Horrible! Actually playing this kind of game!

After the release of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", many game merchants, including players, were a little bit unconvinced that this was actually an online game that could be seen in 2001.

"No, if Pokeni does this, can the performance of computers and game consoles really withstand it?"

"It's either to drive programmers to death or to drive players' computers to death, right? They actually use 3D models to fight in online games?"

"How did the card online game learn from the previous "Border Online"? Isn't it better to be free? Anyway, you have to draw cards in the game.

I originally thought that "Yu-Gi-Oh!" would also adopt a free model like "Border Online".

I didn't expect that it would charge?

3,000 yen is cheaper than ordinary games, but it's not a small amount."

There are many doubts on the Internet.

However, many people have not played the game yet, and they just asked through the forum.

After they really experienced it, they found that everything was very different from what they imagined.

Although this game is a 3D online game, it is actually quite smooth to play. At least it will not be stuck in performance. The only thing that may cause lag is the network condition.

In fact, Qing Zhiyuan is a veteran programmer who has been working in the game industry for 20 years. He does many things after careful consideration.

First of all, in terms of game performance:

There are several 3D models that are not too heavy to carry, and they are not high-precision large models with tens of thousands of faces.

It is enough to draw the figures beautifully.

The card faces are well drawn and the models are well made, which is enough to meet the needs of players.

Moreover, in "Yu-Gi-Oh", there will be no more than 10 combat units on the field at the same time in a game.

There will be fewer after fusion.

The card battle of Yu-Gi-Oh is a plane structure, which corresponds to the number of grids on the ground. Paradox itself has imposed certain restrictions through terrain.

The scene itself does not need to be very detailed. The scene of Shenmue is much more complicated than this, and it runs quite smoothly.

Even the precision of many models is lower. For example, non-human monsters such as Goblins and Charmanders can have fewer faces, but give people a high texture.

Textures are also very important.

These technical accumulations are not a day or two.

You should know that there are more than 10 players in a game of Frontier Online, and they are all 3D scenes and higher-precision models.

In the past, in Pokémon 3D World of Pokémon, you will also encounter many 3D model enemies.

The model overhead of "Yu-Gi-Oh!" is mainly placed on the client, and the server only transmits basic data, such as who hits whom, how much damage is caused, and what the settlement reward is.

The model call is actually local, which depends on the performance of the game console or computer.

The official gives different adaptation modes. If you think your computer graphics card is not good, then open the low configuration. If you think the graphics card is good, then you can use the high configuration.

For high configuration, Pokémon will use software technology to maximize the performance of the graphics card and the performance of the game console.

...

In fact, the combat overhead of turn-based games is not a problem at all.

Real-time games, such as "Warcraft 3" and "Starcraft", are much more complicated than this.

To ensure the smoothness of the game, the information exchange of each operation every second will be more complicated than "Yu-Gi-Oh!". So players don’t really have to worry about game expenses and computer performance. Basically, after buying Yu-Gi-Oh, it can run smoothly on a computer and Sega DC.

Of course, the accuracy of this model cannot be as high as it will be 20 years later, but compared with other products of the same era, the in-game performance of Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely top-notch.

…

What is really worth thinking and discussing about by Qing Zhiyuan and Paradox’s game planners is actually more about the game’s system rules and commercialization.

At the beginning, Qing Zhiyuan also thought about making the game free, and after discussing with everyone, they all agreed that the [Deathmatch Mode], that is, the mode where the winner can get a card of the loser, should be retained.

This is an important setting in the animation. One of the important reasons why Qing Zhiyuan was convinced by them is that this mode is sufficiently stimulating.

It’s the same as playing mahjong. If you lose money, you want to win it back. Losing a card is very stimulating in itself, and one of your cards will be taken away by the opponent. This psychological stimulation is not a little bit strong.

Moreover, generally speaking, opportunities and risks coexist. If you want to defeat your opponent, you must put together a very tactical deck, which will have some powerful cards, such as legendary cards with high cost performance.

Once you lose, the opponent will take away the legendary card, and the excitement will be even higher.

Then the problem is obvious.

First of all, the first solution given by Qing Zhiyuan is that the game must not adopt the free model of Border Online, but must be charged.

This money is both the cost of the disc and an entry threshold.

It is used to prevent players from infinitely brushing small accounts.

The official cannot restrict players from opening small accounts. This thing will not happen even in more than 20 years.

Therefore, opening a trumpet account is inevitable, but after charging, the cost of the trumpet account will become higher, and it will not be unlimited.

Another reason is that precisely because of this entry threshold and cost, players cannot use small accounts to swipe cards for large accounts.

Qing Zhiyuan is not afraid of players cheating at all.

Instead, they contributed to pokeni by playing alt accounts.

$19 for a small size.

If a player opens 10 trumpet accounts, he will contribute $190 in revenue to pokeni.

This kind of thing pokeni simply couldn't ask for.

In order to transfer cards to the large account by brushing the small account, pokeni has also made several settings.

First of all, the deathmatch mode is similar to the ranked matches of Hearthstone. Players cannot choose their opponents and must pass the matching process.

The matched objects are all opponents of the same level as you, which ensures the relative fairness of the battle.

In other words, just like the pyramid, the further up you go, the smaller the player group becomes, and the more powerful the opponents you match, the stronger their decks.

And if you want to be constantly matched with your own trumpet, you have to let the trumpet also come up. This is theoretically impossible.

Because when your trumpet number is called, it will no longer be called a trumpet number.

Another setting is——

The value of the legendary card itself is not high, so players can have enough affordability.

In pokeni's value setting, the value of a legendary card is 4,000 yen, which is equivalent to more than 30 US dollars and more than 250 soft sister coins based on the 2001 exchange rate.

But since each player needs to collect a large number of cards, the combined value is considerable.

There are currently more than 1,000 officially released cards, including more than 20 legendary cards, and they all have specific card combinations. If they are separated from this deck, the value will decrease if taken out individually, so the restrictions are quite good. Many.

First, collect these 1,000 cards. According to the numerical planning calculation of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", it will cost a total of 200,000 yen, which is equivalent to more than 1,500 US dollars and more than 12,000 soft money.

It's not cheap anymore either.

But it is certainly not expensive. This value is not even enough for a rich person’s daily pocket money.

Therefore, in order to deepen the depth of payment, the official also specially dug a skin pit.

The rarity value of the skin is much higher than the use value of the card itself, and can even be infinitely high in calculation terms.

This is easy to understand:

From the perspective of payment ability, what middle and low-level paying players need more is the right to use cards. If you have cards, you can combine them to defeat your opponents.

For players with strong paying ability, they need more of a sense of showing off, so they provide skins, various titles, avatar frames, combat actions and special effects...a series of purely cosmetic products that can be used to show off the players' unrelated card attributes.

What these goods provide is emotional value.

So in this case, if you think about it, the use value of a legendary card is not high. In addition, even if the player wins, he will randomly get one card from the opponent's 40 cards. This is purely a matter of viewing. Face thing.

If you want to use an alt account to farm, firstly, you must match it, and secondly, you must ensure that the proportion of cards you need in the alt account's deck is high enough, otherwise it will be difficult to draw.

Also, even if you draw it, the selling price of this card is limited in terms of use value.

So Qing Zhiyuan is not afraid of players cheating at all.

I even wish they could brush more.

But that doesn’t mean that you will lose money by playing alt accounts. People who work diligently will always get some better cards, which will make the starting account more valuable. But if you want to go up, you have to spend money and improve your own account. The deck has an advantage.

…

Now that this problem is no longer a problem, the thing that Qing Zhiyuan and Mikami Shinji worry about the most is——

Will the launch of the game have any impact on trading cards?

On September 10, Operations Director Kazuma Takahashi initiated an operational analysis meeting for "Yu-Gi-Oh!". Qing Zhiyuan and a group of company executives attended the meeting.

Many people expressed that they were too curious. In fact, such a special IP as Yu-Gi-Oh has been working very well before. If the game development has a negative impact after it is launched, then the fun will be great and it will definitely be laughed at by peers.

You must know that Sony and Rentendao have been waiting to see pokeni's jokes for so many years, wanting to see them fail.

This time around Yu-Gi-Oh's game operation, except pokeni himself, everyone else was confused and didn't know whether the result was good or bad.

What's more, I wish they could just wipe out the income from trading cards.

Kazuma Takahashi was in the conference room, opening the PPT and showing the data curve chart to everyone:

“Judging from the first month’s operating data, the impact is actually inevitable.

Because before the game was launched, the only outlet for these Yu-Gi-Oh audiences was trading cards. They could get the characters they wanted by opening packs, and then use them to play against others offline, enjoying a game similar to that in cartoons. pleasure.

After the game appears, players will inevitably be diverted. "

Kazuma Takahashi explained:

Players who like to fight and enjoy the fun of fighting will flock to the game. This is very intuitive, and it is an official competition held in person.

Let the machine make the judgment and write unified rules, which will naturally provide players with a more comfortable fighting environment.

Therefore, after this wave of impact, the sales volume of trading cards naturally dropped a lot.

But from an overall perspective, it's actually worth it.

Through data analysis, Operations Director Kazuma Takahashi compared the overall data for the same month and gave a very detailed report.

Although the sales volume of trading cards has dropped by more than 20%, it has almost stabilized in the end. The downward trend has flattened, and there is not much room for decline in the future.

On the game side, the number of players entering not only fills this 20%, but there are many more.

Even judging from the revenue in the first month, Yu-Gi-Oh's game revenue data has reached the same level as the revenue from trading cards.

That is to say, the global revenue has reached an astonishing more than 200 million US dollars.

Seeing this data, everyone in the conference room couldn't help but gasped and looked at each other, unable to understand the result.

Qing Zhiyuan just smiled calmly and motioned to Operations Director Kazuma Takahashi to continue.

“This thing seems quite counter-intuitive, just as counter-intuitive as [capturing] the opponent’s cards can actually increase revenue and player stickiness.”

Kazuma Takahashi was also happy, touched his nose with his hand and laughed.

To be honest, if he hadn't seen the data, he would probably have the same expression as everyone else.

"Think about it, how painful it must be for the party whose card is taken away?

Aren’t we afraid that players will be lost?

I keep losing, and the cards keep being taken away by the opponent. If the opponent keeps winning, I can always improve my advantage. Isn't this the case that the strong is stronger and the weak is weaker?

So why do I continue to play this game? right? "

Everyone nodded, isn't that how it should be?

If it were me, I would probably give up the game if the opponent drew a legendary card.

"In fact..."

Takahashi Kazuma clicked down a page, and a rapidly growing curve appeared on the PPT.

“Our research has found that players who have experienced deathmatch mode have a higher retention rate than players who have not participated in deathmatch mode.

The retention rate for ordinary players is about 5% per month.

But for players who have experienced deathmatch mode, the rate has reached an astonishing 50%. "

Wow...

As soon as this statement came out, everyone was shocked.

This is... too counter-intuitive, right?

"Our analysis found that this is actually a very typical gambler's mentality." Kazuma Takahashi took out the data of Quehun and compared it. "In fact, the data of this part of the players is quite similar to the players of Quehun.

We expected that [the legendary card would be drawn] and then be lost, but this is not the case.

Once there are gains and losses, wins and losses, and the overweight is within the tolerance range, the players' viscosity will actually be higher. "

This is actually a typical gambler’s mentality.

In fact, an experiment on white mice was conducted abroad to study feeding methods, in which three groups of white mice were divided.

The first group has a timer feeder that feeds a certain amount of food at a fixed time every day.

There is a pedal on the second set of feeders. As long as the mice step on it, food will be dropped.

There is also a pedal on the third group of feeders. Every time the mice step on it, there will be a random portion of food or even no food.

As a result, the researchers were surprised to find that the mice in the third group pedaled the most crazily, and sometimes they continued to pedal even after they were full.

In fact, this is a typical gambling mechanism, which is caused by stimulating the secretion of dopamine in the animal brain.

The [Duel Mode] is equivalent to gambling in disguise.

It is actually difficult for many people to understand why some people still borrow money to gamble even though they have lost everything. It is actually a similar reason.

When there are wins and losses, the viscosity will become higher.

After Kazuma Takahashi explained, everyone at the scene showed expressions of sudden realization.

Except for some veteran planners, such as legendary producer Shinji Mikami, who may already have this knowledge, others sound quite fresh.

As for Qing Zhiyuan, he was just happy to observe the expressions of everyone present and had no interest in Takahashi Kazuma's explanation.

…

"After the game was opened, the impact on trading cards was limited. On the contrary, the total number of users increased and the revenue was higher. This is actually counter-intuitive."

Takahashi Kazuma returned to the topic.

“At the beginning, we thought that this wave of impact would definitely cause a lot of losses.

But in fact, after research, we will find that the original trading card users are actually three different types of people:

The first type are pure animation enthusiasts. They like animation and are also keen to collect their favorite cards in cartoons and imitate the battles in cartoons.

But in fact, they don’t like to play games very much. Many of them even prefer to play more popular family games such as Pokémon and Mario. In addition, they are actually not that interested in real card battles. .

We call this group of animated users.

The second type is game users. This group of users are users who are more competitive and have a high willingness to play. We call them combat users.

The third type is users who are purely collecting and have the desire to collect. This group of users may sound strange at first glance, because they may not even watch the entire animation, but just see that the cards are valuable, so they collect them.

Some are collectors, and some are card speculators waiting for the value to increase.

Don't underestimate this group of people. Although the proportion is not high, the number is actually not small. "

When Takahashi Kazuma said this, he brought up a pie chart.

The proportions of these three types of users are marked above.

Most of them, 62% of users are animation users and 21% are game users.

17% are card users.

Kazuma Takahashi pulled another picture, showing that many people may actually combine multiple user attributes at the same time.

“Then, this time our game attracted not only some pure battle users, but also other different types of users.

The data not only fills in the missing part.

At the same time, there are many players who have never played trading cards before and are not Yu-Gi-Oh fans.

This is converted through the Dandelion game platform and other publicity channels.

So we see that this situation has formed now. "

Takahashi turned to the next page and raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

"The payment rate of games is much higher than that of trading cards. Although the number of game users is far less than that of trading cards, it creates the same value."

Moreover, the popularity of the game has also turned some pure gamers into new users who collect trading cards.

The two promote each other and make the entire pool bigger.

In the end, Takahashi Kazuma concluded, “Our opening of the game this time is generally beneficial, and it is not generally beneficial.

It directly doubled our Yu-Gi-Oh!'s revenue. "

Oops!

Everyone gasped when they heard this.

Everyone was stunned for a moment, then turned their attention to Qing Zhiyuan.

The president is truly a god.

No one might have the courage to do this kind of thing.

But Qing Zhiyuan was determined to do it from the beginning.

Facts have proved that the president was so right! ! !

…

...(End of chapter)