Almighty Video Game Designer

Chapter 251: Reversal

More and more reviews for Thousand Hells and Minecraft came up ss more and more players have had their chance at the game.

Most players that have never played Diablo rated Thousand Hells more highly than normal. Strictly speaking, Thousand Hells only borrow some ideas from Diablo. After porting the game from PC to VR and changing the western fantasy theme to an angel and demons theme, most players could never tell that Thousand Hells took heavy inspiration from Diablo.

But there were various different reviews for Minecraft.

"Is there anybody who understands the point of this game? All I do is dig up dirt and build houses. Is there nothing else to this game?"

"I think that this game is kinda boring. Sure it's satisfying to build my own house, but the houses I build are more akin to matchboxes than houses!"

"Because the game you are playing is called 'My World', but the fun part is in 'Somebody else's world'!"

"The online mode is great, let's dig up dirt and build houses together!"

"I don't get the point of this game with all the guilds and building. Haven't there been games like these before? What's new?"

"Yeah, it's just a building game. What can you really build?"

"Hehe, last poster, stop pretending when you haven't even bought the game. You must spend some time on the game before you can understand it. People who don't spend time in games like you will never understand that!"

—

However, these arguments were few and far between, and they rarely ever heat up. This was because players who didn't care about Minecraft wouldn't go out of their way to talk trash about the game, and the players who bought Minecraft?

They were all too busy building.

A week after the game was released, there were quite a few videos on various streaming platforms.

"Minecraft first experience: Is this a horror game?"

"The city in the sky that we built"

"Minecraft new player tutorial"

"Original build: recreating Siheyuan"

"Original build: recreating Classical Gardens of Suzhou"

—

There were three main types of videos.

First was the comedic first experience type videos, digging holes, chased by zombies, and building awful houses.

Second was the educational type where more experience players go over some tips and tricks for the game.

Last was building videos, where players record their amazing builds in creative mode or online multiplayer mode to share (pronounced brag).

Minecraft was a very topical game as the rich gameplay allowed for different streamers or video makers to use their imagination to differentiate themselves from others.

Other RPG games would more or less be going over the story or showcase high skilled gameplay, making it difficult for streamers to differentiate themselves from others.

Whereas a sandbox game allowed for talented players to show off their building skills, while others showed off some interesting gameplay, while others explored the world…

When different players played the game differently, there would naturally be more diverse gameplay.

Minecraft slowly crept up on various video streaming and live streaming sites before many noticed, and started a Minecraft wave.

Many players were really confused.

"How come there are this many Minecraft videos?"

"The gaming area is basically a Minecraft area!"

"Many streamers are off to play this game as well."

"Have you seen Xue's livestream? Chen Mo showed himself there and showed off many incredible builds."

"There's a streamer who became a guildmaster in Minecraft and they were incredibly progressional! He got some to mine, others to build, and already managed to build a little town!"

"I think the best part of the game comes from online multiplayer. It's so satisfying to work together with many others to build a whole city."

"Single Player is pretty fun too as you can craft whatever you want. It suits socially anxious people like me."

"They're all fun! The game is fun because everybody gets to have their fun!"

"Geez, after watching so many videos and livestreams, I want to get the game too! I want to test out my architectural prowess"

"You will realise it's all somebody else's world! It's all lies!"

As Minecraft gained traction on various live streaming and video streaming sites, the sales followed suit.

Moreover, there were already some who've started selling blueprints to their buildings. There are even groups who specialised in building for money.

Soon, a string of statistics was released.

First week sales: Thousand Hells fifty four thousand copies, Minecraft two hundred and sixty four thousand copies.

First Month sales:Thousand Hells two hundred and thirty seven thousand copies, Minecraft 3.013 million copies.

And when including various in-app purchases, Thousand Hells made three hundred and ninety million RMB in its first month, whereas Minecraft made four hundred and thirty million RMB!

Minecraft only got three hundred and eighty five million from selling copies of the game, and everything else came from in-app purchases, aka whales spending money on blueprints.

When Minecraft broke three million players, there were thirty open servers, with thousands upon thousands of different guilds.

Most of these guilds have their whales, and even if they didn't they'd band together to buy a blueprint. As it directly affects how the guild is portrayed, the players didn't skimp on spending money on these.

There were even some whales who would blueprints just to collect them. Some diehard World of Azeroth fans bought Stormwind City and Lordaeron Ruins just to have them.

Even though Thousand Hells had tripled the revenue of Minecraft in the first day, Minecraft somehow turned that around in a month!

—

This number confused Yan Zhenyuan.

Seventeen thousand in a day, twenty-six thousand in a week, three million in a month?!

A difference of one hundred and seventy times between sales in the first day and the first month? Is he a monster?

Moreover, Yan Zhenyuan was puzzled about the slow rate of growth of Thousand Hells!

Thousand Hells had great reviews on various websites, video game media, and videogame platforms, maintaining a score of above 8.7. The player feedback was alright too. Emperor Dynasty Entertainment also promoted the game as best they could. And yet it felt like something was lacking?

No matter how hard they promoted it, it wasn't hugely popular and didn't show any signs of doing so either!

On the other hand, although Chen Mo did start spending some money to promote Minecraft from the second week, it was still quite far away from how much Thousand Hells was putting out. How come it just keeps growing?

The worst thing is the ridiculous number of sales it got! It'd be completely out of proportion if it continues at this pace!

There have always been fewer VR gamers in China compared to mobile and PC. If it continued like this, wouldn't all VR gaming pods in China have Minecraft installed!

That's ridiculous! How did a strategy of selling the game cheap to sell more copies work on a VR game?

Yan Zhenyuan was speechless and was especially confused about Thousand Hells' lacklustre performance. Even if Thousand Hells didn't take over the VR market, it should at least resemble Diablo's success on the PC right?

The more Yan Zhenyuan thought about it, the less it made sense.

Maybe… It's some kind of black magic?

It doesn't make sense!