Qui a tué nos jeux ? La relecture d'un ancien article du producteur de Black Myth
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Qui a tué nos jeux ? La relecture d'un ancien article du producteur de Black Myth
Mes chers joueurs, j'entends vos cris déchirants derrière moi, mais le capital me sourit toujours séduisamment devant.
Dédié à des analyses Web3 approfondiesCitation
Failure! On to the next failure!
Right now, countless game development teams are heading toward failure. Close your eyes and picture this scene—then open them and look around. Is it happening right beside you?
In 2006, more than 60 independently developed online games were launched in China. In the end, fewer than 15 survived and turned a profit. There's no doubt about it: over 75% of these projects either failed outright or fell far short of expectations! And within the increasingly competitive Chinese online gaming market, this ratio continues to rise. Freshly baked games still steaming hot never make it past small-scale internal testing—they're silently dumped into the trash before any major promotion. As for the rest? Try to recall the name of that blockbuster domestic title heavily promoted on 17173 last month, supposedly drawing massive crowds upon launch. You can't remember it, can you? "Here today, gone tomorrow"—this phrase perfectly describes most new online games today.
What went wrong?
Who murdered our games?
Why is all around us nothing but bloody corpses of finished products?
Has the golden era of “printing money while sleeping” four years ago vanished?
Have our beloved players suddenly turned fickle and monstrous?
This article does not aim to analyze external environments, market competition, cultural accumulation, user psychology, game content, or personal issues. Instead, it focuses narrowly on one internal aspect—the perspective of game design, which is my own profession—to examine the causes behind the failure of self-developed games. It is not a guide on how to become a good game designer, but rather an emotional expression of personal views, illustrated with practical lessons, intended as a warning to projects that have not yet completely collapsed.
Stillborn
Ten months of pregnancy ending in stillbirth.
This metaphor may seem harsh, but if you've ever been part of a game project team that ultimately disbanded, you’ll understand its accuracy. Many games share this striking similarity: they develop for about a year, then quickly die before most players even see them. This could be due to investors' impatience for quick returns, poor decision-making, chaotic management, shifting market tastes, lack of team experience, or even something like the Indonesian tsunami—but we cannot pinpoint the root cause: Was the sperm weak? Was gestation too short? Was nutrition inadequate? Was the doctor performing the C-section incompetent? Why can’t we successfully deliver healthy babies (products)?
One often-overlooked truth about successful games is this: their survival isn’t because they consumed more resources or took longer than most failed counterparts. People tend unconsciously to exaggerate the role of “elitism,” “diligence,” and “delays” in game (or other product) development. They cite examples such as “programmers debating physics engine improvements overnight,” “artists painstakingly adjusting a 256-color palette until achieving realistic exhaust flames,” “designers rejecting nearly 30 different boss concepts,” “managers desperately convincing the board to delay release by another year”—all presented as proof.
Is this really true?
Undeniably, work ethic and external conditions play crucial roles in ultimate success. But when everyone fixates only on rare masterpieces created through slow craftsmanship and years of refinement, it creates a form of avoidance—a refusal to conduct comprehensive self-examination. The result is the emergence of a grand methodology for making good games, treating game creation like a formulaic essay. All discussions within companies about doing better turn into seminars on how best to approach this “grand methodology.” In my view, this uniform interpretation of success is deeply suspect. It deflects scrutiny from the fundamental qualities of game creators themselves—and without questioning, there can be no reflection or improvement.
Back to reality—look at the games currently raking in huge profits. How many are simply clones built from the same template? *Street Basketball* serves as an excellent example: a masterpiece created within a single year by a relatively inexperienced team (whose first game had even failed), hastily completed, yet later becoming the most dominant sports-themed online game in terms of market share. This should prompt us to seek factors beyond the cliché of “visionary leader + elite team + years of effort”—something intrinsic to the people making games.
Alright, let’s reflect: before that heartbreaking stillbirth occurred, what exactly did the designers do?
The Cursed Team
I always wonder: did some failed projects lose the race from the very beginning? If we focus specifically on game designers, it’s not hard to notice that certain thoughts begin germinating early in a game’s conception—an increasingly intense psychological suggestion:
“I profoundly perceive its inherent flaws. I already foresee its inevitable failure.”
If your designers think this way, unfortunately, the team has been cursed by an unstoppable prophecy.
Now reopen your memory—this time, visualize multiple screens. Yes, those colorful monitors during colleagues’ downtime. Soon images will come to mind: overlapping chat windows, 18+ pictures, the latest American TV series, old classics from Blizzard or Valve…
Do you see the game your team is testing? No.
Pay attention next time. If this is indeed the case, it represents the most typical symptom of a cursed team.
Why don’t you play your own game?
“Why don’t you play our own game?”
Ask each colleague this question. Most might laugh at you, refusing to answer; others may honestly say: “What’s fun about it? We work on it all day—aren’t you sick of it?” If this comes from programmers or artists, you can ignore it. Even if they don’t love playing their own game, they can still perform their jobs adequately—though perhaps not exceptionally. But if similar answers come from project designers, creative directors, or lead designers, then sadly, the worst-case scenario may have occurred:
When the project’s designers—especially the lead designer—are unenthusiastic about playing their own game, it is an extremely dangerous sign in game development.
This may sound clichéd, reminiscent of “if you don’t enjoy your own game, why expect others to?” But for designers, I believe this lesson deserves frequent repetition—because more commonly, people have long become blind to it.
At my previous company, we developed an interesting small match-3 game. Almost everyone—not just developers—became loyal players during testing. After work, we enthusiastically formed teams to compete, proudly celebrating victories and new rank titles. I was responsible for sound effects and created three different sets for testing, including one with black rap-style audio—just for fun. When officially launched, the game’s concurrent player count quickly exceeded expectations.
——yocar
Remember two things:
First, enthusiasm is not mere liking. No one can force you to like something—some people naturally dislike seeing their ideas become real. But if a designer lacks the patience to invest significant personal time into their own game (that’s called enthusiasm), how can they discover its true playability? How can they understand players who endlessly enjoy it? How can they know what to do next to satisfy users?
Second, a good game is worth playing anytime. If a designer uses “played it to death” as an excuse, they’re essentially saying: I’ve given up. I see no remaining excitement in it (even though I haven’t really played it). Oh God, spare me from experiencing this garbage again—I already suffer daily headaches over it, don’t I know better than you? It can’t be improved at all!
Think seriously—doesn’t this feel devastating? When the core members of a project—the dedicated thinkers exploring gameplay, constantly uncovering new fun, setting future development directions, the so-called “prophets”—before the project has even failed, somehow receive divine revelation foreseeing their creation’s bleak fate, then sink into helpless despair and stop touching their own game—not just avoiding it, but even hating it for bringing so much frustration. It’s like soldiers still hoping for victory, while commanders quietly prepare to surrender. What could be worse?
During an observation of team members playing our own game, I noticed that designers’ average character levels weren’t higher than those of programmers or artists. The top-scoring designer’s character experience, kill count, and number of matches were less than one-fifth of the highest client-side programmer. Meanwhile, the highest-scoring artist scored roughly equal to the sum of all designers combined.
——yocar
Another terrifying fact: most designers believe such emotions go unnoticed. True, they appear to be working overtime, meticulously following up every task, actively communicating across departments, cracking humorless jokes. Yet the truth is often this simple and uncomfortable:
They truly, truly rarely play their own game.
So stop hiding. When designers express pessimism about their project, this attitude seeps into everyone’s hearts like spring rain, spreading rapidly throughout the team. Even the most oblivious member soon becomes infected. Then you’ll witness what was described earlier: fewer and fewer colleagues playing the game.
The destructive power of negative designers is immense. Their despair permeates the entire team. They should be the most motivated, passionate, and proactive individuals, yet their most active efforts become passive acts driven by circumstance. They were meant to be leaders driving change, yet they’ve lost basic courage. They no longer wish to explore what else makes the game enjoyable; they fear any major changes. They lack ambition, confidence, let alone envisioning a vision or blueprint for “our baby.” They blame each stage of failure on various “legitimate reasons,” but never admit how they destroyed the spiritual foundation of the development team—our belief that we’re creating fun games.
If you look into their eyes, you might understand everything—a stagnant pool, utterly devoid of idealistic fire.
The Farther from Players, the Closer to Designers
Should we treat players like livestock?
Don’t be shocked—in China’s (online game) design circles, discussions on such themes are common and frankly widespread. To put it more gently: the wretched online game industry has bred scumbags like me, who spend every day pondering five propositions:
1. How to keep players addicted
2. How to extract more RMB from players
3. How to get players forming cliques
4. How to make players hate each other
5. How to achieve covert cash gambling and gold trading
Believe me, almost every online game development company demands that designers implement extensive functional modules to achieve the above five goals. The standard for evaluating a designer—especially a numerical designer—is precisely how thoroughly these aspects are executed during actual operation. Of course, different game types emphasize different points.
Naturally, within numerous game development teams, designers’ focus shifts away from researching how to make games more fun and richer, toward studying how to addict players, condition them into tribalism, encourage cursing and killing, and facilitate safer online cash activities (gambling, virtual item trading, etc.).
Consequently, online games have spawned many unique elements: endless streams of new maps, monsters, levels, equipment; rebirth systems, ascension mechanics; double experience events, clan systems, shout channels, PK rankings, kick rights, anti-kick rights; lottery cards, gold zones, 10x gold zones, 50x gold zones… Compared to outdated traditional single-player elements, these novelties have achieved clear, even unprecedented economic success.
Thus we celebrate, applauding our creativity, dancing joyfully over having discovered a uniquely Chinese path to prosperity in online gaming.
This is the strangest phenomenon in online game development: we’ve become mathematicians analyzing whether sequence formulas are balanced, endlessly solving integrals and differential equations; we’ve become physicians specializing in increasing patient drug dependency, constantly refining heroin purification techniques; we’ve become agitators and arms dealers encouraging people to ignore real-world rules, vent emotions freely, escalate conflicts; we’ve become casino bosses and underground market intermediaries.
We’ve become experienced game designers.
The lead designer of my last project was obsessively focused on numerical values. He excelled at reworking every numeric aspect of the game—scores, dynamic parameters, reward ratios for events. He’d keenly spot every imbalance, then craft new magical formulas to fix them, spending enormous time testing and perfecting. Yet whenever he immersed himself in this so-called “balance” and “rationality,” players quietly drifted away due to barren content and monotonous gameplay.
——yocar
Interlude: On Anti-Addiction Systems
China introducing an “Online Game Anti-Addiction System” is nothing new. But why doesn’t Japan have it? South Korea? Europe? Even the United States, with the world’s highest internet penetration, uses only game rating systems instead of rigid mandatory time limits to control audiences?
Why only China enacts regulations seemingly severely damaging to an emerging market?
Someone will surely jump up: “Chinese policymaking is always this crude.”
I can only say you’re too naive, too simple, too young!
It’s the national context that determines everything. Only China possesses such a vast population of “frustrated individuals”—those unable to gain sufficient achievement in real life, lost under the current education system, feeling anxiety and loss amid fierce social competition. These characteristics make them natural ideal internet users. In this country already suffering extreme population surplus and undergoing social transformation, the sheer size of this group directly caused China to become the world’s largest internet nation and leading online gaming market within just a few years. Recall how internet cafes exploded onto every street corner overnight, how gaming addiction became a universally recognized social scourge—this explains it clearly.
What does “market self-regulation failing” mean? A British economist once said words familiar to us all:
“Capital fears no profit or too little profit, just as nature fears a vacuum. Given adequate profit, capital becomes bold. With 10% profit, it ensures use everywhere; with 20%, it grows active; with 50%, it takes risks; with 100%, it dares trample all human laws; with 300%, it dares commit any crime, even risking the gallows. If chaos and conflict bring profit, it will dare incite both war and disorder.”
What lies behind online game operators? Capital.
What is the essence of online games? Virtual existence and achievement.
To capital, what are China’s massive frustrated masses? The finest, freshest flock awaiting slaughter; a super gold mine unmatched anywhere in the world; perfect, untouched, fertile virgin land.
Let’s slightly revise that classic quote:
“Online game operators fear no profit or too little profit, just as their servers fear power outages. Given adequate profit, online game operators forget the original sin of games. With 10% profit, they ensure promotion everywhere; with 20%, they start claiming benevolence and extolling benefits of gaming; with 50%, they take risks, exploiting human weaknesses solely to addict users to their products; with 100%, they dare create illegal content, trample all real-world rules, regardless of public outrage; with 300%, they dare incite players to commit the most extreme, insane acts, even risking shutdown. If the collapse of a generation brings profit, they will dare encourage it.”
Tell me, under such national conditions, how can we expect this “invisible hand” to regulate effectively? If the state doesn’t intervene, how far would this madness go? Remember, capital never sees crying parents or dead players. Corpses are its delicacy, tears its seasoning—it thrives on them, endlessly.
So don’t actually believe those big online game companies supporting the anti-addiction system after staging their “Beijing Declaration” in Beijing, claiming it won’t affect revenue. That’s a typically Chinese farce of “government builds the stage, enterprises perform.” If the Anti-Addiction System launches tomorrow, I guarantee several CEOs will be weeping bitterly at midnight. :)
The Dark Side of the Force
In *Star Wars*, the Force is the universe’s most powerful energy accessible to living beings, divided into light and dark sides, like light and shadow. The light side births Jedi Knights; the dark side creates Darth Vader. Jedi use their power to defend justice and equality for all life, while Darth Vader stops at nothing to satisfy his desires.
If we liken the Force to today’s online games, then its light side represents the healthy enjoyment players derive from games, while its dark side embodies the boundless greed of capital behind operators. Our game designers resemble young Anakin Skywalker—his Force potential so immense: if his conviction holds firm, balance in the galaxy remains stable; if he falls, the entire galaxy plunges into irreversible ruin.
To determine whether your project’s designers have fallen to the dark side of the Force, immediately ask them: “Of all your work, what percentage genuinely improves gameplay versus what exists solely to generate revenue with no relation to fun?”
A cunning designer might counter-lecture you, claiming anything seemingly unrelated to gameplay indirectly enhances player enjoyment.
Unfortunately, he’s already too deeply corrupted by the dark side. Never trust such lies, just as online game operators will never admit “the more isolated and useless you become, the happier I am.”
Returning to the topic, a superficial critique of the entire industry helps preliminarily explain why designers grow distant from players. The fundamental reason lies in capital distorting the original purpose of online game creation. Online games are first defined as continuously profitable service businesses. Every task must revolve around “sustained profitability” and “keeping users engaged for hundreds or thousands of hours.” The original intent—simply “creating something fun”—has been forgotten.
This isn’t excusing designers. Indeed, deeper causes making online games targets stem from capital’s dark forces. I merely wish to warn of another danger: under such powerful dark influence, outnumbered designers exhibit a collective downward trend. We’re gradually forming a new guiding philosophy for game design—one whose core isn’t about crafting “fun, joyful” games, but designing successful internet traps. Worse, a significant number of talented designers in China already stand on this dark side, fueling it further. They tirelessly supplement vast practical experiences, applying psychology and statistics to elevate them into laws and theories.
Which traits indicate this downward trend? Check if your project meets these eight criteria:
- Original innovation in game models reduced to near zero;
- Designers rarely engage in forward-thinking, instead relying on analogy, decoration, and copying;
- Elements inherited from single-player games—character emotion, worldview, quest narratives, music/sound—are significantly downgraded;
- Players treated as mathematical models, individual feelings entirely ignored in decisions;
- Designers generally adopt a superior mindset, showing no reverence toward devoted “gods” of their games;
- Unless required by work, designers avoid proactive, direct, frequent interaction with players, unwilling to intrude on private time;
- Senior (numerical) designers are valued for creating strongly addictive systems, taking pride in it;
- Managers frequently say: “I only care whether it earns me money.”
Please take this warning seriously. Not only due to capital’s inherent greed, but also because China happens to exist in a phase lacking single-player game culture, dominated instead by a畸形 online gaming market. Under such conditions, any spark of short-term opportunism spreads faster and wider than elsewhere!
Perhaps one day—
Then, online games won’t be games anymore—they’ll be conspiracies composed of stunning visuals and meticulously polished numerical systems.
Then, online gamers won’t be traditional gamers—they’ll be indistinguishable from drug addicts.
Welcome to NHK!
In the first half of 2006, I took on a task aimed at diversifying players’ pursuits within the game. I studied multiple single-player games, analyzing how they increased replay value. During research, I extensively documented features like special honors and extra rewards. Ultimately, I produced a complex, lengthy table of special medals for our game. One consequence: my perception of single-player games subtly shifted. From then on, encountering any new game, I’d instantly detect mechanisms designed to keep players engaged long after completion. But I must have forgotten: those elements were mere garnishes and easter eggs, not the reason for their popularity.
——yocar
From capital origins to designer complicity, only then can we say an online game has completely soured. It’s no longer ice cream made to bring joy, but a precision-guided candy-coated bomb tailored to each user. Its mission is pure and cruel—to drain every penny, even destroying their will and body.
Although this article mainly explores designers’ responsibility for game failures, I must pessimistically note: despite most purely profit-driven online games being quickly exposed and torn apart; despite mature, thoughtful players and responsible media敏锐ly detecting this danger; despite games treating players as non-human now having virtually no chance of survival in today’s market—
But.
Those self-proclaimed clever, seasoned, evil game designers haven’t awakened. They continue secretly brewing more conspiracies. They are true believers in “online games profit only through addiction” and “making online games means making electronic opium”—dark lords championed by capital, battle-hardened and resolute, forming the majority. Even I myself am merely a junior who hasn’t yet had all conscience swallowed by darkness.
Early 2006, when *Zhengtu* (*ZT Online*) first emerged, someone initiated an internal discussion group at our company. Designers fiercely debated *Zhengtu*’s pay-to-win gear, botting puppets, and other “unorthodox methods,” arguing whether Shi Yuzhu truly profited immensely. Initially diverse opinions existed, but eventually the discussion shifted to: “Should we also become as dark as Zhengtu?”
——yocar
Dear players, I hear your mournful cries behind me—but capital keeps smiling seductively ahead.
The Dilemma of Operations Designers
“Are you designers eating shit? Only an idiot would join such a stupid event!”
Hearing this, you might feel aggrieved. Isn’t the official website calendar packed full? Siege warfare today, lottery tomorrow, double experience weekends, next week the final voting opens for the “XX Angel” selection. Yet those insatiable forum dwellers show zero mercy, endlessly complaining that current events are repetitive and uninspired.
*Online Game Development* cuts straight to the point: half of online gaming is service. For designers, this translates directly to operations design. Never underestimate their impact on a game’s success or failure. If initial game design determines who joins, post-launch operations design determines how many stay.
Browse recruitment ads across major online game companies—you’ll easily find operations designers held to visibly lower standards. Typical requirements: “excellent writing skills, stress tolerance, hardworking, one or more MMORPG experiences.” Regular game designers require: “familiarity with history; expertise in fantasy literature and AD&D systems; deep understanding of competing market products; strong writing and communication skills.”
It’s practically manual labor versus intellectual work!
The original reason for this disparity may stem from some subconscious human bias—we stubbornly believe original thinkers and creators surpass those developing or managing upon that foundation. In the single-player era, no concept of operations designers existed. Since then, we’ve developed a habit: crediting great game designers for a game’s success, never mentioning outstanding operations designers.
Can we apply such simplistic thinking to this new thing called online gaming?
When I first joined a game company as an operations designer for an ongoing MMORPG, my first task was “write one event within three months.” Later, this evolved into “small events continuously, one major event monthly,” forcing me to create templates to meet demand. I never asked why so many events were needed. No one ever asked me my opinion on the next version.
——yocar
At least based on what I know, operations designers’ tasks are mostly summed up as “don’t let players get bored.” Usually, lead designers don’t require operations staff to predict and analyze sensitive demographics, cost-benefit ratios, potential risks, or long-term impacts for each proposal. Nor do they conduct post-event reviews, record outcomes, or perform comparative analyses. Over time, lacking effective benchmarks and systematic standards, whether an event runs depends solely on the decision-maker’s subjective judgment of feasibility.
Operations designers, who should be closest to player needs, instead remain estranged from the lofty “core designers” capable of genuinely improving gameplay. They occasionally pull off beloved events under tough conditions, but due to consistently ignored input and endless dull demands, most events become highly formulaic, careless, and irresponsible.
Meticulous about a skill’s damage value, indifferent to obvious unfairness in events. This design philosophy prioritizing creation over operations, this “non-designer level” standard for operations designers, is undoubtedly a hidden time bomb—for online games, especially those already operating with established player bases.
Not avoiding convention, I attempt to offer some immature, subjective insights on operations design, for reference only.
Which events trigger player backlash afterward?
- Events demanding constant spending
- Events prone to cheating or score manipulation
- Events where winners are decided by opaque backstage operations
- Events difficult to enter, with cumbersome processes
- Overly simplistic, crude giveaway events
- Monotonous, repetitive events with unchanged formats
- Events failing to treat all players fairly
- Events likely to provoke player conflicts
Which events are popular among players?
- Free, convenient, easy-to-join events
- Events showcasing game technical depth
- Events promoting teamwork
- Events offering super-special rewards
- Events providing brand-new game content
- Events encouraging player interaction
- Events with system-automated winner announcements
- Events allowing players to co-create the game world
- Events aligned with real-world holidays
- Rich and diverse quests
- Events tied to new game versions
- Events addressing current player interests
- Events combating malicious in-game behaviors
- Events diverging from main objectives (e.g., mini-games, quizzes)
- Gender-themed events
Which events should be approached cautiously?
- Expensive offline competitions
- Various awkward sponsorship events
- Events requiring massive manpower supervision
- Underappreciated research events
- Poorly prepared server rental events
- Charity events linked to social welfare
- Public auditions selecting player celebrities
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