Chapter 675: National Tour Shame: 'Mission and Choice'
After deciding on the theme, the next step is what to call the game.
Pei Qian didn't think about it for too long and thought about it quickly.
"Mission and Choice"!
As for the specific reason why it is called this name, it actually has a history.
Pei Qian has been learning about games some time ago, and also learned a lot about the past events of the domestic game industry from He An and Qiu Hong.
In 1995, Dongmu Company of the United States released a series of games called "Command and Conquer". This is the best-selling real-time strategy game in history. It set a model for RTS games and took the lead in creating "resource collection + production and construction + corps combat".
"The architecture created and defined the concept of "fog of war".
In short, it is popular all over the world, and like games such as "Star Ocean" and "Fantasy Battle", it is regarded as an eternal classic of the world's RTS games.
In 1997, a game called "Mission and Choice" appeared in China.
When he first heard the name, Pei Qian thought it was "Freedom and Glory" from the parallel world. He was a little fond of it, but he soon discovered that he had guessed wrong.
This game is actually "Blood Lion" in a parallel world.
As Qiu Hong once said, the domestic game industry during this period was already in violent turmoil. Online games were rapidly rising, and piracy was gradually rampant. Domestic stand-alone games were forced to start a price war with piracy, but no matter how much the price was reduced,
Still doesn't help.
At this juncture, "Mission and Choice" appeared.
Major game media began to publish colorful advertisements for "Mission and Choice". The cover showed a Chinese soldier wearing a space suit. The background was a giant sandworm and a technologically-rich star battleship. There were several more below.
A provocative propaganda slogan.
"Your hometown, Blue Star, has just suffered a devastating attack from the Zerg. The interstellar fleet suffered heavy losses. Blood dyed the sky red, fire tore through the night, and the swarm of insects in the sky drowned the human fleet like a tide. Facing the swarm of insects,
I know your choice, even though it will be a bleak business, but we have no way out."
"Work with your comrades to defeat the swarm and save Blue Star!"
"It cost millions to produce with all the effort, the scene is grand, and it is a domestic model!"
"High-level music production by avant-garde rock musicians, strong software creation team, and unconstrained art creativity, the highly anticipated debut of "Mission and Decision"!"
Although these slogans seem a bit inexplicable now, they were extremely exciting at the time.
As a result, the enthusiasm of all stand-alone game players was aroused. The players automatically ignored the copycat feeling that was everywhere in the game "Mission and Choice" from its name to the promotional pictures, and regarded it as a game that could surpass
"Command and Conquer" is a masterpiece, and I look forward to it being spread forever in the hall of RTS games.
But when players got the game, the word "disappointment" alone could no longer describe their mood.
Simple and crude graphics, ubiquitous program bugs, incredible game mechanics...
All in all, it was extremely bad.
It was only later that the players came back to their senses and realized that this game was just crazy!
The name is copied from "Command and Conquer", the story background is copied from "Star Ocean", and some fake patriotic feelings are deliberately added. In short, it is a crazy deception of the feelings of domestic players.
Many people regard "Mission and Choice" as a shame for domestic games, the last straw that broke the back of domestic stand-alone games, and to this day, most players still only have two words in mind when they hear the name "Mission and Choice"
Emotion: ridicule or anger.
Pei Qian had named his game "Sea Fortress" before, just to give a good sign, but the problem is that people in this world don't understand!
Only Pei Qian himself knew the origin of this name, so it did not arouse any resistance.
Similarly, if it is called "Blood Lion", then people in this world still have no idea about it.
But it's called "Mission and Choice" and it can instantly arouse the anger of all domestic players!
So Pei Qian immediately decided to call it this!
Come on players, devour me with your rage!
Of course, if it has the same name, there will definitely be some copyright issues, but it doesn't matter. The company that produced this game has been bankrupt for several years. The copyright of "Mission and Decision" should belong to the creditors, but no one will want this thing even if it is repaid. Find it
If you go to the ro official platform, you can even ask for it directly.
Since the name is used, the background of the story should also be used.
At the same time, in order to ensure nothing goes wrong, Pei Qian briefly thought of a few methods that could greatly increase the probability of failure, and prepared to explain them to Hu Xianbin later.
After everything was considered, Pei Qian notified Hu Xianbin, Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce to have a small meeting in the conference room.
As for why it is called Huang Sibo...
Of course, because of the CG issue, it still had to be handed over to Feihuang Studio.
If it is left to others, Pei Qian is afraid that if it is not completed within the construction period and settlement is delayed, it will be troublesome.
…
Soon, everyone came to the conference room.
Hu Xianbin knew very well that after the success of "Struggle", Mr. Pei should soon develop the next game.
It's just that Hu Xianbin and Huang Sibo were a little confused after seeing each other in the conference room.
Why did Mr. Pei call us here together?
Is this going to be a game or a movie?
Time was precious, so Pei Qian got straight to the point and started assigning tasks.
"The next game requires the full cooperation of your two departments."
"The development cycle is set to be about 9 months. We will spend 200 million to make a science fiction-themed RTS game, and another 300 million to make a full set of CG for it. This task will be handed over to your two departments respectively."
The other three people were all stunned.
200 million to make games, 300 million to make CG?
Is there more money to make CG than games?
Huang Sibo's expression instantly became excited: "Mr. Pei is determined to make a high-quality RTS game on the same level as "Star Ocean 2"? Three hundred million. If it is used to burn more than ten minutes of game CG, this quality is absolutely
Not inferior to major foreign manufacturers!”
Hu Xianbin hesitated: "If you spend 300 million yuan to make CG, can you recover the cost?"
Huang Sibo smiled: "Why not? The development cost of "Star Ocean 2" is less than 100 million U.S. dollars. If each game is sold for 50 U.S. dollars, it will be able to make back the money by selling more than 2 million copies. It broke the market within two days of its release.
If you buy 1.5 million copies, you can easily sell four to five million copies in the entire life cycle. It’s very profitable, okay?”
"Even if our game can't reach this figure, with an investment of more than 60 million U.S. dollars, even if it sells less than "Star Ocean 2", we can still make a profit."
"Game CG is the business card of games. As long as it is done well, it will definitely go viral on the entire Internet and open up overseas markets better. Investing 300 million in game CG is for the sake of brand value, opening up overseas markets, and establishing a strong presence in the world.
The character of the factory!”
Pei Qian fell into silence.
Is there such a huge possibility of making money in theory?
Thinking about it, it’s really true that 300 million yuan is spent on CG in just ten minutes. How sophisticated is the CG produced?
I'm afraid that if you take out any paragraph, it will go viral all over the Internet.
Teacher He thinks he can't make money because he doesn't understand how European Pei Qian is.
Pei Qian himself knew that what Huang Sibo said was entirely possible!
Huang Sibo is a good brother.
Pei Qian coughed twice: "If you don't do it for ten minutes, it will take more than an hour."
If the duration is extended to more than an hour, the quality of this CG will definitely not be that high, and it will not be too eye-catching, right?
Moreover, with such a long plot, most players would be very annoyed and would just press esc to skip it?
Huang Sibo was stunned and hesitated before saying: "Mr. Pei, no!"
"If it takes one and a half hours to make a pure game CG, the quality is secondary. The construction period cannot be guaranteed. We only have 9 months in total."
"Our first choice is definitely to find a foreign company, but this means that we have to communicate across countries, languages, and time differences. It's okay to do it for ten minutes, but if we do it for more than an hour, the communication cost is already very unbearable.
.”
"If you look for domestic companies, the more reliable special effects teams are almost all those working on movies. There are very few special effects companies that do pure game CG, and the quality is not very reliable."
Hu Xianbin thought for a while and asked: "Is it possible to do a cutscene that is calculated in real time in the game?"
Huang Sibo nodded: "It can be done, but the effect will definitely not be much better, and it won't cost so much money."
A cinematic game like "Struggle" is equivalent to real-time calculations, and it really doesn't cost 300 million no matter how much you think about it.
Huang Sibo continued: "If it has to be completed within the construction period, I think... we can do it in the same way as a movie, with real people."
"In this way, you no longer have to spend energy on the character's movements, expressions, pores, hair, etc. Some props and scenery can also be shot in real life, which saves a lot of time and ensures quality at the same time.
Construction period."
"The only problem is... I haven't heard of any game company doing this."
Pei Qian fell into silence.
He didn't think about it so much originally, but after listening to Huang Sibo's analysis, it seemed that there was indeed a big problem!
There are three options now:
The first type, like "Fantasy World", is to spend money to make short CGs to make the characters' movements, expressions, hair, etc. highly realistic. But the effect of this will definitely be very sensational, and "Star Ocean 2" has proven that it is still possible.
There is room for profit.
If you want to make this extremely detailed CG longer, the construction period cannot be guaranteed.
The second option is to use real-time game calculations to create CG, but this will definitely not cost 300 million, or even 10 million.
If it is a mixture of real-time calculation and CG, it is not essentially different from the first method. It is still a relatively safe and not risky approach.
The third way is to do it in a movie-making way, so that you don’t have to worry about the characters’ pores and hair during the production process. Many special effects can be replaced with props and scenery, so that the construction period can be basically guaranteed.
Pei Qian thought for a while, let's make a short CG. What if we really replicate the success of "Star Ocean 2"? This possibility is not impossible.
Let’s make a long-term pure game CG. The construction period cannot be guaranteed and everything is in vain. Delayed settlement is unacceptable.
Then the third option, real shooting + movie CG, seems to be a good way. It can not only spend more money, but also ensure the construction period and extend the CG length.
So here comes the question:
What if Feihuang Studio releases this film in theaters and makes another box office hit?
If you make money from games and make money from movies, then Mr. Pei will have a myocardial infarction on the spot?
But when Pei Qian thought about it, he seemed to have never heard of a game company doing this, indicating that there was a big problem with this model.
After all, movies and game CG are essentially different things and cannot be confused.
