He An, who spent more than five hours clearing ‘Struggle’ in one sitting, fell into confusion.
Was something… wrong with this game? That was just too gloomy and sad, right?
Or was my luck that bad for me to obtain the trashiest ending after choosing every option seriously?
He An reflected on himself subconsciously.
Yes, it could be something I did wrongly.
Interactive movie games like this had many side options after all. Struggle was the same.
He An looked at the plot lines in the game. It was as dense as a big net with many branches. Generally speaking, every version should have at least three to four endings to be worthy of the size of this game.
Moreover, there should be hidden endings and Easter eggs if he bought the poor and rich versions together.
Therefore, He An decided to play all the routes after his meal. He should be able to obtain a good ending then.
Such a feeling was like a table of dishes that had both delicious and disgusting tastes. If someone ate something disgusting, they would take a bite of something delicious to press it down. Otherwise, the disgusting taste would linger.
“I cannot say that Boss Pei’s skills are quite deep. No matter whether the direction was right or not, the foundation is still there.
“I originally thought that the realism theme would be boring to play, but it did not feel that way. Even though they were both bad ends, but the content was still rather moving.
“I will be able to analyze the personal opinions that Boss Pei had in this game after I finish all the endings.”
He An found a rare excitement and anticipation that he usually did not experience with domestically-produced standalone games. He could not wait to finish his food and continue to play the other endings of the game after the meal.
September 4th, Sunday, noon…
He An sat in front of his computer, lit up a smoke, and thought about life silently. He had been trying all sorts of routes tirelessly from last night.
He gave the protagonist of the rich version different hobbies when he was young, chose different girls to marry when he was an adult, and chose different careers when he grew up.
He gave the protagonist different courses when he was young and tried to plan carefully, save money, and find better jobs when he grew up…
Yet, no matter how hard he worked, how many routes and sub-routes he cleared; the two endings did not change one bit!
No matter what the rich man did, he would be killed at the signing ceremony.
No matter what the poor man did, he would always enter into the vicious cycle of poverty.
Of course, there were still some subtle differences between the two versions.
The progress of the game would not be affected, regardless of whether the rich man made the right choice or not. That was because funds would be replenished quickly every time he failed; choosing a different profession was just a change from one kind of success to another.
As for the poor man, choosing the right choice had its influence. If he kept choosing the wrong choice, then the ending would come in an hour. If he chose the right choices, then he could persist for up to three hours… after he tasted the sweetness of middle-class life.
As for the so-called hidden ending? It was nowhere in sight!
That was fine. What was more, there was absolutely no connection between the rich and the poor versions.
He An originally thought that the one who killed the rich protagonist was probably the poor protagonist whose dreams had shattered or perhaps even his son. However, he tried for a long time without being able to find any connection between the two.
There was absolutely no connection between the rich protagonist, the poor protagonist, and his son.
That meant that it made no difference to the rich version whether you bought the poor version or not.
That was very ridiculous!
That seemed to be screaming ‘You best not buy both; if you really want to buy it, then buy the rich version.’
It was not very reasonable!
He could not help but apply his theory for game design to this game. He spoke about four main points to Boss Ma:
Choose marketing methods according to the game content…
Choose a game type with a high market share…
Have your personal opinion in the game…
Analyze and fulfill the market demand…
This game, Struggle, really did not fulfill a single one of them! Every one of them was wrong!
He An felt that this game would not be perfect if there was one condition missing; if two were missing, then the sales would be worrying. Three would mean absolute violent death.
However, a game with all four conditions not met? Unheard of!
He should choose the game type and appropriate marketing methods right at the very least? They were the easiest of all. Wasn’t it a bit too ridiculous for them to be all wrong?
As for the last two points, the methods of Struggle seemed to be rather problematic as well.
He An mentioned before that a game with personal opinions had to take into account the affordability of the audience and their acceptance.
What was the personal opinion that Struggle had then?
Stirring hatred? Or that it was useless to struggle?
Indeed, this game was realistic enough for a realism theme, including the details of the lives of the poor and rich which were basically consistent with some data in the United States.
However, these endings were simply too disgusting, right?
More importantly, advocating the uselessness of struggling was wrong in any context. Cutting bloody reality apart did not seem to have much guidance significance and would only cause discomfort.
As the saying went, ‘kneel in the face of reality’ meant exactly this.
Real life was miserable enough. I knew as well how bad it was; did you have to hold a loudspeaker and blow it in front of me?
Wasn’t that simply disgusting?
Therefore, the first feeling He An had was that it was not appropriate because there was no guiding significance and would not be well accepted by the people. Moreover, it was easy to cause disgust.
As for analyzing and satisfying market demand, it was even more irrelevant now.
Obviously, in the current mainstream market, games were still regarded as entertainment and leisure. If it was so serious and heavy, then it would obviously not meet the needs of most players!
As for the higher level of creative demand…
He An previously felt that Boss Pei was a master of demand creation. However, to create demand for Struggle would be extremely difficult!
Moreover, there were four questions in this exam paper. You got the first three wrong; could you still answer the last question correctly?
If you could answer it correctly, then I would…
Frame this paper up on the spot!
He An originally wanted to set a flag, but he decided against it after thinking about it. He could not underestimate Boss Pei.
Could Boss Pei not think of the problems that he thought of? He could definitely think of them.
Moreover, He An subconsciously felt that this game was not really that offensive to him. There were still some special emotions to it if he were to dig deeper into his feelings for this game.
He An thought about it for a while and decided to temporarily forget the experiences and theory he had accumulated over the past few decades to reexamine this game from the perspective of an ordinary person to gain a deeper perspective.
What if his theory was out of date?
At the same time, Pei Qian was at home, using his laptop to check the first batch of evaluations of Struggle. The game flow of Struggle was not long. If one bought the game yesterday and played it through the night, they would have finished it.
Pei Qian was very certain that the feedback and reaction to Struggle would directly determine whether Struggle could succeed in losing money in the long term or not!
The best result, of course, would be for the players to criticize the game so badly that they would call for a refund and make more players refuse to buy or even to pay attention.
Of course, Pei Qian felt that such thinking was too optimistic. The closest result would be that a minority of players raved Struggle highly and many people wouldn’t buy it.
Such an outcome would be very acceptable for Pei Qian, which was almost the most likely result.
Pei Qian started to check the comments of the players.
“False publicity! I thought that it was a large-scale action game, but I only realized that I was cheated after I came in!”
“However, the publicity slogan is completely correct; I can only say that this person is a marketing genius. That is deliberately misleading at best, even though it really pissed me off. Since when did Tengda start playing on such cleverness? Are they afraid that they would not get any buyers if they were to promote it for what it really is?”
“But I feel that it is okay to advertise that this is an interactive movie game, we will still buy it to play!”
“No one can stop me from giving a one-star bad review this time! I bought this game as soon as it was released, and I kept thinking about the perfect ending when I pulled an all-nighter until this morning. What was the result? I was repeatedly disgusted several times. I watched both endings three or four times!”
“I feel that my soul has been severely traumatized! The poor version made me blue so I played the rich version. It was pretty good at first, but I never expected the twist at the end!”
“It is not bad for you, alright? I played the rich version first, and the ending left a bad aftertaste. I thought that the poor version would be different, but it was pathetic from start to end. I’m not myself anymore!”
“It is the same no matter which sequence you play it in. You will feel sick, won’t you?”
“Is this a game? This theme should be shot into a documentary or an art film, shouldn’t it?”
“Game is obviously much freer in expression than documentaries or art films. Think about the characters in it and then think about the two versions which are priced separately. There are so many interactive experiences that movies cannot provide.”
“Anyway, no matter what you say, I’m going to praise this game to the end! The two endings especially, the ‘liar’ in the rich version and the monologue in the poor version that echoed at the start and end, are awesome!”
“Ok, those two paragraphs really felt okay, but don’t you feel that it is lame looking at the game as a whole? It seemed like a game made to reproduce reality. Where is the fun? And the personal opinion was too serious. It is advocating fatalism, class theory, or that struggles are useless?”
“Indeed, I think that this game might be better in the west. They like to moan and groan without any illness. Most domestic players still recognize that God rewards hard work and self-improvement’. The theme of this game is contradictory to that and will cause instinctive discomfort.”
“I think we should call out to Teacher Qiao at this time!”
“Indeed, there might be some things that we didn’t notice? Teacher Qiao might be more detailed and would be more comprehensive.”
Pei Qian felt that the current situation was still rather optimistic, browsing through a large number of player comments. However, it was still worse than his own estimates.
A large number of players were stimulated by the cruel reality reflected in the game, which was in line with Pei Qian’s expectations. However, the problem was that Tengda’s long-standing reputation managed to prevent the collapse of public opinion!
Any other producers would probably have collapsed.
However, there were now too many die-hard fans of Tengda Games. Everyone compensated doubts with their own fantasy. Such people would have a natural halo when playing Tengda Games. Ordinary advantages became special advantages in their eyes.
Moreover, these hardcore fans were the first to play this game. That was why they were keener to participate in the discussions. Their voices were relatively loud, which made both sides get in an equal state of competition.
Other than that, another important reason was that the quality of this game itself was really good.
The Tengda Games Team had a wealth of development experience after all. They could produce something very brilliant even if it was a realism theme like this. The two endings especially were still quite a bluff.
Pei Qian considered it for a while; that might also be the reason for this theme.