Game Development Giant

Jester smiled and nodded.

He reached out and pointed in that direction: Since this gentleman is the first to raise his hand, let him speak first.

The first one to raise his hand was Kazunori Yamauchi.

He himself did not expect that Jester would call him, and it was also his first time to participate in such a large-scale press conference. After being called by Jester, he sat there at a loss, motionless. He didn't seem to know that Jester was calling him.

It was his senior brother Fukushima who reached out and touched him before he reacted.

Then, Yamauchi Kazunori stood up in a hurry, and others couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't that they were laughing, but they were laughing after seeing something funny.

It could be seen that Kazunori Yamauchi was still a little shy. Although he stood up, he still looked at Jester blankly and did not speak for a while, but Jester smiled indifferently. When he saw someone suddenly raising his hand just now, he didn't pay attention to the other person's appearance.

Now when he took a closer look, he found that the appearance was somewhat familiar.

But he couldn't think of a name for a while, but he didn't think about it deeply, because from a psychological point of view, a person often feels that he is looking at a person or something very familiar, as if he has seen it before. Yes, this is prosopagnosia.

Therefore, Jester repeated his previous question.

This Japanese friend, my previous question was, what do you think a game should be like? Is it a pure commodity? Or something else?

This time Jester spoke a little more reservedly.

He didn't say the words artwork very openly. Jester felt that he still needed to guide others in this way.

Oh, thank you.

Kazunori Yamauchi heard Jester's voice be so gentle. Apparently feeling relaxed, he bowed to Jester and expressed his gratitude. Then he calmed down and started his answer.

My name is Yamauchi Kazunori...

After Jester heard the other party say his name first, his mind suddenly shook, and he remembered who this person was.

No wonder he looked familiar to me before.

After all, he is also a very famous master in the gaming industry in later generations. It can even be said that he is the best among Sony's sixteen global studios in later generations. He is also the most influential Japanese designer. Later, Kazunori Yamauchi not only served as the head of the studio where he worked. And also became the executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment.

Kazunori Yamauchi is revered as the father of GT by enthusiastic players, the creator of the epoch-making racing game GT Racing and the greatest racing game designer.

Jester's eyes suddenly became hot.

But Kazunori Yamauchi was still expressing his opinion. He didn't notice the slight change in Jester's expression: ... In my opinion, games are still different from traditional products. He looks a bit like what Mr. Jester Li said before. Movies, in fact, games are very similar to movies to a certain extent in my opinion.”

For example, movies are divided into two categories, one is commercial movies, and the other is art movies. Commercial movies are for box office, while art movies also consider some expressions of art... In fact, the same point of view is used for games, because games The company is just like a movie company. It maintains a large group of developers and spends a lot of money to develop a game or shoot a movie. It is definitely not willing to let this game or this movie hit the market...

Kazunori Yamauchi was talking, and Jester was listening quietly.

It has to be said that even though Kazunori Yamauchi, who looks a bit immature at this age, probably just graduated from college, his views on games are actually quite praised by Jester. In fact, Jester That's what Ste was thinking.

When making a game, you can't just consider the artistry, especially for RPG games. You want to tell a story to the players through the plot and the players' exploration. This story can't be too simple and mindless. Too rough.

However, when telling this story, it must be done in a way that makes the players find it interesting.

Players cannot just rely on the stimulation of a certain sense to complete the game. This is the fundamental idea of ​​a game designer when designing a game.

In fact, this problem is not easy to explain. In general, the goal is to make players not only able to continue playing this game, but also, after playing, they will say that this game is fun.

Kazunori Yamauchi's speech was not a long one.

It was just a brief opinion, so he finished his words in a few minutes.

Then, Jester continued to look at everyone: Don't you have anything to say? After Jester finished speaking, it may be that Kazunori Yamauchi's previous speech opened up their minds a little, and suddenly, their The speeches became more enthusiastic.

Such a scene.

If you don’t know the inside story, you may think that this is an internal discussion meeting of a certain game company, rather than a product launch of a game company.

No one thought why Jester suddenly asked this question when he was showing his game. It seemed that everyone took it for granted. If Jester's press conference was the same as other people's press conferences, then he would also It's not Jester anymore.

Moreover, since Jester asked this question at the beginning, it must be the game he was talking about, which is closely related to this question.

Jiesite listened quietly to everyone's speeches. He also said a few words from time to time. In fact, it was everyone. After all, time was still limited. There were many people who wanted to participate in expressing their opinions, whether they were reporters or players. But if your name is called, it just depends on luck.

After all, there are only a few.

But in general, Jester felt satisfied with the responses from these people, and they did not make any remarks that he found undesirable. He had also asked this question in an internal meeting of Mars Entertainment. Generally speaking, Although most of the game developers in this era want to make a lot of money.

However, these people still have moral integrity and are not as good as the developers of later generations. They have simply become a group of businessmen who know how to code, and they are an extremely unethical group of businessmen who only know how to make money by targeting the weaknesses of human nature. And I also want to build an archway.

In fact, it doesn’t matter even if you specifically target the weaknesses of human nature to make money. As long as it can be made beautifully and sophisticated, allowing players to feel the creator’s intentions in this game, it will actually be a game with a very good reputation. For example, Later domestic players liked to call Korean games kimchi games, but few people liked the idea of ​​calling Diablo a kimchi game.

While Jester was listening silently, he couldn't help but think of another thing.

He once had the opportunity to meet with a friend a project manager of a game development project at an Internet company in Shenzhen, China, and heard the other person talk about how they develop games.

The project manager of a game company whose name starts with t said this with a condescending and dismissive look.

According to this domestic game development project manager, oh, this position is generally called development director in domestic game companies, so let’s use the development director for the time being. What this development director wants to express is this, we The reason why domestic games like Mario cannot be made is purely due to this pressure and that kind of pressure. If we had the support of the boss and no pressure, then we would make Mario Drizzle.

At that time, Jester held back and did not complain. After all, the other party was a senior in the industry.

But at that time, Jester really wanted to question this senior person in the game industry, senior, did he really know what kind of game Mario was?

Because this senior said so at the beginning.

Developing good games requires time and cost! We can't make game engines and design software, but we can buy them if we have to pay. Not many companies develop and use these things themselves, and No embargo!”

The problem is, I have been developing for 5 years, how do my team's KPIs reflect? What does the company think of me? Are the investors disappointed? You players can stand up and talk without pain. When Blizzard's Titan game was canceled, you booed it online. It is estimated that the career of other project managers is over, and their colleagues around the world will only say Hey! This idiot screwed up a game with such a huge investment! Who cares what the real cause is? You care?

But based on the existing foundation, if I develop a game that is accepted by the general market and can make money, maybe I can get a 60-month year-end bonus? The market is willing to pay, which is a temporary success for us! Wow is a good game, the graphics and Wouldn’t Super Mario, which has much simpler functions, be a good game? Wouldn’t a simpler Tetris game be a good game?”

My brother and I have to support our family, and the boss has to explain to the investors. I have millions of mortgages to repay with this job! We can only spend half a year and xxx million to make the game so that you will be interested in playing it. , we will add some pocket money so that our work can continue and optimize a little bit, and let the company see our confidence and give us more investment and support to make better games! We have done a good job The game has a sense of mission, but if conditions don’t allow it, we can only compromise!”

At that time, Jester was extremely shocked after hearing these remarks. He couldn't imagine why someone could say such shameless words. She was simply a typical example of someone who wanted to be a bitch and also want to build a monument. (To be continued...)