Chapter 37 (1/2)

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Translated by Coldtaco

Edited by Aelryinth

Under the watching eyes of the entire gaming industry, the statistics of Plants vs Zombies continued to increase.

First twenty-four hours, 23,187! First three days, 77,409; first week, 122,375; first thirty days, 514,580!

Over that first month, the video game media and video game designers were shocked time and time again. Normally a game would grow in the first week and slowly decrease. Plants vs Zombies had a stable number of downloads even through the fourth week!

1Five hundred thousand sales in the first month! What did that mean? Chen Mo had earned more than two million RMB from this game in just one month!

This number was insane for someone fresh to the industry, so much so that Plants vs Zombies had set off a craze in the video game industry!

The players were spreading like a virus, the sales numbers kept on increasing!

Many players formed their own communities to try and figure out strategies for Plants vs Zombies, in particular the endless mode, as the leaderboards shifted day to day.

The video game media had new articles every day, with different industry professionals analyzing the success of Plants vs Zombies.

Many game designers were discussioning the very same topic, even in major discussion forums and the Illusion Game Engine discussions.

1How did Plants vs Zombies become so popular?

Can its success be replicated? Can it be used as a reference?

The level design, combat system, code, tutorial, art, music and some other details of Plants vs Zombies were studied again and again, becoming a benchmark for other puzzle games.

1——

An A-grade Zen Entertainment designer released a long Weibo post, detailing what made Plants vs Zombies so successful. They also mentioned that the puzzle game industry was about to have its renaissance.

1In his Weibo post, he said: To be honest, I quite admire Chen Mo, the creator of Plants vs Zombies. As a new video game designer, he has provided us video game designers who overlook casual games with an important lesson.

We always think that casual games are a small matter, and only C and D-grade video game designers use them to hone their skills. Because casual puzzle games like these were never able to have extended playtimes or strongly engage with the players, the players would grow tired of them, resulting in huge losses.

Many of these so-called puzzle games don’t have many puzzling elements to them. They are usually child’s play, and far off from the larger puzzle games.

However, Plants vs Zombies has overturned that traditional view. Who said puzzle games couldn’t be complicated? Who said puzzle games couldn’t have extended playtimes? Two of the biggest problems that were holding back puzzle games were solved by Plants vs Zombies!

Obviously, it wasn’t the type of game that was the problem; it was our thinking that was limited!

Not only that, Plants vs Zombies showed us that there is a huge market for casual puzzle games. These games aren’t niche, but can cover the entire market!

Moreover, Chen Mo has taught an important lesson to all C and D-grade video game designers: even if you have lower resource limits or worse skills, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t everyone claim they are full of innovation? If you really are innovative, go ahead and make a casual game like Plants vs Zombies; it will allow you to reach the peak as a videogame designer!

As for Chen Mo, I think he has shown his prowess in puzzle games. As long as he can keep this going and make another two or three puzzle games at the same level as Plants vs Zombies, I can guarantee that he will become not just one of the best, but the best video game designer in China!

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Industry professionals, video game media, player discussion… all of their evaluations were positive. There was nothing like what had happened with Flappybird last time, where a video game designer or game reviewer came out and pointed their finger at Plants vs Zombies and said it was bad.

Once in a while there would be a hate message, but they would be drowned out by the fans.