Chapter 415: Making a Game of the Year in Three Months
Qiao Hua chuckled and said, "Make another one? Chen Mo, this kind of game isn't like a head of cabbage that you can just pull out of the ground on a whim. You don't need to rush at all. With your talent, you're bound to become an S-rank sooner or later. Why the hurry?"
Chen Mo replied, "I understand. Thank you, Director Qiao."
After listening to Qiao Hua's explanation, Chen Mo had a general idea.
Clearly, the judges in this world shared similarities with those from Chen Mo's previous life. When evaluating games, they considered a wide range of factors, not just player count, profitability, or popularity.
For instance, in Chen Mo's previous life, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" was incredibly popular but ultimately lost the Game of the Year award to "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild."
When judging games, many panels took "artistic merit" into account, which encompassed multiple aspects.
For example, the overall structure of the game's world and setting.
Whether the storyline and related character designs were distinctive and stylistically unique.
Whether the level design and puzzle content were sufficiently complex and engaging.
Whether the gameplay innovated on traditional mechanics and was well-received by players.
And so on—all of these factors were considered by the judges.
While games like "League of Legends," "Outlast," and "Minecraft" could be considered the pinnacle of their respective genres, the biggest issue was that, in the judges' eyes, they only excelled within specific categories. They could win Best PC Game, Best Horror Game, Best Puzzle Game, or Best Innovative Game, but prestigious awards like "Game of the Year" were generally hard to come by.
These games weren't comprehensive enough; they fell short in areas like world-building, narrative, and level design.
In the eyes of more traditional, conservative judges, even if a game had massive player numbers and immense popularity, if it lacked artistic merit, it usually wouldn't receive the Game of the Year award.
Chen Mo was deep in thought.
When it came to choosing a specific game, there were quite a few constraints.
The two biggest constraints were time and experience.
It was already November. The annual Game of the Year awards ceremony was in early February, leaving only three months.
Chen Mo had to create a VR game before the ceremony and win the Game of the Year award at the event to have any hope of becoming an S-rank designer.
Otherwise, if he missed this year's ceremony, the next Game of the Year selection would be a full year away. Wait another twelve months? Chen Mo's impatient nature couldn't handle that.
So, making a VR game in three months?
It sounded a bit far-fetched, but it wasn't entirely impossible. After all, Chen Mo had completed "Outlast" in roughly three months before.
But VR games varied greatly. "Outlast" had a total playtime of just over an hour. As long as the script was set and the art resources were in place, it could be done quickly.
However, it also depended on what kind of game he was making.
"Outlast" was a small-scale production. If he wanted to make an open-world game? There was no way he'd have enough time.
Just building the entire world and creating the massive amount of art resources would take ages. In his previous life, those ultra-large-scale series games would take at least a year or two to port to a VR platform.
Moreover, Chen Mo had no experience making large open-world games. So far, the games he'd made were seen by others as unconventional—summed up as: fast and cost-effective while maintaining quality.
And Chen Mo had no intention of going through the trouble of porting those ultra-large games. After all, his goal was just to win the award and secure the S-rank designer status. The simpler, the better.
In other words, Chen Mo needed a game that:
Was suitable for the VR platform.
Required as few resources as possible, ideally completable within three months.
Had to align with the judges' tastes, possess some artistic merit, and have a realistic chance of winning "Game of the Year."
Moreover, during the judging process, a game's "distinctiveness" mattered more than its actual "quality." A completely new genre that had never appeared before had a better chance of winning the judges' favor.
From the perspective of designers in this world, these conditions should be utterly impossible to meet.
Finish a Game of the Year in three months? No matter how you looked at it, it was absurd.
But Chen Mo happened to have just such a game in mind.
Blizzard's "Overwatch."
When he thought of this game, Chen Mo himself was a bit surprised, but after weighing everything, it seemed like the best choice at the moment.
Of course, in Chen Mo's previous life, "Overwatch" was a highly controversial game, with the biggest controversy being its lifespan.
Compared to long-lasting games, "Overwatch" fell short in player retention, reputation, popularity, and competitive balance when stacked against the top three in the competitive genre.
Of course, the factors behind this were complex, so let's set that aside for now.
But when it came to winning awards?
In Chen Mo's previous life, in 2016, "Overwatch" swept the Game of the Year awards at The Game Awards, IGN, and many others. It dominated almost all the most prestigious awards in the gaming industry that year, making Blizzard the biggest winner of 2016.
Moreover, "Overwatch" had defeated "Uncharted 4," sparking fierce debates between console players and Blizzard fans. According to conventional wisdom, a heavyweight award like Game of the Year was rarely given to a competitive game. Many players thought "Uncharted 4" had already secured the win.
Some players even claimed that since so many successful competitive games had never won this award, why should "Overwatch"? Had Blizzard paid off the judges?
If it had only won one or two awards, there might have been some controversy. But when it won almost every Game of the Year award that year, it could only mean one thing: "Overwatch" had genuinely impressed the vast majority of judges, leading them to unprecedentedly award "Game of the Year" to a competitive game.
In truth, this wasn't hard to understand.
Although "Overwatch" wasn't strong in competitive balance, its strengths lay in character design, gameplay innovation, story background, and cultural depth—exactly the aspects the judges valued highly.
And for Chen Mo, "Overwatch" had another obvious advantage: it was easy to make.
The first version of "Overwatch" only required a few battle maps and about a dozen heroes. Unlike other AAA titles, it didn't need a multi-hour main storyline or a massive open world to build.
Want to create a game capable of competing for "Game of the Year" in just three months?
"Overwatch" was Chen Mo's best option at the moment.