Chapter 261: The Current State of the Game Platform
Chen Mo began explaining the key points of *The Stanley Parable* and *ICEY*.
Given the current skill level of Chen Mo’s team, neither of these games was difficult to develop. Moreover, both had received excellent reception in their original contexts, making them ideal for filling out the game library.
*The Stanley Parable* was a typical meta-game, presented entirely from a first-person perspective. What needed to be created were just the various branching scenarios and dialogue. As long as the script was finalized, most of the workload fell on the environments, and it wasn’t hard to make at all.
*ICEY*, on the other hand, was an action game. The more complex elements of the ACT genre included the skill and combo system (move lists) and monster design. The main challenge was to deliver excellent hit feedback, allowing players to fight enemies smoothly.
Beyond that, *ICEY*’s main narrative selling point was similar to *The Stanley Parable*: both contained meta elements.
The commonality between these two games was that they were relatively easy to develop. They didn’t require many complex environments. Although they had numerous branching storylines, once the script was set, they weren’t difficult to execute.
In Chen Mo’s previous life, both games became popular precisely because they were meta-games.
A meta-game could be translated as a “game about games.” In theater and novels, this element often appeared, but it was rarely truly utilized in video games.
Simply put, in a conventional game, the player operates from a god-like perspective, and the in-game characters are unaware of the player’s existence. But in a meta-game, this fourth wall is broken. The game characters become aware of the player and may even speak directly to them.
A concrete example: when you’re playing a game, watching the character’s every move, feeling like a god, the character on screen suddenly turns its head, looks at you, and says coldly, “Stop telling me what to do.”
When the wall between the game and reality is broken to some extent, that constitutes a meta element.
Excellent meta-games always give players a sense of surprise, shock, or even the feeling of being tricked.
…
The content of these two games wasn’t very extensive, and the gameplay wasn’t hard to grasp. After Chen Mo briefly explained them, everyone understood the design intent behind both games.
There weren’t many questions this time. Although everyone was a bit surprised by this game model, overall, they all found the approach quite interesting.
Moreover, these were both small-scale games. Sales figures weren’t really important. Especially since Chen Mo had already created successful games on mobile, PC, and VR platforms, he had enough capital to be willful and try any game genre he wanted.
These two games would be developed simultaneously. Qian Kun was in charge of *ICEY*, Su Jinyu was responsible for *The Stanley Parable*, and Zheng Hongxi would handle the narrative structure for both games.
As for Chen Mo himself, he had more important things to consider.
…
In his own studio, Chen Mo leaned back in his chair, frowning slightly, deep in thought.
On the computer screen in front of him, some data regarding the Thunder Game Platform was displayed.
Currently, the Thunder Game Platform had a total of 12 games.
Mobile games: *Flappy Bird*, *Plants vs. Zombies*, *I Am MT*, *Thunder Chess & Cards*, *Lifeline*, *Onmyoji*, *Happy Match*.
PC games: *Warcraft*, *The Legend of the Wulin Heroes*, *Diablo*, *Don’t Starve*.
VR game: *Minecraft*.
Some of these games were available on two or more platforms.
The difficulty and investment required for each game varied, but overall, they were all very successful titles.
As a result, the player community had gradually bestowed upon Chen Mo the praise usually reserved for major foreign developers: “If Chen Mo makes it, it’s a masterpiece.”
Without exception, every game here was personally crafted by Chen Mo, ensuring they could reach or even surpass the quality of their counterparts in his previous life.
In truth, for a game platform, the number of games wasn’t crucial. Take Blizzard’s Battle.net from his previous life, for example. It only had six games, yet that didn’t stop it from being one of the most influential game platforms in the country.
The key was still game quality.
However, the game platform Chen Mo wanted to build wasn’t just a simple collection of his own games, like Battle.net. He wanted to turn the Thunder Game Platform into a comprehensive digital distribution platform, similar to Steam.
Drawing on his experience from his previous life, Chen Mo was very clear about and placed great importance on the role of game distribution channels.
For game developers, game quality was indeed the foundation. As long as the quality was good, they wouldn’t have to worry about reputation, players, or making money.
But the power of channels far exceeded what most people imagined. Too many developers had to grovel before game channels, forced to modify their completed games repeatedly. Many developers even saw their games buried because they couldn’t find a good distribution channel.
The greatest strength of a channel came from its users—the players.
If a channel controlled one million players, it could make money very comfortably.
If a channel controlled ten million players, even promoting some very mediocre games would allow it to recoup its costs.
If a channel controlled one hundred million players, it wouldn’t be far from monopolizing the entire gaming market’s profits.
Moreover, for some super hit games to become popular, besides their inherent quality, the power of the channel couldn’t be ignored. In the gaming industry, whoever controlled the most players and built the strongest channel would have absolute initiative.
Chen Mo had been having a smooth ride so far, but he didn’t want to be beholden to any channel.
That’s why, from the very beginning, Chen Mo never intended to rely on any major platform. Even if it meant losing some players, he insisted on building his own game platform and deliberately developed various games to expand the Thunder Game Platform’s player base.
Up to now, the Thunder Game Platform was similar in nature to Blizzard’s Battle.net from his previous life. It was just a platform that integrated games, with relatively simple functionality, but it had developed quite well.
The Thunder Game Platform had 54 million long-term active users, with daily active users around 17 million. This was a far cry from its initial state.
Most of these active users came from *Thunder Chess & Cards*, *Onmyoji*, and *Happy Match*. These three games accounted for the bulk of the active player count. The player base for *Warcraft* had stabilized, while *Minecraft*’s player count was still expanding.
This data indicated that the Thunder Game Platform had grown into one of the most influential game platforms in the country.
Aside from the official app stores, the three largest domestic game platforms were currently the Imperial Dynasty Game Platform, the Divine Fantasy Game Platform, and the Thunder Game Platform (ranked in order), with Zen Game Platform following closely behind.
However, there were differences among these four game companies. Imperial Dynasty Interactive handled both development and distribution. The Divine Fantasy Game Platform focused solely on distribution and rarely did development. Meanwhile, Thunder Interactive and Zen Interactive currently only did development, not distribution.