Almighty Video Game Designer - Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Chapter 30: Special Promotional Tactics
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
The experience store opened its doors early the next day.
Soon after the doors were opened, Jia Peng brought over some friends.
“Good morning, manager. Are you releasing your game today?” asked Jia Peng.
Chen Mo nodded, “Yeah, why did you guys come over so early?”
Jia Peng answered, “Isn’t Plants vs Zombies being released? Since we don’t have classes today, we’re here to cheer you on.”
Chen Mo said, “Sure! Welcome! Come in and take a seat. How many levels have you beaten in endless mode?”
Jia Peng quickly replied, “Eighty-four levels. Manager, is endless mode actually endless? Is there an upper limit?”
Chen Mo replied, “Only eighty-four? The real game starts beyond level one hundred, I’ll tell you straight up.”
Jia Peng was speechless, “What the-? Are you crazy? I’m feeling like I’m losing my footing at level eighty-four. It’s a struggle just to get through another level.
The other guys also joined in nodding, “Yeah! It starts at level one hundred? Are you playing the same game as we are?”
Chen Mo smiled and said no more.
Four days had passed, and Jia Peng and his friends would be the first batch of players, completing all of adventure mode. The adventure mode wasn’t meant to be hard, Chen Mo set it to be same as the original version. As long as you were of average IQ, you should be able to beat it, given some time. 2
Wen Lingwei and Jia Peng thought that the game ended after beating adventure mode, as if it was a puzzle game, finally managing to beat it after playing it obsessively for three or four days. The game content was already quite rich for a puzzle game.
In the end, they found out that the game had an endless mode!
After trying it out, it had opened them up to a whole new world. As the difficulty of the levels increased slowly but surely, they realized that what they thought was a good grasp of the game was completely naivete.
So far, Wen Lingwei was at the top of the leaderboards with ninety-three levels. The others were around sixty to eighty, with a clear feeling of hopelessness.
These players thought that their strategy in adventure mode was strong, but as they entered endless mode, the same strategy would be blown to pieces. It was like playing a whole new game.
Therefore, they came to Chen Mo’s experience store often to play the game and to share their experiences. They also wanted to get some tips from Chen Mo for the best, most advanced strategy, and to continue grinding their rankings on the leaderboards.
Jia Peng and his buddies turned on the computers that they were so familiar with and continued playing through endless mode after launching the game and logging in.
“Manager, when is your game going to go live?” Jia Peng asked.
Chen Mo replied, “Probably around twelve.”
Jia Peng nodded and replied, “Alright, when the time comes we’ll be the first to download and give you a five star rating.”
The time the game was released didn’t matter for new games, but the nearest hour was usually chosen to make the statistics easier to track.
Statistics during the twenty-four hours after the game went live were the most important, most notably the downloads and ratings as both of them directly influenced the rankings and promotions on the official app store.
Whenever Emperor Dynasty Entertainment or Zen Entertainment would release, they would hype up the game in advance to draw in large numbers of players on release, taking the top spot of the new recommended games with no problems.
Chen Mo didn’t have that much money to promote his game, but he had other plans.
At 10 am, Chen Mo already released his game into the store, and the adspace in Flappybird contained an ad for Plants vs Zombies. Clicking on the ad would redirect the player to the app store download page for Plants vs Zombies.
How many players did Flappybird currently have? Chen Mo didn’t know the number, but it wasn’t small. Most of the players of Flappybird would be casual gamers, so using it to promote Plants vs Zombies was definitely a good idea.
Chen Mo didn’t expect Flappybird to rake in any money for the moment, as it was free to download, instead expecting it put his name out to as many people as possible, and convert them into Plants vs Zombies players.
Other than that, Chen Mo also had the video game media in mind.
Theoretically, he was just a D-grade video game designer, nobody would care if he released a game.
The video game media had power, but who would give their time to a nobody D-grade video game designer?
However, Chen Mo wasn’t a nobody, and already had his name out there.
He was the winner of the video game designing competition, who also happened to have a conflict with Shi Huazhe, both incidents known on video game media.
Chen Mo posted on Weibo:
Flappybird is now on the appstore for free (free forever!). My new game Plants vs Zombies will be out at 12pm, on both PC and mobile. Let’s see if we can break a hundred thousand downloads in the first month.
@Shihuazhe, @Videogame Info Network, @Tianji.com, @Wechat Gaming Channel, @Hengyou Video Games Channel… 1
Chen Mo tagged dozens of video game media companies and included the loading screen of Plants vs Zombies (the one with plants on the left and zombies on the right) as a promotional poster.
——
Within ten minutes, the video game media was all over it!
The managers of the official Weibo accounts were all drawn out by the smell of a new tagline.
“Chen Mo? Wasn’t that the champion of the video game designing competition? The creator of Flappybird?”
“He’s about to release his new game? It’s only been three or so months! Isn’t that too fast? And he wants us to witness it together? Does he really think his game is gonna break a hundred thousand sales in the first month?”
“Three months in development is way too short. That time includes testing and adjusting the game! Could it be just another mini-game like Flappybird?”
“A game like Flappybird cannot be done again. If he makes something similar, he’s just looking to fail.”
“It’s called Plants vs Zombies; it seems that the content of the game is quite rich, but it is still a casual game.”
“Shi Huazhe previously stated that Chen Mo’s first game would never surpass a hundred thousand downloads in the first month, and this guy wants us to witness it with him. He’s not afraid at all, this guy’s got guts!”
“Hurry up and repost! Track all the stats of Plants vs Zombies after it’s released!”
—
The video game media got the smell of a new tagline and started reposting one after another.
Of course they knew what Chen Mo was trying to do. He was trying to make himself a focus and promote his new game for free!
However, the video game media was willing to be used, as they also needed a hot topic like this to operate!
Moreover, even if the video game media didn’t take the bait, the slow expansion of information on Weibo would mean that the game would slowly pick up in popularity either way.
Following the reposts of the video game media, more and more gamers caught wind of this information.
Chen Mo’s first proper game, Plants vs Zombies, was about to be released!
Many of them were just watching, but the post did attract the attention of the spectators.
The cartoony art style of the plants and zombies quickly made a deep impression in the minds of the gamers. Many of them were already looking forward to finding out how plants were supposed to battle zombies!
Moreover, the video game media paid attention to the numbers Plants vs Zombies would be cranking out, paying even closer attention to the number of sales in the first month.
If it did reach a hundred thousand, for ten RMB each, it meant one million gross and about five hundred thousand RMB net. That would be an incredible number!