Chapter 278 Data Analysis

January 13, Tuesday.

It was the fifth day since Lecturer Ding's team discovered a major hidden bug in Shadow World!

If the player forum was abuzz and Anti-Heaven was calm, then there were undercurrents in several other game companies.

The same was true for Shengjing Group.

At this time, in the office of the vice president of Shengjing Group's game business group, Kang Yong was talking to a man who looked very delicate.

This man was called Ji Heng, who was also a very high-ranking game producer in Shengjing Group's game business group. The project he was responsible for was called Star World, an MMORPG game launched four years ago, which was also a Western fantasy theme.

Among the MMORPG games of the year, although Star World did not achieve the top one, it was able to survive and always maintain a good number of online users. At the same time, it accumulated a lot of game content through the accumulation and update of versions one by one, which in itself can be regarded as a success.

As of last month, Star World could still contribute more than 10 million net income to Shengjing Group in a single month.

Although this number is not exaggerated in the game industry, this level of income is enough to become a key project within Shengjing Group. Ji Heng has secured his position as a first-line producer in Shengjing Group's game business group with this game.

However, unlike Wei Chengjie, Ji Heng's resume looks more glamorous.

Before joining Shengjing Group, Wei Chengjie had worked in many small companies, while Ji Heng graduated from a top 3 prestigious university in China. As soon as he graduated, he joined Shengjing Group's key projects as a core planner, and then directly became the chief planner of "Star World".

It can be said that in the entire game industry, there are very few game producers like Ji Heng who have gone smoothly and have hardly experienced any setbacks.

At this time, Ji Heng was not particularly clear why Vice President Kang Yong called him, but he vaguely guessed it.

"Against Heaven's new game, "Shadow World", have you paid attention to it?" Kang Yong asked.

Ji Heng nodded: "Of course."

As the producer of "Star World", Ji Heng must pay attention to all MMORPG games around the world. This is the most basic quality of a game producer.

Even if you can't play all types of games, you must have a deep understanding of the same type of competitive games as yourself. This is part of the job.

What's more, since the launch of "Shadow World", no matter whether players are lost or not, at least the discussion on the Internet has been very high. A few days ago, such a big event of all professions was made, which pushed the discussion of this game on the Internet to a peak.

It's difficult for Ji Heng not to pay attention.

"Lao Wei just jumped to this company. Do you think... Is there a shadow of Lao Wei behind this game?" Kang Yong seemed to be a little upset about Wei Chengjie's job change.

Ji Heng thought about it, then shook his head: "I don't think so.

"I am familiar with Lao Wei's style of making games. Although he is more radical than me, he will not jump out of the existing framework as a whole.

"It's not like he can make such a drastic change like Shadow World.

"Moreover, for a small company like Against Heaven Games, Shadow World is a major project that will drag down the capital chain. If it fails, it may even cause the company to go bankrupt. To make such a high-risk attempt on such a major game project, it must be the company's boss or the original core production personnel who have the power. Old Wei has just been there for a short time, so it's impossible for him to make the final decision on such a thing."

After hearing what Ji Heng said, Kang Yong felt a little better.

If Shadow World was created by Old Wei, Kang Yong would really be depressed.

After all, Shengjing Group has money and people here. If Old Wei doesn't leave, then Shadow World will not be a product of Shengjing Group, right?

Now that he knows that this game was not created by Old Wei, but just helped, Kang Yong feels a little relieved.

"Then what do you think of the full-professional gameplay of Shadow World?" Kang Yong asked again.

Ji Heng hesitated for a moment, and then said: "Mr. Kang, can I say that I don't think highly of this model?

"I think the popularity of this game is only temporary and cannot be sustained."

Kang Yong nodded without comment: "Well, tell me in detail?"

Ji Heng explained: "The reason is very simple. The key to MMORPG games is "balance".

"There should be a balance between professions, between camps, and between the experiences of players of different levels.

"Balance runs through the entire MMORPG game.

"Because MMORPG games are social games after all, if there is an imbalance, it means that some players have gained excessive happiness, which in turn means that the happiness of other people has been reduced.

"Weak players affected by the imbalance will quit the game, and those strong players who have gained excessive happiness will stay, but as time goes by and new imbalances appear, new weak players will be differentiated from them.

"If this differentiation continues one after another, once the number of players leaving exceeds a certain threshold, the MMORPG game will inevitably collapse.

"The successful experience of "Star Spirit World" is to constantly adjust the balance of various professions and gameplays, weaken overly strong professions as quickly as possible, so as to better maintain the entire game IDE ecosystem.

"And the game "Shadow World", or the game company "Nitiantang", can never do this.

"They have always been reluctant to make too many changes and adjustments to the game, which is a taboo for MMORPG games.

"This also means that "Shadow World" must be an unbalanced game, and it is likely to remain unbalanced in the future."

Kang Yong did not respond immediately. Obviously, he did not completely agree with Ji Heng's words.

After thinking about it for a while, Kang Yong changed the question: "So what do you think, is the full-professional gameplay of "Shadow World" a bug, or is it intentional by Nitiantang? Deliberately designed like this?"

Ji Heng shook his head slightly: "I don't know. It's mainly because every game before Nitiantang is like this. It seems to be a bug, but it looks like a mechanism after careful study. But looking back, it seems to be a bug.

"However, whether it is a bug or a mechanism, I don't think it will affect my judgment.

"Shadow World will not be a very successful MMORPG game. Its player churn rate must be very high. And it will inevitably get higher and higher as time goes by."

Kang Yong was silent for a moment, and took out a document from the side: "But... our data analysis department came to the exact opposite conclusion."

Ji Heng was a little surprised. He reached out to take the document and found that it was a report from the internal data analysis department of Shengjing Group.

It can be seen that this report was rushed out in the past two days.

The data of the number of simultaneous online users and player retention of "Shadow World" are all commercial secrets, and only the internal staff of the game can query them.

However, large companies like Shengjing Group have a dedicated data analysis department, and can also roughly estimate the data of competing games through other channels and means.

For example, many third-party websites or game plug-ins have the function of querying the real-time number of people on the server, and Shengjing Group will also develop some corresponding software on its own. After installing the plug-in and logging into the game, you can directly query the current server number and other related data.

At present, almost all MMORPG games will not disable plug-ins, unless it is a direct cheating behavior that affects the balance of the game, the official will turn a blind eye, or even acquiesce.

This is because the content of MMORPG games is too complicated. Without plug-ins, many players will be unable to move forward.

The same is true for the game Against Heaven.

Therefore, the data analysis department of Shengjing Group only needs to find several popular servers in "Shadow World" and count the number of players in a specific time period to get some relevant data.

Combined with the hot search keywords on the Internet, the popularity of player discussions and other data for comprehensive analysis, it can also draw roughly correct conclusions.

Even in terms of the professionalism of the data analysis department of Shengjing Group, Shengjing Group's understanding of the game data of some small companies even surpasses these companies themselves.

After seeing the detailed data, Ji Heng couldn't help but widen his eyes.

Because what he saw was an incredible data!

From the external data, in addition to a wave of concentrated publicity and diversion when the game was first launched, Against Heaven has never carried out large-scale publicity activities.

However, in terms of player forums and player discussions, "Shadow World" has always been high, and it has also shown a trend of continuous growth.

On the night when Lecturer Ding discovered the hidden mechanism of the game, the discussion of "Shadow World" rose sharply, and it instantly generated great heat!