How to evaluate the domestic space FPS game "Border" priced at $25 in the US region and only 68 RMB in the Chinese region?
61% Recommended by Zhihu friends
Hello everyone, I am the CEO of 柳叶刀, Li Mingbo, coming uninvited.
Speaking of why it's sold for 68 in the Chinese region, in fact, from the beginning of the project, we said we wanted to create a game that everyone could afford. This wasn't a last-minute decision, but rather because we have all been poor before, and I want our team's work, "Border," to be accessible to everyone with a low threshold.
The border finally went live after all the challenges it had faced. When it went live, I counted down with the development team, and when we reached 0, I couldn't control my emotions and cried in front of everyone.
In fact, making games has been my dream since I was very young. When I was in elementary school, one day my father told me that he had taken a sick leave from school and took me to a large computer exhibition in the country. There, what attracted me the most as a child was still the games. At that time, I was particularly fascinated by games, arcade games, the NES, and computer games, which had a great appeal to me. The biggest surprise my father gave me was buying me a Dendy during my college entrance exam year. Many of my classmates envied me at that time. Making games was my dream back then.
After entering college, when the internet was not yet widespread, I really didn't know how to get into the game industry. The idea of developing games as a career seemed as distant as the moon. I started to indulge myself, playing games every day, and my grades suffered. Games became a tool for me to escape reality, and I daydreamed about creating fun games every day. This went on for a long time, and I once thought that game development might be very far away from me.
Finally, one day, when I learned that there were universities in the UK offering game development courses, I realized this was what I wanted, and I went to the UK without hesitation. After graduation, when I got my first game programmer job in Newcastle, you can imagine how I felt. After 11 years of game development in the UK, my life began to stabilize, and I thoroughly enjoyed every day. Due to my parents' age and health, I returned to my home country.
At that time, console game development was only available in some foreign companies. By chance, I met CT and Colt, and we talked for the whole night during our first meeting. I saw their game concept Border Plan, and was deeply attracted. I decided then and there to partner with them to turn this concept into a game. They called themselves the Scalpel Team, which I thought was very cool, so I decided to name our future company Scalpel as well. Unfortunately, during the business registration, "Scalpel" could not be registered as it was considered a specialized industry term, so we replaced it with "Bistoury."
Until today, it feels like everything happened just yesterday, from receiving investment in 2016 to the launch of Border. We have encountered many challenges. Initially, we started making the game because of our love for Border. In the past 2 to 3 years, we gradually realized that in China, there needs to be someone creating this type of high-visual, high-quality game. There are too few teams like ours, and many developers like us hope to join this industry, but there are too few opportunities. Someone has to take on the challenge, and we are one of those people. Border may not yet be comparable to overseas AAA titles, but Border is at least a beginning. Seven years have not been easy, without dreams, there would be no persistence.
Finally, we still want to say one thing to our friends who support us:
Thank you
Thank you for playing our game.
Li Mingbo, Frank
Published on 2023-04-14 22:36・IP Location Guangdong