Almighty Video Game Designer

Chapter 212: Lacklustre Diablo Follow Up?

Chen Mo releasing Diablo and Don’t Starve one after another caused a decent reaction in the videogame community, although not one as big as the copying craze from mobile card games.

This was expected as the main characteristics of the game were really unique and hard to replicate.

Diablo did allow industry professionals to realise the market gap in satisfying hack and slash games, but how to fill that gap was a very difficult question.

If they followed Diablo and made a third person game with a dark art style, setting aside if they were capable of spending money to reach the quality of Diablo, even if they did, would the players buy a game that was such a blatant Diablo copy?

Therefore, the only way out was to make a similar VR game, which was exactly what Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was doing.

But for the other companies? There was too much risk involved with making VR games. Moreover, many changes had to be made to it, so companies who could take such a big risk were few and far between.

Don’t Starve was also a similar unreplicatable game in the eyes of many video game designers.

Because nobody understood how it managed to sell this many copies.

Story? Art style? Music and audio effects?

Items? Playstyle? Sandbox mode?

One thing’s for sure, this was a relatively successful sandbox game. This was because of its excellent quality and rich playstyle which replicates the physiological needs of humans, which triggers a desire to create in players.

But how could one create a sandbox game similar to Don’t Starve?

Nobody knows.

Sandbox games may seem nice to make, but they are actually incredibly difficult to develop. The successful sandbox games always seem easy to recreate during analysis, just that they didn’t think of it.

Therefore, although the reviews were good for Diablo and Don’t Starve, it didn’t create a copying craze like mobile card games did.

Moreover, as Diablo looked better and better, it also gained more and more haters.

“There are players complaining about how Diablo sucks in the later stages on the official forums again.”

“Yeah, I saw that coming. I’ve tried the game out too, it felt great at the start, but it became incredibly monotonous at the later stages of the game. If it wasn’t for the desire to grind for equipment, I doubt many would continue playing.”

“They’ll get sick of grinding great eventually. The better the gear, the rarer it is. You might not even see one piece of usable equipment the more you play, and that just feels terrible.”

“That only means that Chen Mo isn’t invincible. Sure he could make games that are playing long into the future, this game isn’t one of them.”

It can’t be helped. I think Chen Mo thought of this at the start. It’s like a one time thing that’s packaged really well with incredible cinematics. It feels good when you’re killing mobs too. That’s how they get you to buy the game as they neglect everything after they secure your money.”

“That’s quite normal. It’s a single player game, you need to stop comparing it to the standards of online games.”

“Chen Mo immediately pivoted to developing Don’t Starve right after releasing Diablo. Obviously he doesn’t expect Diablo to make him money in the long term.”

“YEah, I think so too. Maybe Chen Mo is planning for the future by dipping his toes in all the different genres. If Diablo doesn’t work out, he can continue with Don’t Starve.”

“I was shocked when Chen Mo released Diablo, but obviously it was just for show. Sure the sales were amazing, but the players are already sick of it. It’s not going to last into the future.”

“Yeah, I think the show’s over.”

“I heard that Emperor Dynasty Emperor is making a Diablo style VR game. Wonder how that’s going.”

“I think Yan Zhenyuan is working on it. There’s no questions with the abilities of the video game designer, nor is there any with the distribution and funding of the game. I think the game will more than likely be popular.”

“Yeah, maybe even more popular than Diablo as it’s more immersive in VR.”

“It’s hard to say, there’s a lot of risk in porting a PC game into VR. It’s like making a whole new game.”

“Yan Zhenyuan is an S-grade designer after all, there isn’t a single game he released that failed. Moreover, there’s plenty of theory to support this game’s success too. Think about it, killing enemies left and right in VR, it’ll really be covering the market gap when that is released.”

“That’s true. Sigh, looks like Chen Mo failed a little bit here. He should have brought this game out later. He should probably be on his way to making VR games soon, if he brought it out in a year or so, he’d probably develop his own VR Diablo. He’s just giving Emperor Dynasty ideas by releasing it now!”

—

Yan Zhenyuan was also playing Diablo.

He had a clear idea of the controls of this game so far. The high quality story and cinematics and the thoughtful detailed creepy atmosphere was just the packaging. The real core of the game is hacking and slashing and the balancing of the game.

Of course, the packaging of the game was so good the players felt like they got more than they paid for.

In reality, the later stages of Diablo completely depended on numerical simulation.

At the same time the players continue grinding, they are getting better equipment, increasing their strength, and moving to the next difficulties. Meaning the balancing of the game becomes the main driving force for players to continue playing.

This may seem like a model that worked at first glance, but so far Diablo didn’t seem to be able to achieve this.

Yan Zhenyuan was also thinking about how to solve this problem as he was making a VR version of Diablo which was on PC. The profits of the game would be dramatically impacted if the players were sick of it after a month or two.

As VR games required much more financially than PC games, they could only wish they’d lose a bit less money if they sold the game by copies. The thought of making money like that was a fool’s dream.

“I need to think of something soon.”

Yan Zhenyuan’s project was now in its first steps as all parts of development were moving along steadily, but he’d have to quickly think of something to ensure the longevity of the game.

It was almost November, and according to the roadplan, it should be in its test phase the coming June, and be released the coming August.

“Whatever, I’ll move with the online game idea for now, have as much socialization and trading in the game as possible. Then I’ll need to drag out the playtime and slow down how quickly new players level up.

Yan Zhenyuan decided that since the problem was really difficult to solve, he may as well take a page out of the book of online games and retain players through various online activities.