In a month, the much-anticipated "Black Myth: Wukong" will be released.

In this "little year of games", Chinese players have unprecedented expectations. Not only does "Black Myth", which has reached 1.2 million pre-sale sales, target TGA, but "Shadow Blade Zero", which has a high reputation for playing on BW recently, is also poised to launch. Sony's "Contract of Everything" first exposed at the State of Play, and "The End of the Ming Dynasty: The Feather of the Abyss" unveiled at Microsoft's press conference all indicate that players' expectations for domestic masterpieces will not be disappointed for a long time to come.

I still remember that at the press conference of Sony and Microsoft 5 years ago, domestic games were still rare. But today, in 2024, whether it is a stand-alone buyout or a cross-terminal masterpiece like "miHoYo Family Bucket", it has become a guest of honor on the three royal companies and major platforms - no one despises Chinese creations anymore, let alone the Chinese market.

But on the contrary, it is the "fall" of another group of dream chasers.

In the past decade of the rapid development of Chinese games, many young people with courage and courage, as well as veteran creators with both experience and enthusiasm, have taken the stage and started projects, and they initially wanted to prove the power and creativity of Chinese production, but they were unable to do so for various reasons.

It's too difficult to complete a project, and it's even more difficult to achieve a hot project, before welcoming the bright future of domestic games with the most excited mood, I think we might as well take a look at those dreamers who fell at this node - they are also a microcosm of the times.

Dreams are always worn out by time

In the fall of 2019, the editor-in-chief took me to that year's TGDC.

In the keynote speech of "The Edge of Rebirth", it was the first time I saw the composition logic behind a domestic production up close. Whether it is the concept of "2A level product", or the settings such as PVEVP and "control monsters", I am deeply impressed and excited.

And just last week, Tencent NExT Studios announced that Edge of Rebirth will officially cease operations on September 9, 2024 — the game was launched on September 8 last year, less than a year ago. When I wanted to wait for it to be updated before playing, it had quietly come to an end.

What's wrong with the game? A netizen who has followed the project summed it up well: the development concept of the game is very good, but the production has not kept up, and the product has undergone a big turn in the development process.

The game swings between PVP and PVE gameplay modes, and the content is filled with Roguelite. After all, a project promoted by a good concept can hardly resist the capriciousness of the actual process, and even NExT Studios, which is backed by Tencent's resources, has lost too many opportunities in five years.

Also in the past few years, which has been highly anticipated but ended up in a mess, is The Lancet Studios' "Border".

Not only did Frontier announce that it would stop on June 30 this year, but the Lancet Studios and publisher SkyStone didn't have a good time.

The R&D team blamed the suspension as a unilateral act of the publisher, and the publisher said that the responsibility lies with the studio's failure to update the game, which seriously affected the player experience. But no matter what the two sides argue, the eye-catching concept of this space-based anti-gravity shooter did quickly fall silent after its launch — the number of people online is even less than the number of astronauts in orbit on the International Space Station.

This game has been delayed longer than Edge of Rebirth, considering that it was one of the first products in Sony's "China Star" program in 2016. From the pioneer of domestic FPS to the dilemma of the number of people online approaching 0, what happened in the middle is not something that can be explained in one or two sentences. But this dazzling cosmic dream still failed to appear in the right form under the right plan. If it drags on any longer, it may not have results.

Also in June this year, the action stand-alone game "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" developed by Keyframe Studio also announced that it would stop development, and the entire project team had left.

This new game, built on Unreal Engine 5, was released in March this year on Steam. The demo includes 4 maps, 3 boss battles, and a weapon design with Chinese characteristics, such as Tang Dao, Mo Dao, and Shuanggong, which seems to have been somewhat completed.

Rao is so, the team still canceled the follow-up planning of this game on the grounds that "the development progress is not as expected, and the estimated launch time point cannot be reached".

It stands to reason that a product with a masterpiece that is mixed with popular tags such as action, history, and soul like is actually quite eye-catching, and although players have made a lot of criticism of the trial version, they have also said that the official is willing to change it and will keep looking forward to it, which seems to have some chances? But now it seems that the decisive departure of the "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" team may be the real wisdom.

If these entrants are far less complete than the concept of failure, but they can still attract a good amount of resources, which once detonated a lot of attention. The predicament that some practitioners and IPs that have been the mainstay of domestic games in recent years shows that the older generation of gamers is incompatible with the industrial opportunities of the new era.

This year, Daewoo Information officially announced that it will sell the overseas copyright of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and the global copyright of "Xuanyuan Sword", which is really shocking to me. As an old guy who grew up playing domestic three swords, I can't believe that one day I won't even be able to make money for the company with "Fairy Sword" and "Xuanyuan Sword".

"Fairy Sword 7" and "Xuanyuan Sword 7" failed to save Daewoo

But when I carefully read the long article published by Tu Junguang, chairman of Daewoo Information, I couldn't help but recognize its strategic layout.

The company has given these classics the opportunity to keep up, and has also tried to keep up with the resurgence of stand-alone and indie games, and continue the IP that became popular in the 90s. But the fact is that if Daewoo wants to live well, he really can't rely on the dream story of "The Legend of the Sword Until Eternity", but "The Female Ghost Bridge", which can sell more than 100,000 or 200,000 copies, and more multi-terminal products that can keep up with the times.

Has the R&D expenditure of more than 850 million in 6 years touched the players?

Ye Mingzhang, another veteran representative of domestic stand-alone games, responded to the old fans of the "Heaven and Earth Tribulation" series with his new work "Sword and Sky Record" last year. However, a few months after the game was released, Hou Songde, the producer of the game, said that the production company Huandian Information had entered a state of closure, and there was a high probability that there would be no follow-up works.

The remake of "The Legend of Zhao Yun: Yunhan Tenglong", which also carries many people's childhood memories, was disbanded two months after its launch, and its R&D team, Zuijiangyue Studio, was also disbanded due to financial breakdown. It seems that dreams can't be eaten, and neither can feelings.

Even Xu Changlong, who relied on his feelings to regain success, poured bitter water in the interview at the node of the tenth anniversary of Heluo Studio.

"Gulong Fengyunlu" has not sold well as an outsourcing project, and the balance has not been paid. The team knew that it was always bad, but it was really hard to boost the morale of the team when they were stuck in the fear of "not having money to make the next game". While disappointing players, why aren't they disappointed that their ideas don't go as they want?

"Ancient Dragon Record" was actually almost stopped (Source: Director BK related documentary)

Looking at these projects that I had hoped for, and even some of the projects I liked were either down or endangered, I was a little confused - it didn't seem like this was the case a few years ago, right? I've had a hopeful time myself.

Is the "Age of Miracles" really over?

I had just stepped out of college in the summer of 2014, and the game industry was a very different place than it is now.

That year's flagship graphics card was GTX980, my usual home console was still PS3, and the mobile game I often played was "Diffusion Million King Arthur", and my friends were looking forward to "Heroes of the Storm", which was only launched in a year - he said that it would definitely be popular in the future.

Who remembers this game?

Nowadays, things that are commonplace and even aesthetically fatigued, there were no signs in sight at the time, and Chinese games seemed to have suddenly taken off with the advent of the mobile game era and the fire of Steam and other platforms.

I remember that in the summer of 2015, I was obsessed with "The Legend of Heroes", and 300,000 sets were sold in the first month. At the same time, "Tianya Mingyue Knife Online" was also tested without deletion that year, which revolutionized my standard for the audio-visual perception of domestic martial arts online games. "Glory of Kings", which was not a national-level IP at that time, had become the favorite of many friends around that winter.

In 2016, when I saw my colleagues playing "Honkai Impact 3", I learned that miHoYo, who was a 2D villain, had soared, and "Onmyoji" also became popular that year, becoming the "first love of the second game" for many people.

In 2018, a series of works such as "Ancient Sword Legend 3", "Chinese-style Parents", and "Taiwu Picture Scroll" shocked people that Chinese creators can not only make expressive masterpieces, but also polish high-quality products that rely purely on gameplay and concepts - domestic stand-alone machines are blooming again, and the "era of big projects" of domestic independent games is coming.

"Ancient Sword 3" can be called the domestic 3A of that year

In my impression, there have been so many years, domestic stand-alone games have been saved, domestic independent games have taken shape, domestic PC online games have become popular again, and domestic mobile games are going to dominate the world. LOL's e-sports tournament has become an annual celebration for many people, and when you get together in a bubble tea shop, you must fight the king or eat chicken, and the game has begun to shoulder cultural output and social responsibility, and countless money and people have poured into this creation and business - games have entered a new era in China.

It can only be said that the game industry has tapped too many new users, new markets, and new fields in the past ten years. It used to seem that every idea could hit the ground and even create a hot spot, and any vertical category could drill oil wells and dig gold.

As a so-called game media person, I don't have to "sell anxiety" to attract attention, because there are a lot of new topics every day, and there are also bigwigs from all walks of life who are willing to come out and share ideas: tell me that it must be popular to do XX. When I had the opportunity to walk into a studio, they were all excited to showcase multiple projects, rather than the polite "just be alive" right now.

I think when the hurricane is over, there will be some stagnation after all, and this is true for one person, and even more so for an industry.

The problem is becoming more and more prominent.

Whether it is a stand-alone buyout or a mobile game F2P, they are constantly facing revenue generation bottlenecks.

After the buyout game rose to 70 US dollars, it was still a drop in the bucket, and the subscription-based territory that Microsoft had come around in a big circle gradually fell into a stage of low growth rate. The recent price increase announcement has just begun, and the posture is just the beginning. Going around and around, the buyout products that sell well are still the routine of the ontology + DLC, and it is an unavoidable opportunity to make long-term popularity.

Subscriptions haven't changed player habits yet

The domestic market, which is slightly inferior in this regard, has just relied on "Black Myth: Wukong" to jump the price to 100 yuan, and from the perspective of the entire market size, the return rate of the buyout product is still a proposition that needs to be carefully controlled. In the past few years, the freshness of the market and users for single-player games is transitioning to a new stage, and the enthusiasm, courage, and means of creators are indispensable, and a wave of miracles for small teams is not so easy to create.

Mobile game krypton gold is still strong, but the cost of customer acquisition is far from comparable to the past. And the multi-terminal interoperability that has become the standard at the moment seems to be nothing more than reaching out to other people's user groups. Although the large collection of mobile phones, consoles, and PCs has achieved a wave of growth for many products, it is necessary to rely on their own abilities to find more growth points.

This year's "Condor Shooting" and "P5X" are both cross-terminal masterpieces, but now they seem to be mediocre. Even miHoYo, which has been smooth sailing in recent years, has failed to determine the outcome of the new work "Jeopardy Zero". Originally, "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun", which took into account both the single-player experience and the multiplayer online battle, was quite curious, but it was postponed again. It can only be said that multi-terminal F2P production is not such a universal monetization tool, and the importance of operation planning is getting higher and higher.

In addition, I remember that a few years ago, there were quite a lot of voices of "if you can't do it, you can make money by transplanting it to your phone", but now you can hardly hear it. The soaring technological power of mobile terminals and the saturation of the market have made it impossible for manufacturers who want to engage in "dimensionality reduction strikes".

The total number of players has indeed grown exponentially over the past decade, but users have become more demanding of the service and more variable for different player groups. Whether a product can be supported in the long run, sometimes it needs not only to be professional and sincere, but also to have a keen insight to create an attractive atmosphere for players, plus some metaphysics - otherwise, no matter how big the market plate, it will be difficult to get into your own bowl.

What's more, the user's limited gaming time meets the massive number of projects that have accumulated over the years, and the competitive pressure is really great.

All tracks are falling into a "head take-all" situation, and even the strong are "eating themselves". Some games that lack market endorsement and do not have bright marketing points will be difficult to get out of the first time, and if you want to wait for the player's word-of-mouth to ferment, it will be a torturous and unpredictable itinerary.

There is no new monetization path, and the player base is almost at the end of sight, so where is the head? The answer to this year's version is to run and make mini-games, but what about next year?

Good days are yet to come

Of course, the tide must fade before the big wave comes, and I believe that gamers who can survive still have the possibility of opening a new era.

Just like in the midst of a dissolution, this year there is also a miracle of "resurrection" such as 91Act.

On the eve of the Spring Festival this year, I had just finished writing the review draft of "Cangyi: Chaos Effect", and the next day there was news that the developer 91Act was going to be disbanded. But after the New Year, the company not only re-established, but also got the version number, and the sales volume also increased. According to the 2024 semi-annual list of national game sales, the current sales of this game have exceeded 600,000.

I don't want to cliché the ending to be a positive summary of "the game is always fun", but 91Act is a real example: if you have a strong and differentiated core strength in these years, plus a little luck, players and the market may not give you a chance to resurrect. It's just that you definitely have to face a lot of risks head-on and pay a lot of money.

After all, games are content creation products, and enthusiastic gamers will always knock on the door of the times for the industry. Nowadays, everyone is criticizing games for being less and less fun, and the consoles of this generation are too boring, but I think the more moments like this happen, the more the authors who can't suppress their creative desires will be stimulated to take the stage and lift the table.

For me, the last 10 years are a memorable juncture, because it is a decade that I have personally experienced and observed. I wanted to carefully find some data and examples, and review them from a more professional perspective, but after all, I couldn't help but write some subjective feelings.

I miss the past ten years, everyone has vigorously set up projects to make money, and they have also vigorously dedicated themselves to their ideals. At the same time, I also envy the current generation of young people, in their best years, facing an unprecedentedly powerful Chinese game industry.

They own Black Myth: Wukong, and there will be more Black Myth: Wukong in the future. The imprint of the old era of "plagiarism and inferior products" is gradually fading away from domestic games, and Chinese games are stepping onto the global stage to leave a strong mark.

So even though the previous article has made a lot of difficulties ahead, I still believe that the future is promising, and there is no doubt that now is the best time.

Wait and hope.

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