millions of R&D funds, it is incomparable. However, compared with the investment of these domestic manufacturers, it can still be called a big production.
Fourth, this game will use the longest refund time limit.
According to the requirements of the official platform, games on the platform can be refunded within 3 hours of actual game time. This time can only be longer, not shorter.
In fact, most game developers hope that this time can be shortened and canceled. How can they take the initiative to extend it?
But Pei Qian decided that this game will adopt the longest refund time limit on the official platform, which is 5 hours!
For many small games, the total game time is only three or four hours. It would be crazy to ask for a refund for 5 hours. It is basically the same as free.
But in Pei Qian's opinion, 3 hours is not actually a long time. When some people played Soul 3, they died unknowingly at the gate of Kudat for 3 hours, and the refund period expired.
Pei Qian decided that his game can be refunded within 5 hours, and a line of prompts will appear on the upper right side of the game when the difference is 10 minutes to 5 hours.
Absolutely every player who wants to refund will not miss the time.
Fifth, about the name of this game.
In order to avoid the impact of the game name on players and prevent some innocent people from straying in, Pei Qian decided to make the game name as straightforward as possible.
The game is called "Return to the Shore" and contains Pei Qian's sincere advice to the players.
After listening to Pei Qian's five-point request, even Bao Xu was stunned.
In Pei Qian's memory, "Demon's Soul" was a game in 2009, but there is no "Demon's Soul" in this world, so even a well-informed player like Bao Xu has never heard of such a crazy person.
game.
Of course, there are some hard-core games that are famous for their high difficulty, but games like Pei Qian's that directly require "doing everything possible to make players fail" are really rare...
Everything else is easy to understand, except for this difficulty, both Lu Mingliang and Bao Xu feel a little bit blinded.
"Mr. Pei, can you tell us in detail about this difficulty? For example, what percentage of players will be blocked by the boss in the last level?" Bao Xu asked.
Pei Qian subconsciously wanted to say that he would kill 99.9999% of the players!
However, a line of words instantly appeared in his field of vision.
[Warning! A game that has absolutely no possibility of being passed by most people is against the rules. The highest difficulty level of the game is subject to the host being able to clear it.]
Pei Qian's smile froze on his face.
System, my Tony Ma almost blurted out.
Assuming that I can get through? I am so handicapped!
I was tortured even though I was playing "Sea Fortress". You actually asked me to clear this kind of game. You just told me that I couldn't do it and that was the end of it!
However, Pei Qian did not panic. After all, he was well-informed and this small problem would not trouble him.
It depends on whether I can get through?
That’s easy, I just need to hide something secretly in the game...
I set that there is a particularly powerful weapon in the game, and this weapon can only be obtained by triggering a very complicated hidden plot and advancing through a completely unreasonable game route.
After that, with this powerful weapon, my understanding of the Souls-based game, and the level map that I knew well in advance, I should not have any problem getting through it in two or three weeks.
In order to lose money, I endured this pain!
After this idea appeared, the system did not warn again, indicating that it was feasible.
Pei Qian smiled slightly and said to Bao Xu: "Our design will not block any players. Theoretically, most people can pass the level, it just requires some skills."
The implication is that if they give up on their own, I won’t be blamed.
"Just make it as difficult as you can imagine, and I will personally modify it in the end."
When the time comes to add this weapon, Pei Qian will set the game to the extreme difficulty level where he can use this weapon to pass the level, so that he will not be warned by the system.
When the time comes, players will not be able to get this weapon and will be playing in hell mode. Coupled with the 5-hour unconditional refund, most people will definitely give up!
Lu Mingliang asked: "Mr. Pei, this game is called "Back to the Shore", and it has a traditional Chinese background... So what is the specific world view?"
Pei Qian smiled and said, "You can decide on such a small matter."