《Who Murdered Our Games》 "Black Myth: Wukong" creator Feng Ji's reflection on the gaming industry from 2007

This is a beautifully written long article by Feng Ji (Yocar) from Game Science, the creator of "Black Myth: Wukong", published in 2007. It records his thoughts on the trouble of game development and the game industry at that time, and partially what ultimately drive him to create the game we love.

Looking back at this article, you will find that the current situation of the game industry is very similar to that of 17 years ago.

It took me a long time to translate this article, but I went through the effort because I believe it should be a mandatory read for anyone who is or wants to develop a successful game, and Yocar's suggestions deserve hearing. He just made the most played single player game of all time after all.

The following is the text of the article published by Feng Ji, translated formatted by me,
titled: "Who Murdered Our Games"

01. Citations

Failure! So let’s move on to the next failure!

At this moment, a large number of game development teams are heading towards failure. Close your eyes and imagine this picture, then open your eyes and look around. Is it happening to you?

In 2006, more than 60 self-developed online games were launched in China, but no more than 15 survived and were profitable. No doubt about it: more than 75% of projects either fail outright or fall far short of expectations! In China's increasingly competitive online game market, this proportion is even increasing.

The newly released games that are still hot on the market, without waiting for large-scale publicity, are silently poured into the swill bucket during various levels of internal testing. What about the rest? You try to recall the name of the domestically produced masterpiece that was announced with great fanfare on 17173 last month and sold out to a crowd of people for its open beta, but you can't name one at all. It is not an exaggeration to describe most of today's new online games as a flash in the pan.

What went wrong?

Who murdered our game?

Why do I look around and see bloody unfinished products everywhere?

Did the gold industry that “printed money while sleeping” from four years ago disappear?

Why do cute players suddenly become so chaotic and ferocious?

This article is not intended to analyze the external environment, market competition, cultural accumulation, user psychology, game content or various character issues, but just wants to analyze a small aspect within a game developer - that is, from the perspective of game planning that I am engaged in. Let’s look at the reasons for the failure of independent game development.

This article is not a guide on how to make a good plan, but rather expresses the author's personal views in a more emotional way, and lists practical lessons related to this, hoping to serve as a warning to those projects that have not completely failed.

02. Dead baby

Pregnant for ten months just to be stillborn.

This statement is a bit cruel, but if you have been in a game project team that eventually had to be disbanded, you should understand that this metaphor is appropriate.

Many games show this striking similarity: they are developed for a year or so, and then quickly die before most players see it.

This is related to investors' eagerness for quick success, or it can be related to poor decision-making, chaotic management, changes in market tastes, lack of team experience, or even the Indonesian tsunami. However, we cannot determine the most fundamental reason: is it because the sperm motility is not strong?? Was it because the pregnancy was not long enough? Is it because nutrition can’t keep up? Are the doctors responsible for caesarean sections of poor quality? Why can’t we always produce healthy babies (products) smoothly?

What's often overlooked about successful games is that they don't survive because they consume more resources and take longer than most of their dead brethren.

People always like to unconsciously exaggerate the elements of "elitism", "diligence" and "procrastination" in the development process of games (or other products). They cite many examples, such as "programmers discuss improvements to the physics engine all night long" and "artists repeatedly attempted using a 256-color palette, finally produced realistic tail flames," "Planning rejected nearly 30 different BOSS plans," "The manager desperately persuaded the board of directors to postpone the release for another year," and so on to confirm these views.

Is this really the case?

It is undeniable that both work attitude and external environment play a key role in the final success, but if everyone focuses on the few great works that are produced slowly and carefully, and have been sharpened for ten years, it will form a kind of avoidance, an avoidance of a comprehensive review of oneself.

The result of this is the emergence of a "big methodology" on how to make games well. Making games is regarded as a proposition composition. All discussions in the company about how to make games well have evolved into how to get closer to this "big methodology" seminar. In my opinion, this kind of uniform interpretation of successful people is really with ulterior motives. It offsets the questioning of the fundamental qualities of the game makers themselves to a certain extent, without questioning, let alone reflection and improvement.

Back to reality, look at which of the games on the market that are making a lot of money are copied from a unified template. Street Basketball is a good example, this game was a masterpiece created in a year, a team without much experience (their first title even failed) finished it in a hurry and later it became the sports online game with the highest market share. This is enough to remind us to look for something different from "outstanding leaders + elite gathering + years of hard work", something related to the gamers themselves.

Well, let us recall what the planners did before the tragic stillbirth occurred.

03. Cursed Team

I always wonder if some of the failed projects were lost at the starting line from the very beginning? If you focus this issue on game planning, it is not difficult to find that some things have sprouted in some people's minds from the beginning of a game. It can be described as an increasingly strong psychological suggestion - “I penetrated its inherent flaws so deeply that I already had a premonition of its inevitable final failure.”

Once your planner thinks this way, unfortunately, this team will be cursed by this invincible prophecy.

Please expand your memory again. This time the scene contains many screens - yes, the colorful monitors of colleagues in their spare time. Some pictures should quickly emerge in your mind: overlapping chat windows, 18+ pictures, new American TV series, old games from Blizzard or Valve...

Have you seen the game the project team is testing? No.

Please pay attention next time, if this is really the case, this is the most typical manifestation of being cursed.

Why not play your own game?

"Why don't we play our own game?"

Ask your colleagues this question one by one. Most people may laugh at you and disdain to answer; or someone may tell you more honestly: "What's so fun? This is what you work for every day, aren't you tired of it?" If this comes from a programmer or an artist, you can ignore it. Even if they don't like to play their own games, they can still do their jobs well, but they are just not outstanding enough. But if a similar answer comes from the project planner, creative director, planning director, etc., then unfortunately, maybe the worst-case scenario has happened:

The planning of the project, especially the lead planner, is not keen on playing his own game, which is an extremely dangerous sign in game development.

This statement is a cliché, very similar to "you don't like the game you make, let alone expect others to do it." However, for planning, I think this experience is worth mentioning frequently. Because more often than not, everyone has turned a blind eye to it.

My previous company had developed a fun little match-matching game. Almost everyone, not just developers, became loyal players of the game during this beta period. We teamed up to play games after get off work with great enthusiasm, feeling proud of our victories and new level titles.

I was in charge of its sound effects at the time. For this purpose, I made 3 different sets of sound effects to change the experience, including a set of black RAP-style sound effects, just for fun. After the game was officially launched, the number of people online quickly exceeded our expectations.

Please remember two things:

First, passion is not liking. No one will force you to like something, there will always be some people who don't like their ideas becoming reality. The problem is, if the planner doesn't even have the patience to invest a lot of spare time in his own game (this is called enthusiasm), how can he discover the real play-ability of this game? How does he understand those players who enjoy playing this game endlessly? How does he know what to do next to satisfy his users?

Second, a good game is worth playing at any time. If the planner uses "I got tired playing" as an excuse, he is basically saying: "I have given up and I don't see anything that can excite me about it (although I haven't played it much) My God! Don't let me continue to experience this ♥♥♥♥. I'm using my brain too much every day. Don't you know better than you? It can't be improved, not at all! "

Think about it seriously, don’t you feel hopeless?

When the core members of the project team, those "prophets" who are responsible for thinking about gameplay, constantly discovering new fun in games, and formulating the future development direction of the game, seemed to have received a divine revelation, and they saw in the future the project will fail completely, I felt hopelessly depressed about the dismal ending of my own work, and decided not to touch my own game anymore. Not only did I not touch it, I even started to hate it for bringing me so much frustration.

This is like when the soldiers still have hope for the prospect of war, the commanders are quietly preparing to surrender. Is there anything worse? In one observation of developers playing their own games, I noticed that the average gaming ability of planners was no higher than programmers and artists. The planner with the most points has less than 1/5 of the character experience, number of kills and games played by the client with the most points.

As for the art developer with the most points, his game score is approximately equal to the sum of all planner's scores.

Another scary fact is that most planners think that this emotion will not be noticed by others - yes, it seems that they have been working overtime, following up on every work in detail, running around and actively communicating with other people. Making humorless jokes. But the truth is often so simple and embarrassing:

They really, really rarely play their own game.

So, there is no need to be secretive anymore. When the planner shows pessimism about the game project he is working on, this attitude will sneak into everyone's heart like a spring rain and quickly spread throughout the team. Even the dullest members will soon be infected by this emotion, and then you will see the situation mentioned above: fewer and fewer colleagues are playing this game.

Negative planning is so destructive to a team, and the despair they bring to the team is so profound.

They should have been the group of people with the most motivation, enthusiasm and initiative, but now the most active job has become a passive behavior forced by the environment; they should have been the revolutionaries who promoted changes, but they have lost the minimum courage; they no longer willing to explore what else is there to evolve in this game, they are afraid of any big changes; they have no ambition, no confidence, let alone planning a vision and blueprint for "our baby"; they will blame the failure on various "right reasons", but they will never mention how they destroyed the spiritual foundation of a game development team - that we are making a fun game.

If you pay attention to their eyes, you may understand all this. They are a pool of stagnant water, and there is no burning flame of idealism in them.

The closer you are to planning, the further away you are from players.

04. Do you want to treat players like livestock?

Don’t be scared. In the domestic (online game) planning circle, discussions on similar topics are commonplace, no exaggeration. If you want to change it to a milder term, it can be described as:

The stupid online game industry has spawned a bunch of idiots like me who ponder the following five propositions every day:

1. How to keep players addicted.

2． How to get players to spit out more money.

3． How to get players to form gangs.

4． How to make players hate each other.

5. How to implement hidden cash gambling and gold coin transactions.

Please believe me, almost all companies that develop online games will require the planning and design of a large number of functional modules to achieve the above five points. The standard to measure whether a plan, especially numerical planning, is excellent is to see whether the above points are thoroughly implemented in the actual operation of the game. Of course, different types of games will have different emphases.

As a result, in a considerable number of game development teams, the focus of planning work is not on how to make the game more fun and richer, but on how to make players addicted, get them used to fighting against each other, swearing and killing, and making legal online cash activities (gambling, virtual item trading, etc.).

Naturally, many unique things have emerged in online games: first, there is a steady stream of new maps/new monsters/new levels/new equipment, then this reincarnation, that ascension; then there are double experience, family system, small speakers, ranking list, kicking rights, anti-kick rights; there are also lottery cards, gold coin areas, 10x gold coin areas, 50x gold coin areas... Compared with those outdated and traditional stand-alone elements, these new things have gained economic benefits. Remarkable, even unprecedented success.

So we celebrated together, applauded our creativity, and danced with joy for exploring a prosperous path for online gaming with Chinese characteristics.

This is really the strangest phenomenon in the world of online game research and development: we have become mathematicians who analyze whether a certain series general term is reasonable and constantly do curve integrals to solve differential equations; we have become physicians who study how to improve patients' drug dependence and constantly improve drug purify technologies; we have become professional agitators and weapons providers who encourage people to ignore the rules of reality, vent their personal emotions at will, and intensify various conflicts; we have become bookmakers in underground casinos and middlemen in various black market transactions.

We became experienced game planners.

The chief planner of my last project was a person who was extremely obsessed with numbers. He is good at reshaping all aspects related to games that contain numbers, including game scores, power parameters, reward ratios for an event, etc. He is always able to keenly discover every inconvenience, and then re-write a new magical formula to improve these inaccuracies, and spends a lot of time testing and perfecting it. But whenever he indulges in these so-called "balances" and "reasonableness", players are quietly lost due to the lack of game content and the monotony of gameplay.

05. Interlude: Starting from anti-addiction

China is going to release an "Anti-Addiction System for Online Games". This is nothing new. But why doesn’t Japan, South Korea, Europe, and even the United States, which has the highest Internet penetration rate, only use a game rating system instead of a rigid method like forcing a time limit to control the audience?

Why is it that only China has introduced such regulations that seem to seriously harm emerging markets?

Someone must have jumped out: "China's policy formulation has always been so rough."

I can only say that you are too naive, too simple, too young!

It’s because national conditions determine everything. Only China has such a large number of "frustrated people". When the market itself is no longer able to make correct adjustments, the state must use administrative means to bring order to the chaos.

What are frustrated people?

My definition is people who cannot obtain a sufficient sense of achievement in reality, are at a loss under the current education system, and feel uneasy and lost in the fierce social competition.

The characteristics of frustrated people determine that they are the best natural users of the Internet. In a country that is extremely overpopulated and whose society is in a period of transformation, the huge number of this group of people has directly led to China becoming the largest country with the largest number of Internet users and online games in just a few years.

It is not difficult to understand this when we recall how Internet cafes suddenly bloomed in the streets overnight, and how Internet addiction became a well-known social hazard.

What does it mean that the market itself cannot be regulated correctly? A British economist once said something that we are all familiar with:
"Capital is afraid of no profit or too little profit, just like nature is afraid of a vacuum. Once there is an appropriate profit, capital becomes bold. If there is 10% profit, it is guaranteed to be used everywhere; with 20% profit, it becomes active; with 50% profit, it takes desperate risks; with 100% profit, it dares to trample all human laws; with 300% profit, it dares to commit any crime and even risk hanging in the event of unrest. If strife can bring profit, it dares to encourage unrest and war.”

What's behind online game operators? It's capital.

What is the essence of online games? It is a virtual sense of existence and accomplishment.

What do China’s huge frustrated people see in the eyes of capital? It is the best and most delicious sheep ready for slaughter; it is a super gold mine that cannot be found anywhere in the world; it is perfect, uncultivated, and the most fertile virgin land.

Now we can slightly change the classic quotation:

"Online game operators are afraid of no profit or too little profit, just like their servers are afraid of power outages in the computer room. Once there is an appropriate profit, online game operators forget the original sin of the game. If there is a 10% profit, it is guaranteed to publicize everywhere; with 20% of the profits, it starts to lie about its goodness and the many benefits of playing online games; with 50% of the profits, it takes desperate risks and plays on the weaknesses of human nature, just to make users addicted to its own product; with 100% profit, it dares to produce any illegal content and trample on all real rules, even if public complaints are overwhelming; with 300% profit, it dares to incite players to do the most perverted and crazy things, and even risk physical danger. If the collapse of a generation can bring profits, it dares to encourage them to collapse.”

I would like to ask, under such national conditions, how can we expect this "invisible hand" to implement effective regulation?

If the state does not take action to stop it, how crazy will it become?

Please remember that in the eyes of capital, you will never see those crying parents and players who died suddenly. Corpses are its delicacies, and tears are its condiments. It lives on it and never tires of it.

Therefore, don’t really believe it when you hear that several major online game companies have created a “Beijing Declaration” in Beijing, saying that they firmly support anti-addiction and will not affect the profits of online games. That is a typical Chinese characteristic of “the government sets up a platform and enterprises singing opera” farce. Once the "Online Game Anti-Addiction System" is implemented tomorrow, I guarantee that several bosses will burst into tears at midnight.

06. The Dark Side of the Force

In "Star Wars", the Force is the most powerful energy in the universe that life can control. It is divided into two sides, the light side and the dark side, just like light and shadow.

The light side gave birth to the Jedi, and the dark side created Darth Vader. The Jedi use their power to defend justice and the equal rights of all life, while the Sith do whatever it takes to satisfy their own desires.

If we compare the Force to today's online games. Think of the bright side of the Force as the healthy fun that players get from games; and understand the dark side of the Force as the boundless greed of the capital behind game operators. Then our game planners are just like young Anakin Skywalker. His Force is so powerful - if he has a firm belief, the Force in the world can maintain balance and stability; if he falls, the entire galaxy will fall into chaos. There is no recovery.

In order to understand whether the planning of your project team has gone to the dark side of the Force, please ask him this question immediately: "Of all the work you have done, the part can really improve the gameplay, and the part that only considers making money and have nothing to do with the fun. How much does each part account for?”

A cunning planner will lie to you that any work that seems to have nothing to do with the gameplay will actually increase the player's fun to a certain extent.

Unfortunately, he has been too deeply eroded by the dark force. Never believe such lies, just like online game operators will never admit that "the more you stay at home and be useless, the happier I am and the HIGHER I am."

Returning to the previous topic, through a simple criticism of the entire industry, it should be possible to initially explain why planning is getting further and further away from players. The most fundamental reason is that capital has alienated the original intention of making online games. Online games are first positioned as a service business that can continue to make money. All work is required to revolve around "sustained profitability" and "letting users stay in it for hundreds or thousands of hours." The original intention was just to "create interesting things."

This does not excuse the planning. The deeper reason why online games have become the target of public criticism is indeed the dark power of capital.

I just want to remind you of another danger: inspired by such a powerful dark force, the planners who are weak begin to show a trend of overall degeneration. We are gradually forming a new guiding ideology for game planning. Its core is not about how to make "interesting games that make players happy", but how to design a successful Internet trap.

What's more serious is that a considerable number of outstanding planners in China have already stood on this dark side, fueling this. They are constantly and diligently adding a lot of experience from practice, and using the knowledge of psychology and statistics to provide solutions for the problem. Sublimate it into various rules and theories.

What characteristics might indicate this tendency toward depravity? Please check your project team to see if it meets the following eight criteria:

Innovation on the game's original framework has been compressed to almost nothing;

Planners rarely do forward-thinking; they do more with analogies, embellishments and plagiarism;

As components of stand-alone games, online games have significantly lower requirements for completion, such as character emotions, world view, mission plot, and music and sound effects;

Players are treated as mathematical models, and the feelings of individual players can be completely ignored in all decisions;

Planners generally have a mentality of being superior to players, and they have no piety towards the "God (customer)" who loves their games;

If it is not a job requirement, most planners are not willing to actively, directly, and frequently communicate with players, let alone have them interfere with their personal time;

Senior (numerical) planners are measured by designing systems that are powerfully addictive, and they pride themselves on this;

What bosses often say is "I only care about whether it makes me money."

Please take this prediction seriously.

Not only because of the greedy nature of capital, but also because our country happens to be in such a deformed ecosystem that lacks the cultural accumulation of stand-alone games and dominates the online game market. In such a general environment, any spark of quick success is more likely to start a prairie fire than at other times!

Maybe one day there will really be a time when online games are no longer games, they are conspiracies composed of gorgeous graphics and a refined numerical system. At that time, online gamers were no longer gamers in the traditional sense. They were no different from drug addicts. Welcome to NHK!

In the first half of 2006, I took over a project aimed at diversifying the diversity of players in the game. To this end, I examined a number of single-player games and analyzed how they improved replay rates.

During the inspection, I made a lot of records on settings such as special achievements and additional rewards. In the end, I wrote a lengthy list of special medals for our game.

One consequence of this work is that my perspective on stand-alone games has unconsciously changed. Every time I come into contact with a new game in the future, I can always keenly find out what they have done, so that players can enjoy it after completing the level. You can also continue playing for longer periods of time.

But I must have forgotten that those things are just embellishments and Easter eggs, not the reason for their popularity.

From the origin of capital to planning and conspiracy, it can be said that the taste of an online game has completely turned bad. It is no longer an ice cream made to bring players happiness. It is a tailor-made, precision-guided sugar-coated cannonball. Its mission is pure and cruel - to squeeze out all their money, even if it destroys their will and body.

Although this article focuses on discussing the responsibility of planners for the failure of the game, I have to point out pessimistically: although most "pure profit" oriented online games are quickly exposed and killed; although mature players with the ability to think and responsible media are keenly aware of this danger; although in the current market, games that do not treat players as human beings have a slim chance of survival.
BUT. Those game planners who thought they were clever, who are sophisticated and evil did not wake up, and they were still quietly brewing more conspiracies.

They are a group of Sith who truly believe in their hearts that "you can only make money from online games through addiction" and "playing online games is making electronic opium." They are industry elites highly praised by capital. They have experienced hundreds of battles and are strong-willed. They make up the majority. Even I am just one of the juniors who has not yet been swallowed up by the darkness.

At the beginning of 2006, when "Zhengtu" had just emerged, someone initiated an internal discussion group in the company. The planners had heated debates about a series of "crooked" practices such as "Zhengtu"'s paid equipment, power-training dolls, etc., and how much money did Shi Yuzhu make. There were various different voices at the beginning, but in the end, the topic of discussion became "Should we also be as evil as Zhengtu?" My dear players, I heard your sad wailing behind me, but capital always smiles charmingly at me from the front.

07. The embarrassment of operational planning

"You planners are all ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? Only idiots would participate in such stupid events!"

Hearing this, you may feel aggrieved. Isn’t the event calendar on the official website full? Attack the city today, draw the lottery tomorrow, double the experience on the weekend, and the voting for the "XX Angel" selection finals will officially begin next week. But those dissatisfied guys don't show any mercy on the forum, and they always complain endlessly that the current events are the same and have no new ideas.

"Online Game Development" pointedly pointed out that half of online games are services.

This service, when implemented in planning, is basically equivalent to the work of operational planning. Don't underestimate their influence on the success or failure of the game. If the early game planning determines who will come to play, then the later operational planning will determine how many players will stay.

Browsing the recruitment advertisements of major online game companies, it is not difficult to find that the requirements for operational planning are obviously lower than other planning. The requirements for operational planning are usually "beautiful writing, able to withstand pressure, be hard-working, and have experience in more than one online game", while the requirements for game planning are "familiar with history; proficient in fantasy literature and AD&D systems; have a deep understanding of similar products in the market; and be good at writing and expression”.

It’s almost like one is physical labor and the other is mental labor!

The original reason for this difference may be some kind of bad nature in the human subconscious - we stubbornly believe that the original thinkers and creators are better than the producers and operators who continue to develop on this basis. In the single player era, there was no concept of operational planning in the team. Since then, we have slowly developed a habit of believing that great game planning is indispensable to the success of a game, but we never mention excellent operational planning.

Can we understand this new online game thing in such a simplistic way?

When I first joined a game company, I was doing operational planning for an ongoing MMORPG. The first task I got was to "write a campaign within three months."

Later, this requirement gradually changed to "continuous small events and one big event every month", so I had to make some templates to cope with so many needs.

I never asked why so many events needed to be written. No one has ever asked me what I think of the next version of the game. At least what I understand about the current situation is that most of the time the task of operational planning can be simply stated as "don't leave players idle."

In most cases, the planning director will not ask his operational planners to predict and analyze the sensitive groups, inputs and outputs, possible risks, long-term impacts and other factors involved in each event proposal; nor will they analyze and summarize the effects from the events that have ended, or record the gains and losses for comparison.

In the long run, due to the lack of effective reference and systematic standards, whether any event is carried out or not depends only on the perceptual feasibility or in-feasibility of the decision-maker.

Operational planners are supposed to be the group of planners who best understand the needs of players, but the reality is that they are separated from the superior "core planners" who can actually do something to improve the gameplay. They have indeed organized events under harsh conditions that have been well-received by players, but due to the long-term neglect of opinions and the numerous and boring demands, more events have become stereotyped, hasty and irresponsible.

Meticulous about the damage value of a certain skill in the game, and turns a deaf ear to the obvious lack of rigor and unfairness of a certain event. This kind of thinking that emphasizes design over operation in planning, this kind of "non-planning level" requirement standard for operation planning, is undoubtedly a hidden time bomb to online games, especially an online game that has already have a certain number of players.

Unable to avoid vulgarity, I still tried to find out some immature and emotional operational planning experiences, for reference only.

Which events made players complain afterwards?

1. Events that require players to continuously spend money

2. Events that can easily lead to cheating and cheesing to score points

3. Events with manipulations to determines the final ownership of the prize.

4. Events that are difficult to sign up for and have cumbersome procedures

5. Events with overly simple and crude gifts

6. Monotonous, repetitive Events that remain unchanged for a long time

7. Events that do not give fair treatment to all players

8. Events that tend to cause conflicts among players

What events are most popular among players?

1. Free, convenient and easy to attend event

2. Events that reflect the technical strength of the game

3. Events that promote teamwork among players

4. Events that offer super special rewards

5. Events offering new game content

6. Events that encourage players to interact with each other

7. Events where the system automatically refreshes the winning results

8. Events where players participate in activities that build the game world

9. Events that match real life holiday themes

10. Rich and diverse tasks

11. Events closely related to the new version of the game

12. Events targeting player interests

13. A campaign to declare war on in-game malicious behaviors

14. Activities that are quite different from the main goal of the game (such as mini-games, quizzes, etc.)

15. Gender-themed events

Which events should be held with caution?

1. Expensive offline competitions

2. Various unrelated sponsorship activities

3. Events that require a lot of manpower supervision

4. Survey activities that do not receive enough attention

5. Charter activities that are not adequately prepared in advance

6. Collaborate with charity organizations (your reputation will be tied with the organization)

7. A public talent show to select player stars

08. Why bother planning?

After saying so many bad things about the planner, I finally wanted to express the planner’s grievances, but I had no intention of overturning the verdict.

Let me point out a fact first: Even in Europe and the United States, where we always believe that creativity is valued, the income of programmers/program supervisors is still nearly 30% more than planners/chief planners at the same level, and artists are about 5% to 10% more. This may be different from the advertising industry. In the gaming industry, products must go through programming before they can actually be produced.

The reason is simple: the program requires creativity and professional skills. Art requires creativity as well as professional skills. Planning requires creativity, a keen sense, much experience, and good expression skills, but no one regards these as professions.

If the program is missing, product = 0. If art is lacking, the product will look terrible. If there is a lack of planning, the product can still be successfully born. Programmers may not necessarily have a worse understanding of usability than planning. Artists may not necessarily be worse than planning in expressing a sense of enjoyment. If the planner says that he has a deep understanding of the gameplay, the programmer and the artist will laugh.

I admit that great games always come from great ideas, and great ideas usually come from great game designers. But the era when technology determines games has not completely passed. The endless FPS and new hardware technologies emerging at E3 every year can illustrate the problem. After the gameplay has accumulated a lot of basic rules, the level of technology is still the decisive factor that affects whether the game sells well.

Besides, no one believes you can design a "great game".

So, in fact, the difference in the importance of programming and art planning is so obvious and ubiquitous. Perhaps only Japanese "game producers" are the exception, but Shigeru Miyamoto and his colleagues have more than 20 years of experience in game production, and they are the enlighteners of the entire game industry. Only this kind of accumulation allowed them to achieve a higher existence beyond the general division of labor.

Having said that, let’s go back to the title of this section - if you are always actively writing documents and designing numerical values, others will think that you are very qualified and respect you, but they will never think that you should get the same or even better salary than them just because of this. If you can make a prototype in 7 days, can propose a more efficient algorithm to solve current problems, and can directly design and produce a rendering of a certain UI, others will respect and admire you.

In my short work experience, I can basically prove that the above statement is true.

Conclusion

Don’t forget, we are planners, and the boss also expects us to surpass others in creativity/experience/writing/vision/interests/communication/foreign languages, etc.

From this point of view, although many people think planning is easy, in terms of future development, it is indeed not a career suitable for many people.

Suddenly I remembered that in the first season of CSI, the boss Gil said that your sorrow is that you treat it as a job.




The road is still long, the wind is still strong, and the evil spirits are rising.










Written by: Yocar
February 8, 2007 in Shenzhen, China
Translate and formatted by: GJComedian
Source: 《黑神话：悟空》制作人冯骥2007年旧文：谁谋杀了我们的游戏|网游|单机游戏|网络游戏|黑神话悟空_网易订阅 (https://www.163.com/dy/article/JA1RHNSA05268BP2.html)

[skywater936]

讚

[Super灬金]

nice

[MawkishTREX~Sondheimite~]

阁下的考妣谋杀了

[Chen]

赞

[Collin]

写得不错，可惜没买游戏点不了赞

[Repairedbee82]

Idk how to give you 5 star review, but man... this is too real what gaming industry is at right now than it was 17 years ago. Thank you for translating!