Additionally, there was the issue of the environment.
Souls games weren’t successful from the start; they went through a process of increasing sales over time.
From the earliest “Demon’s Souls,” to “Dark Souls,” “Bloodborne,” then to “Dark Souls 3,” and finally to “Sekiro,” generally speaking, the difficulty was gradually decreasing.
While preserving the essence of the Souls games, the difficulty gradually decreased, yet sales steadily increased.
This indicated that increasing difficulty could indeed reduce sales.
Moreover, the success of Souls games varied by region.
The game “Demon’s Souls” originally went completely against what the publisher wanted. During development, Miyazaki played a little trick and didn’t follow the requirements completely, but instead made a game entirely in his style.
By the time the higher-ups discovered this issue, “Demon’s Souls” was largely complete. The superiors were furious but had no choice, so they had to make the best of a bad situation.
Initially, even the publisher wasn’t optimistic about it. If project manager Kajii Ken’ichi hadn’t insisted, the game might never have reached players.
On the eve of its release, the famous gaming magazine Famitsu gave it a low score of 29 (out of 40).
The game flopped considerably in Japan. Miyazaki went to great lengths to contact Western publishers, and the result was unexpectedly successful!
The key factor was that the Souls series perfectly matched the taste of hardcore Western single-player gamers.
The Souls series only really became popular in China around 15 years ago.
The current gaming environment in China largely matched Pei Qian’s memory. High-difficulty games were considered niche and weren’t popular.
Given that, wouldn’t it work to make a high-difficulty Souls-like game and only release it domestically?
Moreover, to prevent Western players from discovering this game, deliberately use a Chinese cultural background, adding a cultural barrier that would make it incomprehensible to Western players, even if they wanted to play!
Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel extremely pleased with himself. Indeed, human creativity was limitless.
If it weren’t for trying to lose money, he wouldn’t have known he could come up with such a good idea!
…
Pei Qian very concisely explained the positioning of this game to everyone, summarizing it into five requirements.
First, this would be a game with a Chinese cultural background, filled with numerous puzzle elements, and many of the puzzles and text content would be written in classical Chinese.
This point was mainly to prevent Western players from discovering and making the game popular.
The puzzles would require excellent knowledge of classical Chinese, which would make foreigners unable to play for even a minute!
Since the game would mainly be sold domestically, even without versions in other languages, it wouldn’t be judged as a violation by the system.
Second, this would be an ultra-high difficulty game.
Pei Qian demanded that Bao Xu and Lü Mingliang rack their brains and think of every possible way to make players fail.
Discouraging as many players as possible would be their primary task.
Third, this would be an action game with grand scenes.
The game must have a large number of models, actions, and scenes. The budget for all art resources would be maxed out!
They should think of every possible way to spend more money!
Of course, this so-called “spending more money” was measured against Tenda Games’ previous investments. In reality, Pei Qian’s psychological limit was only 20 million yuan.
If he could, he would spend more, but the system funds might not be sufficient.
Compared to foreign games with development funds in the hundreds of millions or billions, it couldn’t compete. However, compared to the investments of domestic manufacturers, it could still be considered a big production.
Fourth, this game would adopt the longest refund time limit.
According to the official platform requirements, games on the platform could be refunded within 3 hours of actual gameplay, and this time could only be extended, not shortened.
Most game developers hoped this time could be shortened or canceled altogether. How could they possibly want to extend it?
But Pei Qian decided that this game would adopt the longest refund time limit allowed by the official platform: 5 hours!
For many small games with a total gameplay time of only 3-4 hours, setting a 5-hour refund period would be insane, essentially no different from giving it away for free.
But in Pei Qian’s view, 3 hours wasn’t that long. Some people playing Dark Souls 3 died for 3 hours at Gundyr’s gate without realizing it, missing the refund deadline.
Pei Qian decided that his game would allow refunds within 5 hours, and there would even be a prompt in the upper right corner of the game when there were 10 minutes left before reaching the 5-hour mark.
He would ensure that every player who wanted a refund wouldn’t miss the deadline.
Fifth, regarding the game’s name.
To avoid the game’s name influencing players and to prevent innocent bystanders from stumbling into it, Pei Qian decided to make the game’s name as straightforward as possible.
The game would be called “Turn Back to Safety,” containing Pei Qian’s sincere advice to players.
After hearing Pei Qian’s five requirements, even Bao Xu was bewildered.
In Pei Qian’s memory, “Demon’s Souls” was a game from 2009, but this world didn’t have “Demon’s Souls,” so even well-informed players like Bao Xu hadn’t heard of such an insanely difficult game.
Of course, there were some hardcore games known for their high difficulty, but games like what Pei Qian described, directly requiring “think of every possible way to make players fail,” were truly rare…
Everything else was easy to understand, but regarding the difficulty level, both Lü Mingliang and Bao Xu felt a bit lost.
“Mr. Pei, regarding this difficulty, could you explain in more detail? For example, what percentage of players should the final boss eliminate?” Bao Xu asked.
Pei Qian instinctively wanted to say, Eliminate 99.9999% of players!
However, a line of text instantly appeared in his field of vision.
[Warning! A game where the vast majority of people have no chance of completion is a violation. The maximum difficulty of the game should be based on the host’s ability to complete it.]
Pei Qian’s smile froze on his face.
System, I almost blurted out “Tony Ma.”
Based on my ability to complete it? I’m terrible at games!
I get destroyed playing “Sea Fortress,” and you’re asking me to complete this kind of game? You might as well tell me directly that it can’t be done!
But Pei Qian didn’t panic; after all, he was knowledgeable, and this small problem couldn’t stump him.
Based on my ability to complete it?
That’s easy to fix, I’ll just secretly hide something in the game…
I’ll design an extremely powerful weapon in the game, and this weapon can only be obtained by triggering a very complex hidden storyline and progressing through a completely unreasonable game route.
Then, with this powerful weapon, my understanding of Souls games, and foreknowledge of the level maps, I should be able to complete it after grinding for two or three weeks.
For the sake of losing money, I’ll endure this hardship!
After this thought occurred, the system didn’t warn him again, indicating it was feasible.
Pei Qian smiled slightly and said to Bao Xu, “We won’t design the game to eliminate any players. Theoretically, the vast majority of people can complete it, but it requires some techniques.”
The implication was, if they give up on their own, that’s not my fault.
“Just design it with the highest difficulty you can imagine, and I’ll personally modify it in the end.”
When the time came, he would add this weapon, and Pei Qian would set the game at the extreme difficulty level where he could complete it using this weapon. This way, he wouldn’t be warned by the system.
By then, players who couldn’t get this weapon would be playing in hell mode, and with the 5-hour unconditional refund, it would make most people give up!
Lü Mingliang asked, “Mr. Pei, this game is called ‘Turn Back to Safety’ and has a traditional Chinese background… so what exactly is the worldview like?”
Pei Qian smiled and said, “Such small matters, you can decide for yourselves.”