Chapter 464: When You're Hot, Everyone Around You Is Good |
《SNG Demo Rating 9.9! Called "Artwork-Level Masterpiece"!》
《Industry Alliance Sparks Widespread Discussion, Aurora Games Praises Golden Wind's GDC Speech》
《SLGamers Forum Player Average Score 9.8! GW's Another Great Innovation!》
《Continuing Battlefield Winds' Popularity, Golden Wind's New Dark Souls Ignites Player Market!》
《Regarding Golden Wind's Invitation as Keynote Speaker, CloudPower Has Made No Comment, CEO Konik Refuses Interview》
(......)
The demo version wasn't particularly large in scale.
Although the difficulty was quite substantial, and the first-time addition of the stamina bar brought considerable trouble to players already accustomed to Sekiro.
But given the demo's limited scope, by the next day, reviews about the Dark Souls demo were everywhere.
Although this time, Dark Souls didn't have Sekiro's groundbreaking level of innovation that could define a new game genre.
Compared to Sekiro, whether in artistic or technical aspects, Dark Souls was superior.
The "industry alliance" praised by media combined Golden Engine with Phoenix, complementing each other's strengths to create the world's top-tier visual performance.
Plus Gu Sheng's personal direction and the national symphony orchestra's full cooperation.
This elevated the work, already filled with obscure and profound beauty, to artwork-level expression.
Such performance not only drew media attention to Golden Wind but also caught the eye of many industry peers.
"Impressive work, very stunning, I'm looking forward to its official release..."
The next day, GDC continued with great enthusiasm.
During lunch, Maher, the chief art director of Polish Aurora Games, actively approached Golden Wind.
"You flatter us too much, Mr. Maher,"
Hearing this, Shen Miaomiao smiled politely:
"We're also progressing through exploration step by step, and still need to learn from international giants like your company."
Since Gu Sheng came to GDC not only as keynote speaker but also as host for the entire five-day offline conference sessions.
He attended lunches and dinners with organizers and conference project teams, not participating in inter-company exchanges.
The task of friendly communication with other companies naturally fell to Shen Miaomiao.
But fortunately!
Today's Shen Miaomiao was no longer the industry-ignorant mascot from her first game exchange festival who only stood beside Gu Sheng pretending to be mute.
After all these years, through constant exposure, while she still didn't understand the game industry as thoroughly as Gu Sheng, she was no longer completely clueless.
Moreover, the other party was an internationally renowned major company like Aurora Games.
As an Eastern European game company, Aurora Games had diligently cultivated the game industry, with representative works across PC, mobile platforms, and motion-sensing platforms.
Their scale, while not matching CloudPower's dominance over the Western hemisphere's game industry, was comparable to Komera's.
In some ways, Aurora Games was even more impressive than Komera.
Because everyone knew Komera's massive scale didn't solely come from the game industry.
As a "comprehensive game company" like CloudPower, Komera had multiple economic pillars.
Not to mention others, just pachinko alone brought Komera enormous annual revenue.
In comparison, Aurora Games was much purer.
While they dabbled in related peripheral industries, overall proportions were low and couldn't be considered pillar revenue projects.
As for pachinko-level "pillar economy," that was completely absent.
Meaning!
Aurora Games' current scale was almost purely achieved through twenty-eight years of dedicated cultivation and accumulation in the game industry since their studio's founding.
A company devoted to games could match Komera's scale despite Komera having multiple economic pillars.
This sufficiently demonstrated Aurora Games' purity and strength.
Thank goodness.
Shen Miaomiao sincerely thanked Mr. Gu in her heart for his usual explanations, giving her some understanding of this previously unfamiliar company, preventing her from acting like a clueless fool.
"...Not at all, we don't deserve such praise,"
Hearing Shen Miaomiao's modesty, Aurora's director Maher repeatedly waved his hand:
"Your company's innovation and pioneering capabilities in the game industry are industry-recognized,"
"Speaking of which, many of our games have borrowed from Mr. Sam's ideas to some extent,"
"Even if it's learning, we're learning from each other, progressing together,"
"Just as Sam mentioned in yesterday's speech—"
""Industry exchange and integration, sharing market opportunities, pursuing cooperative development,""
"This is the mainstream direction for future collaborative development in the game industry."
At this point!
Maher seemed to make another pointed remark:
"Industry blockade is undesirable, and facts have proven that stubborn blockades will meet unprecedented failure."
Ah—!
Shen Miaomiao nodded repeatedly!
This comrade's ideological awareness is quite high!
This young man knows how to speak!
Giving Maher an approving look, Shen Miaomiao smiled:
"Aurora Games truly lives up to being an industry leader. With insightful vision like Mr. Maher's, I believe you'll grow even stronger in the future."
Although at this point, Shen Miaomiao clearly understood Maher's approach definitely had purpose.
But since you support me now.
Then at this moment, you are my friend.
Moreover, business has always been like this.
Everyone comes for profit, everyone goes for profit.
Only mutually beneficial parties can sit together.
Although people say there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests,
Right now, what Golden Wind needs precisely is friends based on shared interests.
After all, since their alliance with Phoenix, the counterattack against CloudPower and Komera, even Vivendi Group, had begun.
Only by uniting with more internationally influential renowned companies can they gain greater advantage in future international competition.
"May your kind words come true,"
Maher laughed heartily at this, repeatedly thanking Shen Miaomiao, then changed the subject:
"Speaking of which, your company's alliance with Phoenix truly gave the game industry a surprise,"
"Even from our professional perspective, Dark Souls' stunning expressiveness,"
"Is inseparable from engine support."
"Indeed," Shen Miaomiao also nodded in agreement: "To some extent, our complementary strengths with Phoenix achieved this game's artistic style, or rather..."
At this point!
Shen Miaomiao paused.
Organizing her thoughts slightly, she said meaningfully:
"To some extent, it can now better realize multiple art style creations, further enhancing players' immersion,"
"From the motion-sensing pod perspective, stronger immersion absolutely gives games greater market competitiveness,"
"Don't you agree, Mr. Maher?"
Hearing this.
Maher's eyes lit up.
Exchanging glances with Shen Miaomiao, both understood everything without words.
Exactly!
As Shen Miaomiao suspected, Maher's approach to Golden Wind wasn't just to express praise and admiration!
Battlefield Winds' success showed people Golden Engine's potential.
Then Dark Souls' appearance amazed everyone with the game quality presented by Golden Engine and Phoenix's combination.
Under such circumstances, Aurora Games naturally turned their attention to Golden Engine.
Admittedly.
As one of the world's major companies, Aurora Games had their own self-developed engine.
But now, with the rapid progress of motion-sensing game industry, their self-developed engine was somewhat struggling with game industrial performance realization.
After all, "self-developed engine" technical capability, without alternative approaches, could hardly catch up with mainstream "commercial engines."
Even Golden Wind, with their strong momentum in recent years and never-lacking project funds, had to admit this.
Was Golden Engine's development scale not massive back then?
120 million dollars cost, two-thousand-person team, half of Huaguo's game circle collaborating in development.
What was the final result like?
If Sam hadn't taken an alternative approach, focusing breakthrough efforts on physical destruction effects.
Then undoubtedly, this grandly developed engine absolutely couldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Illusion Engine.
Even Gu Sheng himself had to admit that even catching up with current Illusion 5 would take Golden Engine several more years.
By the time they potentially caught up with Illusion 5, Illusion might have already entered the next engine era.
Thus!
This made Golden Wind's alliance with Phoenix seem even more brilliant.
Clearly.
Golden Wind knew their disadvantages, knew that if they focused solely on Golden Engine's independent development, forget comparing with Illusion 5.
Whether Golden Engine could timely meet their increasingly higher game technical requirements was unknown.
So!
They decided to overtake on the curve!
Technology requires time accumulation?
Then I'll use money to buy time!
Directly take the industry alliance path, using others' long-accumulated experience to compensate for my current shortcomings!
This meant current Golden Engine was no longer purely an engine, but had become a platform!
It was like a massive puzzle baseboard, constantly filling and perfecting itself with ready-made pieces!
Maher found it difficult to define what kind of engine Golden Engine actually was.
Current engines roughly divided into three categories—free engines, commercial engines, self-developed engines.
Was it a free engine?
Clearly not.
Although initially claimed as jointly developed by Huaguo's entire game industry.
Actually from start to finish, all development costs were paid by Golden Wind, so Golden Wind naturally owned all copyrights, providing it to other Huaguo manufacturers at charged rates.
Only manufacturers who participated in development enjoyed preferential pricing.
Then was it a commercial engine?
Seemed not either.
Because theoretically, commercial engine development companies typically didn't involve themselves in game project development.
And commercial engines had a major characteristic—besides serving the game industry, they also served construction, design, film and television industries.
But Golden Engine served only the game industry, all upgrades served game performance exclusively.
But saying this, it seemed like a self-developed engine?
Weirdly, it wasn't that either!
Because self-developed engines were typically tools for specific manufacturers' own use.
Developed, upgraded, and used by game companies themselves.
Completely closed, never sold externally or charged usage fees.
So!
What type of engine tool was Golden Engine exactly?
Maher didn't know.
If forced to define it, he could only say Golden Engine was a "self-developed commercial engine template exclusively serving the game industry"!
Exactly!
It couldn't even be narrowly defined as an "engine"!
But a comprehensive "template"!
Because the industry alliance with Phoenix had transformed its fundamental nature!
Who knew how ambitious Golden Wind's plans were!
This was an unprecedented business development model in the engine industry!
And such model made Aurora Games smell new development opportunities.
Although they struggled to define Golden Engine's business development model.
Undoubtedly, its potential was absolutely unprecedented.
This thing was a patchwork monster.
Who knew how terrifying ultimate-form Golden Engine would be if they someday stitched together the entire engine industry.
So.
They wanted to strike first.
After all, ready examples were right before them!
Could you imagine how happy those manufacturers were who decided to participate in Golden Engine's development during initial planning?
What they enjoyed now was "near third-tier engine internal base pricing, simultaneously enjoying Golden Engine and Phoenix Engine dual technical support" service!
What was this equivalent to?
This equivalent to paying budget motel single room price, but staying in five-star presidential suite!
And they had this treatment only because they helped out at the construction site when developers built the motel!
Although opportunity waits for no one.
Current Golden Wind had passed their most difficult times, and would never again offer such preferential policies exclusive to founding manufacturers to more companies.
But for Aurora Games, if they couldn't enjoy third-tier pricing, letting them enjoy second-tier pricing would work too!
Although we're not providing help in times of need.
But adding flowers to the brocade still counts as flowers.
"Industry alliance enhances market competitiveness,"
Maher nodded repeatedly:
"Actually, this is what I wanted to say too."
Hearing this.
Shen Miaomiao raised her hand, signaling Maher to continue.
Maher organized his thoughts and said:
"Your company's alliance with Phoenix can be said to have pioneered new collaborative development approaches in the game industry,"
"And this GDC's Dark Souls is the best demonstration of collaborative development results,"
"You must have seen already, yesterday our official tweet including CEO's personal tweet absolutely affirmed and supported your company's new approaches, models, and visions,"
"This isn't just our attitude, but also contains our practical expectations for new industry alliance development models..."
Listening to Maher's words, Shen Miaomiao couldn't help sighing inwardly—people were right—
When you're weak, you encounter the most bad people; when you're hot, everyone around you is good.
Thinking back to when they were still weak, ridicule, disdain, mockery, and doubt filled the air.
Looking now.
One phrase "cooperative collaborative development" spoken, within less than 24 hours, attracted support and cooperation requests from internationally renowned first-tier major companies.
Shen Miaomiao signaled Chu Qingzhou beside her to record the following content, as she started feeling somewhat confused.
Maher noticed Shen Miaomiao's limited understanding of industry expertise, and tried to explain cooperation requests using more accessible language.
As everyone knows.
Game engines, as software frameworks assisting electronic game design and development, include multiple subsystem tools like graphics rendering, physics simulation, sound, input, artificial intelligence, etc.
They help developers create game scenes, characters, animations, sound effects, etc., realizing game functions and effects.
Typically, an engine includes multiple components like "rendering engine," "physics engine," "sound engine," "input engine," "output engine," "augmented reality," "AI engine," "network interconnection framework," etc.
Maher immediately brought out "physics engine" and "AI engine" as the two major components.
These two didn't require much discussion or explanation.
Because Golden Wind had already achieved first-class level in these two aspects, even arguably globally unique.
And with Phoenix's addition, the "rendering engine" mainly responsible for rendering game scenes including graphics rendering, lighting, shadows, special effects, etc., needed little elaboration.
In visual effect presentation and rendering quality, if Phoenix claimed second place, no one dared claim first.
Thus, among the main components, only five items remained: "sound engine," "augmented reality," "network interconnection framework," "input engine," and "output engine."
Maher introduced:
"The sound engine is our Aurora self-developed engine's greatest advantage."
Sound, as an easily overlooked component during gameplay, often seems less noticeable.
But actually, it's the most indispensable part of a complete game.
After all, in games as virtual reality, the most intuitive forms of expression are "seeing" and "hearing."
However.
Since people's perception of "hearing" isn't particularly sharp, or requirements typically not that high.
Sound engines have always been rather insignificant among various game engines.
Not many people paid attention, not many researched.
But Aurora Games was different—
They were the first company releasing rhythm games in motion-sensing pod games.
Similar to Beat Saber from Gu Sheng's previous life.
Simple block-cutting mechanics following rhythm, supplemented by 3D surround panoramic sound music effects, caused quite a stir upon release, with sales crushing various shooters/racers/sports games, boldly winning that year's TIGA (The International Game Awards) Game of the Year, still the only rhythm game ever winning TIGA Game of the Year.
Even now, although Aurora Games no longer focused solely on rhythm games, turning to RPG, FPS, and sports games.
But in game sound effect presentation, they remained uniquely top-tier.
"Games cannot do without the assistance of sound,"
"Especially in motion-sensing games, the more subtle sound presentation, the more it enhances players' gaming experience,"
"In this aspect, I believe our experience can provide strong support for Golden Engine's further enrichment."
Hmm....
Hearing this.
Shen Miaomiao's little brain started working.
According to Maher, this cooperation, they hoped to adopt Golden Engine's initial cooperation model between Golden Wind and various Huaguo manufacturers—mercenary mode—Golden Wind hiring Aurora Games' self-developed engine team for technical engine upgrades, giving Aurora Games relatively reasonable engine licensing pricing.
Quite reasonable.
Fair and square, mutually beneficial.
You share technology with me, I give you discounted licensing.
Sounded pretty good.
But the problem was—
Sound upgrade?
Wow.
Shen Miaomiao grimaced inwardly.
Sounded like a pretty useless improvement.
Although Maher described it wonderfully, based on her gaming experience, this thing seemed completely unimportant.
Unless some company's boss had money burning a hole in their pocket.
Otherwise, this truly useless, or minimal improvement, really seemed unnecessary.
So!
Who had money burning uncomfortably?
Hey hey hey! Me!
Shen Miaomiao smacked her little lips.
What a sucker's deal!
This equivalent to throwing money down the drain!
Moreover, due to system restrictions, single engine upgrade wasn't enough to establish a project. After engine upgrade completion, she'd have to spend more money releasing a game.
Two sums of money spent, gaining a game without significant technical improvement.
Hoho!
Shen Miaomiao clapped inwardly.
Thank you Vivendi, thank you Konik, thank you Illusion Engine.
Without your blockade, no Golden Engine emergence, no my 1.8 billion, no guaranteed profit-return Dark Souls, no more money-draining opportunities.
Playing like this, forget getting rid of Vivendi's pursuit.
Reverse acquisition, just around the corner!
Decided!
Thinking this!
Shen Miaomiao had no reason for hesitation, decided on the spot!
How could she refuse delivered profit returns!
This money, I Shen Miaomiao will lose it!