I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 164 - 79: First Experience with Hollow Knight! Is This Game This Easy?_1

Chapter 164: Chapter 79: First Experience with Hollow Knight! Is This Game This Easy?_1

On a sunny and breezy afternoon, "Hollow Knight" quietly hit the shelves on Number One Player’s official website.

Although Number One Player Company did some promotion for "Hollow Knight," compared to their previous FPS game "Pubg."

"Hollow" seemed more like a stepchild, with a much more subtle approach.

Aside from the hardcore fans who pay special attention to Number One Player, many casual gamers didn’t even know that Number One Player had released a new game.

But gamers are gamers.

Major game developers closely followed the movements of Number One Player Company with great interest.

As a rising star company that had made a dazzling debut, Ke Jin’s talent as the CEO and Chief Designer could only be described as terrifying.

A mind that soared among the stars!

Ingenious gameplay!

Compelling stories!

He could make niche indie games.

He also had a deep understanding of player psychology.

Story-driven games, often neglected by other developers, found new life in his hands.

Even with gacha games that were so popular people were getting aesthetic fatigue, he could still make them sing.

On the FPS track, where the giants Netcom tried to dominate,

he created history in Blue Star’s gaming circle with "Pubg," uniting the previously fragmented gaming community with remarkable Cohesion for the first time!

And what was scarier was that.

The game designer who had achieved so many feats in the industry

was not an old-timer with decades of experience.

On the contrary, he was in his prime!

At just 23 years old, he was at an age even more competitive than one’s prime!

His future was bright!

Therefore.

The news of "Hollow Knight"’s release instantly blew up within the industry.

All the big and small companies hurried to get their hands on this game.

They began analyzing it right from the CG stage.

Even a behemoth like Tengjing game established a special research team after the success of "Pubg."

They appointed Bao Jingbi, with his rich game design experience, currently serving as the game director of their major MMORPG "Legend of Bloodbath."

To painstakingly study this "Hollow Knight"

and see if there’s anything worth adopting.

If there is, then take it and use it for themselves.

Originally, before Designer Ke made his brilliant entrance,

the title of genius designer had always been firmly in Bao Jingbi’s grasp.

Although he wasn’t the founding father of the gacha genre, he definitely played a pivotal role in popularizing it.

He improved upon the Skinner Box principle of desire-reflection, advocated for fragmented gameplay, and tore apart the drawing mechanism.

Things like guaranteed skin fragment after 10 draws, repeatable acquisition of characters one already owns but without additional usage, obligatory holiday bundles purchase to unlock the full game experience.

"Legend of Bloodbath," which was just a mid-tier game in Tengjing’s portfolio,

soared after he introduced a new "Siege Warfare" mechanic, whereby high-rollers’ equipment had a chance to drop upon death during sieges and could be picked up by other players.

Whale players, in order to protect the weapons they had spent money on, needed to buy lots of "Explosion-Proof Runes," which didn’t guarantee 100% drop protection and also had upgrade levels that could fail and reset at any moment.

Free-to-play gamers, hoping to loot and sell the whales’ expensively-upgraded weapons on the market, would also invest heavily in "Explosive Runes" that had increasing probabilities to drop the whales’ weapons at higher upgrade levels, but also risked resetting after a certain threshold.

This technique of ’using gear paid for by whales as bait to spark a war between whales and regular players’ was an intricate play on human desires, and it was so effective it wasn’t even fair to call it ’making money out of thin air.’

At least with thin air, you still have your hands.

He had nothing, essentially creating something out of nothing, what do you want to do.

This tactic, which exploited human desires to the fullest, helped "Legend of Bloodbath" rise viciously, making it a regular in the top ten grossing games for Tengjing game.

Whether or not he is a genius designer in the eyes of gamers is debatable.

But at least in the eyes of the company, where the game’s revenue repeatedly hit new highs, he was undeniably valued.

But now.

During meetings that the company’s top brass held every other day.

The conversations were not to his liking.

Lately, these executives have been saying, ’Designer Ke is doing this,’ ’What would Designer Ke think?’

He could tolerate that.

What Bao Jingbi found harder to accept was that.

The higher-ups actually ordered him to lead a small team to analyze "Hollow Knight," this new game, to see what could be copied.

Bao Jingbi was instantly triggered.

Disgusting!

Utterly disgusting!

Who am I, Bao Jingbi?

And what is this Ke Jin, some nameless shrimp?

All the games he has developed, piled together, still can’t reach half the revenue of "Legend of Bloodbath," which I am primarily responsible for now.

Not to mention those major MMORPGs I used to handle.

You’re telling me to study him?

It felt to Bao Jingbi like being a top student, accustomed to praise, and then suddenly a new kid arrives, and the teacher asks him to learn from the new kid’s essay, to see how the new kid writes.

Learn your mom!

Really think that just because you’ve crushed Netcom’s "War Annihilation," you can strut around feeling important?