For card games, the IP was the soul, and the numbers were the lifeline. If the numbers system collapsed, the entire game would die.
On the other hand, if the numbers system was perfect, card games would have a strong life force.
A good example was a card game from his previous life, OMG Three Kingdoms. Two years after it was released, it was still raking in tens of millions. This was an incredible result for card games.
Even though it was a card game, OMG Three Kingdoms had a poor IP. It was as good as having no IP at all. This was because the Three Kingdoms theme had been overdone in the Chinese market at the time. There were several games released every month. OMG Three Kingdoms could not stand out from the crowd with just its IP.
There were many successful games with the theme of the Three Kingdoms, such as Let Go of the Three Kingdoms, Young Three Kingdoms, Shore of the Earth, Siege City, and so on. This gave many players the illusion that the Three Kingdoms IP was not bad.
But if they were to develop a Three Kingdoms game, they would realize that this IP was a trap.
Because of the heavy homogeneity, there were several Three Kingdoms games released every month. If the quality of the game was average, how could it stand out?
IPs like Japanese comics and popular novels were several streets ahead of the IPs of the Three Kingdoms.
To give a simple example, if there was a One Piece mobile game, most gamers would play it. But if there was a Three Kingdoms game, would it be attractive to gamers?
There were even many gaming companies that purposely removed the words "Three Kingdoms" from their titles, such as "Unparalleled Rampage", "Brutal Beating of Wei, Shu, and Wu", "Edge of the Earth", "Siege Strategy", and so on. They purposely emphasized the war between nations and cities in order to reduce the disgust that the Three Kingdoms theme would bring to the players.
An important characteristic of a good IP was that it could make money and differentiate itself. For example, One Piece or Naruto, as long as they had this IP, they could easily make money even if they copied the first generation cards.
But what about the Three Kingdoms theme? Using the Three Kingdoms theme to make a game would not only not make money, but would also die a horrible death.
All of this proved that the Three Kingdoms IP itself had no effect on Let Go of the Three Kingdoms.
So why was OMG Three Kingdoms so popular? Not because of the Three Kingdoms theme, but because of the quality of the game.
The system functions, playstyle, and numerical settings of Let Go of the Three Kingdoms were the best among all card games. Its success was due to the quality of the game, not the IP.
Even if it was changed to "Let Go of Water Margin", it would still be popular, but the degree of popularity might be slightly lower.
What if it could get the IP of One Piece or Naruto? If that was the case, the company would probably take off immediately, and its monthly income would increase by at least another ten to twenty million yuan.
This was what many players had neglected: the charm of the card game itself.
Why was it that out of so many games on the market, only domestically-produced card games were constantly being replayed? Furthermore, no matter how they were replayed, players would still buy them?
Onmyoji, for example, was a card game that took the art to the extreme, but no matter the quality, it was still a card game at its core.
Chen Mo was currently working towards the direction of Let Go of the Three Kingdoms and Young Three Kingdoms. He wanted to make sure that I Am MT could be a fun card game without relying on the IP.
…
Two weeks later.
It had been a whole month since I Am MT was officially developed.
Apart from working on the game, Su Jinyu continued to draw the art for the cards. Half of the art resources had been released, and the rules of the game were mostly completed.
The remaining work was to continuously tune the numerical structure, finalize the stats of each card, and wait for the art resources to be released.
The game was being developed quickly, as the rules of the game weren't complicated.
Apart from Chen Mo, everyone else, including Su Jinyu, wasn't interested in the game itself. Su Jinyu was only working on the game to complete her job.
However, everyone's interest in the I Am MT anime was growing.
"I feel like the 'popping achievements' is quite interesting. Imagine yourself doing something, and an achievement pops up, with a 'bang' sound effect, it's such a strong sense of achievement."
"Don't you guys think the rules of this world are quite fun? The characters will die, but as long as their soul goes to their corpse, they'll be revived. "
"Yeah, this is quite a clever setting. Characters in other animations can't die, but they can die in this one. There's a lot more freedom in the way the story is handled."
"I feel like the 'Hearthstone' setting is quite interesting. Being able to return to the hotel with a Hearthstone feels a bit like a game attribute. It should be very attractive to the players."
"I actually did some research. Apparently, it's a tradition from the Middle Ages in Europe. People who left home would often take a stone from the fireplace in their house. When people miss their home, they would look at the Hearthstone next to them, relieving their homesickness. In the end, the anime actually turned it into a useful prop. It's very interesting. "
"I really don't know how the manager came up with this, but wouldn't it be better to use this idea to make a game?"
"I don't know what the manager is thinking, but this world is too big. It would probably take an A-grade or even S-grade video game designer to handle it. The manager probably can't do it right now, so he decided to make a mobile game instead?"
"But I can feel that the manager has spent more time and effort on the animation and worldbuilding than the game."
"What's with the manager? Even if the animation is good, what does it have to do with the game? Will people buy the game just because they like the animation? "
"Who knows … but I really want to see Azeroth made into a VR game. Imagine being a Tauren running on the plains …"
Chen Mo was also paying attention to everyone's reactions.
In the beginning, everyone only watched the animation because of its novel theme, but now they were starting to get curious about the world behind it.
On the continent of Azeroth, there were many interesting settings. For example, players could use Hearthstones to return to the inn, ride wyverns or gryphons to travel quickly, revive when they died, level up when they ran back to their corpses, and get achievements when they completed special events.
Some of the settings were very gamey, but it wasn't hard for the players to understand. After all, they were all gamers. Not only did they not find these settings weird, they even found it interesting.
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