If you stay in the game industry for a few more years, you will inevitably consider yourself a professional, and when you communicate with your peers, in addition to whether it is fun or not, you will talk more about very compelling topics such as level values, process pipelines, and replicability, as if everyone has a methodology that determines the success or failure of a game.

At this time, if someone laughs and says, "I think the key to success is luck!" "There is no scientific theory behind a good game, and it can't be scaled and mass-produced, because the essence of a game is an art."

This is likely to be considered a very amateur and does not know how to make a game at all......

Yao Runhao

But take a closer look, the player who said the remarks turned out to be only 12 years in the industry, launched 6 games, all of them were hits, and never lost, Yao Runhao, the founder of Papergames who is legendary to have a congenital entrepreneurial holy body!

I couldn't help frowning, and found that things were not simple.

It's just a casual thing, how can it open up a blue ocean?!

In 2012, Yao Runhao, who was still studying for a master's degree in economics at Waseda University in Japan, came into contact with a lot of wonderful mobile games through the iPhone 3, and found that most of these games can be developed by only two or three people, and the threshold seems to be not high.

So Yao Runhao had no choice but to shake people on the Internet, and he relied on posting on the forum in a daze, and formed a small team of only a few people, "Netizen Cooperative", and made their first game "Nuan Nuan's Costume Story" in his spare time.

This was actually just a very casual attempt, first of all, until the game was launched, the team members did not meet each other, and secondly, everyone did not have any expectations for the results of "Nuan Nuan's Costume Story", and even felt that "no one will play anyway." "I simply prepared three versions in Chinese, English, and Japanese, hoping to attract as many players as possible, and in terms of income, I only hope to earn 10,000 yuan per month, so that I can get 2,500 per month, and I can go out to play in two months.

However, the silent launch of "Warm Dress Story" unexpectedly opened the door to the female game market that was still in a blue ocean at the time, almost untapped, relying only on simple dress-up gameplay and some small fresh dialogues, it accurately stepped on the G spot of countless players, and in the case of zero publicity and zero operation, it has become a world-class small hit purely by word of mouth, and has been at the top of Apple's paid list in many countries, and even maintained the TOP10 game in Japan for several months.

"There are 350,000 developers in the country who are making games, and there is always luck"

The unexpected success of "Nuan Nuan's Costume Story" gave Yao Runhao great confidence, and the next year, that is, in 2013, he returned to Suzhou, officially started his own business, and formed a 7-person Nuan Nuan game, which is the predecessor of Paperfold, and completed and launched "Nuan Nuan Around the World" in July of the same year.

"Papergames" officially started in 2013

But Yao Runhao's entrepreneurship is actually still very amateurish, and the funds are enough to open four months' salary, so he set a four-month development cycle for "Warm Around the World", which seems a bit scientific, but it really doesn't leave any leeway, and it doesn't leave a penny for publicity.

As a result, "Warm Around the World" was still in a state of zero publicity and zero operation, and it was launched with the attitude of "it doesn't matter, someone will always play it anyway", and then it exploded unreasonably, and it achieved profitability in the first month, allowing Papergames to survive the financial crisis without feeling......

Two years later, in a speech, Yao Runhao looked back and analyzed the successful experience of that year, and believed that the most critical factor was that "we are lucky." "There are 350,000 developers across the country who are making games, and there is always luck."

Of course, in addition to the sharing of "dry goods" such as luck, Yao Runhao also worked hard to sum up some experiences, such as why did he think of making a dress-up game in the first place?

Yao Runhao believes that the key is to return to the original intention, since playing is the instinct of human beings, then women must also have favorite games, there were very few women playing games at that time, just because there was no suitable game, and then dig to the roots, men like to fight and kill since childhood, so they love fighting games more, what about women? Since I was a child, I like to play with dolls and wear beautiful clothes, so the dress-up game may be a breakthrough.

The dress-up Barbie doll is a favorite toy for many little girls

Further review along this line of thought, you will notice that there were already a large number of users in China at that time who were willing to pay for the beautiful clothes in the QQ show, and there has been no shortage of appearance parties in major online games, which shows that players' demand for dressing up is actually very strong, but few people have really dug into this blind spot before Yao Runhao.

The once smash hit QQ show!

Because of the opening up and expansion of this dress-up game track that has no rivals, coupled with its own more mature and complete game content, "Nuan Nuan Around the World" has achieved great success in the true sense, and has topped the list of paid games in many places around the world, including mainland China and Japan, and has been in the top three for a long time, becoming a well-known game that has become a household name.

In 2014, the number of global player registrations of "Warm Around the World" has grown to 6 million, and it is still at the top of the paid list, and its outstanding results have also attracted the attention of industry giants.

Nuan Nuan series is very ambitious in terms of plot

And it's hard for you to say that Yao Runhao and Paperstack have become greedy, because Yao Runhao wanted to be more commercial from the beginning, adding more complex numerical systems and operational activities, and the reason why he didn't do it at first was actually very simple, "Because we can't, we can only do it like this (buyout system)." In that speech in 2015, Yao Runhao said very sincerely, "Actually, we are not making independent games, we are still very commercial, and whether we can make money is very important." "In addition to making good games, we also hope to create commercial legends, but we still don't make enough money right now......"

Dress-up game, the same to roll the plot, volume value!

In 2015, Papergames, which has been among the major manufacturers, cooperated with Tencent to launch the third work of the "Nuan Nuan Series" "Miracle Nuan Nuan", and the production scale and level have reached a new height in the series, first of all, the picture of the dress-up game has been pushed to the level of the 2D ceiling, and the exquisiteness of many costumes is rarely comparable even today.

In terms of plot, "Miracle Nuan Nuan" is also more magnificent, players will follow Nuan Nuan into a fantasy world, save the Miracle Continent, and after a series of conspiracies, betrayals and sacrifices, reveal the truth of this grand world little by little.

"A dress-up game, why do you want to be so serious about the plot?" At that time, many players who were shocked issued such soul torture.

In an interview many years later, Yao Runhao gave his own answer: "When buying clothes, in addition to the material and design of the clothing, I also want to understand the designer, and the story or humanistic feelings behind the clothing." The value of clothes itself is closely linked to the world, and without the world, the value of clothes cannot be reflected. So there has to be a colorful world, with all kinds of people, with their own variety of stories, love and hate, which ultimately converge on their clothing design. Clothing is their free expression. ”

It can be said that from a very early stage, Yao Runhao has been deeply aware of the importance of a good story, even if it is a very casual dress-up play, it can also glow with a unique and lasting charm.

With the rapid evolution of the game content, there is also the commercial operation ability of "Miracle Nuan", under the hands-on teaching of Tencent, diamonds, card drawing, set collection, arena, friend interaction, combat power ranking, special gift packs, limited-time events, etc.

If you want a high degree of collection, either liver or krypton

On the one hand, this has brought a very considerable income to Papergames, making "Miracle Nuannuan" a rare mobile game with a turnover of more than 100 million in that era, and at the same time, it has greatly enriched the game content, extended the life of the game, and well met the needs of players who want to interact and display with friends.

Fighting with people, krypton gold is endless~

But on the other hand, there is also a common problem in the krypton gold game, that is, the later it is, the more krypton it becomes, and the endless activities make the players miserable, and the name of "Dog Stack" has been shouting louder and louder in the player circle since then.

One of the excellent results of Paperstack's revenue is that its employees earn a lot of money

There's no scientific theory

Since his debut, he has launched 3 games in a row, all of which are popular, Yao Runhao's entrepreneurial road seems to be magical, which naturally arouses the curiosity of many practitioners and wants to learn something from it, but Yao Runhao is obviously not a believer in success, in his speech in 2016, he bluntly said that there is no scientific theory behind his series of successes, and many times he is following the feeling, "The entire game industry is more inclined to want to make this thing scientific and theoretical, and only in this way can it be mass-produced and scaled." However, the essence of games is art, and art cannot be scientific and mass-produced. ”

If you have to find a reliable reason for Yao Runhao's continuous success, in a later interview, he concluded that creators can theoretically succeed continuously, and improving creative ability is the best way to solve most problems, and the dividends of creation will be slowly released.

In fact, Yao Runhao's positioning of Papergames has always been not a female-oriented game company, but a creative game company, and the most adept thing is to engage in creation, which has laid two major directions for the development of Papergames.

One is to do something new, and the second is to upgrade the technology. These two are not only annotations to Papergames' previous successes, but also allow us to better understand the series of large-scale investments of Papergames since then.

First of all, based on the direction of doing something new, Papergames launched "Love and the Producer" in 2017, rushed into another blue ocean with high production standards, and successfully detonated the Chinese otome game market with almost no competing products at that time, and achieved the same pioneering results as Nuan Nuan, less than a month after it was launched, the daily activity exceeded 4 million, and the highest turnover in a single day exceeded 20 million, not only becoming the first otome game to make money in China, but also a big money, and also successfully out of the circle, proving the huge potential of this track, It laid the groundwork for the future otome game war.

After the success of Paperfold, the Chinese otome game war began

Secondly, according to the direction of technical upgrading, the fourth work of the Nuan Nuan series was launched in 2019, "Shine Nuan Nuan", which completed the 3D transformation of the series, and the effect is very amazing, and the modeling accuracy, body movements, and hair details of the characters have reached the top level.

Of course, the most powerful thing about "Shining Nuan" is to make clothes, and successfully achieved the effect of both gorgeous and dreamy and real texture under the 3D picture, whether it is fluffy wool, soft satin, or transparent tulle, all kinds of materials have a very high level of display.

Yao Runhao, who had never had experience in 3D game production before, led Paperstack to try for more than a year, and only after constantly exploring trial and error and reinventing the wheel did he achieve such a powerful effect.

It's a painful process because you don't know how much time you're going to have to put in, how much money you're going to put in, and what you're going to achieve in the end.

How exactly should we deal with this painful process? In his 2019 speech, Yao Runhao gave an unpretentious answer: "Be tough. Perseverance is when we do something, have the courage to face all the results of this thing, and let go of certain obsessions. If this thing was wrong from the beginning, there was really no way but to reinvent the wheel. But if you feel that this thing is right, you are willing to continue to persevere. "That's what it is to make new things, that's what it is to create, there are always problems that arise. We need to be resilient and persevering. ”

"I don't know about female users"

The unprecedented success of Papergames in the women's game market has made many people think that Yao Yunhao must have a special understanding of women.

But in speeches and interviews, Yao Runhao always gave a negative answer: "I don't know female users as well as everyone thinks, and I even feel that I don't know female users." If you respect women, you won't think you know them well. ”

In Yao Runhao's view, what Papergames is good at is not studying the female market, but knowing how to create dress-up games and otome games, and the most powerful thing is the creative ability, always wanting to make something new and breakthrough.

"While I didn't know what I was supposed to do, I knew I didn't like to do anything. "I don't like to do things that only make money, but not have fun with anything else. Yao Runhao said in an interview that it gives a glimpse of his self-consciousness as a creator.

"Love and Deep Space" card art

It is with this dedication to creation that in 2020, Papergames launched Otome's new work "Love and Deep Space", which not only realizes the 3D of the picture, but also innovatively adds combat gameplay.

Yao Runhao has his own explanation for this, although many female players are considered light players, but with the increase of game experience, the acceptance of gameplay will become more and more heavy, and more challenging gameplay should be gradually added, in fact, this is also very suitable for the theme of "Love and Series", that is, "Two people solve problems, it is a matter of growing together, and each other is each other's life and career partners, so both of them must make progress together." ”

The breakthrough in the dress-up game is even bolder, after all, "Shine Nuan" has been regarded by many people as the "end of the dress-up game", even if Yao Runhao has always claimed that there are still many things that can be improved, but I'm afraid no one would have thought that the actual room for improvement could be so big......

In 2022, "Infinite Warmth" was announced, and everyone was shocked, huh? Dress-up games can also be open world adventures?! Look at the level of the picture, the scale of the map! Do you want to play so exaggerated?!

Now more than 2 years have passed, "Infinite Warmth" has gone through several tests, and the quality shown is indeed very convincing, full of technical ambition, and radical in innovation.

At present, "Infinite Warmth" has thrown away a lot of possible opponents in the track just by relying on appearance and concept, coupled with the super high expectations that have been revealed, it can be said that the explosion of "Infinite Warmth" at least in the opening stage is already a sure thing, Yao Runhao's "luck" is really against the sky!

Epilogue:

Yao Runhao debuted for 12 years, not only was he lucky to discover and open up a new track, but also continued to launch a series of more and more popular models on these tracks, and he has never missed.

Of course, such an achievement has naturally attracted a lot of admirers, learners and imitators, but so far no company has really become a rival to Papergames and replicate similar achievements.

To a certain extent, perhaps as Yao Runhao himself said, the most important thing at the beginning was that luck was really good, so good that it was difficult for anyone to encounter that kind again; Or you must look at it from a rational point of view, that's also as Yao Runhao believes, you can't come up with a winning scientific theory by studying a peer, because games are emotional after all, and many things can only follow the feeling, bravely explore, and persevere in creating. - I have to say, this sounds a bit naïve and naïve, but for today's game industry, this sincerity is so precious.

Content cooperation and reprinting open white Vx: tsunamikm

Business cooperation Vx: zhizuen95

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