While Shanghai may not have made groundbreaking innovations in some aspects like GAMENOVA's previous groundbreaking masterpieces,
It relies on the small screen of the NovaPocket and can't offer anything amazing in terms of visuals.
Its sound effects rely solely on the NovaPocket audio chip, lacking the CD-quality sound of an audiophile like Rocksmith.
Its capacity is also limited by the capacity of the ROM chips, and it cannot have as much capacity as a CD or even a floppy disk.
From every perspective, this is undoubtedly a small-scale game.
Even its entire production team consisted of only one person, Lin Lixin.
But it has one unique quality that even tens of thousands of mass-produced Atari 2600 models can't quite replicate.
It's fun.
One of the most important, and essential, characteristics of video games.
On the first day, the appearance of "Shanghai" was only noticed by a few players who happened to be exploring NovaPocket.
Most people's attention is still focused on NovaXeno's Quake and Civilization.
This handheld console, which hasn't had a new first-party title in a long time, has consistently led in sales, but it hasn't garnered much attention.
Even gaming media outlets failed to notice this little game that had appeared out of nowhere.
The next day, the name "Shanghai" suddenly appeared in the player community.
Those who bought it on the first day were astonished to discover that it was a magical game that worked perfectly with NovaPocket.
Having grown somewhat tired of Tetris and Minesweeper, this game is simply the perfect change of pace!
Upon hearing the news, players flocked to the store to inquire about the new game.
On the third day, sales exploded!
Who would have thought that Lin Lixin, with his thick eyebrows and big eyes, would quietly pull off such a big move!
Now everyone was on edge.
Sam's lips twitched a few times as he looked at the rapidly decreasing inventory of "Shanghai" magazine.
"You mean—you saw a mahjong set while on vacation, spent two hours figuring it out, and then sold a million sets in less than a week??"
This is fucking...
Is there no justice left in the world?
What do those game developers who are still diligently researching and developing the latest and most cutting-edge game technologies think?
"I'm suddenly starting to doubt whether our material handling strategy is even correct—"
Sam lost all his strength when he saw Lin Lixin's harmless smile.
"No, no, no, Sam, you can't have such thoughts."
Lin Lixin chuckled and plopped down in front of the PC.
The success of "Shanghai" is due to a combination of various environmental factors.
To be honest, if this game hadn't been published by Gamenova, but by an unknown small studio, its sales wouldn't have grown so quickly.
Even the best wine needs advertising.
Not everyone can have the level of influence that Game Nova has.
While Shanghai is of extremely high quality, its current sales are largely due to NovaPocket's massive holdings.
For gamers of this era, they may not necessarily own their own NB Console NX console, or even their own PC.
But they will definitely have a NovaPocket.
This is the true value of a national-level handheld game console.
Lin Lixin paused, his expression turning serious.
We can't let Sam get the idea that he can just lie around and do nothing.
"Gameplay determines the lower limit of a game, but the technical challenges we're currently undertaking determine its upper limit."
A seemingly simple game, with the rapid development of technology, can be transformed into a completely new masterpiece through rearrangement, combination, and clever element stacking.
Given the information advantage Lin Lixin possesses, if he wanted to, he could easily produce tons of groundbreaking, low-budget games within a month.
But this job isn't suitable for him.
Strictly speaking, it's not suitable for GAMENOVA headquarters.
Through its development, the GAMENOVA brand has become synonymous with advanced technology.
Unless it's a phenomenal hit like Quake, which is flawless in every aspect, it would be more suitable to hand it over to Activision or Blizzard's subsidiaries rather than GAMENOVA.
Just like with this game "Shanghai," Lin Lixin unusually didn't use the GAMENOVA name, but instead listed himself as the developer.
Of course, this has now become Shanghai's most powerful promotional tactic.
Lin Lixin's name is a golden brand in the eyes of knowledgeable gamers, no less prestigious than GAMENOVA.
It's even much louder.
"Speaking of which, the engine development team is almost finished, so it's time for us to start preparing our marketing and promotion."
Lin Lixin stretched.
This project has been in preparation for so long, and it's finally about to be launched.
It's time to bring a 3D revolution to the industry.
Their graphics cards are counting on this thing to become more widespread.
Sam nodded.
"Okay, I'll contact them right away. But what about the pricing strategy?"
Game engines are not games, and they cannot be priced using the same methods they used to use.
Given that this is truly the first case in the world, there are virtually no precedents to follow.
"Use tiered authorization."
Lin Lixin did not hesitate and gave the answer directly.
This approach is already very standard practice in modern game engine licensing, so he doesn't need to rack his brains to come up with it.
We can definitely refer to the sales strategies of mainstream engines like Unity (before the problem arose) or Unreal Engine.
"We set different price points for developers at different levels."
"Divided into three tiers: independent developers, mid-sized studios, and large developers."
Independent game developers only need to pay a one-time licensing fee of $5,000.
"For mid-sized studios, it's a $55,000 licensing fee, plus a 3% cut of the artwork's sales."
"As for large developers—an annual fee of $200,000, plus an 8% sales commission."
This price seems daunting, but when you actually consider the company in question, it's not necessarily unacceptable.
On the contrary, spending such a small amount of money can save a large amount of R&D expenses, allowing for seamless use of the most advanced technologies currently available.
The advanced technology is an incredibly worthwhile deal.
What's truly damaging is that seemingly small percentage of revenue sharing.
Although 8% may not sound like much, it's an 8% fee paid for every copy sold.
This means you'll have to pay an extra 8% in taxes.
"Independent developers don't need royalties?"
"No, but the toolchain won't be as complete as an enterprise-level one."
Lin Lixin nodded. "We'll use game revenue as the basis for developer tiering. If a developer meets the sales target, they'll automatically be upgraded to the next tier."
With this combination of strategies, the Quake Engine becomes a development tool capable of covering the entire upstream, midstream, and downstream value chain.
Lin Lixin believes that once developers become accustomed to programming languages where functionality can be achieved in just two lines of code and with simple drag-and-drop functionality, asking them to go back to assembly language will be much easier.
By then, such a licensing fee will no longer be an unacceptable price.