Games aren't just about guns, cars, and balls

Although Xu Hong and the other two had questions, they wouldn't casually speak up to ask their own boss in this setting.

Because other companies were participating in this meeting, even if questions had to be asked, it was up to them to go first.

Sure enough, a male voice rang out from the notebook—someone from Infinite Network Entertainment had taken the lead in asking.

[Um. Hello, President Meng, sorry to interrupt. I'm the deputy director of domestic distribution channels. My surname is Li—you can call me Mr. Li. What you just said about players being unable to fight—I'd like to know what that means.]

Meng Shu curled his lips into a smile and answered patiently.

"Literally. In my design, players have no weapons and cannot fight. When they encounter ghosts, they can only panic and flee. Once it's safe, they return to where they were and continue the game."

"Also, I plan to add a sanity system. If players are in a dark environment or witness paranormal events, their sanity will gradually decrease. When it drops to a certain level, they lose their mind, and the ghost immediately materializes to hunt them down."

His words stunned both sides.

So much so that Deputy Director Li was silent for a long time, unsure what to say.

In this day and age, a player plays a game, and you won't even let them fight the monsters?

Does that make any sense?

Is that even called playing a game?

After a good while, Deputy Director Li coughed and spoke up.

[President Meng, I'm not sure the market can accept this kind of innovation from you.]

[But as a game industry professional, you should understand that the current market mainstream consists of three major genres: shooters, racing games, and ball sports. These have huge popularity and buzz in Europe and America, and they've gradually influenced other game types, making them more and more fast-paced, focused solely on delivering a thrill. That's the meaning of game development.]

[Your game—players who go in can't fight, run when in danger, and get chased by ghosts from time to time. It's just too frustrating. There's no way to make players feel the thrill.]

[President Meng, I don't mean to criticize your design plan. Your production quality is obvious to everyone, and we're still studying the success secrets of your two works. But this game of yours, "Visage"—as a distribution deputy director, in my personal opinion, just the fact that players can't fight and have to run away in frustration means the game has already... failed.]

A sigh came through the notebook, as if the game had no value at all.

It made Meng Shu smile inwardly.

In this parallel world, horror itself was in decline, barren and withered. Over time, it had become a stereotypical "three nos" in the public eye: no market, no audience, no attention.

Even though Meng Shu had already proven with "Dark Forest" and "21 Points" that as long as a game had quality, it would find a market and an audience, it was still hard to erase these people's prejudice against the horror genre.

That was also why this world had no concept like "Outlast," where players couldn't fight.

In their view, when players played a game, they had to fight and kill, enjoying the thrill and excitement.

Or else it was the sense of achievement from racing to first place or the pride of leading a team to victory single-handedly.

So it was understandable that they questioned this kind of gameplay.

After all, their perspective was limited.

Otherwise, the horror genre wouldn't have fallen into decline.

"Mr. Li, have you ever tried it?"

Meng Shu asked casually.

This made Deputy Director Li on the other end of the meeting pause.

Try what?

Try whether the innovation of 'players can't fight' would get anyone to buy in?

Did that even need trying?

Anyone with half a brain could tell it was bound to fail!

Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that President Meng had made two blockbuster games, he would have suspected this guy was a half-baked amateur—how could he not understand such a simple market rule?

Besides, developing a game wasn't something you just talked about. It required a huge investment and a long development cycle.

You couldn't just treat it as a test project to try out!

[That... doesn't need trying, right? Industry professionals basically all understand this—]

"Then you're wrong."

Meng Shu grinned.

At that moment, the aura of his past life as President Qin faintly emanated.

His tone became confident and unquestionable.

"Without trying it, judging the market solely by studying it—in my view, that's a bit disrespectful to this industry."

"Players are a diverse group, and games are equally diverse. Why do you think you can determine that 'thrill' is the mainstream trend just by looking at the market?"

"You say the market mainstream is guns, cars, and balls. But have you considered that precisely because you think that way, you keep developing in that direction, so now the games on the market are either shooters or racing games? Do players have a choice? No. Since players have no choice, you release one, and they play one. Is that what you call the market mainstream? It's not."

He paused, smiled again, and delivered his conclusion.

"This is called domestication. I recall a story: a farmer goes to the barn at the same time every day to throw feed. Whether the feed tastes good or not, I don't know, but the livestock have no choice. Whatever the farmer gives, they eat. The farmer feeds them the same thing every day, so they eat it every day. And the farmer even calls it, with a straight face, the livestock's favorite food—the mainstream diet."

"What do you think players are? Think about it—does this so-called mainstream market make any sense? To put it bluntly, most developers have already turned players into banks that pay for their template games."

At these words, silence fell.

Xu Hong and the other two stared wide-eyed.

The other side of the meeting was stunned.

For a moment, no one spoke.

But Meng Shu didn't care at all.

If he wanted to break this mindset, he needed to release game after game to prove that this market wasn't just about fast-paced shooters, racing, and action games.

If they couldn't even accept the concept of a 'player who can't fight,'

then later on, the bonfire-respawning mechanics of Souls-likes and the combat system of Mount & Blade would drive these people insane.

Xu Hong and the other two stared at President Meng, their hearts churning.

From what President Meng meant, was he trying to break the current market structure?

Wait—

It seemed like he was already doing that.

Both games were survival horror, and hadn't their sales already started shaking the dominance of shooters, racing, and action games in the market?

Was President Meng's next move to double down and pull the horror genre up?

Xu Hong and the others didn't understand, nor did they dare to overthink. They just focused on their own work. As for marketing strategy, that wasn't something they knew or understood.

After a few seconds of silence in the meeting room, another, more mature voice came through the laptop.

[That's a very interesting story. President Meng, hello. I'm one of the directors of Infinite Network Entertainment. My surname is Liang.]

Meng Shu raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

He knew there was more to come.

[President Meng, we won't doubt your ability to make games. To be honest, when you first said you wanted to make a VR game, I was strongly opposed. I thought you'd never pull it off. But you did, and you did it well—brilliantly, even. However, the market is fickle, something no one can control. Are you so certain that your innovation will get players to pay?]

"Of course."

Meng Shu's reply was resolute.

It caught Manager Liang on the other end of the meeting off guard.

[Could you explain the reasoning? After all, without absolute certainty, innovation can easily lead to losses.]

Meng Shu smiled and gave an answer that left Infinite Network Entertainment stunned.

"Because I'm the first."

Manager Liang was taken aback.

What kind of answer was that?

Just because you're the first, you're sure your innovation will get players to pay?

[President Meng, I don't quite understand what you mean.]

Meng Shu's smile faded. He crossed his arms and explained calmly.

"I make horror games because this genre's market is empty—no one's competing with me. Do you know what that means? It means an advantage!"

"The first to enter reaps all the market benefits. But 'entering' doesn't mean churning out half-baked games to stuff money into bags like those old developers. You have to deliver games that meet the market's quality standards."

"Once you earn the players' recognition, the market is yours, and you enjoy all the dividends of an untapped niche. That's the benefit of being 'the first.' Rarity drives value. In a farm full of feed, if you throw in a piece of meat, the problem becomes that there's not enough to go around."

"You can see this from the sales of 'Dark Forest.' Players aren't choosing shooters, racing, and action games by preference—it's that current developers all follow the trend, leaving players with no other options."

"But this 'first-mover' advantage won't last forever. How to maintain it is the biggest headache for developers. And my solution is—"

He paused, then smiled.

"—innovation."

After hearing this, the laptop was silent for a few seconds before Manager Liang's voice came through again.

[President Meng, your success is a fact, and I won't argue with that. But have you considered that this empty market will draw other developers in because of your success? Then you'll have a swarm of horror games competing with you. Can your innovation guarantee that every single game you make has it?]

Hearing this, Meng Shu smiled again. His knowledge from his past life gave him absolute confidence.

"Manager Liang, no one has ever monopolized a market. You should understand that better than I do."

"New and old developers entering to grab a share is just the rule of the market—no one can decide otherwise."

"But how big a slice can these developers get? The answer is clear from the shooters, racing, and action game market. The lion's share always goes to established IPs. The followers only get scraps."

"So I'm not worried at all about how many developers jump on the horror trend. On the contrary, competition highlights value. And the market's rules will eventually weed out the low-quality works."

Hearing this, Manager Liang fell silent.

After a moment, he asked again.

[President Meng, do you mean that even in a sea of horror games, you can still guarantee enough sales for your own?]

Meng Shu paused for a rare few seconds, then nodded.

"About a sixty percent chance, if their game quality is solid."

[And if the quality isn't?]

"Above eighty percent."

Meng Shu replied resolutely, his face utterly calm.

The reason for his certainty and confidence was primarily that many games in his original world had already proven it.

As early as 2010, a milestone horror game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent had become famous for mechanics such as "the player cannot fight" and "the protagonist has Sanity Points."

Coupled with its solid quality and sufficiently terrifying atmosphere, it sold over a million copies within two years.

This was achieved in 2012, during an era when horror games were flourishing in all their variety.

It fully demonstrated the merit of such mechanics, and many subsequent horror games adopted them, achieving respectable sales—so it wasn't that players didn't enjoy them.

Furthermore, another developer who had fallen from grace proved with his own game that players don't only like playing power-fantasy games.

They also relish the satisfaction of dying and restarting, struggling through levels, and ultimately succeeding.

There's even a segment of players uninterested in so-called power fantasies; they've reached an extreme level of zen, enjoying the relaxed ease of driving and delivering cargo in Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Players in the original world had already proven that so-called power fantasies are merely a source of fleeting amusement, like fast food.

So wouldn't the players in this world, who eat fast food every day, ever want to change their palate?

Absolutely!

Dark Forest and 21 Points had already proven that.

It showed there was nothing wrong with the players.

What was wrong, then, was the market and the developers muddling around in it!

If players in the original world could be divided into the zen, the masochistic, and the noobs-with-addiction, then wouldn't players in this parallel world have the same categories?

What's more, the player base here was even larger in scale.

So.

"Don't underestimate the players."

Meng Shu's words left the person on the other end of the meeting line full of question marks.

Manager Liang took a deep breath and steadied himself.

[I understand, President Meng. I'll say it again: we have no doubts about your production skills. Since you have an eye for the market and already have two successful works, we'll choose to trust you.]

[Now, please continue the meeting. Let us learn about the other settings of your new project, Visage.]