Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

A core meeting of senior executives is underway.

The projector is currently focused on a graph.

As the platform's operations manager, Aldrich is describing the current situation to a group of executives.

"We need to strip away the promotional slogans for this event on the Spark platform."

"Only look at the most important pieces of information."

"Firstly, Hades was released and achieved sales of over one million copies within three days. This is the first time that a product from an American company has achieved sales of over one million copies on the Spark platform."

"This is a very representative event. It's not just a Hades issue, but a challenge to our entire system."

Aldridge takes this very seriously.

When Hades was announced to be exclusively released on Spark, it already garnered considerable attention.

Currently, many developers, especially small and medium-sized developers, are struggling with the debate over PC platforms.

It seems they have many choices.

You can choose to log in to all platforms or choose to log in exclusively to one platform.

However, after a year of platform wars, many small and medium-sized manufacturers have realized one thing: logging into all platforms means...

You can't get any promotional support from any platform.

It doesn't matter to those big companies.

They already have their own channels, their own marketing and promotion, and their IP is so powerful that they don't need much marketing to sell well.

But for independent manufacturers, or small and medium-sized manufacturers...

The platform's promotion and recommendations are likely their only channels for game promotion.

In this situation.

Publishing on all platforms is tantamount to suicide.

however.

The current platform wars are indeed very chaotic.

Since Spark made its high-profile announcement of its next-generation platform last year, the war has been in a very chaotic state, with no one daring to place a bet easily.

In this situation.

Hades not only placed a bet, but he also won!

This is far more impressive than the previous million-selling "The Scroll of Taiwu".

Because the production company behind Hades is an American company.

Moreover, it broke one million in three days.

This sales figure is indeed outrageous.

With Hades leading the way, it's foreseeable that other small and medium-sized manufacturers will follow suit in the future.

This is clearly unacceptable to Steam.

"Besides Hades, Spark's The Wandering Earth has also sold over a million copies overseas, which is not good news for us either."

Aldridge's voice was deep.

This is because neither piece of news is good news for Steam.

The former, Hades, represents Steam, whose existing market share has been taken over by Spark.

The latter, "The Wandering Earth: Home," has sold over a million copies overseas, which means that Spark has entered their traditional territory.

Either one.

Even Steam cannot accept this.

Not to mention, both of them came together.

"Therefore, we must turn the tide in the battle that begins tonight."

Aldridge said this.

The atmosphere in the meeting room eased up a bit.

So what is this plan he's talking about?

The answer is [fire, fire, fire]

After a period of refinement, the plan is now very detailed.

It was originally scheduled to be released on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

As a result, the Spark Games Carnival became too popular, so Aldrich played it safe.

Then, in the third year of junior high, the momentum finally slowed down a bit.

As a result, The Wandering Earth became a hit again, and Aldridge secured another victory.

until now.

Aldridge simply couldn't wait any longer.

Moreover, he estimated that this was the time when Xinghuo was least prepared.

Also.

This year's Spark Spring Festival Carnival mainly focuses on buy-one-get-one-free promotions.

In other words, you can get special gifts by buying merchandise or topping up your account.

The rest are events held within each game itself.

The platform's promotions only include stacked discounts such as 10 yuan off for every 100 yuan spent.

It's not that Xinghuo is stingy.

Rather, it's because Spark's entire budget was poured into the events, which, according to many media outlets, is why both "The Vow" and "Spark Earth" were involved.

Excluding any other fees, it only includes the physical wristband and greeting card.

Adding logistics costs, the expenditure amounts to hundreds of millions of RMB.

Therefore, the platform-wide discount for the New Year was capped at 9%.

However, although the platform discounts were not high, there were still many internal discounts between individual games, especially on the first day after the player traffic was felt.

It's not just Chinese manufacturers; Japanese manufacturers are also offering discounts, and they're all at record lows.

This trend of nationwide discounts.

Ultimately, this led to a $1.3 million revenue for the Spark platform.

But this also gave Steam an opportunity to exploit the situation.

Steam has no way to offer discounts on games for service, but in the realm of single-player games, Steam can require developers to offer the same discounts.

What does that mean?

It's actually very simple: if you get a 7% discount on the Spark platform, you also get a 7% discount on our Steam platform.

This request is not excessive, so the vast majority of manufacturers would agree to it.

Steam did so after these companies agreed.

This allows for stacking larger coupons to wage a price war.

This is Aldridge's plan.

"I hereby declare! Fire! Fire! Fire! Operation begins."

With Aldrich's order, Steam's long-dormant marketing machine was started up again.

Steam's website has launched a new campaign.

"Spring Sale Plus!"

"$2 million in coupons, share now and claim them now!"

~~~

At noon that day.

Zhou Shenlin was waiting for the banquet to begin, just like any other day.

While planning what to do this afternoon.

Unlike many people who prefer playing games on their phones, Zhou Shenlin has preferred playing games on a PC since he got a new computer before the Spring Festival.

When his computer isn't nearby, he prefers to browse guides or watch videos.

I'm too lazy to play games on my phone.

This is mainly because his time is relatively free and not so fragmented.

Compared to mobile phones, the experience on PCs is clearly more immersive.

"How about we finish the missions for the Battlefront Girls first?"

This year's Spring Festival.

Many of Xinghuo's games have updated with Chinese New Year events, and it's not just Xinghuo's games.

To be precise, most anime-style games have released Chinese New Year versions.

Some of them are relatively easy, like those in Azur Lane.

There are also more complex ones, like FGO.

The Lunar New Year version of Battlefront Girls mainly updates a Lunar New Year event, which includes decorating the base and a series of personal storylines.

Players can receive various gifts through events after logging into the game.

Giving these gifts to the corresponding dolls will trigger story events.

In addition to the storyline, the Lunar New Year version also includes a PVE mode and a PVP mode.

Chapter 198 Why is President Lin laughing?

Let me briefly explain the PVP mode. Simply put, it's a mini battle royale.

The gameplay is very simple.

There are only 10 players in each game, and the map is not very big.

The control scheme adopts the same control scheme as the squad in "Girls' Frontline: AR", which is a top-down view but also incorporates a field of view setting.

This means that the player's field of vision in front is better than their field of vision behind them.

Furthermore, the game completely eliminates the character progression system found in traditional battle royale games; the character you choose before the game starts is the weapon you can use in the game.

Moreover, the map is not very large.

In the industry, every game starts with jumping to the place with the most people.

The next step is to fight.

Don't let the simple gameplay fool you; it's incredibly addictive. Since it's a 2D top-down perspective, maneuvering around buildings becomes crucial.

Furthermore, different humanoids have completely different feel in actual combat.

In the PVE mode for the Spring Festival, players need to defeat the "Nian" beast on a specific map.

This mode allows players to field 16 characters, which means filling the 4x4 grid.

The "Nian" beast is not difficult to defeat, but to deal more damage within the time limit, you need to carefully adjust and control it.

Comparing the two models.

Zhou Shenlin still prefers PVP more.

However, because there are many games to play, Zhou Shenlin hasn't had much time to play Battlefront Girls these past few days. Fortunately, the Spring Festival event lasts for 24 days.

I'm not worried about not having enough time.

"When I get back today, I'll first complete the Punishing: Gray Raven event and check the guides. It says the Punishing: Gray Raven components are relatively easy to obtain..."

"Okay, I'll go check out some guides on Bilibili to see how to get it faster."