Almighty Video Game Designer

The number of sales of Diablo became a hot topic among industry professionals after its release.

"Have you seen Diablo's sales? It defies logic! How is it possible that it sold 1.87 million copies in the first month?"

"My goodness, 167 million RMB in profit in the first month? How is it possible, I thought third person games are ancient!"

"I don't buy it either, there wasn't anything particularly creative about the game. Moreover, it's a single player game, yet it wasn't even as rich in content as online games!"

"And the players are rating it highly!"

"Was it because of the quality of the game?"

"Regardless of the quality of the game, if the game wasn't good, the reviews wouldn't be that great. But the problem is that there were many copies, and really good reviews!"

"We have to look into it deeper, there must be something we are missing."

Most designers were really troubled by this.

Even though CHen Mo made a record-breaking three hundred and seventy million RMB in a month using Onmyoji, the revenue on Diablo was on a completely different level.

The graphics of Onmyoji trumps over every other mobile game on the market, and there were significant changes in the gameplay too, utilizing the characteristics of a pay to win game to the fullest.

Everybody was shocked at Onmyoji's results when compared to the many games that came before it, but they still could make sense of it by looking deeper into it.

But Diablo was different as nobody expected anything from it before it started selling. Even Chen Mo's hardcore fans couldn't think of any reason why the game would perform well other than a blind trust.

It was only when the sales were released that these designers released their huge mistakes, thinking that there must be something special that they didn't notice.

—

At the same time the designers were investigating Diablo's success, there was a lot of celebration on various forums.

Many of Chen Mo's fans were trying to get doubters to fulfil their bets.

"You said you would eat your monitor, get to it now."

"There's also the ones who said they would eat their USB drives, mice, and coffee mugs. Bon appetit."

"He sold 1.87 million copies in the first month, how many copies did you guys say he would sell before? Can't be over eight hundred thousand?"

"Sorry, but us Chen Mo fans can do whatever we want."

"Hmm? This thread is dying. We can't let it die. Bump."

"Bump."

"Bonk."

"Boop."

"You guys are horrible for kicking them when they are down, I'll kick them too."

—

From various discussion forums to trending topics, everything was related to Diablo.

There were even two trending topics on Weibo related to Diablo, "Diablo" and "Diablo's explosive sales".

This hack and slash game was now in the eyes in many, gaining respect from designers who underestimated it using its near perfect results.

—

Many RPG designers in large companies like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment and Zen Entertainment were holding meetings to investigate Diablo's success.

Most attendees were A-grade PC RPG designers. They were all confused at how something as ancient as a third person RPG game could achieve so much success?

Hadn't that genre been retired ages ago? Why would they play games like these when there are first person MMORPGs?

In Zen Entertainment headquarters, a meeting was held, hosted by Yao Yu.

Yao Yu had the most experience among them, with Tale of the Sword and Legend of the Sword under his belt. He had strong knowledge in MMORPGs and single player RPGs, and was one of the best in terms of story writing.

Yao Yu also started playing Diablo after the sales for its first week was released, and have already managed to figure out Diablo's success.

Yao Yu started sharing his analysis with the other attending designers.

"After looking deeper into Diablo, I think there was one point that we all neglected, 'satisfaction'.

"I don't know if you realised, but the players often have to face hundreds of monsters in the game, and in some of the levels, they could fill up the entire screen. And as the players slash through these mobs, they get satisfaction that surpasses most MMORPGs through the damage numbers floating on the screen, as well as the visual and sound effects."

The other designers nodded in agreement.

"Yes, this is about the same as that RPG map in Warcraft. It's practically brainless, but it's really effective.

"It's mainly because mainstream RPGs are all online games. As a result of balancing requirements, the numbers in the game aren't all that flexible.

"Is that why Chen Mo made a singleplayer game?

"That means he thought of making a hack and slash game from the start?

"It's not just that. I've tried it out in Legend of the Sword and I was able to recreate a similar feeling through adjusting some numbers, but it was still lacking compared to Diablo.

"I've narrowed it down to three main points.

"First, Legend of the Sword is based on lock-on abilities, and most of them are single target abilities. In order to recreate that same satisfaction, the abilities should not lock-on.

"Second, Legend of the Sword was comparatively comfortable with a bright art style, the monsters weren't scary either, so the players would get bored easily after killing the same monster a couple times.

"Third, there is a limit to how many monsters can be on the screen in a first person game like Legend of the Sword. For example, the screen becomes really cluttered when there are over one hundred mobs on the screen, making it difficult to select targets and move.

"Perhaps it's better in VR, but it also introduces more problems. The biggest problem is that hack and slash games like these must be single player. Based on Diablo's cost of around one hundred and seventy million, it would cost around a billion to make a VR game. How many companies are confident to be able to recuperate such a huge cost in a singleplayer VR game?"

The other designers looked at one another before reaching a conclusion.

"That means we'd have to make changes to these three points to make a satisfying hack and slash experience?"

"Make abilities to not lock on, make the art style more gloomy, and change it to third person?"

"Isn't that what Diablo's doing?!"

"That means… Chen Mo thought of it from the start?!"