Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 622 Cause and Effect
The closer the girls got to Chu Chen, the more nervous they became.

Not only them, but even the head of Sony Music, who was at the forefront and used to big events, felt a little stiff in the back at this moment.

There's no way around it, the atmosphere in that circle is just too strange.

Despite being called a business reception, none of the people surrounding Chu Chen seemed to be there to discuss business.

They sat or stood, some even sitting on the ground, holding either a laptop or a tablet.

The conversation had little to do with business; it was mostly about games. Chu Chen, who was in the center, would listen to the people around him speak, occasionally nod, and say a few words, which would elicit murmurs of amazement or deep thought from those around him.

If this were in a university, it would be quite harmonious.

It's like an old professor sharing his experience, but in this context, it's just too strange. The key is that Chu Chen isn't old enough, so it looks even more subtle.

Therefore, the girls walked slower and slower.

However, what they didn't know was that the moment they moved, a glint flashed in Chu Chen's eyes at the center of the circle.

What the Nogizaka46 girls didn't know was that he had long wanted to find an excuse to leave this "preaching site".

The reason for this situation dates back to a year ago.

At that time, Xingchen had just begun to exert its power, and Chu Chen was not as busy as he is now.

At that time, the Starry Sky gaming platform was still in its infancy.

In order to attract developers for the future platform, Chu Chen came up with a plan: to leverage his own expertise and "poach" developers from professional developer communities.

His method of poaching talent was simple: he would go to various developer forums to see if he was familiar with the other party's demos. If he was familiar with them, then he was sure he was right and would start poaching.

This forward-looking vision, combined with Chu Chen's own professional qualities.

His first step in poaching talent went quite smoothly. In addition to always adding an advertisement at the end of his replies, such as "Starry Sky Games Platform is about to launch, welcome to follow," he would also give some "comments" on the newcomers' works.

Then we'll speculate on the sales figures.

The reason we're speculating on sales figures, and not anything else, is because sales figures are what developers care about most.

Furthermore, it is speculated that sales volume can maximize the attraction of community attention.

After all, it's a work that hasn't been released yet. If you're commenting on it and speculating on its sales, there will definitely be people who agree and people who disagree.

So during that period, Chu Chen's account was quite famous in the European and American indie game community.

However, on a larger scale, Chu Chen's actions to advertise for Xingchen didn't actually cause much of a stir, since there aren't many developers who spend all their time on the forum.

Many people only start communicating intensively with the outside world when they encounter problems or just before the release.

Even Chu Chen himself didn't take it seriously.

I just tried it out of boredom...
Later, as Xingchen's business became increasingly busy, Chu Chen spent less and less time online and gradually forgot about the matter.

then
It's now 18, and those games that Chu Chen "reviewed" back then have either been released on Steam or on StarCraft.

Then, it was soon discovered that the final sales figures for these games were almost identical to the numbers Chu Chen had casually made up back then.

One of the pixel-art games, predicted to sell "a million copies," ultimately sold 1.1 million copies. Another game, predicted to sell "200,000 copies in its first week," sold 240,000 copies in its first week.

One or two cases could be considered coincidences, but when three, four, five or six such cases appeared in succession, the entire forum exploded.

Of course, they didn't know that the games Chu Chen dared to name with exact numbers were all games that Chu Chen was at least familiar with. But none of that mattered. What mattered was that Chu Chen had played them for a while and then never logged on again.

This brings together all the essential elements of an urban legend: a mysterious identity, accurate prophecy, and a successful retirement.

Thus, a vigorous "cyber archaeology" movement began to unfold in European and American forums.

Soon, all the posts that Chu Chen's account had commented on were dug up, and some busybodies even made a detailed comparison table between the predictions in them and the sales of the games that had already been released.

The results are alarming—the error rate is generally no more than 10%.

Some of his comments from back then have also been revisited and analyzed word by word.

Soon after this analysis, someone guessed that the account was backed by Chu Chen, and later someone found solid evidence from a screenshot of one of Chu Chen's live streams.

However, this development only serves as further proof of Chu Chen's status as a "genius producer."

Aside from the Chinese media giving it a shout-out, the novelty wore off quickly, and no one would actually go looking for Chu Chen because of it.

But today is different, because Chu Chen has appeared right in front of me.

This is similar to going to a tourist attraction; even if you're not interested in the attraction itself, you'll still take a look since you're already there. Let alone Chu Chen, who would even disregard these "legends"...

It was also one of the top "stars" at this year's E3 expo.

We should go and see for ourselves, and get his opinion on our game!

This was partly driven by curiosity, and partly by practical interests. After all, if they could get a positive comment from Chu Chen at this banquet, they could put it in their game description.

They don't ask for much; even influencing one or two thousand people would be a pretty good achievement for them.

If only one or two people thought this way, it wouldn't really matter.

Can.
Well... given the scene, you know that there can never be just one "super smart person".

Normally, Chu Chen wouldn't mind chatting with these developers, but today is a different story. As I just said, Chu Chen isn't spending so much money to host this event because he's not really here to be a "sucker."

He also had his own agenda.

The goal is to undermine E3.

In its previous life, after a brief resurgence at E3 in 2018, Sony withdrew from E3 in 2019. In April of the same year, Jeff, the famous host who had long hosted the E3 press conference, chose to leave due to dissatisfaction with the direction of E3's reforms and started his own Summer Game Festival.

Finally, in 20, this long-established exhibition began to decline rapidly and eventually shut down.

Although many people attribute the failure of E3 to face masks, that is the effect, not the cause.

In fact, even this year, Chu Chen has heard many complaints from manufacturers. The first thing many people say to Chu Chen is that he has raised the booth fees at E3 again.

Setting up a large booth at E3 these days can easily cost between $500 million and $2000 million. StarCraft, a newcomer, is willing to pay that amount, but whether other manufacturers are willing to do so is another question mark.

(End of this chapter)