Wow, the Lunar New Year promotion is amazing! Look at me, I'm adding one more thing to my cart!
[This platform is toxic! They even gave me a free farming game to play. Look at all these discounted games I just bought, they're all AAA titles, all Game of the Year! How am I supposed to play them all???... Move aside, I choose farming!!]
This even surprised the designers: for some reason, players were very fond of this farming game.
Perhaps it's because the farming gameplay is so accessible—you can see it as soon as you open the room door—that it attracted a large number of players.
The Bluestar platform now boasts billions of online users, with nearly half of them being farmers.
After a short Lunar New Year holiday, this proportion even rose to 70%...
Players were practically obsessed with planting and stealing crops... they were completely absorbed in it.
The "stealing vegetables" feature is simply addictive, making harvest time extremely important to them.
So a lot of players started setting alarms, calculating when their crops would be ready, and getting up in the middle of the night to harvest them, while also checking out their neighbors' farms to see what good food they could find...
Even more outrageous, some people calculate which plant yields the highest hourly profit using a form and embark on a one-way money-making journey, managing to get up every two hours! It makes you wonder if this person is a robot!
With everyone stealing vegetables, things quickly spiraled out of control.
Keeping dogs at home, installing fences, and even electric fences have become essential needs for gamers.
If a household doesn't have a dog, they have to come back to harvest the vegetables within minutes of them ripening, otherwise they'll have to wait for thieves to "plow" their fields.
As a result, sales of the corresponding props suddenly skyrocketed, almost startling the designers.
They decisively chose to lower the price!
At the same time, everyone is allowed to adopt one dog for free!
The mall currently only sells some expensive dog breeds—they are no different in function from ordinary country dogs, only in appearance.
Those who had already purchased a dog from the store would receive a large amount of pet items as compensation, as well as a limited-edition collar.
On player forums, this quickly sparked a huge outcry:
[Blue Star!!! Are you guys not eating?! This is the first time I've ever seen in-game items given away for free!]
[Giving away games at a discount is one thing, but giving away dogs for free? Did you even ask Xixi's opinion?]
What's going on?! Blue Star is really taking advantage of Dragon Slayer's doting backing, treating money like it's nothing! Is Dragon Slayer going to release another super pay-to-win mobile game after the New Year to make money to support his family...?
[Blue Star Games: Buy early and enjoy early, buy late and get a discount, or get it for free if you don't buy?!]
Due to various factors, players who prefer a farming/farming style have even inadvertently brought traffic to the Blue Star platform.
They invited their friends and family to try out the mini-game on the platform.
As a result, it was the "stealing vegetables" feature that turned the place into a playground for friends and family to play around.
Some small groups that had been out of touch since graduation suddenly became active again because of the game "stealing vegetables".
Former classmates and friends came online to chat and joke around, and even found a new common topic: growing vegetables.
After farming, you might also be able to summon your own little dragon, play a couple of rounds of "Dragon Hunter," and discuss the dragon species that might appear in "Hunter World."
Or relive the passion of yesteryear, gather five old friends, play a game of League of Legends five-man squad, and marvel at how many heroes are now newly released or reworked, and how we no longer know them well, but the joy of fighting side by side is still faintly the same as it was back then.
Or, let's go to Minecraft again, a bunch of blocky people laughing and joking as we start over, building little houses together, mining together, going out to find animals to bring back for livestock, and cultivating farmland together...
And then the (block version) vegetable planting started again?
Even the smallest game, once it establishes such a complex network of social relationships, is destined to become extraordinary.
Once the designers on Earth realized this, they held a meeting together.
They discussed several similar proposals, and after reviewing them, they decided to use Proposal Number Three. Kevin's team is currently free after finishing Assassin's Creed 2, so let them work on developing this farm game, incorporating all other creative elements—integrating farms, ranches, mining, fishing, cooking, and other leisure activities.
"As for a code name, let's call it 'Farm' for now."
"For now, we'll leave the farms in the players' launchers as they are, allowing them to maintain this social connection on the platform. Once the 'farm' feature is launched, we'll integrate it here, allowing players to directly enter the game from their farms."
While Lanxing isn't exactly an expert at creating high-quality mini-games, she's definitely capable of doing it.
They have perhaps the most elite design team in the Chaoyang Alliance, and are best at creating such sophisticated and mature architectures.
This unexpected little game was mainly developed by Kevin's secondary team and is expected to be completed within 5 months, at which time it will be officially launched on the Blue Star platform.
226. Person of the Year
The Lunar New Year holiday season arrived quite early this year, with the holiday starting at the end of January.
The most eye-catching news during the holiday season is undoubtedly that Hunter World will be released on Valentine's Day, February 14th!
In addition, there is another piece of news that has left industry insiders feeling quite emotional: Cruise Capital has disintegrated.
Since the year before last, Chaoyang Alliance's game publishing policy has been tightening, gradually transitioning from an era when there were almost no limits on the number of game licenses to the current era of strict review.
As various channels gain increasing importance, the profit margins for methods like cruise ships, which rely heavily on traffic to promote games, are gradually becoming thinner.
After all, they weren't professional game developers; they were just making a product!
Compared to their products, their games are not irreplaceable; their distribution channels cannot compete with the two market-monopolizing companies, Atlas and Ipp; and even their brand trademarks are notorious in the industry…
Under these circumstances, everyone is saying that the gaming industry has entered a downturn this year.
However, this harsh winter is relative.