Agreed to make bad games, What the Hell is Titan Fall 85
by admin## Chapter 85: You Say City Gate, I Say Hip Bone Axle
“Abstract? I think it’s alright.”
Putting down the profit-sharing agreement in his hand, Gu Sheng looked at the logo on the meeting book, following Xiao Nezha’s gaze.
A round frying pan lay tilted, with four letters printed on the bottom –
PUBG
Not bad!
Gu Sheng had indeed put a lot of thought into the topic for this Developer Conference.
As he envisioned it, if the participating work wanted to ensure it wouldn’t lose money and even aim for the championship, it was essential to have both a second-generation FPS and game-play innovation.
Thus, Battle Royale games were the first choice!
Gu Sheng initially thought of APEX and COD Warzone!
Because these two games, both in terms of pace and experience, were the culmination of Battle Royale development after a certain point.
However, unfortunately, both works were spin-offs of their main games.
APEX was based on Titanfall, including some weapon data, skill props effects, etc., all extracted from the main game.
Warzone, needless to say, was just a game mode attached to the main game, so its data naturally came from the main game as well.
According to the system rules, if Gu Sheng wanted to reverse the order and release the spin-off before the main game, he would need to pay double the emotion value to unlock it.
This meant that the two games, which originally required 300,000 to 400,000 emotions to unlock, became unattainable luxuries, with their emotion value requirements even approaching those of the main game.
Gu Sheng was baffled.
But on second thought, this was good.
These two games were no longer considered traditional Battle Royales.
Whether it was APEX’s various Legend skills or Warzone’s various killstreak rewards, they were essentially upgrades on the foundation of Battle Royale.
For this world, a second-generation FPS combined with Battle Royale should already be considered a “King Bomb” level.
Therefore, Gu Sheng chose PUBG, the pioneering work!
He believed that its impact on this world’s gaming industry would be even more significant than when PUBG emerged in the past.
Of course!
This was just Gu Sheng’s foresight as a time traveler.
For Shen Miao Miao…
“So… are we going to make a cooking game?”
Shen Miao Miao held the notebook, mimicking the action of tossing a wok:
“Chef King Tournament, right? Chefs from all over Asia join the game, competing in cooking?”
Shen Miao Miao was completely unaware of Gu Sheng’s design for the new project!
And the first thing anyone would think of when seeing a frying pan, ninety-nine percent of the time, was cooking!
Naturally, she was no exception!
A 50 million investment, sensory pod e-sports game!
You’re making people compete in cooking?!
Shen Miao Miao was simply stunned.
Gu Sheng, however, was even more shocked.
Do I look that stupid?!
In this era where shooting, driving, and sports dominate, and the Golden Wind MFGA resonates throughout the domestic gaming industry, I’m going to ditch a proper shooting game and make a sensory pod Chef King Tournament?
Even if I dared to do it, Jiang Ying Cai would probably explode!
But!
On second thought!
It wasn’t entirely wrong to call PUBG a Chef King Tournament.
What’s that saying?
This battle isn’t just bland broth, multiple chefs are cooking!
“In a way…”
Gu Sheng, remembering various classic scenes, couldn’t help but chuckle and nodded:
“You could say that.”
“Wow——!!!”
Upon hearing this!
Shen Miao Miao’s eyes immediately lit up!
What a ridiculously awesome game!
These past few days, she had also roughly checked out the outstanding game works of previous conferences. It could be said that, apart from the first one, the remaining four conferences all focused on shooting, driving, and sports games.
But Gu Sheng wanted to make a cooking game, a “Little Chef Simulator”!
This is a win-win situation!
“Such a——fantastic and imaginative idea!”
Shen Miao Miao raised both thumbs to Gu Sheng…
Just like that!
The project for this conference was preliminarily confirmed in this “You say city gate, I say hip bone axle” atmosphere.
The project code name was “PUBG”, with the logo being the somewhat comical-looking frying pan. The project director was Gu Sheng, and the deputy directors were Lu Bian and Xu Da Jiang.
Over the next month, Golden Wind needed to accomplish three things:
First, raise funds.
Currently, relying solely on Golden Wind’s revenue, raising 50 million by the end of the month was unrealistic.
Shen Capital had also firmly stated they wouldn’t provide a single cent in funding.
Therefore, Shen Miao Miao’s little treasury had to be tapped.
The 10 million she had just gotten hadn’t even warmed up before it had to be spent.
But!
Shen Miao Miao didn’t care!
A 50 million investment, ridiculous stir-fry simulator, she could probably lose money blindfolded!
Shen Miao Miao even specially submitted a request to the financial manager!
She proactively stated that if by the end of the month, the 10 million supplementary funds were insufficient, the remaining funds would be deducted from her reserved profit-sharing!
This time!
I, Shen Miao Miao, will ruthlessly fleece the system, make a killing!
I always say:
Back then, when “Left 4 Dead” was so popular, I invested 10 million and got 10 million back!
Now, with the PUBG project in hand, a 50 million investment will easily bring in 100 million in return!
The first problem was not a problem!
Second, there was the matter of the proposal.
Currently, PUBG was only in its initial stage.
The real project start time was when the group went to Dongjin at the end of the month for the Developer Conference, submitted the complete game proposal to the organizing committee, and injected all the game production funds into the designated account of the organizing committee.
So, during this month, Gu Sheng needed to start writing the game proposal.
Once the emotion value reached 350,000 at the end of the month, he would exchange the complete PUBG information from the system and flesh out the already-written framework proposal.
This was a piece of cake for Gu Sheng.
Currently, Golden Wind had five works as a foundation, making Gu Sheng’s emotion value income increasingly stable.
Moreover, Golden Wind was currently the designated “backdoor” participant of Huayun Digital’s deputy chairman! (This sounds strange)
Therefore, he didn’t have to worry about the previous games facing any policy issues during this period, affecting his emotion value income.
His emotion value was more than enough!
Funding in place, proposal in place!
Finally, there was the personnel issue.
Yes.
This PUBG project was huge.
It was even too big to be solely reliant on outsourcing. First, in terms of scale, it was far larger than all the previous games made by Golden Wind.
The vast map, complex terrain, changing situations, game load for hundreds of players competing simultaneously, etc., all involved a massive workload.
Program architecture, graphics system, system planning, scene design, character design, lighting, UI, effects, motion, character binding…
Such a massive workload and challenges, if all outsourced to external teams, then Gu Sheng and the other three wouldn’t have to work anymore.
They would be exhausted just by coordinating with different external teams to confirm issues every day.
Second, in terms of production costs.
The price of external teams was definitely higher compared to having in-house employees.
After all, external teams didn’t get the benefits, bonuses, etc. of game companies, so their asking price would naturally be higher.
Previously, Shen Miao Miao was able to strongly advocate for outsourcing because Golden Wind had money, enough to support outsourcing.
But now!
The massive 50 million investment had not only emptied Golden Wind’s coffers, it had even swept away Shen Miao Miao’s own small treasury and profit-sharing.
It was completely empty, not a single penny left. Even if Shen Miao Miao emptied her pockets, she couldn’t pull out a single coin.
Then, the nature of the PUBG project was special.
It was no longer a single-player or multiplayer game, but a truly multiplayer online tactical competitive shooting game.
Operation and maintenance would be an essential part of this game.
This thing was completely impossible to outsource, and Golden Wind needed to develop, and Gu Sheng and the other three couldn’t possibly stay with this one game forever, providing services for it.
Therefore!
To sum up!
With the unanimous agreement of Shen Miao Miao and Gu Sheng, and the rest of the executives!
Golden Wind decided to expand its workforce!
However!
On the issue of recruitment scope, Gu Sheng and Shen Miao Miao had a slight disagreement.
Gu Sheng had experience in the game industry, and it was vast.
In his opinion, Golden Wind, although not large in size, had a good reputation in the industry.
They were the pioneers of psychological horror and second-generation FPS, and with his own “Super Nova Designer” reputation added to the mix, as soon as they sent out a recruitment notice, countless experienced professionals would swarm in, eager to work for Golden Wind.
Moreover, most of these individuals were seasoned veterans, skilled and experienced, ready to work.
Therefore, recruitment from the wider society was undoubtedly their best option.
But!
Shen Miao Miao disagreed.
According to her, Golden Wind was only a one-year-old company, with a shallow foundation, and they couldn’t properly discern the motivations of these job applicants.
If they just wanted to make money, that would be fine.
But what if they were sent by competitors?
The Asian Electronic Sports Game Developer Conference!
This was the biggest project Golden Wind had ever received!
And it was also the designated participating unit of the deputy chairman of Huayun Digital!
If anything went wrong in the middle, not only would Golden Wind’s reputation be damaged, but it would also endanger the company’s future development!
Therefore!
To avoid this situation!
Shen Miao Miao advocated for campus recruitment!
Specifically recruiting those with a clean background, like them back then, with clear and foolish eyes, college students!
And there was another advantage to this, which was that if these individuals could be nurtured, they would become the backbone of Golden Wind in the future, loyal servants, loyal ministers, and good generals!
Shen Miao Miao’s words were all reasonable!
She seemed passionate and concerned about the company’s interests!
But in reality, only she knew that what was this “loyal servant”, what was this “worrying about competitors tripping us up.”
She just wanted to recruit more useless people to hold the company back.
And to hold the company back, the best choice was college students who were naive and always thinking about restructuring the workplace.
They couldn’t do it like what Old Gu said, recruiting seasoned veterans!
Otherwise, with these talented, experienced veterans helping out, Old Gu would be even more unstoppable!
“I believe I can control those seasoned veterans, and with Jiang Ying Cai around, other companies wouldn’t be stupid enough to trip us up at this time, touch Huayun Digital’s taboo, and send spies to us at this moment.”
Gu Sheng frowned and shook his head, not agreeing with Shen Miao Miao’s idea of campus recruitment.
“But what about the one in ten thousand? Even if there is just one person with malicious intent, the impact on us would be devastating. Moreover, wouldn’t cultivating the company’s backbone from now on be more beneficial to the company’s development?”
Shen Miao Miao refused to back down, insisting on taking the campus recruitment route.
For a moment, the two locked horns.
This made the two watching from the side, Lu Bian and Big Jiang, feel like they were under a spotlight, uneasy and fidgety.
In the tense atmosphere, the two frantically rubbed their phones and chatted under the table!
Big Jiang: “Should we support Sheng Ge? If he says it’s no problem, it’s probably no problem.”
Lu Bian: “Go to hell, don’t drag me into this death sentence. Old Gu dares to go against Little Nezha, but I don’t dare.”
Big Jiang: “But this can’t go on like this, can it? They’re about to start a duel!”
Lu Bian: “Let them duel, I’m betting on Little Nezha.”
Big Jiang: “Because she’s the CEO?”
Lu Bian: “Because of love.”
Big Jiang: “Question mark.jpg”
Lu Bian: “Smiling Shiba Inu.jpg”
Big Jiang: “How do you know?!”
Lu Bian: “Because I’ve dated 23 girlfriends…”
However!
Just as Gu Sheng and Shen Miao Miao were arguing their points, and Lu Bian and Big Jiang were secretly watching the drama!
Knock knock knock——
Suddenly!
They heard someone knocking on the conference room door!
“Come in!”
As Shen Miao Miao responded, everyone turned their heads towards the door.
Then, they saw Chu Qing Zhou pushing the door open:
“Shen CEO, sorry to interrupt you, there’s a guest who wants to see you and Chief Supervisor Gu.”
“Looking for us?” Gu Sheng and Shen Miao Miao exchanged a glance, both puzzled: “Who is it?”
Chu Qing Zhou smiled, then said, “It’s the deputy dean of the School of Electronic Engineering and Science Technology at Binjiang University, Professor Lin.”
Bad news!
Hearing this!
Gu Sheng’s heart immediately sank!
Just what he feared!
No need to ask!
Dean Lin’s personal visit today was most likely for the graduation season’s recruitment activities!
Now!
Graduation season was approaching, and the annual recruitment activities would be held as scheduled.
Binjiang University, as a full-time, first-tier university, had many companies participating in its recruitment activities every year.
Recruitment was mainly aimed at graduates, of course, they would also appropriately recruit some internship positions for third-year students.
Golden Wind!
As the fastest-growing technology company in Binjiang, and with Gu Sheng himself being a student at Binjiang University, it would naturally attract the school’s attention.
Gu Sheng smacked his lips.
Damn, things are getting bad.
Shen Miao Miao, however, had a glimmer of excitement in her eyes!
Oh my, things are getting better!
Isn’t this exactly what I wanted!
Thinking about it, Shen Miao Miao gave Gu Sheng a smug look, raising her eyebrows:
“Well then, let’s end the meeting for today, shall we? Come on, Gu Xuechang? Go see your old mentor? See what good news your alma mater has brought us?”
——
PS: Sorry, I forgot to set the time, please forgive me, readers.
Another PS: Asking for monthly tickets.
(End of Chapter)
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