game development designer

Chapter 424 You Slow Down

"Excellent environment system, compared with Red Dead Redemption, you have made new progress."

In the leisure room of the studio, a middle-aged man with thin eyes put down the handle in his hand, looked at the protagonist who had been killed by zombies on the screen, and gave out admiration.

Joel, surrounded by zombies on the TV screen, was bitten to death by countless zombies when he ran out of ammunition and food. After the zombies left, Joel, who was lying on the ground with bloody flesh, suddenly stood up and opened his eyes. , and then the words game over appeared on the screen.

"Is there an easter egg? Or are there other content settings?" Seeing this scene, Hideo Kojima immediately shifted his attention from the excellent environment system in the previous game to this.

For Hideo Kojima, the elements of the game's plot are more attractive to him than pure technology.

"It's just an ordinary game ending." Chu He said with a smile.

In this regard, it can be regarded as a small easter egg, and of course it can also be used as an entry point for subsequent DLC. There are many similar things in the game.

At the beginning, the entire technical team planned to make these things into the content of the game, but later found that these contents had little to do with the game itself, and might even have negative effects, so they simply abandoned these contents.

But what has been produced includes modeling, and there are some things that the team is reluctant to delete, so these things have become Easter eggs related to the game.

70% of the easter eggs in most games are intentionally implanted, and 30% are inadvertently added or reluctantly deleted during the game development process.

However, as for the content of these Easter eggs, it is now regarded as a participation benefit for the employees of the studio. Unlike the game production employees in the early years who could only add Easter eggs secretly, it is basically open and transparent now. Of course, what content is produced? The menu needs to be reported to the above to be able to pass.

Otherwise, some easter eggs with bad influence are added, it would not be so pleasant.

"Your Red Dead Redemption delayed Death Stranding for more than a year. To be honest, after seeing the finished product of your last survivor, I want Death Stranding to be delayed again." Hideo Kojima said with emotion said a word.

Of course, that's what he said. Of course, it is impossible for Hideo Kojima to continue to delay Death Stranding.

After all, if the ticket is skipped for another year or two, not to mention the furious fans and players, the investor Sony Entertainment alone would not suggest Hideo Kojima to do this.

After all, they invested in Hideo Kojima Studio to let their games escort Sony's new console.

It’s great now, consoles have been on sale for almost two or three years, and your game hasn’t been released yet, and even Sony is already developing an upgraded version of the console.

"If you want to procrastinate, procrastinate. After all, game makers want to make the game the most perfect career in their minds!" Chu He said sincerely on the surface, but in reality hesitantly said.

Go ahead, continue to bounce tickets, continue to run aground, continue to be your island pigeon.

When The Last of Us is released, no one will fight with us.

"Forget it." Hideo Kojima, who turned his eyes back to the TV screen and reopened the previous record archive, rolled his eyes.

In order to deal with Sony, Kojima Studio even opened an official peripheral store. Why is this kind of ugly eating?
Isn't it just to relieve the pressure in the studio?
If he said to the outside world that the ticket was skipped for a year or two, then he really couldn't hold on, even if his name was Hideo Kojima.

After all, the treatment Sony gave him at the beginning was really great. He only invested money and never asked about game development, which can be said to have given him enough trust.

But this kind of procrastination year after year, even if Sony gave enough self-righteousness at the beginning, it would not continue to let it go like this. After all, you have to spend so much money after all.

"After all, not every producer is like Mr. Chu." Hideo Kojima said with a sigh.

I don't know why, when he said this sentence, Hideo Kojima suddenly felt as if a sour smell filled the air.

But, there is no way not to be sour!

Which game producer doesn't want to have the right to do whatever he wants, with funds that cannot be spent?

But can't do it!

Who doesn't know that if you want to improve the efficiency of the game, the easiest way is to find outsourcing at the grassroots level, outsourcing at the middle level, and the core to do it yourself.

But these are all money!
Death Stranding has been developed for nearly three years. At the same time, the cost is about 2 million US dollars, most of which are the salaries of well-known actors, and the rest are the salaries of employees and outsourced projects.

As for the project of The Last Survivor, although Hideo Kojima couldn’t find out the specific funds, from the scale disclosed to the outside world and the information circulated in the industry, it is at least 1.5 million US dollars, and it has only been developed for more than a year.

And the last survivor didn't use any big-name actors, the money was purely for outsourcing and contract workers' wages.

If Death Stranding uses outsourcing and contract workers on such a large scale, the progress will naturally be guaranteed, but the cost will almost double.

It is more in line with the strategy of major manufacturers to use their own employees to spend two to three years to produce a work than to double the cost to make a work that does not know how much sales will be sold within a year. .

On the one hand, it is because it can save costs, and on the other hand, it is also to accumulate technical background for itself.

Don't look at the frequent release of Tianhe Network's masterpieces, but if you look at the background, such as the material library, there is still a big gap between Tianhe Network and Ubisoft and EA with a long history.

Of course, Tianhe Network also has its own method, which is to buy!

If you don't have enough background, then buy it!

Platinum Studio, the relics and mines under THQ, and the studios acquired after they got rich in recent years, in addition to their own talents, some art material libraries they carry are their property.

Without these things, these studios are really not worth that much money.

"I like this kind of game work. If it is more focused on the narrative, instead of having so much open content." Hideo Kojima put down the handle and turned to talk to Chuhe.

Because he died again, which is very similar to Chuhe, they are all gamers.

Even on the most common difficulty, Chuhe often can't beat it, resulting in getting stuck.

"But the players don't like it very much. What I do is never art, but what the players like." Chuhe shook his head.

Kojima, who got this answer, didn't say too much about it. Although the two people are two zodiac signs apart in age, they have a lot of common topics in the game industry.

"By the way, I almost forgot the business." Suddenly thinking of something, Kojima took out a Sony camera from a staff member next to him.

"Well, it's obvious that you are a little slower." Chu He smiled and opened the phone in his pocket and shook it.

On the screen of the mobile phone is the picture of Twitter, and the same content is only a simple sentence and a photo.

'Welcome to Hideo Kojima for playing The Last of Us. '

The photo below shows Chuhe and Hideo Kojima sitting on the sofa, with the faintly visible game screen on the large display screen in front.

(End of this chapter)