I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 726 - 225: Trailer Launched!_2

Chapter 726: Chapter 225: Trailer Launched!_2

But to know,

a title with first-month sales breaking a million at Blue Star could at least secure a nomination in the various major game award ceremonies.

And once the first-month sales exceeded 3 million+, it had the chance to top the Game of the Year in a less competitive scenario.

Surpassing 5 million+ in sales would pretty much guarantee the annual title.

However, at the start of this year,

"Elden" shattered Blue Star’s historical record for single-player game market sales with first-month figures of 23 million!

And that’s not all.

"Divine Continent" broke the previous record of 8.77 million first-month sales set by Art Electricity with its 13 million, relegating the now third-place "Sports Life" further down the list.

It inevitably led numerous gamers in the industry to exclaim—The inaugural year of gaming is coming!

Of course,

as "Divine Continent" gradually took over the heat from "Elden," becoming the hottest discussion topic of the month in the gaming circle,

a group of Blizzard die-hard fans, who hadn’t played "Elden" before, expressed a preference for the style of "Divine Continent."

Then began a fierce online war of words with the players who supported "Elden."

This kind of thing actually happens at any time.

Especially when the two games in question are quite similar in nature and have a bit of a touch of genius, albeit in different ways.

The quarrels between their fans are almost inevitable.

The reasons players like "Elden" are naturally quite common.

First is its status as a pioneering work of open-world games.

Second, that irresistibly appealing Magic Ring-like charm.

Meanwhile, the players supporting "Divine Continent" stated,

’"Elden" is simply riding on the coattails of the open-world’s popularity. If "Divine Continent" had come out earlier, it would have been killing it,’ and ’Why would anyone like to play such a difficult game? Surely a stable progression, where one can clearly feel the character getting stronger, like in "Divine Continent," should be more appealing?’

Both sides had their own views, and neither could convince the other.

And a portion of the professional game reviewers leaned more towards selecting "Elden,"

with some of the more well-known reviewers bluntly stating,

Though "Divine Continent" is generally a decent title in all aspects, it hasn’t delved deeper into the open-world genre more significantly.

The reviewers also made their case.

For example, when it comes to roguelike games,

"Slaughter Spire" and "The Binding of Isaac" give a noticeably different definition to the genre.

The former focuses on becoming more controllable in a random array, while the latter leans towards the pleasure of experiencing total randomness.

These two exemplify the depth exploration of the roguelike genre.

But "Divine Continent" obviously just followed the same path laid out by Elden Ring methodically.

And as the game progresses to mid and late game, the unique sense of emptiness that comes with open-world games hits hard.

The reviewer stated,

After half a year of continuously trying various open-world games, he realized the genre might not be as perfect as imagined.

The most critical issue was controlling the players’ points of interest.

Whether it’s a linear game or an open-world, players need to derive a pleasant sensation of growth and becoming stronger.

Linear games make the progression of growth quite intuitive.

At certain stages, you are given weapons/skills/items for that stage, and all the player needs to do is follow the path designed by the game designer, enjoying the game as they go.

But the open-world is different.

You can’t predict where the players are going to go next.

Therefore, you need to make the entire map as balanced as possible.

Allowing players to gain something no matter which direction they choose.

Then a new problem arises.

How should you design items like weapons/skills that increase power?

If you place a legendary item in Area A, then the players who go to Area A first and get the legendary item might lose the desire to explore Area B when all they find there are purple or even blue-quality gear.

So, the best option is to emulate "Elden," setting each weapon to have its unique use.

But problems would present themselves accordingly.

In games like "Divine Continent" that emphasize numerical enhancement,

Gameplay from "Elden" just isn’t compatible.

The reason is simple.

Boss battles in "Elden" tend to rely on players using just the right amount of offense and defense to tackle the challenge.

As a result, a group of players has even emerged who take on various bosses with nothing but a stick.

However, this wouldn’t work in classic RPGs.

Classic RPGs never encourage punching above one’s weight class, prescribing the right activity for each stage, with over-leveling only leading to endless frustration.

Essentially, it guides players to explore more content, level up to a certain point, learn more skills, and gear up before challenging again.

Therefore, despite being an open world,

there are still soft restrictions.

Hence, although Blizzard has managed to find a relatively clever balance in this aspect,

players will discover that during the mid to late stages of the game,

the entire open world map becomes increasingly large and empty.

By this stage, leveling up is mostly complete, and there isn’t much left in the wilderness to improve oneself.

Once there are no rewards, the desire to explore decreases.

In the end, the only path left is returning to the main storyline.

On this front,

"Elden Ring" manages to still attract players to explore with its variety of innovative bosses.

Once "Divine Continent" players reach a certain level, they essentially decimate bosses with ease,

which directly diminishes their motivation to pursue the main storyline.

"Therefore, we believe that although open-world genres are initially very fun, they can’t maintain a player’s continuous interest in following the main storyline like linear games can,"

"’Elden’ has done a decent job balancing this aspect, but we will still find that by the mid to late game, players no longer lack Forging Stones, and exploration points no longer offer them anything better..."

"At this point, the approach of ’Divine Continent,’ which mainly focuses on leveling up, feels even more forced."

"Hence the conclusion is that open-world may be a fresh genre, but it’s not a perfect one."

"Neither ’Elden Ring’ nor ’Divine Continent’ achieve perfection."

These incisive points raised by various top fifty review analyses made many players reflect, realizing that it might indeed be true.

It seemed that playing into the mid to late game indeed started to feel a bit dull.

"Elden" was still okay because you could at least look forward to seeing what novel bosses there were.

But "Divine Continent" was never about engaging in meticulous boss fights, so by the late game, constant easy victories became tasteless.

For a time,

players who supported "Elden Ring" and those rooting for "Divine Continent" were both silenced.

Perhaps it was because that review made it to the trending topics and gained more players’ attention and acknowledgment,

other reviewers seeing the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon also took to the stage to criticize the chaotic spread of open-world games over the last six months.

Claiming that the game type was inherently flawed, that it was only "Elden" that had ignited the trend, leading to a bunch of foolish manufacturers blindly following an incomplete genre.

Some, seeking fame, deliberately stirred up trouble by claiming that leading players had led the game market astray, from one quagmire into another.

However, most players were discerning enough to lash out at those attempting to ride the coattails of the trend.

Yet, there was indeed a growing number of manufacturers beginning to harbor doubts.

Open world... is it really a viable game genre?

Why haven’t most of the games from the past half-year been profitable?

Although Blizzard could make money, its success was linked to the quality of "Divine Continent," and the company’s heritage was evident.

Not everyone is Blizzard, after all.

And just when all eyes were on this issue,

the leading player, who had been quiet for the past six months,

suddenly released a teaser trailer for "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" across the internet!

The genre, interestingly enough, was the now-skeptically-viewed open world!