Chapter 24 Section 1: Planning’s Status in the Online Game Industry

Today I will talk to you about my experience in the online game industry, especially planning.I believe that most of these experiences from practice are correct, but there are inevitably mistakes. If there are mistakes, I hope everyone can mention them to me after the meeting, so that I can continue to improve. My experience is still based on MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), because the two projects we have developed in the past belong to this category, and the views and arguments of this category may not be suitable for other categories of games, such as casual games etc., other categories of games can be used as a reference.

The most important factor for how much profit an online game can ultimately earn and how much online it can ultimately gain is gameplay.Other factors such as marketing are also important, but the most important deciding factor is gameplay. As long as the gameplay of a game reaches a certain level, it will be successful.In other words, the gameplay of a game is gold, and it will shine wherever it is placed.Therefore, our thoughts on gameplay must be unified, and we must not have the idea of ​​deceiving consumers. In fact, consumers are the hardest to deceive. When I was in Melatonin, I said this sentence. Human beings evolved from apes to humans. The most difficult thing to deceive is consumers, and consumers are the most savvy.Even if it is only a temporary deception, as a company, it will eventually get its retribution.For example, people who haven’t taken melatonin will say that we are deceiving people and other verbal attacks, but people who really eat it really feel that it is effective, and they can sleep soundly that day. This is the basis of the product.Melatonin has been sold for 11 years, and the sales volume is still increasing every year. It relies on good products and it is indeed effective.

For our game, its gameplay is equivalent to Melatonin products. Therefore, gameplay is the decisive factor. Our thinking must be unified and we should not focus on other places. As long as you make the game play, it is natural that your product will be successful. Some people in our company's program and art made comments, saying that planning is too important.For example, in the conferences I convene, as long as they are related to products, at least 90% of the participants are planning. In fact, I don't think planning is more important than programming and art.But why are the meetings I call basically curated?

If an online game product is compared to a building, the program is equivalent to the foundation, its civil structure, its pile foundations, platforms, beams, and pillars. Without these, the building cannot stand up. If the procedure fails, the building is a dangerous building.From this perspective, the program is the most important and indispensable, and the quality must be high. And art is equivalent to its decoration, how the building looks from a distance, how the decoration looks when entering the building, the inside and outside of the building are also very important. If a building only has a frame and doesn't even have a glass curtain wall, how can it work?Therefore, art is also very important and indispensable.

Planning is equivalent to the designer of this building. What does this building look like?What materials are used?What structure to use?what colour?These designs are a matter of planning. If the planning is unqualified and there are problems in the structural design, then the building is also a dangerous building; if the external design is not good, then the building will be ugly, and the materials used may be the most expensive. But the effect is very low-end.If the design is unreasonable, a building area of ​​100 square meters may end up with only 20 square meters of usable area.So the person who designs is also very important.

To a certain extent, I think these three parts cannot tell who is important and who is not, and they are all equal. But why does our company spend the most energy on planning? Because our domestic online game industry is no worse than the United States in terms of programming and art, and even many American companies have outsourced their art to China, but our planning is not a little bit worse than that of foreign countries. Comparing the planning of China and the United States, the planning ideas of the United States are very open, and some good ideas often come out. Due to the influence of traditional culture, our thinking in China is relatively restricted and it is not easy to open up. gap.

In addition, in South Korea, Japan and many western countries, the history of game development is relatively long, and they have formed their own set of education systems. Many universities have game majors, and they have trained many majors, which is not available in China. . Our planning in China is different from the program. The program has this major, but which of our planners graduated from the planning major?Many of them came in halfway through diversion, and did not have the basic common sense of planning. There are many "bad students" in school who don't study hard and play games every day. They are determined to dedicate their lives to online games. He has passion but lacks a training process, and there is no theory, especially practical training process. Therefore, it is not just us, But the planning level of the entire online game industry in China is very poor.

If our company is compared to a wooden barrel, planning is the shortest board. Although there are various problems in the program and art, it is still better than the planned board.Now the length of planning this board is even less than 1/2 or 1/3 of the program and art, so the development of a company is restricted by planning. Don't be jealous because the company attaches great importance to planning, programming and art, you should feel relieved because you are better than them. Therefore, everyone still needs to work together in the future, planning, art, and programming are indispensable, and programming and art need to be more collaborative and planning.