Plans for the Next Game

"Magic Mirror" had become a hit. There was no doubt about that.

Of course, it was impossible for it to become some kind of phenomenon on the level of AAA games.

But judging from the trend "Magic Mirror" had displayed so far, it was highly likely to influence games in this category.

Perhaps even the development of this particular type of game as a whole.

In his previous life, after "Magic Mirror" launched, it had indeed sparked a wave of Gentleman Games for a time.

During that period, nearly every Gentleman Game adopted the dual format of Match-3 + galgame.

Naturally, their quality varied greatly. Some were excellent, while others were simply riding the trend.

For a long time, players and the game industry alike had basically held the same impression of 18R games: low quality.

Aside from their special elements, they had nothing worth praising.

But "Magic Mirror" was different.

Match-3 gameplay was not "Magic Mirror's" original invention, but it had built a corresponding combat and progression system around it.

Fight, earn Gold Coins, and purchase different skills and items.

Beyond that, the game's voice acting and character art were even somewhat moving, while its thought-provoking story left people astonished that this was actually an 18R game!

Moreover, the game's rating had remained around 9.2.

Although the rating had begun to fluctuate somewhat as sales increased, it remained remarkably stable.

That alone showed just how popular the game was.

Furthermore, it was a game that was not particularly long and had only a few characters.

Anyone who wanted to squeeze some Wool out of it could play for a while, then refund it before the refund window expired.

Yet "Magic Mirror" players rarely requested refunds.

Of course, that was also related to the fact that "Magic Mirror" cost only ten yuan.

So no matter how one looked at it, "Magic Mirror" had truly become a hit.

Although, due to the game's special nature, mainstream media outlets and platforms were basically unlikely to cover it.

Within the Gentleman Game community, however, "Magic Mirror" was undoubtedly the brightest star of the moment.

Even among Gentleman Game players, many called it a groundbreaking Gentleman Game.

Compared to other shoddily made Gentleman Games, "Magic Mirror" was without question the brightest star.

Likewise, within the Gentleman Game industry, "Magic Mirror" had shown many Gentleman Game designers a new direction.

So Gentleman Games could actually be made this way. Games of this type could actually achieve such terrifying sales.

To the Gentleman Game world, the appearance of "Magic Mirror" was like a shining beacon of knowledge appearing upon a dark sea.

Like an Oasis suddenly appearing in a scorching desert.

Clearly, "Magic Mirror" was that Lighthouse, that Oasis.

The gentlemen's formidable purchasing power was directly reflected in "Magic Mirror."

Its sales kept climbing by the day.

It sold 70,000 copies in its first week, reaching 160,000 cumulative sales in its second week.

By the end of the game's second week on the market, third-party sales data showed that "Magic Mirror" had reached 230,000 copies sold.

For a Gentleman Game, that was simply unbelievable.

Even for some polished indie games, those sales would already be extremely impressive.

Such sales figures also made quite a few indie game developers in the industry take notice.

They were simply too astonishing. Although the sales trend had already shifted from rising to falling.

That was merely normal market behavior.

After all, "Magic Mirror" was a rather special game and could only spread among a relatively limited player base.

While the industry marveled at "Magic Mirror's" performance.

Chen Xu also analyzed why "Magic Mirror" had managed to perform so exceptionally.

As a game developer, Chen Xu naturally did not believe that a work successful in his previous life would necessarily succeed again if remade.

In fact, many games from his previous life had only become popular under rather limited circumstances.

For example, if he were to recreate the previous life's "Legend," Chen Xu believed there would be only one outcome.

It would die beyond all hope. Its visuals and art style had no advantages whatsoever, its gameplay and content had no advantages whatsoever, and its worldbuilding and story were even less worth mentioning.

It was a game whose era-specific traits clearly outweighed its actual quality.

As for "Magic Mirror," Chen Xu believed its success mainly came from differentiation.

As an 18R game, it offered the experience of both a galgame and a Match-3 game.

As a pure Match-3 game and galgame, its content was clearly lacking, yet it had appeared before players as an LSP game.

It was precisely these two points of differentiation that made Magic Mirror a success.

Just as players liked to add LSP content to normal games and play building mechanics in LSP games.

Looking at the sales figures, Chen Xu knew he had made the right choice. It was hard to call it both fame and fortune, since its reputation was, after all, limited to the 18R game scene.

Its reach was mostly confined to the industry. For most ordinary players, a ten-yuan 18R game was unlikely to draw much attention beyond the LSP crowd.

And Chen Xu had no plans to keep making this type of game in the future. It was mainly intended as an initial accumulation of Starting Funds.

The most crucial thing was profit.

At a price of ten yuan, it had sold nearly 230,000 copies so far.

After taxes and the platform's cut, the game's revenue for its first month came to nearly 1.5 million yuan.

Chen Xu stroked his chin and nodded lightly.

He now had his initial capital. As for his game designer title, he had received an official notice at the end of Magic Mirror's first week online, instructing him to go to the Game Department in Magic City to register.

As for the system's emotion points, they did not particularly satisfy Chen Xu.

So far, he had only accumulated enough for one seven-pull—just over 700,000 points.

But thinking it over, it was not surprising. The peak of players' emotions probably lasted only a minute or two.

It might even have been only a few dozen seconds. In any case, Chen Xu estimated that the maximum would not exceed five minutes.

Under those circumstances... forget it. He could understand.

Looking at the backend statistics of the Official Game Store, Chen Xu leaned back on the sofa at home and considered his next direction.

According to Chen Xu's plans, his next projects would still mainly be single-player games sold by the unit.

On the one hand, this was for reputation; on the other, it was to keep building up his own strength.

As for why he did not choose pay-to-win games, the reason was simple.

It was not because he feared ruining his reputation. In fact, if he truly wanted to make them, there had been plenty of mobile pay-to-win games with fairly good reputations in his previous life.

But after carefully considering it, Chen Xu still gave up on the idea.

Mainly because it was not suitable at the moment, and the gaming environment in this Parallel World was also somewhat different from his previous life.

In his previous life, mobile games had occupied the largest share of the market, and free-to-play games with in-app purchases had been the mainstream.

But in the Parallel World, buy-to-play games accounted for a major share instead.

Moreover, pay-to-win mobile games had significant limitations.

Taking card games as an example, they had gone through several typical stages of development in his previous life.

First came I am MT, Great Master, and Million Arthur, which made card games famous. Then Dota Legend revolutionized card games, ushering in the era of action card games.

Afterward, The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match Online turned around SNK, which had been on the brink of collapse, increasing its annual financial report sixfold and indirectly sparking the trend of IP-based card games.

At the same time, card games entered an era of diversification.

Later, Young Three Kingdoms, which followed the traditional stat-based route, the polished Onmyoji, the IP-driven FGO, and others were all typical examples.

In this world, Chen Xu had also carefully researched the current card-based mobile game market.

At present, its development lay somewhere between premium production and IP-driven games.

It had already formed a stable industrial chain at scale.

For Nebula Games at its current stage, entering this field would actually be worse than developing a new game of its own.

There were still two reasons: no money and no channels.

They could develop the game, but without sufficient promotional funds—

if they could not make the game an instant hit upon launch, they would merely be making a wedding dress for other game companies.

After all, card games were completely different from other games.

Their gameplay and stat-driven stimulation models were both entirely replicable.

If the concepts behind mobile games and card games in the Parallel World had not yet fully matured, that would have been good news for Chen Xu.

But now? There were far too many uncertainties.