Chapter 53: Chapter 52 The Soul of Card Games
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
In his previous life, Plants vs Zombies swept the globe, earning millions of US dollars in just nine days, breaking many records.
If it were sold at three USD per copy and it made 1.5 million in sales, it would rake in 4.5 million USD in sales, or about 27 million RMB.
On the other hand, what was the monthly profit for I Am MT?
In 2013, when the Chinese mobile games market was in its early years of development, I Am MT made fifty-five million RMB!
Plants vs Zombies relied on the global market. I Am MT only utilized the Chinese market!
Plants vs Zombies was a standalone game relying on sales, the number of sales would inevitably decrease over time. On the other hand, I Am MT was a free game. Even after operating for three to your years, it’s profitability never decreases, and even continued pushing updates.
The success of Plants vs Zombies could not be replicated, but I Am MT’s profit model could be reproduced again and again!
When the two were compared, the profitability of Chinese card games was obvious.
I Am MT showed the Chinese card game genre to the world, and made a path for Chinese developers. As the benchmark for card games, I Am MT was copied many times, and similar games still showed up four years after its release.
I Am MT was well worthy of the t.i.tle of “The Original People’s Card Game”, and held the top spot at the app store for a long time before Soul Hunters made revolutionary changes to the genre
Chen Mo wanted to utilize the same profit model as other Chinese games, and I Am MT was the first step. Its features were very suitable for what Chen Mo was currently looking for.
The first feature was that it was easy to make! Most of the art for I Am MT was on character cards. Coding, level design, playstyle, and original art weren’t problems for Chen Mo now.
Its playstyle was quite simple, and the rules are also clear. As long as the art was of acceptable quality, the actual development time wasn’t too long, maybe two to three months at most.
The second feature was that it was appropriate. I Am MT didn’t rely on the other Chinese games, which relied on inciting negative emotions to force players to spend money. It was in fact the exact opposite. The game treated free players extremely well, giving out a lot of free runes, especially during the holiday season.
Moreover, the game didn’t have highly strategic PVP or group PVP aspects, therefore free players would feel less frustration.
Chen Mo had to consider the threshold for players in the parallel world. If he started with heavy firepower, the players might not be able to take the frustration. He might end up being on the receiving end of angry fans, damaging his name in the process, and when that happened, he might have to crossdress.
From that perspective, I Am MT was a decent game for testing the limits of the players!
The third feature was that it was easy to promote!
Chen Mo had given this point a lot of thought.
What was the core of card games? It wasn’t playstyle, but IP, intellectual property!
IP was a buzzword in the Chinese video game industry. Many video game developers would throw money at protecting their IP, many video game designers wouldn’t shut up about IP. It would come up more often than eating.
Why was IP so important, and why is it worth so much money?
In card games, IP decided the card’s worth. If you had Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, and I had Hawks and Zoro[1], the two games would obviously have completely different player bases, and the price that the players were willing to pay for a legendary card would also be different.
Three Kingdoms were essentially the worst IP, because everyone was familiar with it. There were many companies who made games using that theme.
In his previous world, Naruto, One Piece, Fate[2], or Jin Yong’s[3] works were the most popular IPs. As long as you got those IPs, making money was easy by changing the art on some existing game.
A card game without an IP was a card game without a soul. Yes, it was that extreme! If you wanted to make a card game, you needed to have an IP!
Chen Mo had considered how to solve the IP problem when he decided on making a card game.
His first thought was to buy a larger IP in the parallel world, but he gave up soon after learning the prices.
The people in this world had better knowledge of intellectual rights and preferred to support the originals, therefore the prices for IP were also higher. In his previous world, a popular IP would be in the realm of seven digits, but it would only be higher in this world.
Of course, not all IPs were that expensive. For example, popular but non-mainstream novels, or anime IPs could be acquired for a few hundred thousand. However, seeing that their success would be limited, Chen Mo decided against it.
You always get what you pay for when buying IP. Paying for a less popular IP would be a waste of money.
Chen Mo was now stuck in the situation where he didn’t want the cheap IPs, but couldn’t afford the expensive ones. Even if he could afford them, he wasn’t about to spend that much money!
Therefore, Chen Mo decided to make his own IP, and I Am MT would be the most suitable IP.
Of course, Chen Mo had other choices, such as redrawing One Piece or Naruto, or rewriting The Legend of the Condor Heroes, or Demi-G.o.ds and Semi-Devils?[4]
-That might be a bit too much…-
Novels and anime required a long time to gain popularity. Moreover, with Chen Mo’s current art skills, he couldn’t hope to reach the likes of One Piece or Naruto. If he managed to draw a chapter a week, who knew how long it would take to reach a reasonable level of popularity.
Although novels were slightly faster, they weren’t suitable for going straight from writing to game. They usually went through a movie, animated series, and then finally developed into a game. Novels that were made straight into a game were few and far between.
That was because the character of novels relied on the reader’s imagination, and the characters in the games were concrete. The process of going from imagination to being concrete required the characters being slowly set into the minds of the readers, ensuring that the IP would take off.
After going through many different choices, I Am MT was the easiest to recreate, and what Chen Mo thought was the best choice.
The animation industry in this world was doing quite well. As long as Chen Mo provided an animation company with character designs, story, and scenes, the quality of the product probably wouldn’t be too far from the original in the previous world.
After all, I Am MT was created by a couple fans of animated series turned games, meaning that it was low cost.
I Am MT was very popular. It’s first episode received more than thirty million views on iQiyi[5], and was sometimes even referred to as a cultural phenomenon, becoming part of the memories for WoW[6] players and animation fans alike.
Therefore, it was entirely possible to make this into a super popular IP, which would allow Chen Mo’s game to start off flying!
Of course, there were also risks involved…
The biggest problem was that part of I Am MT’s success relied to some extent on the story and large user base for World of Warcraft. There wasn’t a game called World of Warcraft in this world, so the audience might not understand some parts of it.
For example, what did MT mean? What was the Main Tank’s job? Why does MT have that job? What features do people with the same job have? Why was he the main character?
These things didn’t need to be explained to World of Warcraft players, but could the audience in the parallel world understand the references to World of Warcraft in I Am MT?
Taking a step back, if they didn’t understand it, would it affect how popular the animated series got?
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TL Notes:
[1] Character from One Piece, an anime
[2] Fate is a video game series by Type-Moon
[3] Jin Yong is a famous Chinese novelist
[4] Wuxia (Chinese martial arts novels) by Jin Yong
[5] iQiYi is a Chinese video streaming platform
[6] World of Warcraft