Chapter 150: Chapter 149: First Prize
It didn’t take long before the players realised that Wulin Lengend’s popularity was actually increasing too!
Many players played Tale of the Sword just for the story, and after they finished that, there were few players who would play it for a second time.
But Wulin Legend was different as there were so many different storylines. Players would play three or four times and would ever play through all of it. And even taking out its story, its combat was also quite entertaining.
Swords, knives, fists, concealed weapons… the Wugong in Wulin Legend were split into many different pacts. And combined with the different professional skills and talents, there were many different combinations to be had!
The players that get stuck usually get stuck in the start of the game. And the players who move past that would usually play multiple times, at least to get the good and evil endings.
There were a lot of discussions of which Wugong was the best, the flow of the story, the professional skills, strategies… There was much more discussion of this game, maybe even ten times more than Tale of the Sword!
The first month sales of the Chinese themed games have been released.
Tale of the Sword got three hundred and twenty thousand sales, a pretty good number for Chinese game standalone games.
But Wulin Legend had more than four hundred thousand sales!
This number wasn’t amazing as it didn’t even come close to Plants vs Zombies or Warcraft; income wise it didn’t come close to I Am MT either.
But for a Chinese made standalone game, a Wuxia themed standalone game at that, this number was excellent! It had a niche market and was a game with a political motive behind it, this sales was as good as a Wuxia game had gotten!
The most important part was that players realised that Chinese themed games still had innovations to be made. Chinese games didn’t need to rely on the story to sell games, they could also make sandbox games or games that are really complicated. The only limiting factor are the designers.
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Soon, the articles from the media were released.
Best contender for first place? Who’s in the running after Wulin Legend?
Hard to convey Wuxia themes? This game did it!
Players discuss: Unrestricted Wuxia world!
Game review: Hard to learn, rich content, unrivaled creativity!
Chen Mo who always did western fantasy games proved himself to be capable of Chinese themes too!
Of course there were also articles praising Tale of the Sword, but their arguments were much weaker, the heartfelt story was a point that was tossed around again and again, with not much being said about the gameplay.
In the end, the dust were settled by the Game Committee announcing the results of this event.
Wulin Legend got first place, with Tale of the Sword in second.
Although there wasn’t any elaboration, it was the final world. It was the same as saying Wulin Legend was the best Wuxia Game with no compet.i.tion.
As the results were released, an article was released on the videogame editor congratulating Wulin Legend.
“For a long time, Chinese standalone games have been restricted to ‘kill monsters, gain levels, progress story’, and the players were getting bored of it. And yet designers were never inclined to reach out to better game mechanics as they continued to work on artwork and story. This made Chinese standalone games, especially Xianxia games into a genre with all looks and no personality.
“However, Wulin Legend completely overhauled this mode. It’s biggest positive was the amount of freedom it gave players. The players could pick and choose how they wanted to build their character using attributes and Wugong, and could even choose to play as good or evil. This overwhelming freedom had never been done by any other Chinese game.
“Although this game did have some flaws such as this high initial difficulty and bad tutorials, it didn’t affect its success. It still remains as the best standalone Wuxia game bar none.
“Maybe the other designers in the country stand to learn something from Wulin Legend, and look deeper into innovating new playstyles and move away from the thought that changing the story is the same as making a new game.”
This paragraph basically said that the Game Committee recognised position Wulin Legend among Chinese games, and even criticised games like Tale of the Sword who only paid attention to story and graphics, completely ignoring gameplay.
In the end, Chen Mo managed to get first place in this even, improving reputation within the videogame industry!
-Inside the experience store-
Su Jinyu was happily surprised, “Manager, look! Wulin Legend is on the promotional spot on the first page of the official app store!”
Chen Mo took a look, and Wulin Legend was indeed on the best possible promotional spot for a week.
The effects of the promotional spot on the number of sales were secondary, the most important part was getting his name out.
Furthermore, someone from the Game Committee and delivered a certificate to Chen Mo yesterday, with ‘Traditional Cultural Themed Games Event First Place’ written on it, along with a trophy, all of which were professionally given out by the officials.
As it was quite a prestigious trophy, Chen Mo let Su Jinyu clear out a spot on the bookshelves within the experience store for it.
“There were so many people who doubted you at the start of this, saying that it was too risky. But in reality, no matter the sales or professional reviews, Wulin Legend is considered to be extremely successful!” exclaimed Su Jinyu.
“I was actually quite worried at the start. I feared the players wouldn’t accept something like this, but it looks like I worried for nothing,” added Zheng Hongxi.
Chen Mo smiled, but didn’t say anything.
He was really confident in Wulin Legend and saw this coming from the start.
As a game that had their main selling point as the story, the story of Tale of the Sword didn’t even come close to the level of Chinese Paladin 1, it could only be considered as good.
How could a game with all looks with no personality compete with a cla.s.sic like Wulin Legend where players would play for more than six years?
In his previous life, Chinese games have encountered many obstacles, there were concerns with piracy, concerns with how much consumers were willing to spend, and concerns with developers and the market.
But no matter what the reason was, the result was that Chinese developers strayed farther and farther away from standalone games onto pay to win games. Even when they have the funds and skills, video game companies weren’t willing to make standalone games, which was quite sad.
Chen Mo chos Wulin Legend hoped to allow players of this world to experience a revolutionary Wuxia game, and give the Chinese standalone games a little inspiration.