Game Development Giant

The structure of the market can change, and so can the rules of market games. , the competition in the original game rules can become irrelevant. By stimulating demand and through value innovation strategies, the market can be expanded and created. Value can be gained through innovation, not competition.

When Blizzard implemented the blue ocean strategy for Hearthstone, how did they carry out specific operations?

it's actually really easy.

First, there needs to be a clear point.

What are the previous tabletop card games? MTG, also known as Magic: The Gathering, has Yu-Gi-Oh, which is correct, and Warcraft TCG, which is correct.

However, when Hearthstone was first established as a project, did you want to win over these players?

Of course not. If they were to win over these players, wouldn't this be entering into a red ocean strategy with companies like Wizards World? Aren’t we going to compete with an already infinitely mature market? You know, it is basically impossible to compete in an infinitely mature market and win.

Take Apple as an example. If Apple had continued to make feature phones at that time, would they have been able to take a share of the pie when Nokia was the dominant player and the market was infinitely mature? Of course it's impossible, but they have opened up a whole new market for smartphones.

This is their blue ocean strategy.

The success of their blue ocean strategy not only allowed them to open up a brand new market, which they dominated, but also allowed this new market to invade the old market and completely destroy it. die.

In other words, when Blizzard first developed this Hearthstone game, their target audience was not these existing card game enthusiasts. It is aimed at those who have never been exposed to card games.

Enough talking, let’s continue talking about the blue ocean strategy of “Hearthstone”.

Basically, in Jester's previous discussion, Hearthstone's success can be attributed to three basic aspects.

First, although Blizzard or Blizzard fans are unwilling to admit it, the entire structure of Hearthstone is still derived from MTG, the entire card battle system that Magic: The Gathering has spent more than 20 years perfecting. explain. It is impossible for all card games, especially this kind of trading cards. To put it another way, no trading card game can get rid of the system established by MTG.

And this reason accounts for about 30% of the success factor of Hearthstone.

Because it is like this overall system structure, just like the foundation that must be used to build a house, although it is underneath. Most people can't see it, but its importance is probably unparalleled.

The second reason is the ability of Blizzard designers.

The first is their casual design line. This allows this card game to fully retain players who may be just curious about card games. Generally, these players are light players. They are not like advanced players who have such and such requirements for the game. . Moreover, in the previous mtg card game, it was really tiring to play. It's even so complex that people who like this genre don't want to play too many games a day.

But in the game Hearthstone, this really doesn’t need to be considered at all.

Secondly, are they actually reasonable changes to the game system? As mentioned earlier, Blizzard refers to the entire system of the MTG card game, but then again, the MTG card game system is too complicated. It's not cute at all. The so-called cuteness here means that this system is not lovable.

Blizzard doesn't want to make a game with such a boring system. What they want to do is to make people understand it, understand it, and play it as soon as they get started. Well, it should be played and can be played. It’s a great game, so this system must change.

To be precise, it needs to be simplified.

But the simplified mtg is still full of charm.

At this point, it probably accounts for about 20% of the success factor of Hearthstone.

Third, I have to admit that here, I still have to mention Sons of the Storm, which I have talked about many times before, because they are so outstanding, these top artists in the world. , contributing cards to players one by one, allowing players to collect unlimited cards.

You know, the most important thing about an MTG-oriented game, that is, a trading card game, is that it has cards that allow players to collect cards**. This can be said to be, this game The foundation and core of everything.

This point, probably tied with the first point, is also 30%.

the last point.

In fact, this is also the most important point, and it is the biggest help to the hero aspect of this game, that is, the design background of this game.

You know, the full name of the game Hearthstone is like this - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and World of Warcraft, as we all know, is the greatest one in the world, no matter what Uo fans, or How reluctant eq fans are.

For example, there are many eq SB fans who are constantly clamoring that wow is just playing the rest of eq.

I am too lazy to refute this point. Now it is unrealistic to go to National Geographic to read posts from more than ten years ago. For example, the so-called fans of eq said that the earliest concept of copy was completed in eq. , and then Blizzard copied it in wow.

I don't deny this, but if it is eq and there is a copy shadow of the so-called eq, then starting from bwl, Blizzard has completely developed its own copy scheme, and their design of the copy has been completely It is not comparable to a workshop-style studio like eq.

Moreover, the design of Blizzard's dungeon AI is unparalleled.

For example, someone Gao, the later chief designer of NetEase's Tianxia 2, once said this. At that time, he said this, some games are not just plagiarized if you want to, just use the copy AI of wow. It is said that in China, no game company or game team can complete the copy AI of wow.

Let’s not talk about this first, just say it is a copy.

You know, the so-called copy made by eq first is correct, but why would they think of making a copy?

Because the concept of dungeons was before eq launched dungeons. In an interview, a certain wow designer specifically mentioned the concept of dungeons when he revealed something about the design of wow. And explained it aside.

You know, eq was facing a very serious problem at that time.

Even in large-scale raids in the wild, there are many people and few monsters. Of course, no one dares to say that eq created the copy system because of this interview with the designer of wow.

But just stating this fact.

That is, eq did not have a copy system at the beginning, and then there was no such groundbreaking copy system.

This is proven by the posts translated and reprinted by Penguin, one of the founders of National Geographic, who translated Illidan into Illidan at that time. All players who have experienced that era are familiar with this. Things are crystal clear.

Of course, I didn't say that eq made a copy after seeing an interview with a wow designer. I was just talking about the order in which things developed.

As for what it is like, haha.

The brainless eq player sb can be seen everywhere, and it's not just this.

To put it far, let’s just say that the biggest success of “Hearthstone” is that from the beginning, it borrowed the huge fans accumulated by “World of Warcraft” in the past ten years. If it weren’t for having such a group of fans at the beginning, Fans, it may be difficult for Hearthstone to get through the start-up period at the beginning.

This point, in Jester's heart, probably accounts for the remaining 20%.

That's it. Blizzard's Hearthstone became a great success. After the mobile version was withdrawn, the number of players reached 30 million. It can be said that this is a miracle.

Jester came back from his thoughts.

Just that afternoon.

Jester held a separate discussion meeting with the development team of Warcraft: Humans and Orcs.

He had nothing to hide, and bluntly stated that they were dissatisfied with the fact that Jester had put a large part of his energy into Planet Requiem. Jester's prestige in Mars Entertainment was unparalleled.

Basically no one dared to question what he said.

Therefore, this matter was simply suppressed by Jester. However, Jester also knew that such a thing had pros and cons. Of course, he could use his prestige to suppress such rumors that affected the development progress, but this In fact, it is also overdrafting one's own prestige.

That would be fine if Palace: Requiem is really as successful as I expected.

But if this product fails, it will definitely be a serious blow to one's own prestige. Of course, this is the disadvantage of dictatorship. The advantage of dictatorship is that it can concentrate all efforts on big things during the research and development stage, and it can speed up the team's research and development. schedule. (To be continued...)