Although MMORPG games had been impacted by MOBA games, a lean camel is still larger than a horse, and at this stage, there were still many loyal players.

Compared to single-player games, online games better suited mainstream players’ tastes. Once the number of players increased, it could easily become an uncontrollable, long-term money tree.

For single-player games, sales would typically decline after a few months, as people would get bored after playing for a while, and after spending money on the game, there would be no additional expenses except buying some DLC.

But online games were different. Even with relatively fair time-based charging, there would be a steady stream of game card payments. If it became popular, it would be difficult to manage the situation later.

Games like GOG and “Sea Fortress” were bloody lessons.

So, unless there was a particularly certain money-losing idea, Pei Qian was unwilling to make an online game.

Single-player games were still slightly easier to lose money on.

The crowd, which had been talking over each other and completely unable to reach a consensus earlier, all lowered their heads to think carefully.

Indeed, what Mr. Pei said made sense!

Everyone’s directions all seemed feasible, but continuing to discuss this way would make it difficult to reach a consensus.

It was better to follow Mr. Pei’s thinking.

In the field of single-player games, what game types had Tenda done relatively little of?

This question was actually not easy to answer.

Up to now, Tenda had made many single-player games, some with relatively popular themes, and many with niche themes.

“Look Back and You’re on Shore” was an action game, “Struggle” was an interactive movie game, “Mission and Choice” was an already outdated real-time strategy game, and there were games like “Game Producer” and “Animal Island” that were difficult to define in specific categories.

What other game types had Tenda done relatively little of?

Everyone lowered their heads to think.

Action games, shooting games, simulation games, role-playing games, interactive adventure games, strategy games, casual games…

Most game types seemed to have been explored to some extent.

This was mainly because Mr. Pei never rested on his laurels. After the success of one type of game, he wouldn’t touch it for a long time, but immediately develop another type of game.

So, finding an area that Tenda hadn’t yet ventured into was somewhat challenging.

However, with many people thinking together, some did find game types that hadn’t been done yet.

“Fighting games?”

“Music games?”

“We haven’t done sandbox games either.”

“There’s also racing games. Although we have ‘Lonely Desert Highway,’ it obviously has significant differences from proper racing games…”

Pei Qian couldn’t help but give these people a thumbs up.

Good, this brainstorming meeting wasn’t held in vain!

Everyone indeed thought of things I couldn’t think of.

Pei Qian silently noted down these game types.

Music games would not be considered for now, mainly because they cost too little, making them uninteresting to develop.

Moreover, they were also difficult to mess up—you couldn’t make a music game where the notes were out of tune, could you?

All things considered, the possibility of losing money was not high, and even if it did lose money, it wouldn’t be much, because it was difficult to invest a lot of money in the first place.

Fighting games were a good choice, but still had the same problem—not enough money could be spent.

If there were no better ideas, it could serve as a backup option.

As for sandbox games, forget it—too risky. A successful sandbox game could have an astonishingly long lifespan, and Pei Qian didn’t want to take that risk.

Racing games?

Hmm, this sounded like a pretty good choice!

Among these untried game types, racing games were the most expensive and had relatively high production difficulty.

For racing games, the scenery had to be good, right? There had to be many maps, right?

Just creating these beautiful scenes would be a considerable expense in terms of art.

Additionally, shouldn’t there be multiple vehicles? Using real-life cars would require negotiating with manufacturers and buying licenses, right?

When driving, there should be radio stations and music, right? Buying music rights would also cost money.

Moreover, racing games were also relatively difficult to produce.

Because players had high demands for the feel of racing games, if the driving feel wasn’t properly tuned, players would definitely criticize it.

Although many players themselves couldn’t articulate exactly what the problem was with a particular game’s driving feel, they could very clearly sense whether a car was easy to drive or not.

If it wasn’t easy to drive, then it was definitely the developer’s fault.

Achieving “easy to drive” was no simple matter; it required a long and meticulous tuning process.

Since most players used keyboards or controllers to play racing games, and these two input devices were very different from a real car’s steering wheel.

For keyboards, using the WASD keys to control the accelerator, brake, and direction essentially only simulated four states: accelerator fully pressed, brake fully pressed, steering wheel turned all the way left, or all the way right.

Keyboards couldn’t simulate linear operations like “turn left 30 degrees, ease off the gas slightly.”

In this situation, to provide players with a better gaming experience, developers had to achieve a certain degree of assisted driving through complex tuning, allowing players to handle various complicated curves with just a few keys, without linear operation capabilities.

Whether this aspect was properly implemented determined the player’s driving feel, and whether the cars in the game were “easy to drive” or “hard to drive.”

The situation with controllers was slightly better than keyboards. Trigger buttons could simulate the linear nature of brakes and accelerators, and joysticks could fine-tune turning angles, but moving the controller left or right still only provided a maximum of 90 degrees of change.

Trying to simulate a steering wheel’s 900 or 540 degrees of directional change with just 90 degrees of controller movement obviously couldn’t achieve that level of precision.

Moreover, for realism, racing games also had to calculate tire grip and a series of parameters, ensuring that players could perform high-difficulty maneuvers like drifting through corners using operations similar to real life. Otherwise, the racing game would degenerate into a casual kart racing game.

In short, the difficulty was relatively high, and it was easy to mess up.

Although there were racing game templates sold on official game platforms, these templates often couldn’t achieve excellent tuning, and most of the work still had to be done personally.

Moreover, the employee who suggested racing games was right—”Lonely Desert Highway” wasn’t actually a racing game; at most it was an indie game.

In terms of developing professional racing games, Tenda had absolutely no experience.

Pei Qian even thought of an even more ruthless idea in that moment.

After developing a racing game, why not also make a steering wheel, or even a full simulation driving setup including brackets, monitors, and seats? That would be reasonable, right?

Wouldn’t that allow spending even more money?

With this in mind, Pei Qian said, “I think a racing game sounds pretty good.”

Everyone nodded.

Indeed, among these choices, a racing game was a relatively reliable option.

Fighting games were past their prime and, like music games, were more niche. Sandbox games were good, but the key was that to make a sandbox game, you first needed a good idea.

Thinking about it this way, a racing game was indeed a better choice.

On this point, although Mr. Pei’s motives were completely different from everyone else’s, they miraculously reached the same conclusion.

Having determined the general direction of a racing game, everyone began to think more broadly.

“For a racing game, it definitely has to be highly realistic! Why don’t we collaborate with some real-life competitions and create a rally or regular track mode?”

“Can we buy the F1 license?”

“I don’t think it needs to be highly realistic; it should prioritize fun! Lower the operation threshold a bit, add more luxury cars, and let players experience the joy of land flying machines.”

“We can add a storyline! Aren’t there many movies about street racing? We can also add more story elements to the game, leveraging our consistent strength.”

“Or make a future-themed racing game?”

Pei Qian listened silently, shaking his head slightly.

None of these sounded like good ideas!

The idea of buying event licenses was immediately passed over. Buying car licenses could be considered to spend more money, but buying event licenses would naturally give the game heat and traffic, which was absolutely not acceptable.

Lowering operation standards, prioritizing fun, adding storylines… these ideas sounded somewhat familiar.

Wasn’t this exactly what “Sea Fortress” had done?

Facts had proven that it didn’t quite work; it could easily become a mainstream game that couldn’t be controlled.

As for future themes… it strangely reminded him of “Mission and Choice.” These people were probably already waiting to create a connection with “Mission and Choice.”

Pei Qian thought for a moment and asked, “What’s the most hardcore racing game you can think of currently?”

Ye Zhizhou pondered: “That would probably be rally racing, right? All operations in that game are extremely realistic, and even many drivers practice in the game.”

“But precisely because of its realism, many settings are quite unfriendly to beginners. For example, different tires in the game have different grip levels, requiring players to choose different tires and tune their vehicles based on different terrains. There’s also vehicle damage—if you crash, you need to repair it.”

“The worst situation is when you crash and break your headlights in one stage, and the next stage happens to be a night road, forcing you to drive in complete darkness, which is quite suffocating.”

“Moreover, in other racing games, you can turn off vehicle damage, but this game doesn’t allow that. It only allows beginners to repair for free, which is also very hardcore.”

Pei Qian nodded slightly.

Hmm, can’t turn off vehicle damage? That sounds like a good idea.

Many players play racing games purely to release their inner wildness by speeding. Crashing into roadside flowers and plants is common.

So the first thing many people do in the game is turn off vehicle damage, allowing them to crash freely.

Not being able to turn off vehicle damage, forcing players to constantly think about repairs, was obviously a good way to deter players.

“But… the rally game is quite successful, right?” Pei Qian asked.

Ye Zhizhou nodded: “Yes, very successful.”

“Because it’s made very realistically, faithfully reproducing the original look of rally racing, even many professional rally drivers use it for training, so it’s very popular among hardcore players.”

“Rally racing is very expensive—it’s common for ordinary rally drivers to burn through millions each year. Ordinary people basically can’t experience this, so getting a taste in the game becomes a good choice.”