"Phantom Beast Palu" sold 10 million copies, and it is estimated that it will only be ...... in the past few days
Since its launch on January 19, "Phantom Beast Palu" has continued to break records, and the game and its developers have too many seemingly "fantasy" settings, so that various topics continue to emerge.
A few days ago, the game** You Li You was invited by the Research Institute"So far, the gamers who know PocketPair the most can be retrieved in public channels" - Xu Yiran, CEO of MMV (click to jump to understand).As a guest in the live broadcast room of "Game Lecture Hall", they exchanged views on the team situation of "Phantom Beast Palu" PocketPair] and [What game entrepreneurs can learn].
The following is the relevant content:
01 PocketPair doesn't have so many "myths".
Game**: A lot of people know about PocketPair from your interview, can you tell us how you met them?
Xu Yiran:It was also a coincidence that I was able to find him. When I entered Perfect World, the company was especially active in going overseas, so I always had the habit of watching PC games to find creative content and get to know the company behind it. When "Creation Ideal Township" came out, I saw some signs and felt that this team was very special. Takuro Mizobe's time in the circle was too short, and this person was basically nowhere to be found in the game circle back then, but one of my old subordinates was lying in Japan every day and happened to contact him.
Game**: What did you think was special about this team at the time?
Xu Yiran:Very low cost, you can hardly find such a low cost, the entrepreneur has no money, but his cost is so low that I am surprised, which is why I must talk to him. At that time, I watched "Creation Ideal Township" and it didn't look bad, and I heard that I was stupid when there were only four people doing it, so I was concerned about how you could make such a product with four people.
Creation of the ideal township.
Game**: Everyone is curious if the members of PocketPair really have "no experience" as the president said?
Xu Yiran:The last time I talked to him, it was almost like this.,At that time, there were 7 people.,3 people were outsourced to others to support the remaining 4 people.,And then outsourcing is to do those very low mobile games.。 So what high-level talent do you think he can have?
From the perspective of the product, the whole design avoids all the most difficult points, so is this game a master? Resources are bought from the Internet, art masters don't need it, and he's not a free game, so you don't need a particularly strong numerical master. It's not that he doesn't have the money to hire a master, but he doesn't need it in terms of demand.
And there is another problem, when you communicate with a particularly experienced master, people are not used to this development process - everything is pieced together, and you can take the broken things and go to them, who can stand those who are from big factories? So I don't dare to say 100 percent, but I guess that there are no good people in his company to this day, and they are capable of work.
Game**:The president made money from the previous game all in the next game,It's also a point that is more discussed.,Do you think he's a "reckless",Or only pursue the good game in your heart.,But don't fully anticipate** the result of the person?
Xu Yiran:This has to be looked at from several angles. The first is that he used to be on the ** twice in a row, and the third time he will be bolder; Secondly, he can't control it, you think the previous one has already been made like that, and the next one has to be a little more innovative, right? When he talked to me, he said that he wanted to do better integration, and there were few people who had dreams of making games, but few could "brake the car".
In the end, even if it loses, even if it is not returned, for example, it costs $15 million and only sells back $5 million, which is enough to make the next one. "Dude, it's cheap to make games, who am I afraid of? This is where his joy in life lies. Besides, it doesn't cost $15 million to make this "Phantom Beast Palu", and there must be still some income left from before.
Game**: As far as you know, has PocketPair, the developer of Phantom Palu, raised external funding?
Xu Yiran:I don't know much about it in recent years, but the last time I talked to him, I shouldn't need to invest. You can see from the article I wrote, their cost is extremely low, according to the sales of "Creation Ideal Township", minus the 30% share of ** and steam, and there must be more than $15 million in hand, so I believe he has zero investment so far.
Game**: Did you talk to Takuro Mizobe about his thoughts on stitching?
Xu Yiran:When I was interviewed, I asked him, what should I do if the art style is not uniform? Because of these materials sold online, you buy one from here, buy one from there, and a bunch of things are sewn together, and it is not the right thing at all. He said that the most sold on the Internet is the Q version of things, and I have a Q version of the whole game style, can it be unified to **?
And his stitching has a clear way of playing, he pulled the picture quality up, and he can jump out of the circle of competition with the vast number of small teams, and the competitors are dozens of heads, and he uses stitching in the gameplay, and the big factory can't do this, which is in line with the most useful sentence I learned from Lao Zhou (Zhou Hongyi) when I was in 360 "The enemy is irretrievable".
Gaming**: Do you think they could make the next big hit at a similar level?
Xu Yiran:I think the next success is inevitable. People like him must have greater ideals, so the next one is stitched with new things, as long as you make new things, it will bring new risks, so whether the next one can go to the next level, I think the uncertainty is very big, but the next one will definitely make money, and this probability is almost 100%.
To put it irresponsibly, which company do you go to the world to find with the best chance of becoming a second Nintendo? I think it's possible, they have a similar philosophy, and I'm very optimistic about it.
Gaming**: Do you think he's going to throw a huge amount of money into the next game? Or do you insist on a cost-controllable way to do it?
Xu Yiran:Or a reference to Nintendo. Everything Nintendo does is to make the game more fun, and from that point of view, how much will it cost me? None of Nintendo's projects say that they will invest a billion dollars in order to compete with others. He doesn't think like that. Only the boss who doesn't understand the game will say, I don't understand anyway, I know that throwing money will definitely work.
So, don't get the cause and effect reversed. If he invests more money, it must be his ideal more fun game, and if he needs this feature, he will spend this money. But I believe that he should insist on using as few people as possible, and then use smart novices, cheap or even free resources, and AI, and try not to spend as much money as possible, but now that he has money, he will not be soft on the money that should be spent. I think it's going to be a long-term culture for his company.
02 How to understand the success of "Phantom Beast Palu"?
Game**: Stitching is not an uncommon means, but it is very rare to explode, why do you think PocketPair can succeed? How do you understand their approach?
Xu Yiran:To be able to stitch so well, first of all, the game must be played enough. He has a good idea of what players want. So what's important and what's not? He can figure it out.
What do players like to play? You peel back the cocoon, extract the essence of several gameplay styles, and blend them together. And then you think about what you can get rid of? What are some of the things that must be left behind? In the end, how much of the essence is added to the development time and development cost that I can accept? So this person must be an extremely intelligent person who knows how to make trade-offs. The vast majority of people can't even copy it, let alone stitching, you have to learn to extract the essence first, and stitching is a more advanced technique.
I used to ask a question when interviewing game planners, which game did you play the most? 90% of people would talk about World of Warcraft. Then the second question is to tell me about the ten advantages of World of Warcraft. As a result, more than 90% of people can't talk about the tenth advantage, and after talking about five or six, they unconsciously start to say that there are many things that people don't do particularly well. We all say that innovation should stand on the shoulders of giants, I said no, you must stand on the top of your head, you haven't figured out the heads of other people's "giants", you think about improving people's .......
So let's not talk about stitching, let's do a good job of "copying" first, and learn to copy 100% first, although you haven't understood how the brains of other giants work, but you at least ensure that your copy has a brain, right? It's not that you just take this thing and sell it directly on the market, it's an ability to exercise yourself. After 100% copying, can this thing run? After that, you can start culling, you take out some things, is it fun to see this thing? Slowly you learn to find it, it turns out that its head is here, its skeleton is here. The process of copying and copying other people's is the way to go.
In fact, it is not difficult to copy Nintendo, because the core fun of Nintendo is placed there, and I think it is particularly puzzled that there are few companies in the world that copy Nintendo. Such a successful company is worshiped every day, but everyone does not copy it. Now the pocketpair proof is for you, not only can you copy the essence, but also surpass.
Game**: Phantom Beast Palu is a victory for gameplay or a victory for IP? Many people think that the success of the phantom beast Palu can't avoid the Pokémon-like painting style.
Xu Yiran:This is like when "Genshin Impact" first came out, there were also a bunch of trolls who scolded it for copying "Zelda". You have to look at this matter very calmly, foreigners' views on "Genshin Impact" back then were called "too good to be a zelda clone", which means that it is better than a "Zelda", can you call it plagiarism?
I think the clever point of PocketPair is that it is not really a crime, it may be a little closer than "Genshin Impact" and "Zelda", but they have also achieved "too good to be a Pokemon Clone", is Pokémon's upcoming open-world game more fun than this? I think if I were Nintendo, this game would have to be redone.
What does it mean that blue is better than blue? This is what Shi Yuzhu taught me when I was a giant, that is, you must surpass your plagiarism object. I am a reverent copyist, but after copying I will inevitably surpass you. I have told many entrepreneurial teams that this three-character scripture is called copying super banknotes, the first copy is plagiarism, the second super is exceeding, and the third banknote is banknotes. You have to have a second super to have a third banknote, you just copy the first one must not be good, you see that people pocketpair has already implemented the three words smoothly.
So why success? Every game is made from first principles, that is, where is the core fun of the player at the bottom? He made this game, which is exactly in line with the lowest level of fun dreams in everyone's heart. Besides, you can't invent anything new.,This kind of design that meets the preferences of the majority of players at the bottom of the Q version of the pet has almost been used up by Nintendo.,Do you want to deliberately make a design that everyone doesn't like in order to avoid Nintendo?
Game**: Pokémon has made an announcement under investigation, do you think the "plagiarism risk" will affect PocketPair?
Xu Yiran:We didn't talk about it at the time, because the assets we bought online were all copyrighted, or they were used for free, and then they were turned into their own through internal adjustments, and he didn't really steal Nintendo's art materials. I don't think he even thought about it, it's a matter of Japanese culture.
Believe me, he won't have any problems in law, and if he has to change a few designs that are too close under pressure from the big manufacturers, it won't affect the whole game. After all, he is now among the ranks of rich manufacturers, even if it is not for legal reasons, in order to look better, changing a few designs will not affect the overall situation. And to be honest, it doesn't hurt to let the big factories rub some hot spots, if the big factories really take over, it will be even more popular. If I were Nintendo, I would sit down and study seriously, instead of having to kill people, in case I didn't die, they would be even more popular, and I would be very embarrassed.
Game**: Do you think PocketPair played a key role in making Palu the Phantom Beast?
Xu Yiran:My conclusion is very simple, that is, he will be able to use it up, this guy is too good at searching for free resources on the Internet. There is no one in the world who can beat it! There are free AI tools, can he use them? No way. But now that the environment is still restricted, you can look at these resources and push back which ones can be done with AI? Very few. I think more than 90% of the resources of this game are either made by ourselves, or outsourced or bought. Of course, that doesn't mean he doesn't want to use it. In the future, when AI tools become stronger and stronger, PocketPair will definitely be one of the companies with the fastest and highest proportion of AI tools in the world.
Game**: There is a view that "Phantom Beast Palu" is based on the buyout system to design fire, if it is made into a mobile game, or become a free-to-play and then make a service-oriented game, can it still be popular?
Xu Yiran:I think it's very likely that if there were smart people who got a mobile version now, I don't think it would be that difficult. He removed all the energy-consuming things, the number of models is not high, the number of faces of the scene is not high, the art requirements are not high, there are no particularly complex actions in the gameplay, and the amount of resources consumed is relatively small.
But the premise is that you can get all the essence of the people? Again, the key point I said, you have to learn to get out of his skeleton and brain, even if you revert to the oldest pixels, the core fun is still there. And there is naturally room for live service in the core mechanics of this game, so there is no need to change it drastically.
Game**: A user raised a question, everyone agrees that the entire industry environment has changed, players don't care how they are satisfied, they only care about whether they can be satisfied, but if a company survives by stitching, can it really stand all the time? After all, the demand for stitching satisfaction is the unsatisfied space for users opened up by existing gameplay.
Xu Yiran:I think that even if you don't always be able to sew new things in this category, there are too many points to choose from different categories. Even if you have done the first thing in the SOC category, can you sew SLG tomorrow? You have to admit that at this point in time, all the ideas in the game industry are portfolio ideas, and there are very few original creations.
Because the game industry has been in the industry for forty or fifty years, the idea of defining a category is basically done. So if you want to innovate, there is no other choice but combination. It's just a matter of how to combine and who combines with whom. All game innovation in the world can only go this way, are you still worried that you won't be able to go ahead?
03 What are the inspirations for Chinese game manufacturers?
Game**: Do you think the success of the Phantom Beast Palu team is reproducible and will appear in China?
Xu Yiran:When analyzing a thing, we must learn to take out the core of it.
Let's analyze this matter, it takes many years of accumulation in the indie environment, and the founder must have a particularly high IQ, be good at analyzing problems, and grasp the core with first principles. This kind of person has a lot of people in China, but many of them have not entered the game industry. Then the Chinese still have the advantage, that is, they can play the PC version of the mobile game at the same time. If the mobile game version of PocketPair is launched at the same time, it will already be tens of millions of DAUs. I don't see a single point that can't be done.
Another advantage that China has over Japan is that we can produce materials cheaper, and spend a little money to make a lot of art resources, which are all advantages of China, and we can definitely do it.
Game**: How do you think the success of Phantom Beast Palu has affected the small factory?
Xu Yiran:My opinion is that it is definitely good for small factories. It's just that there is nothing, how can you make such a product in the case of being poor and white, you can refer to our analysis earlier and use it directly. Now PocketPair is a complete solution, how to use it after having AI tools? How do you use it before you don't have AI tools? The strategy is given to you, you just need to fight like this. I think this is definitely a huge contribution to the prosperity of a small factory and the entire game industry.
In addition, the factory can also learn in this way, after all, this team has 1500 million US dollars, and there are already 15 million US dollars on the account when I do palworld, and many Chinese factories may not have so much, so learning this logic is also useful for Chinese factories. There is no reason for a medium factory to do worse than more small factories, after all, there are more resources.
Gaming**: What specific lessons do you think independent teams can learn from this?
Xu Yiran:I suggest that the first demo I make for myself is to be used as your promotion**, treat these two as one thing, and use the method of a completed game to do your demo. Then you will make the style of the finished product, which is the actual machine propaganda ** directly. Instead of the product being made, under the guidance of the publisher, pick out a fake thing to spell **.
You have to think backwards, as a player, what kind of **will definitely go**, will definitely play. You will make the core gameplay of the corresponding game and spell out a product-level publicity**. And then you spread it, and you see if everyone thinks it's interesting, and it's even better to have some controversial points, the more controversial it is, the more people will come to see it.
You see how these mobile games are done now, they all do the purchase of materials first, see if the click-through rate is high, and whether the purchase volume is cheap or not, and then start to do it. Just like a steam game, make the final promotion ** first, and see how the response is before landing.
Game**: Do you think it's better for the early team to get financing first, or to learn extreme development like PocketPair?
Xu Yiran:My advice is to try not to take money. If you haven't raised money at the root, you can survive. If you come out to start a business only when you get the money as soon as you get it, and you can live by financing, you may never be able to live well. You can do it in your spare time, buy your own computer, and don't use the company's resources, why can't you do one at home? He needs to work full-time for three years, but it's a big deal, can't you do it for six years as an amateur? Why go out and raise money? If you don't know for sure, it's best not to go out and get financing. Round after round to beg grandpa to tell grandma to find VC, I didn't have this idea from the beginning, this is not called the correct concept of entrepreneurship.
Game**: After the small factory becomes popular, many investment institutions and companies will choose to contact them. As an entrepreneur, what kind of mentality should you maintain at this time, whether to choose to continue to do well, or to choose to cash out?
Xu Yiran:Different people may think differently, and if you also think that you will not have any great success in the future. If you want to improve your life, and your wife and children are under a lot of pressure, you just sell them for cash. And then when you have an itchy hand again, and you take the cash and come out and do it, that's the first option.
The second option is like PocketPair, which raises itself with its own products round by round. In this case, don't take anyone's money. In the process of Nintendo's rise, which VC has helped? Which major factory has helped? You take one step at a time, and you're done when you walk steadily. Try not to be risky.
Game**: Talking about the big factory, what do you think the big factory should consider in this matter?
Xu Yiran:I think "Egg Boy Party" is a good example, you see that the overseas terminal game Fall Guys and the mobile game Stumble Guys are all on, but the first domestic party to rush out of the mobile game is NetEase.
Big factories have big troops and resources, you don't have to do 0 to 1 yourself. But you have to prepare a particularly large elite force at all times, which can form a crushing advantage over small factories hundreds of times or thousands of times. You have to take the money every day and wait for that moment to come. The way to play is that all my core competencies are stored here, and I don't necessarily have to invent and create by myself.
You see, now PocketPair has 1500 million US dollars, he doesn't have the energy to make a mobile game by himself, this opportunity is reserved for big factories, rush up and do this thing, fast enough, enough to crush, and win. It's like signing Nintendo's genuine authorized image directly, but a small factory can't do it, which is called dimensionality reduction, and it is the same as "the enemy can't be saved".
Large factories must be sensitive.