This Is Not a Bug but a Game Feature-Chapter 179 - 135: Divine Grace Animation Festival (Part 2)

Chapter 179: Chapter 135: Divine Grace Animation Festival (Part 2)

The awards, including the prizes and all the expenses of the Divine Grace Animation Festival, are mainly funded by the membership fees and sponsorship from Tianba Studio.

The first Divine Grace Animation Festival is scheduled to take place at the end of this month.

Qian Xin started preparations early, finding a suitable venue, renting it, setting up the stage and venue, and customizing trophies.

Most importantly, contacting major animation companies and producers to submit their works for the judging panel’s review as quickly as possible, so they don’t miss the opportunity to compete.

Since it’s the first Divine Grace Animation Festival, the process is quite rushed, basically just for show, and the awards were already predetermined.

There’s no other way but to predetermine them.

After all, time is limited, and the judges are very busy, so they can’t afford to waste too much time.

However, although the awards were predetermined, the winning works are truly outstanding and say it’s a standout of Divine Grace Animation is not an exaggeration.

Interestingly enough...

The first Divine Grace Animation Festival established a Lifetime Achievement Award and awarded it to Ba.

The award speech went as follows:

"He has pioneered a new track in the animation industry, created the Divine Grace Animation category... Even though he’s not an animation person and has no works, he has left a colorful mark in the history of animation."

Giving out a Lifetime Achievement Award at the first event indeed breaks many people’s perceptions.

But thinking about it carefully, the award really should go to Ba. If he hadn’t developed the game "Divine Grace Continent," would everyone be where they are today?

The applause was very enthusiastic.

The crowd sincerely accepted Ba receiving the award.

Even though he’s not in the animation industry, his legend is well-known in animation circles. A remarkable achievement of leveraging a game to impact the entire animation industry is unique worldwide!

"Ba actually won an award?"

"Yes! He did!"

After clapping, Yang Dong regretfully said, "It’s a pity it’s not a game award. Otherwise, we’d have an excuse to ask Ba to give us a raise."

Why isn’t it a game award?

Even in his dreams, Ba wants to win a grand game-related award, but unfortunately, he has not realized this dream yet. On the contrary, in the animation field, Ba has already become quite successful, collecting trophies to his heart’s content.

It’s not just in the animation field.

In other fields, Ba has also won numerous awards, like Best Distributor, Jiangning’s Most Beautiful Matchmaker, and his achievements are not low there either.

Why is the main business so lacking?

Thinking it over, Yang Dong believes it’s still an issue with the game’s subject choice. Tianba Studio is focused on small-scale games and has no large-scale games.

If it’s not a large-scale game, competing for awards is pretty difficult. Mainly, the game’s scale determines its content; if you have less content, you lack competitiveness.

Unless it’s something like "It Takes Two," which, though small in scale, is indeed dazzling and impressive, it’s tough to compete directly with AAA games.

"Come on!"

Lu pouted and said, "We’re talking about a raise, not getting fired by Ba is already a success!"

Fired?

Yang Dong couldn’t help but ask, "Did you hear something?"

"Do you need to hear it?"

"Ba has already announced in the group that the studio will expand to about 25 people while clearing out employees who lack skills and have poor work attitudes."

Lu sighed and said, "Don’t worry, a few of us founders won’t be thrown under the bus by Ba just yet."

It’s hard to say for others.

In Tianba Studio, out of a dozen people, not everyone is exceptionally capable, and not everyone is as diligent as Lu and Yang Dong.

Ba getting angry is inevitable.

Some are indeed just passing time. Such an attitude isn’t wrong in a big company; you can indeed slack off, and there’s always someone to do the work.

But in an "entrepreneurial" team like Tianba Studio, having slackers typical of big companies is something Chen Ba certainly can’t accept.

His requirements are already quite low.

He doesn’t expect everyone to be superstars, but in a startup team, at least have the right work attitude, right?

If you’re just slacking, why not apply to a big company? Coming to a startup, not only are you miserable, but Chen Ba finds it annoying to watch as well.

There will be a group of people who will face being fired.

But likewise, Tianba Studio will welcome a batch of new employees, further expanding the team.

A team of 25 is the current maximum capacity of the studio’s office space, a number Chen Ba has thought through carefully.

This team size is already enough to meet the development needs of some "medium-sized" games.

The so-called medium-sized games are priced starting at 98 yuan, approaching over 100 yuan.

Three digits!

This is Chen Ba’s next phased goal and the work arrangement for Tianba Studio next year: a medium-sized game priced at three digits.

This isn’t AAA...

Indeed, some AAA games do have prices in this range, but those are "discounted" prices, not the regular prices.

What Chen Ba aims to do is a game originally priced in the hundreds, even after discounts can sell for sixty or seventy yuan.

This type of game, although not reaching AAA heights, still maintains a very high overall quality and level of completion, incomparable to previous games developed.

After the Divine Grace Animation Festival ended, Chen Ba has been pondering a question.

If a game wants to reach a three-digit price, what conditions must it meet?

It’s not about random pricing.

Under normal circumstances, a hundred-yuan game should have top-notch graphics or exceptionally outstanding gameplay.

In other words, it must be better than a 68 yuan game, making players willing to pay the extra tens of yuan, rather than feeling the price is unjustifiably high for the original purchase.

PUBG is probably an example of this.

But even PUBG’s early price was only 98 yuan, and its gameplay was relatively monotonous, besides the basic map, it didn’t have the desert and rainforest maps then.

In other words...

In its early phase, PUBG couldn’t support that price with just the basic map, only when counting the desert and rainforest maps, it seemed reasonable.

The games under Tianba Studio, like "Divine Grace Continent" and "Love Advisor Department," are both priced at 68 yuan.

These two games are worth that price.

Not considering these games for other roles, purely from a gameplay and game size perspective, selling at 98 yuan would be purely overpriced.

"If ’Star Emperor’ could have a larger map, a richer storyline, optimized combat methods, and a robust world background, it might barely justify being a hundred yuan game."

Yang Dong explained, "Not joking, if we can really create the grand experience of ’Star Emperor’s’ journey from humble beginnings to peaks, combined with an open world map, this would be the groundwork for a AAA game."

Indeed!

Chen Ba nodded.

From being weak to reaching the height of ’Star Emperor’ to prove his worth, battling on the ’Path to Immortality.’ When combined with an open world map, this is the standard of a AAA masterpiece.

Unfortunately, the process is too long.

Portraying ’Star Emperor’s’ magnificent life from weakness to peaks, along with creating an open world map, involves an enormous workload.

This is why AAA games are hard to come by.

A complete AAA game, where multiple components alone, isolated, can be sold for fifty to sixty yuan.

Take for example the classic Gwent card game.

That’s part of a AAA game, and could it not be made into a standalone game? The answer is yes! 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Or the driving and vehicle systems from Grand Theft Auto, couldn’t that be made into a standalone racing game?

It’s largely feasible!

"In the future, if there’s a chance to remake ’Star Emperor,’ then why not, but by then, it might not be called by this name anymore."

As Chen Ba spoke, he couldn’t help but burst into laughter, "Also, by then, the remade ’Star Emperor’ could very likely become an actual AAA masterpiece!"

At that time, would it be excessive to sell the game at 300 yuan?

Though that’s just a joke.

What Chen Ba referred to as three digits is just to barely cross the hundred-yuan threshold, not to leap to sell the game for two or three hundred, four or five hundred yuan.

Even though both are three digits, there’s a significant difference, the game prices at 100+ yuan and those at 200+ yuan are completely different concepts.