Su Jinyu gave it some thought, "Manager, that's a good idea. But does it really have a chance of winning Game of the Year? From what I know, Game of the Year is usually given to games with more content. "
Chen Mo said, "You don't have to worry about that as there aren't many competitive VR games in China this year. There might be one or two that are decent, but I'm confident in Overwatch. Moreover, didn't Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's Wolf Soul also win Game of the Year? That's also an FPS game. "
Seeing that everyone had no more questions, Chen Mo continued explaining the other parts of the concept, including the game modes, heroes, world setting, map design, gameplay, profit model, etc.
The more they listened, the more excited they got. This was because the concept was still in Chen Mo's style, with a high degree of completion. Everyone was especially interested in the various heroes and their backgrounds.
However, there was still quite a bit of debate about the profit model.
"Completely free? Just like League of Legends, relying solely on premium services? "
"Isn't that a bit risky? It's a VR game after all, the investment is much higher than a PC game! "
"Yeah, and manager, there aren't many VR players to begin with. If we only sell premium services, will we be able to recoup our investment?"
"There aren't any VR games on the market that have no barriers to entry, right?"
Obviously, everyone knew what 'no barriers to entry' meant for competitive games, but the problem was that VR and PC were different.
Up until now, the cheapest small VR game in China cost a few dozen RMB, no one had ever heard of a free game.
Chen Mo seemed to have predicted everyone's reaction as he laughed, "I understand what you guys are saying. Let's put it this way, even if the worst case scenario is that we lose money, it's fine. Our goal is to win Game of the Year.
"Do we have to make money? Our company doesn't lack money, it's fine even if we lose money. Moreover, as long as we have enough players, there's no way we won't make money. "
Chen Mo looked at everyone, "What do you guys think would be a good price for Overwatch with a buyout system?"
Everyone looked at each other.
Qian Kun said, "Based on Wolf Soul's price, it could be as low as 488, 1288 or 1688. If it's even lower, like Minecraft selling for 128 RMB, that's already a very low price. It's basically free for many VR players. "
Chen Mo said, "If Overwatch sells for 128, it's only a hundred million if we sell a million copies. Do we really need that?"
Everyone: "…"
Indeed, Onmyoji's monthly revenue was in the hundreds of millions, and there was no point in Chen Mo relying on Overwatch's sales to make money.
Chen Mo continued, "Even if the price is multiplied by ten times, 1288, one million copies would be one billion. But you have to consider, how many players will Overwatch lose at the 1288 threshold? "
"In other words, there's no point in setting it too low. We're not short of money, so we might as well give it away for free. It sounds good. If we set it too high, we'll lose a lot of players. To us, the number of players is much more important than the amount of money sold. For a competitive game, I don't need to repeat the importance of the depth of the fish pond, right?"
"What if Overwatch is completely free? Overwatch will probably be installed in most of the VR gaming pods in China or even overseas. Even players who don't play FPS games will be attracted to it. As long as half of them, no, one-tenth of them stay and become core players, it'll be a profit for us. "
Everyone looked at each other and didn't say anything.
Indeed, Chen Mo's words were a bit shocking. Any other video game designer wouldn't have the confidence to make a high quality VR game, completely free, and only sell skins for profit? How much confidence would that take!
But Chen Mo was different. He had a lot of money now, and it was all up to him. He could spend it however he wanted, and he could do whatever he wanted. There would be no shareholders or investors telling him what to do.
Everyone could only sigh at how capricious it was to be rich!
However, what Chen Mo said did make sense. There weren't many players in VR to begin with, and if they were to use a buyout as a barrier, the depth of the fish pond wouldn't be guaranteed, and the game wouldn't be friendly to new players.
Obviously, Chen Mo had great ambitions for Overwatch's performance in VR. He wanted this game to have the highest number of VR players, and to be the first high quality VR game with zero barriers to entry.
In the end, everyone accepted Chen Mo's shocking decision, and decided to make a completely free VR game, and use it to compete for the Game of the Year award.
After all, he was the boss, and he had the final say.
…
In November, when Chen Mo was preparing to make Overwatch, a small incident happened in the gaming industry.
A first person MOBA game, Soul War, developed by a small company, was quietly released, and then disappeared without a trace.
The game was a PC game, and the design was simple. It was to take advantage of the MOBA trend brought about by League of Legends, and change the third person perspective to the first person perspective to explore another possibility.
However, it failed as expected, and many players hadn't even heard of the game before.
In fact, many designers had considered this question when League of Legends first came out: Is it possible to change the MOBA game to a first person perspective?
Many designers gave up after careful consideration, and this was also the main reason why big companies like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment and Zen Entertainment didn't make a first person MOBA game.
The small company that produced "Soul War Era" obviously wanted to try their luck, but without a doubt, they failed.
This was because a very important factor in MOBA games was that players had to have a very clear vision of the entire battle situation. They had to be very clear about where their teammates were and what they were doing. They also had to be very clear about the position of the enemy heroes in order to make the correct judgment.
Changing the third person perspective to the first person perspective directly limited the players' field of vision, and made the wrong judgment of the battlefield.
Moreover, when casting AoE skills, it was very difficult to determine the actual range of the skill filter from the first person perspective. Some full map skills were very difficult to make, and the players' judgment of the distance was often wrong.
All of these problems severely damaged the core fun of MOBA games. Coupled with the fact that the game's production was very average, it didn't make much of a splash before it died.
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