April 25th, Wednesday morning.
Ye Zhizhou arrived at Chi Xing Studio’s office location according to the address Lin Wan had given him.
After Lin Wan left Shangyang Games, Ye Zhizhou had taken over as the new head of Shangyang Games, and the employees had already had a farewell dinner with Lin Wan.
Although there was some reluctance to part, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Besides, job transfers within Tenda Group had always been frequent, so Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin knew they would eventually take over, and thus weren’t too sad about it.
Moreover, Chi Xing Studio’s office was also in Jingzhou, not far from Shangyang Games, so they could visit frequently and would have many opportunities to meet in the future.
Today, Ye Zhizhou came to finalize details about Chi Xing Studio’s new game with Lin Wan.
Mr. Pei had already determined that Chi Xing Studio’s first game would be a VR game, but the specific design details of this game had not yet been finalized.
Ye Zhizhou was here to help make decisions.
As far as Ye Zhizhou knew, besides him and Lin Wan, a product manager from Shenhua Mobile’s department responsible for developing VR headsets, as well as Chi Xing Studio’s newly recruited lead designer, would also be attending the meeting.
Finalizing the game’s name and details to get Chi Xing Studio on track as soon as possible was important—sometimes, quickly entering the development process was the best way to help a team bond.
Ye Zhizhou arrived at Chi Xing Studio and instinctively looked around at the working environment.
Indeed, it was in line with Tenda Games and Shangyang Games’ style.
Although Chi Xing Studio had just been established recently, there were already employees working at their stations, which showed that the recruitment efficiency was quite high.
Ye Zhizhou entered the meeting room and sat down in an empty seat.
Lin Wan was carefully going through a thick stack of resumes, picking out those that met the requirements and setting them aside for interview invitations.
Seeing that everyone had arrived, Lin Wan tidied up the resumes a bit and tapped the meeting table. “Everyone’s here, so let’s get started. I have several interviews this afternoon.”
Ye Zhizhou noticed that Lin Wan seemed to be increasingly professional. When she first arrived at Shangyang Games, she often hesitated and couldn’t make decisions, but now she was becoming more and more like a qualified leader.
“You’re very efficient here. It’s only been three days, and you already have new employees on board?” Ye Zhizhou said after taking a sip of tea.
Lin Wan smiled. “Yes, once we displayed the Shenhua Group and Tenda Group logos, and mentioned Shangyang Games’ successful titles, our recruitment inbox was immediately flooded.”
“Many people want to join Tenda’s gaming department but can’t get in because they have to take tests. Here, the benefits and compensation are similar to Tenda’s, and we have a good reputation, so many game developers are desperate to join.”
“However… thanks to Tenda’s influence, I’m also under a lot of pressure. If the game doesn’t turn out well, I’d really be letting Mr. Pei down.”
“Let me introduce everyone. This is Ye Zhizhou, the current head of Shangyang Games. This is Old Song, a product manager from Shenhua Group’s mobile business division. And this is Cai Jiadong, the lead designer at Chi Xing Studio…”
Lin Wan quickly introduced everyone present.
Old Song was a product manager responsible for utilizing Shenhua Group’s resources to produce a new VR headset. Cai Jiadong was the newly recruited lead designer with an unspecified background. Both appeared to be in their thirties or forties, suggesting they had rich experience.
Cai Jiadong shook hands with Ye Zhizhou. “Pleased to meet you! I’ve played all the games developed by Shangyang Studio. I never imagined the lead designer would be so young—it’s quite humbling!”
Ye Zhizhou hurriedly responded, “Not at all! It’s all thanks to Tenda Group’s excellent platform. If it weren’t for Mr. Pei’s guidance, I’d probably still be a junior game designer.”
After exchanging polite compliments, they quickly got down to business.
Lin Wan distributed documents while saying, “These are the key points we decided on after the last meeting with Mr. Pei. Please take a look.”
She glanced at Ye Zhizhou. “It’s the same workflow as before at Shangyang Games—first analyze Mr. Pei’s intentions, then determine the specific form of the game.”
Cai Jiadong accepted the document with both hands and read it very seriously, his expression extremely reverent.
Although he was nominally the lead designer of Chi Xing Studio, his position was currently nominal, mainly responsible for executing tasks. Only gradually, after becoming accustomed to the work rhythm here, would he take over design responsibilities.
Cai Jiadong had an impressive resume as a designer, with many years of experience as a lead designer at major domestic game companies and several successful projects under his belt.
He joined Chi Xing Studio for two reasons: first, because the compensation was better than at his previous company, and second, because of Tenda Games’ reputation.
Every game producer has a dream deep down.
Making pay-to-win games could certainly make money, but it was just a job, not particularly fulfilling. What truly made designers proud was creating their own AAA game with both commercial success and critical acclaim.
The game “Mission and Choice” had rekindled the passion of many designers like Cai Jiadong, which had been dormant for years. That’s why he accepted this job without hesitation.
Although Cai Jiadong had rich game design experience, the development process for AAA titles differed significantly from pay-to-win games, so they couldn’t be generalized.
Moreover, he had heard that Tenda Games and Shangyang Games had a unique game design methodology that belonged exclusively to Mr. Pei, and this was a good opportunity to learn about it.
Looking at the document, he found several hard requirements, including investment amounts for the game and VR headset, the game’s genre, general style, and so on.
After a quick glance, Cai Jiadong’s face immediately showed shock.
20 million for the headset and another 20 million for the game?
A casual game with a cartoon style… with such a huge investment?
Cai Jiadong felt confused. Although the document contained only a few requirements, based on his experience, these requirements were clearly contradictory and unfeasible.
Investing 20 million in a casual game with cartoon graphics was already absurd, but they were also going to spend another 20 million to develop a VR headset specifically for a single game?
In any other game company, this proposal would immediately be rejected, but here… it seemed to be business as usual?
As a newcomer, Cai Jiadong didn’t dare to ask too many questions and could only listen quietly.
Lin Wan first looked at product manager Old Song. “With a budget of 20 million for developing the VR headset, what level of quality could we achieve?”
Old Song answered honestly, “If it’s just for developing the headset itself, that’s more than enough—perhaps even wasteful. I suggest we don’t need to invest so much money, since the domestic market isn’t that large, and we can’t expect it to sell well.”
“We should just make a basic model, hype up the concept a bit, and sell it to recover costs.”
Lin Wan immediately shook her head. “That won’t work. The development budget can only be more, not less. Just tell me what level we can achieve.”
Old Song thought for a moment. “Then we can only focus on the controllers.”
“But with controllers… it’s also hard to be innovative.”
“VR controllers are basically all the same: joysticks, buttons, and so on.”
“Currently, there are two types of controllers. One is relatively simple—single-handed with no joystick, just a simple trackpad, one or two buttons, and a trigger. The other is more complex—dual-handed with two joysticks, four buttons at the thumb position, and triggers at the index finger position.”
“The first type is too simple. Pure research and development wouldn’t cost much money. Since our budget is sufficient, we’ll definitely go with the second type.”
“But the second type already has comprehensive functionality, with buttons for each finger, and is ergonomically designed. We don’t need to forcibly change the design just to be different—at most, we could alter the appearance.”
“So I think redesigning it… doesn’t make much sense.”
Lin Wan thought for a moment. “What if we add more functions?”
Old Song shook his head. “There’s nothing more to add. The thumbs operate the joysticks and the four front buttons, the index fingers press the triggers—everything’s already occupied. How can we add more functions?”
A brief silence fell over the room, as everyone clearly had no good ideas on how to spend the money.