Various features of League of Legends were analyzed over and over again.
Things like the controls, art style, core gameplay, profit model, marketing methods, and so on. Countless professionals were researching the internal and external factors that made the game so popular.
There were also some video game designers wondering if they could ride on League of Legends and make a similar or even better game.
This was especially true for companies like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment and Fantasy Gaming Platform as they were competing with Chen Mo's Thunderbolt Gaming Platform for users. League of Legends' appearance at such a crucial time was too fatal.
The distributors originally thought it would be a long battle, and set the release date to be May or June after the new year, or even later. However, Chen Mo suddenly made the first move and released League of Legends before the new year, taking advantage of a loophole during the new year to push the game to an extremely high level of popularity.
This caught the distributors off guard. If they followed the original plan and released the competing game in May or June? That would be too late, it would be too late by then.
For League of Legends to reach this level of popularity in less than ten days, who could predict what it would do in three or four months?
Who knows, it might have already taken over the entire PC market by then.
The countermeasures that these game companies came up with were roughly the following.
The first plan was to speed up the development of the competing game and release it earlier.
However, this plan was quickly rejected because Project: S and Three Worlds were both large scale games that were interoperable between PC and VR. There was a lot of work to be done, and the development schedule was already very tight, so it was impossible to release them earlier than planned.
Moreover, after analyzing the gameplay of League of Legends, many video game designers were doubtful that these two competing games would pose a threat to League of Legends.
These two games were old shooters and role-playing games, and there were already mature products on the market. On the other hand, 'League of Legends' was a brand new game, and it was obvious which one would be more popular.
They had only ever heard of new games replacing old games, but never of old games being able to overtake them.
The second plan was to make a game similar to League of Legends, which was to copy or copy the trend.
Obviously, this was the best strategy these companies could come up with at the moment, unless they could discover a better game mode. But 'finding a better game' was something they had been trying to do for a long time, it wasn't something that could be done overnight.
Therefore, although copying or copying the trend seemed low, they were the best choice.
Moreover, copying or copying the trend didn't necessarily fail, there were many examples of pirated games surpassing the original.
There were also many ways to copy the trend, they could release a game similar to League of Legends on PC, or similar games on other platforms.
VR was definitely out of the question, as it would require too much investment and risk. Moreover, the reason why League of Legends was able to attract so many players was because of its low specs, ease of use and omniscient view. Changing it into a VR game would be as impractical as changing an RTS game like Warcraft into VR.
Without the player's perspective, players wouldn't be able to control the entire battlefield, making coordination and cooperation between players would become extremely difficult. Moreover, it would become even more difficult.
There were also people who suggested making a game similar to mobile. This seemed more reliable, but it wasn't confirmed yet.
The main thing was that when a game changed platforms, the habits of the players would change as well. How to avoid these 'pitfalls' was something that needed further thought.
For example, how do you use non-directional skills when playing League of Legends on mobile? How do you last hit? How do you look at the minimap? How do you signal to your teammates? How do you decide which hero the player wants to attack when there are so many heroes?
How do you ensure that the players don't accidentally tap on the screen with such a small screen? And even if they didn't accidentally tap on the screen, the players would have to tap on the screen a few hundred times in a match. Who could handle that?
These were problems that Chen Mo had a clear solution for, but to other designers, they were completely unknown. Even if they wanted to port it to a mobile platform, they would at least need a passable solution.
Therefore, this plan could be considered, but the time would inevitably be delayed.
After a long discussion, the most reliable method was to make a game on PC to curb the popularity of League of Legends. Even if they couldn't completely take over the market, they could at least ride on it, and it would be easier for them to understand the inner workings of the game.
After all, Chen Mo had all the algorithms and data for League of Legends. This data was crucial to the promotion and improvement of the game. Without this data, it would be difficult to understand the tastes of the players, and it would be impossible to make a game that could dominate the market.
Emperor Dynasty Entertainment and Fantasy Gaming Platform had a few emergency meetings, and finally came up with a strategy for the end of the year.
First of all, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment would urge the GA to make changes to COG, making it more suitable for the Chinese audience, and improving the low retention rate.
Of course, the GA might ignore it, but Emperor Dynasty Entertainment couldn't do anything about it, as they were only a distributor.
Second, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment would develop a brand new game, Ancient Calamity, using Jin Jieguang's experience report as a template, simplifying the gameplay of League of Legends, hoping to poach more players from League of Legends.
After all, League of Legends was much simpler than COG, and the effects were immediate. Lin Chaoxu also hoped that the simplified Ancient Calamity could turn the tables.
Of course, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment didn't have that many resources, and in order to focus on developing a new game, Project: S was temporarily put on hold, which meant that it was the first game to be eliminated.
Since it was a FPS game, it would be difficult for it to be compatible with PC and VR, and it didn't seem to be competitive at all, so it could only be put on hold for now.
Other than that, Zen Entertainment's Three Worlds would continue to be developed.
From Lin Chaoxu's point of view, COG was too complicated, and it would be hard for players to pick it up after they got used to League of Legends. Moreover, the GA wasn't very cooperative, so he didn't have much hope.
Moreover, Three Worlds was a traditional MMORPG, and wouldn't be able to change much even if it was innovative. There wasn't much hope against a new genre like League of Legends.
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