Chapter 716: Porting the Mobile Game Version
Jin Jieguang felt like his entire worldview had been overturned.
When *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds* first came out, the project team for Di Dynasty Interactive’s *Wolf Soul: Modern Battlefield* had discussed it and roughly predicted the game’s trajectory.
Their conclusion was that while *PUBG*’s gameplay was novel, it was too monotonous. Its popularity would inevitably decline, and its long-term profitability would be very weak.
Moreover, the game’s story background didn’t quite align with training contexts. Chen Mo had apparently designed it purely as a commercial game, with no intention of making a good impression on the Game Committee.
But recently, everyone’s faces had been slapped over and over again, practically swollen by now…
*PUBG* showed no signs of declining in popularity; instead, it was getting hotter, even threatening to sweep across the entire VR gaming platform.
As for profitability, at this level of popularity, just selling accounts alone was enough to make Chen Mo a fortune, let alone the staggering money tree that was the cosmetic transaction tax.
In the game, certain special outfits—like scarves, skirts, tank tops, uniform jackets, and so on—had been driven up to prices of two to three thousand yuan due to their relative rarity.
*PUBG* truly had no in-app purchases; Chen Mo had made that clear from the start and certainly wouldn’t add things like paid loot boxes.
But that didn’t stop players from being enthusiastic about spending money…
Take the skirt as an example. Every player could get it from opening loot boxes with in-game gold, and all clothing could be freely traded on the market.
The price of the skirt had already been driven up to around 3,000 yuan, and each successful transaction required a 300-yuan transaction tax.
In other words, every time a player sold a skirt, Chen Mo earned 300 yuan…
Other clothing items had varying transaction prices depending on rarity and aesthetics—some for tens of yuan, some for hundreds—but no matter how expensive, Chen Mo collected the transaction tax without fail.
Many players had genuinely turned *PUBG* into a dress-up game. If Chen Mo wanted to make more money, it was simple: just develop a few more good-looking outfits in the game…
It was foreseeable that, with just the transaction tax as a profit point, given *PUBG*’s current popularity, he would be raking in money hand over fist.
*PUBG* was not only popular but also highly profitable. And the most infuriating part? Now the Game Committee was even going to commend it?!
Jin Jieguang had to go through quite some trouble to find out the update content for the *Island Training* version.
After reading it, Jin Jieguang was dumbfounded. Chen Mo really knew how to play the game!
After these changes, the game’s background and spiritual core had completely transformed!
Originally, it had a brutal, law-of-the-jungle worldview. But after the changes, it had become about “training hard and striving for excellence”?
Even the firearms had all been modified, showing a lot of sincerity!
And of course, *PUBG* would be popular in training, because the gameplay was fun!
Those soldiers were also players. From a player’s perspective, *PUBG* was definitely more fun than the other two games—this had already been proven by the market!
Jin Jieguang felt a wave of despair.
Just then, his phone rang. It was Lin Zhaoxu.
“Come to my office!”
Just five words, and then the call ended.
Jin Jieguang had a feeling that Lin Zhaoxu was probably about to explode again…
“Damn it!! Chen Mo, I’ll never let this go!!”
With the mindset of someone heading to their doom, Jin Jieguang walked toward Lin Zhaoxu’s office…
…
In the experience store, Chen Mo was looking at the newly drawn items.
Professional Knowledge - Archaeology Skill Book.
Professional Knowledge - Ancient Architecture Skill Book.
Art Performance - Art Skill Book (Advanced).
Art Performance - Animation Skill Book (Advanced).
Professional Knowledge - Rock Climbing Skill Book.
Professional Knowledge - World Ancient History (Beginner).
Besides these, there were some miscellaneous items.
“Hmm, feels like it’s hinting at something?” Chen Mo muttered to himself as he used the skill books.
Although *PUBG* was a massive commercial success, its performance in collecting happiness and resentment values was only average.
Of course, for now, *Dark Souls* was still the king of collecting resentment values, basically yielding more than *Prototype* and *PUBG* combined in terms of happiness values.
Chen Mo couldn’t help but sigh—*Dark Souls* was truly powerful!
But as time went on, collecting happiness and resentment values became harder. The games Chen Mo was making now were mostly large-scale VR productions, with playtimes often exceeding a hundred hours and budgets breaking a hundred million. Yet even so, the rate of generating happiness and resentment values still felt a bit slow.
Chen Mo opened the company’s internal email. Qian Kun had already sent over a work report.
After the VR version of *PUBG* was completed, Chen Mo had arranged for the team to port *PUBG* to the Switch and mobile phones.
Both could be considered mobile versions, though the Switch version would have more comfortable controls.
The mobile version of *PUBG* didn’t have anything particularly special, except for one thing worth mentioning: the bots.
Although the VR version of *PUBG* had many flashy features—like rolling, wall-climbing, AI, and “god-tier” servers—the mobile version didn’t need them.
In Chen Mo’s plan, the VR version of *PUBG* was meant to provide hardcore players with the richest gaming experience, while the mobile version was meant to give the majority of less skilled players a chance to experience this gameplay.
The bots in the mobile version of *PUBG* weren’t the high-end AI; they were just very simple programs.
Within a certain time frame, they would randomly spawn near some players, actively seek out player positions, fire a few shots at the players’ feet to chip a little health, and then just fire blanks the whole time, waiting to turn into loot boxes.
Moreover, these bots would randomly carry some equipment for players to loot.
This might seem stupid, but it was actually a very clever design. Its key significance was in ensuring a good experience for new players.
*PUBG*’s tendency to drive away some casual players was mainly due to its high difficulty.
With 100 people and only one chicken dinner, did that mean every player who played 100 matches would inevitably get one chicken dinner?
Obviously not.
In fact, because player skill levels varied so much, and hidden MMR couldn’t perfectly balance every match, it was very possible that out of 100 matches, some players would get 20 chicken dinners while others got none at all.
Especially for new players, never getting a chicken dinner—and often dying immediately upon landing—would inevitably create an extremely strong sense of frustration. Many new players would complain that *PUBG* was a very difficult game.
In this context, bots were actually an important feature to ensure player experience.
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