I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 550 - 177: Three Textbook-Level Works!_5

Chapter 550: Chapter 177: Three Textbook-Level Works!_5

Ke Jin had been mentally prepared for this scenario since the start of the competition.

The prize money seemed substantial.

But to the designers from big game companies, it wasn’t considered too much.

Three million, just over two million after taxes, the equivalent of an annual salary.

If some designers had stock options or bonuses, it would be even more than this amount.

Joining the competition, if you win it’s still fine, but if you don’t, it could actually lower your own market value, prompting your bosses to reassess your capabilities.

No matter how you sliced it, it was a lose-lose deal.

Naturally, they wouldn’t come to compete.

As for the mediocre designers, knowing they wouldn’t win, they wouldn’t bother joining the bustle.

As a result, it was left to a group of greenhorns, those with rigid thinking, or superficial views—the low-tier designers.

If it continued this way, the prize money really wouldn’t be given away, and keeping it would be considered revenue.

Money not spent, after all, is profit.

But Ke Jin didn’t want to reluctantly award 50 million to these current submissions either.

That would set a bad precedent for future game design competitions, and it wouldn’t be accepted by others—the players wouldn’t recognize them.

Moreover, as the supervisor, Brother Tong Zi would not agree to such a development.

"Gou, do you think there could be such a situation?" Ke Jin pondered for a moment before speaking.

Gou Chehua showed a look of eager anticipation and listened quietly.

"Whether it’s Slaughter Spire or Mario, the core gameplay is too subtle, many players might find it enjoyable, but they can’t pinpoint where exactly the fun lies. Moreover, these games haven’t been released for even a month, and many designers haven’t fully grasped their core."

After all, prior games in the same genre could only be described as blundering in the dark.

Even Gotham, which defined the genre three years ago on Earth, was in many ways not perfect and was considered a better clone out of a slew of poor imitations of Slaughter Spire.

But on Blue Star, Gotham came before Slaughter Spire.

Thus, designers who went for a ’bullet hell’ theme referenced Gotham and some of the hot pay-to-win games from recent years rather than the original source.

They ignored the ancestors in favor of worshipping a lesser-known disciple from another yard.

It was putting the cart before the horse.

Platform Jump and Sidescrolling Levels as themes were also not new anymore.

Blue Star had these genres a long time ago, but over the years, everything that could be done was done.

Sticking with the old formula was too rigid, while innovating was difficult due to a lack of fresh ideas.

Thus, the final products were awkward.

"Hmm... that possibility can’t be ruled out," Gou Chehua pondered for a moment, then nodded.

Gou Chehua had recently been playing Slaughter Spire himself.

The more he played, the more he felt that the game conveyed a value that was even greater than its content...

It almost overturned all previous bullet hell gameplay by interpreting decision-making in an exquisite way, rather than emphasizing randomness.

Players could use almost any card to build a core and complete their own combination of tactics.

Moreover, there were practically no unbeatable decks.

No matter the randomness, as long as the decisions were correct, every seed could reliably beat the final boss.

In this way, if a player failed to beat a level, their sense of defeat would stem from their own shortcomings, not from limitations in the game mechanics.

The kind of frustration that didn’t blame the game actually became a driving force motivating players to push forward.

It’s the same feeling as telling a guy, ’You can’t even handle this? Are you capable or not?’

Looking at the current Blue Star gaming market, this was something other bullet hell games couldn’t achieve.

"Mario Odyssey was even more of a stroke of genius. It concentrated the essence of platform jumping into a tiny hat, discarding the old notion that to jump, platforms had to be built. It achieved having platforms follow players all over the world, with a rich variety of platform types. Every possession is actually an expansion on ’special platforms,’ making players feel engaged even after a hundred hours. While playing a platform jumper, players don’t feel as if they are within a platform jumping setting. It’s really achieving invisibility within the market. The immersion that comes from not breaking character is hard to replicate, so I bet other designers..."

Gou Chehua didn’t finish the latter half, but Ke Jin had already roughly figured out the cause of the chaos in this competition.

A few games that he deemed textbook level had buried their core gameplay too deep, and with a short time since release, it was hard for designers to get their heads around it.

Why not I release some games that are also textbook quality, but interpret the theme much more vividly? That would do the job, right?

For the sake of successfully handing out the prize money.

Ke Jin was all in.

After failing the last Switch collection task, the regular tasks still kept him stable, giving him three gift boxes.

They matched the three themes of the current competition perfectly.

He went all in!

Ke Jin had to consider whether this was his closest shot at the ultimate prize in his life.

After all, once the tasks were completed, all games’ seals would be lifted!

Many people might not realize what it means to have all of Earth’s hit game IPs in the hands of one person.

By then, forget about Blue Ocean Paradise.

You could call over the oil tycoons who claim ’With a cloth above my head, I am the richest of all,’ and they’d have to massage Mr. Ke’s legs and shoulders.