McCoy stroked his chin and nodded repeatedly.
"I understand, Mr. Lin, you're planning to put on a video game competition program, right?"
He had played Street Fighter and knew how amazing it was, so he immediately understood what Lin Lixin wanted to do.
"Mr. Lin, now that we're all sitting here, I'll tell you the whole story."
"Your concerns are valid; the audience overlap between video games and television programs is indeed not high."
McCoy gestured to his assistant to pull up a simple form.
"Young people generally prefer renting videotapes and playing console games to watching television."
"Especially our Channel 29, whose main revenue comes from local car dealers and supermarkets, and whose audience has a relatively high average age."
He paused for a moment, then gave a self-deprecating laugh.
"But look at us, we even get our college prep team's football games broadcast. We have absolutely no choice."
"If we can't find programs that can attract young people next quarter, then Channel 29 won't be able to continue operating."
As the saying goes, sincerity is the ultimate weapon.
This time, McCoy truly opened his heart and said everything.
The collaboration with GAMENOVA will definitely generate a massive amount of buzz, but whether they can capitalize on it is another matter.
"We also wanted to conduct an experiment to see how receptive the audience is to this type of program."
Lin Lixin found a small television station on the verge of closing down, and it wasn't just because it was cheap.
"Mr. McCoy, shall we talk about the broadcast time?"
"Of course! Mr. Lin, when do you think would be a good time? Late at night? Or in the afternoon?"
McCoy brought over several program schedules, which listed the flagship programs of several major television networks.
He tried to find the perfect gap in the market, aiming to attract as much viewership as possible while avoiding being overshadowed by others.
To put it bluntly, given the current state of Channel 29, they can broadcast whenever they want.
"Why choose such a remote time slot?" Lin Lixin shrugged. "Does your station already have a prime-time slot booked?"
"Prime time" usually refers to the hours between 8 pm and 11 pm on weekends.
This is a time when most families have finished dinner and are gathered in the living room watching TV.
This is also the time slot with the highest Google Play (GG) fees; usually, the GG fees for just this one time slot are enough to support the entire TV station.
"Oh? You're going to air it during prime time?"
McCoy paused for a moment, then took out several program sheets and placed them in front of Lin Lixin.
"Mr. Lin, we can arrange it for you, but the ratings might actually decrease."
At such a crucial timeframe, how could a small TV station like theirs possibly get a chance?
The soap operas, variety shows, and movies of the three major television networks have long since completely monopolized the audience during this time slot.
Even WWF chose to bypass the main battleground and instead focused on the weekend afternoons.
"This time slot is full of elites!"
With only Channel 29, trying to squeeze into prime time would just make them cannon fodder.
"Elite troops? I'll take on the elite troops!"
Lin Lixin waved his hand.
"Young people watch TV too, Mr. McCoy. Can you really bear to let them waste their precious weekends on soap operas?"
A week later, Electronic Games published a new article.
GAMENOVA has partnered with a local California television station to host a gaming tournament called " Evolution Championship Series," or EVO for short, soon.
According to the introduction, this tournament is a professional fighting game competition hosted by GAMENOVA, and the games include Street Fighter, Pokémon, and a new arcade fighting game that will be released in the future.
The first round of participants was selected by GAMENOVA itself, and subsequent participants were selected from tournaments held in various regions.
Lin Lixin sat in front of the computer, staring at the sketch of Mai Shiranui drawn on the screen, lost in thought.
They were so busy organizing the competition that they forgot to address the players' issues.
Let alone the child prodigies born after 1989, even the great veteran Daigo Umehara is only a five-year-old child now.
Those e-sports players that Lin Lixin knew in later generations, had never even started playing fighting games.
Sighing, Lin Lixin shook his head. "At least the visual effects have to be guaranteed," he said. "We can only play an exhibition match."
Looking up, I saw Sam locked in a fierce fight with Carmack.
"Brush your hair! Oh no, it didn't catch again!"
Sam slammed his hand on the joystick panel in frustration; this was already the umpteenth time he had missed a golden opportunity due to a mis-executed combo.
To be honest, while combos are indeed addictive to play, the frustration of missing a combo is just too intense.
In the King of Fighters, input relies on high-speed decision-making and hand speed; hand speed almost determines everything.
Even though he has developed some muscle memory, he still experiences occasional disconnections due to joystick precision issues or other reasons.
"KO!"
Ultimately, Carmack was faster and defeated him.
Sam waved his hand, signaling to stop fighting for now.
He looked at the area between his thumb and forefinger; the skin there had cracked and peeled from the high-speed friction, and was now bright red.
Even the base of his palm had developed a thick callus from friction.
"I remember I wanted to make a simple fighting game..."
Sam felt that the game's development path was completely different from what he had initially envisioned...
Lin Lixin laughed heartily.
Sam and his friend were still playing the high-speed modified version of Street Fighter.
While it has some similarities to " The King of Fighters ", there are still many differences in its core mechanics.
Especially when Street Fighter was being developed, their hardware wasn't particularly good, and they didn't have many special moves.
This makes the move input window in Street Fighter very forgiving, and you'll almost never encounter a situation where you want to input a move but fail.
However, the King of Fighters is different. With its already lengthy and numerous commands, and its significantly faster speed, the input system based on the original Street Fighter inevitably leads to the problems Sam encountered.
"Try this version, I've added a few things."
Lin Lixin quickly typed in the last line of code and called out to Sam.
"Um?"
After a series of attacks, Sam and Carmack both exclaimed in surprise.
"How did you do that? It's really smoother now."
Sam hesitated for a moment, then practiced a few moves to confirm that the move list hadn't been changed.
I call it "input buffer".
Lin Lixin approached the two of them, took the joystick, and quickly executed a set of moves.
"The current version allows characters to begin accepting player commands before completing an action."
He observed that Sam's disconnection was not due to a lack of reaction speed.
On the contrary, it was precisely because he typed the command too quickly and too early that the character was unable to receive the complete instruction.
"It's that simple?" Sam was taken aback; he had thought Lin Lixin had designed some sophisticated algorithm.
"It's that simple."