Well, I feel like a joke myself...
But to say that no one invests in people is definitely not the truth. Now all the teams are at their own expense, and I don’t believe it. Just like the H5 game, it has to be promoted once every two years and then fell to the bottom two years later. However, during this ups and downs, investments have been made. It is said that there are several games on the market that use the set-top box to make games with a monthly income of more than one million. It is impossible for everyone to sing.
In fact, Ninetowns had already started to test video games via set-top boxes in 2008. But at the time, the set-top box hardware was not yet mature, and the size of the game pack was limited to a few M. The experience was also far away from PC games and mobile games, similar to the early functions. Machine game. However, the popularity of feature machines was not different from that of today's smart machines. Therefore, the logic of the entire industry evolution of mobile games cannot be fully applied to video games.
One of the major challenges first encountered was the audience of television. Traditional TV users are middle-aged and elderly people in the family. Teenagers are diverted by computers, mobile phones and tablets. So early video game users were basically around the age of 30-45. Many of them were full-time ladies and played some casual games at home. The group was small and poor, and the elderly as a mainstream crowd could hardly become a video game. Audience.
Another challenge is the replacement of televisions and TV boxes. Although TVs are getting cheaper now, not to mention television boxes, but first they are at home, the second hardware is fully enough for core applications (video), and the hardware level of the third start is already high, so there is no Particularly strong replacement requirements. On the one hand, the elimination time is too long, and it will be replaced when it is damaged or a new demand is discovered. The hardware and system architecture may have been upgraded across generations, so the experience is also fragmented.
As developers, there are also many difficulties -
Difficult to do one: Poor hardware performance, high user requirements
In 2014, the chips used in domestic mainstream TV sets and boxes were generally MStar918, Realtek2995D, Rockchip3188, and Amlogic M8. None of these chips are based on the ARM architecture. Although the performance has been greatly improved compared to the past, it is generally lower than the mainstream mobile phone chips. As compared with the PS4 and XBOX ONE, it is certainly weak. Blasted, not to mention PC.
Even if these TV chips, but there are still inside the doorway. TV makers are now very hard-won shopping prices, in order to reduce costs, nothing to do with its pole. For example, in order to reduce costs, the PCB of the four-layer motherboard can not do, only two layers. As a result, there is no way to lay copper on a large area, and heat dissipation becomes a big problem. For good heat dissipation, you have to reduce the CPU, GPU, and DDR clock speeds. Another example is the Realtek 2995D's highest frequency is 1.2GHz, but after changing to a two-layer board, in order to stabilize the system, had to set the highest frequency to 1GHz. DDR is also the same, the chip can support up to 533MHz, but the best product can not be used, but reduced to 400MHz, or even 300MHz. A dozen of these discounts, I do not know how much lower hardware performance.
But it is awful that because the TV screen is large (it is not embarrassing to say 49-inch and 50-inch at the conference now), the resolution requirement is even higher. If you take a 720P resolution game and see it from above, how do you get it? At least have to be 1080P? Can there be several games on the mainstream TV platform that can run 1080P? Not to mention 4K. Although this year, 4K TV is blooming everywhere, Shenzhen Huaqiang North’s Gome and Suningli are all hanging on the walls with 4K TVs. But what about content? Application? Currently, domestic manufacturers generally do not have the technical ability to make smooth 4K applications experience.
Difficult to do: Lack of a unified operating system platform and game engine
Although smart TVs and boxes are now using android systems, it is well known that the android system is not designed for TV screens and is designed for mobile phones. This is the problem. Many functions used in mobile phones, such as touch screens, cameras, microphones, televisions, and headsets, are not used. For the sake of system stability, the relevant drivers and the like are generally cut out; the functions of televisions, such as infrared remote control, are used. Large display support and so on, android did not have to add their own.
There are many other product definition functions are added and subtracted by the chip manufacturer and the machine manufacturer to complete their own, there is no standard in the industry, fragmentation is very serious, many android SDK standard API are removed, this This has brought a lot of unexpected trouble to the game manufacturer's game adaptation. Coupled with the current mainstream mobile device game engine, such as Cocos2D, Unity3D, etc., are used for mobile phones, they have done a lot of testing and optimization work for mainstream mobile phones, but basically have not measured the TV and the box.
This results in more system resources being used by the game, and the greater the probability of problems when transplanting. This greatly increases the cost of game developers and makes it almost impossible for video games to do B2C mode like mobile games. Because it is hard to guarantee that the games that users directly download can be played on their home TVs or boxes.
Difficult to do: lack of a unified interactive device
Above the PC to play games, are the mouse + keyboard; mobile games to play above, are touch screen; and TV games, of course, can not be achieved with a remote control.
Now television manufacturers, box manufacturers fight the price fight eyes are red, and wait for each screw to be checked again and again can not save, and they say, after all, is still selling hardware, watching TV or their strong demand, how could And then a standard gamepad or other gaming peripherals?
The standard is impossible, matching it? This is also a problem. Each manufacturer engages in a set of standards and engages in a set of agreements. Alibaba Cloud OS has its own set. Xiaomi has another set of his own, plus a game with a handle to play, and a camera to play the game. All sorts of things, everything. That's where the big question comes in. So what kind of interactive devices do game developers use to develop their games?
Hard to do: Keep up with the rhythm of the entire machine manufacturer
If you want to put your game directly on the smart TV, you have to follow the rhythm of the whole machine manufacturer, and release 3 big new products every year. But the problem is that basically every time a new product is released, it will be accompanied by a new chip, and the android system will be upgraded. Every time it plays a new game, it will bring serious system stability problems. It basically waits until the entire machine manufacturer puts the system into operation. A little bit of stability, and then delivered to the game makers to develop the game, leaving their new product launch time is running out.
This doesn't count. When you get your hands and use them, you find that the system stability is bad. Basically it's not that you're developing a game. It's better to help them test system stability. Most of your concerns and energy are on the BUG due to stability. As for the billing point, how to balance the value, how to improve the gameplay, and so on, the game's important features are not much time. take into account.
CPs are also useless. Just as the director of product planning for a major TV company in China described it to the author, “If you do not replace the system, the system will not be upgraded, waiting for your TV to be eliminated.â€
What about the box? The white card box is not mentioned. Xiaomi, LeTV and other boxes are slightly better. But in general, it is still the same as a TV. The rhythm of this change will not change unless, on some day, these manufacturers begin to truly put the game as the main function of the box.
The consequence of the above four difficulties is that the development threshold for original video games is high, the cost is high, and the number of users cannot rise at all. That is, it is definitely a loss of money. Video games still have a long way to go.
However, as a venture capital investment, there is an opportunity in any risk, and it will not simply be concluded, nor will it be because the market has not yet developed, it will not remain indifferent, otherwise it will not be called venture capital. The investment in a game product has a characteristic that it is not as much like an Internet product, more like a cultural product, and does not have a strong Matthew effect. Games companies with long-term value often don't want to keep pursuing creativity, make different games, and more often make a pattern, and then iterate (such as EA). A certain scale of game companies all want to keep users like Microsoft does for Windows. Mobile game investment does not completely follow this style because the demographic dividend is huge and the disorder of the market, but it must be accompanied by investment strategies, because it is too much like buying lottery tickets. Correspondingly, video games do not have a large "grand prize pool", nor do they have enough "combination", and temporarily fail to see the shape of companies that can build long-lasting products. Therefore, many investors are reluctant to come in and buy lottery tickets. That's it.
Assuming that the video game will eventually rise, it is clear that it will be easier to accumulate industrial logic and judge the industrial situation when it is first deployed on peripheral channels such as platform channels, development tools, and user analysis.
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