My game, you have no right to award

Chapter 216 Half-understanding
The two walked into the vast office area of ​​Antarctic Pioneer Games, and after pushing open the door...

"Little Cao!"

"Hey! It's coming, it's coming!"

Niu Tieming's loud voice immediately attracted everyone's attention.

Cao Qingli walked over and his eyes lit up instantly when he saw Zhou Kuang.

"Okay, I'll leave it to you."

Niu Tieming patted Zhou Kuang on the shoulder with a smile, then turned and left with Ma Tu.

"Mr. Zhou! It's been a long time!"

Cao Qingli showed no awkwardness and immediately and warmly shook Zhou Kuang's hand.

If it weren't for the fact that the other party had already left a deep impression on him during their last meeting, Zhou Kuang would probably be quite startled right now.

"Yes, I came to see how your project is going."

As Zhou Kuang nodded, he subtly pulled his hand away from the other person's tightly gripping hand.

But the next second...

"Oh, you're too kind. Mr. Zhou, if you want to know the details of the project, you can just give me a call!"

The other person grabbed his hand again and shook it frantically.

"Oh right, you don't seem to have my contact information, do you?"

"Hey, I forgot about that."

The other person scratched their head with their left hand, but their right hand remained firmly in place.

"Um... could you loosen your grip a bit? It's getting a little hot."

Zhou Kuang had no choice but to speak frankly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm just too excited to see you! Please forgive me~"

Cao Qingli flashed his two rows of bright white teeth and quickly let go of his hand.

Zhou Kuang shook his head helplessly, then secretly flexed his wrist.

That's what you call a true social phobia.

Social XX molecule.

The two walked towards Cao Qingli's location. In just a few steps, the other's upper lip never touched his lower lip, he was constantly moving!

"Mr. Zhou, let me tell you, our project is absolutely amazing!"

"I have over two hundred employees under my command!"

“I’ve never led so many people before. All the outsourced teams combined don’t even come close to this number.”

"That's why they say Antarctica is rich; my salary has increased several times over."

"Boss Niu is a man of great ambition and a ruthless one. He told me to hire people, and I did."

"Since they trust me so much, I definitely have to repay them, so I want to do this project well."

"Do you know what this project is called?"

"It's called 'Narukami,' which is related to the game's world view..."

Cao Qingli turned around and saw that they had arrived at their destination. He then turned to look for the items on the table.

Zhou Kuang finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Good heavens, I didn't even have a chance to say a word; I just listened to the other person talk the whole way.

She's really good at talking...

"Mr. Zhou, this is the project proposal. Let me tell you..."

"Stop, I said stop!"

Zhou Kuang quickly stopped the other person from continuing to explain, knowing that if he didn't interrupt him, he probably wouldn't have another chance.

"Um, I'll take a look myself."

"okay."

Cao Qingli obediently handed over the proposal, and Zhou Kuang took it and sat down to read it carefully.

Seeing this, Cao Qingli could only sit aside and wait for Zhou Kuang to finish reading.

His face showed a mixture of unspoken words and hesitation, yet he dared not interrupt Zhou Kuang, which eventually turned into a look of grievance.

Zhou Kuang was reading the proposal in front of him while thinking.

As previously known, Naruto is an open-world action-adventure game.

The game's distribution platform is cross-platform, meaning it's available on mobile, PC, and perhaps a console.

This proposal perfectly matched what Zhou Kuang had previously told Niu Tieming about the so-called "AAA game with Antarctic characteristics".

After all, everyone has a general idea of ​​what AAA games are, but how to define them and how to add extra titles is ultimately up to the game developers.
Who says free-to-play games can't be AAA games?
Let Antarctic Pioneer redefine AAA games!

Since Naruto was designed to be a free-to-play game from the beginning, the design of microtransactions is crucial.

The operating cost of a mobile game is not low, especially if the game is to be considered a "AAA game", then the cost is even more difficult to estimate.

Looking at Cao Qingli, who was suppressing his urge to speak and keeping quiet, Zhou Kuang almost laughed.

"Tell me about your thinking on micro-transactions."

Hearing Zhou Kuang's words, Cao Qingli breathed a sigh of relief and explained with shining eyes.

"The main paid currency in the game is called 'Ming Stone,' which, as the name suggests, is a very rare stone that can resonate with special elements."

"Players can use it to pray, which is to draw cards."

"The characters in the game are divided into S-rank, A-rank, B-rank, and C-rank..."

"Pause."

Zhou Kuang pondered for a moment, then looked up and said, "No, this design is not good."

"Don't use the S, A, B, C grading system. Just use gold and purple to divide the characters into two grading levels."

Zhou Kuang said firmly.

"why?"

Cao Qingli seemed quite puzzled. He used this kind of grading system when making gacha games in the past, which was clear and could guide players to make a basic judgment on the strength of a character.

"Think about it, if you do this, and a player gets a B-rank or even a C-rank character, what will the player think?"

Zhou Kuang patiently guided him.

"Do you think the character is a bit weak?"

Cao Qingli gave an obvious answer.

"Yes, if you see a gacha pool full of characters below A-rank, would you use resources to pull for them?"

"No," Cao Qingli said instinctively, but immediately realized, "but players can wait until there's an S-rank gacha banner before they pull!"

"During this period, players will have accumulated some free paid currency, right?" Zhou Kuang asked, waiting for him to process what he had just said. "This means a decrease in revenue, a reduction in income."

"Then let every gacha pool have an S-rank character!"

Cao Qingli remained undeterred.

"Players will say that you are too greedy, and they will leave."

"What if we changed it to exchanging for an S-rank character every few gacha pools?"

"Same here. Many players will buy in the first time, but fewer and fewer people will be willing to pay in the future, and your income will still decline."

"This……"

After careful consideration, Cao Qingli understood.

Isn't this going from being single-minded to being blocked on both ends?
Seeing the understanding look on the other person's face, Zhou Kuang continued to explain.

"Therefore, the characters are divided into only two levels, distinguished by gold and purple."

"If there's only one tier, there's no difference in rarity between characters. If there are three tiers, there are too many."

"This color only represents the rarity of the card when drawing it, and does not represent its strength in the game."

"You can put a less powerful character into a gold character, or you can put a crutch for white ticket players into a purple character."

Holy crap, you can do that?!

Listening to Zhou Kuang's explanation, Cao Qingli felt as if he had been enlightened.

That makes so much sense!
Cao Qingli nodded frantically. "I'll go change it right away!"

Zhou Kuang quickly stopped him: "Wait a minute, let's revise it together later. You should write it down first."

"well."

Zhou Kuang thought for a moment and continued, "However, you just mentioned that you can exchange for an S-rank character every few gacha pools, which we can take advantage of."

"Make a slight modification and divide the card pool for each cycle into two parts, upper and lower."

"Two gold characters will be released, along with a gold hero that is available from the very beginning of the game."

"These gold heroes that are available from the start of the game are not rare and are not very strong. They can be used to interfere with players' chances of drawing the characters they want."

"In other words, this means that the probability of drawing the current hero is only 50%."

After Zhou Kuang finished speaking, Cao Qingli was dumbfounded.

Wow, you can play like this?

"Is this okay?"

"of course."

Before Zhou Kuang's transmigration, when such games first appeared, they were still criticized as shameless and greedy. However, the game cunningly occupied an unexplored niche and, despite the external criticism, still made a lot of money in the end.

The audience for this kind of game is most likely not the same people who criticize it.

Therefore, it's perfectly normal to make money while being criticized.

What if I draw a duplicate hero?

Cao Qingli replied almost without thinking, "If a character is duplicated, it will be converted into character fragments. Once enough fragments are collected, they can be used to strengthen the character itself."

"How can we strengthen it?"

Cao Qingli turned around and called out to someone, "Xiao Dou, come here for a second!"

A young man stood up and ran over.

"Team Leader Cao, what's wrong?"

Cao Qingli did not answer, but turned around and introduced with a smile: "President Zhou, this is the numerical planner of our project planning team. He is in charge of the character enhancement part."

"This is Mr. Zhou. Could you please explain how our project and character enhancement works using fragments?"

The young man secretly glanced at Zhou Kuang, and after realizing he was someone he didn't recognize, he greeted him.

"Mr. Zhou."

Although he was a little confused as to why the producer wanted him to explain things to this young man, he did as he was told.

"If you draw a duplicate character, the newly drawn character will turn into fragments. You can use the fragments to upgrade the character to +1, which will increase the base stats."

Basic values...

Zhou Kuang shook his head slightly. The other party's design concept was still too simple and crude, even "primitive". For someone who had seen many storms, there were too many areas for improvement.

"Then you can add +2, +3, and so on up to +15."

"The number of character fragments needed each time will be double or even several times that of the last time."

Zhou Kuang asked a few more questions, then told Cao Qingli to send the other party back.

"Is this ok?"

Cao Qingli was filled with anticipation, hoping to receive words of approval from Zhou Kuang.

However, he was disappointed again.

Zhou Kuang shook his head and said, "This also needs to be changed."

"He just said that the character's enhancement numbers will also be displayed above the character's head."

"It's so disruptive to the immersion."

"Remember, you're making a single-player gacha game; multiplayer is an option."

"This design is entirely for whales (high spenders), don't use this design approach in this game."

Cao Qingli listened attentively and nodded.

Although he couldn't immediately grasp the logic behind it, after what had happened before, he believed that Zhou Kuang must have his reasons for saying that.

"I'll tell you how to do it."

Zhou Kuang grinned wickedly.

"You should make this enhancement system a built-in system for each character."

"Let's call it... Resonance!"

"For example, if you draw character A, it is actually character A with 0 resonances."

"The maximum number of times a character can resonate is six."

"Every time a player draws a duplicate character, they can unlock a new resonance for that character."

"Some resonances can enhance a character's attributes, while others directly strengthen the mechanics."

"Okay, let's set the mechanism enhancements for Resonance 2, Resonance 4, and Resonance 6."

"Holy crap, awesome!" Cao Qingli slapped his thigh, his face full of shock. "In other words, a character is only truly complete when he draws the seventh one."

Zhou Kuang nodded, his face showing an expression that said, "This child is teachable."

On the other side, Cao Qingli thought about it more and more and felt that this idea was far superior to their initial design.

Compared to simply increasing basic stats, this not only avoids the problem of data inflation but also greatly enhances the playability of the characters.

It can even attract players to spend more money on in-game purchases.

Mr. Zhou is truly amazing!
He felt that in front of the other person, he was not a veteran of the game industry who had been in the business for many years, but as if he had turned back into a greenhorn who knew nothing.

I felt like a sponge, frantically absorbing the knowledge the other person taught me.

The other party also shared all their knowledge with them.

This is too fierce!
"What if we raise this resonance to its highest level?"

Cao Qingli asked again.

"Then let's just exchange it for another currency, which can be used to exchange for card draw chances."

Zhou Kuang replied.

"Furthermore, you can add a large-scale portrait of the character to the Resonance interface."

"Each time you unlock a resonance, you can unlock a new character illustration."

“They even removed certain things from the character's illustration.”

Zhou Kuang gave him a knowing look, and Cao Qingli nodded hurriedly, his face beaming with joy.

The two continued discussing the "Narukami" project proposal. Almost every time they reached a point, Zhou Kuang would make a revision, and Cao Qingli would suddenly realize something.

Finally, they went over the entire process of game monetization. Cao Qingli couldn't wait to put all of this into writing and have his subordinates revise it.

But before that, he had one more question to ask Zhou Kuang.

"Mr. Zhou, I have a question, but I'm not sure if I should ask it."

Cao Qingli looked a little embarrassed and subconsciously touched his nose.

"ask!"

Zhou Kuang waved his hand, appearing quite carefree.

"Well...aren't you a developer of single-player games? Why do you have such a deep understanding of these pay-to-win games?"

"Furthermore, why doesn't Kuangshi Games make pay-to-win games?"

Zhou Kuang froze on the spot after hearing this, unsure how to respond.

"Ahem, well, this..."

He knew the answer in his heart, but saying it aloud would only make people laugh.

The answer is: Zhou Kuang, as a developer, utterly despises gacha games that sell characters. This has never been the type of game he dreamed of developing when he became a game developer.

However, as a player, and one with some spare money but limited time, he actually prefers gacha games that he can play in short bursts of free time without logging in for extended periods.

He is not ashamed of paying for anime characters; after all, it's none of anyone else's business what he likes.

He was simply embarrassed by his inability to reconcile his values ​​regarding the same thing in both his career and personal life.

(End of this chapter)