Chapter 61: The Warcraft Universe
For card games, IP is the soul, and numbers are the lifeline. Once the numerical system collapses, the entire game is doomed to sudden death.
Conversely, if the numerical system is well-designed, a card game can possess strong vitality.
A good example is a card game from a previous life, "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms." Two years after its launch, its monthly revenue was still in the millions, an almost unbelievable achievement for a card game.
Although it was a card game, "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms" had a very weak IP, essentially as good as having none. Because in the domestic market at the time, the Three Kingdoms theme had been overdone. Almost every month, several Three Kingdoms games would launch. Relying solely on the IP, "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms" simply couldn't stand out from the crowd.
There were many successful games with the Three Kingdoms theme, such as "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms," "Youth Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "Conquer the Land," "Siege and Conquest," and so on. This gave many players a false impression that the Three Kingdoms IP was actually decent.
But if you actually tried to develop a Three Kingdoms game yourself, you'd find that this IP is a complete pitfall.
Because the homogenization is too severe. Several Three Kingdoms games launch every month. If the game quality is average, how can it break through the siege?
IPs like Japanese anime or popular novels completely blow the Three Kingdoms IP out of the water.
A simple example: if a "One Piece" mobile game comes out now, most players will try it. But if a "XX Three Kingdoms" game comes out, does it have any appeal to players?
In fact, many game companies making Three Kingdoms-themed games deliberately remove the words "Three Kingdoms" from the title, such as "Rampage Unrivaled," "Beat Wei Shu Wu," "Conquer the Land," "Siege and Conquest," etc. They deliberately emphasize national war and city war elements to reduce the aversion players feel toward the Three Kingdoms theme.
An important characteristic of a good IP is that having the IP alone can make money and create differentiation. For example, with "One Piece" or "Naruto," as long as you get that IP, even if you just reskin a first-generation card game, you can easily make money.
But what about the Three Kingdoms theme? If you use the Three Kingdoms theme to reskin any game, not only will you not make money, but you'll also die a very ugly death.
All of this proves that the Three Kingdoms IP itself provided absolutely no boost to "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms."
So, why was "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms" so popular? Not because of the Three Kingdoms theme, but because of its game quality.
The system functions, gameplay, and numerical settings of "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms" were among the best in all card games. Its success was the success of game quality, not the success of the IP.
Even if it were renamed "Let Go of That Water Margin," it would still be popular, just perhaps to a slightly lesser degree.
If it could get the IP of "One Piece" or "Naruto"? Then it might have taken off directly, with monthly revenue potentially increasing by another ten or twenty million.
This is the charm of the card game gameplay itself, which many players overlook.
Why are there so many games on the market, yet only domestic card games are constantly being reskinned over and over, and no matter how they are reskinned, players still buy into them?
Take the later hugely popular "Onmyoji," for example. It was a card game that pushed artistic expression to its extreme. But regardless of its quality, its core was still card game gameplay.
Chen Mo was now striving in the direction of "Let Go of That Three Kingdoms" and "Youth Romance of the Three Kingdoms." He wanted to do his best to ensure that even if "I Am MT" didn't rely on its IP itself, it could still become a fun card game.
...
Two weeks later.
A full month had passed since the official development of "I Am MT" began.
Besides working on the game project, Su Jinyu continued drawing the card illustrations. Currently, about half of the art resources were done, and the game rules were largely complete.
The remaining part was to continuously optimize the numerical structure, finalize the attributes of each card, and wait for the subsequent art resources.
The game itself was developing quickly, after all, the rules of this game weren't complex.
Everyone except Chen Mo, including Su Jinyu, was rather indifferent to the game itself. Su Jinyu was now just treating the game project development as completing a job.
However, everyone's interest in the "I Am MT" anime was growing.
"I feel like the 'achievement pop-up' presentation is really interesting. Just imagine, you do something, and an achievement frame pops up, accompanied by a 'bang' sound effect. It gives such a strong sense of accomplishment."
"Don't you think the rule setting of this world is pretty fun? These characters can die, but after they die, as long as their soul runs back to the location of their corpse, they can revive."
"Yeah, that's a clever setting. Characters in other anime can't die, but here they can die freely. It gives a lot more freedom in handling many storylines."
"I think the 'hearthstone' setting is interesting too. Using a hearthstone to return to the inn feels a bit like a game mechanic. It should be very appealing to players."
"I actually looked it up. It's said to originate from a European medieval tradition. People traveling far from home would take a stone from their home fireplace. When they missed their hometown, looking at the hearthstone would ease their homesickness. The anime actually turned it into a practical item, which is very interesting."
"I really wonder how the store owner came up with all this. But wouldn't these ideas be better used for making games?"
"I'm not sure about the store owner's thoughts, but this world's lore is too vast, right? It would probably take an A-level or even S-level designer to handle it. The store owner probably can't do it now, so he settled for making a mobile game?"
"But you can feel that the store owner puts much more thought into the anime and the entire world lore than into the game."
"What exactly is the store owner's strategy? Even if the anime is well-made, what does it have to do with the game? Will people buy the game just because they like the anime?"
"Who knows... But I really want to see the Warcraft world made into a VR game. Just imagine, running across the great plains as a Tauren..."
Chen Mo was also paying close attention to everyone's reactions.
At first, everyone watched the anime just because they found its theme novel. But now, they were slowly starting to become curious about the world behind it.
On the continent of Warcraft, there were many interesting settings, such as using a hearthstone to return to the inn, riding wyverns or gryphons for fast travel, reviving by running back to your corpse after death, leveling up by completing quests, and earning achievements for special events.
Some settings had a strong game-like feel, but they weren't hard for everyone to understand. After all, they were all game players. Seeing these settings, they didn't find them strange; instead, they found them quite interesting.
And Chen Mo's recent work had added another task: constructing the Warcraft universe.