Chapter 62 (1/2)

Translated by Coldtaco

Edited by Aelryinth

If the IP was the soul of card games, the numbers would be its lifeline. If the numbers system crumbled, the game would follow.

Conversely, if the numerical system was very well done and complete, the game would have very strong survivability.

A good example would be a card game from his previous life, OMG! Kingdoms. It was still making tens of millions in profit two years after its release, an incredible result in the card game world.

Despite it being a card game, its IP was terrible and could be compared to not having an IP at all. When it entered the market, the Three Kingdoms had already been driven into the ground. There would be several games with a Three Kingdoms theme every month. If it was solely on the basis of IP, OMG! Kingdoms would have no chance of differentiating itself from the other games.

There were many games with Three Kingdoms that were quite successful, such as OMG! Kingdoms, Junior Three Kingdom, Immortal Conquest, and Gong Cheng Lue Di. These games gave players a misconception that Three Kingdoms was an alright IP.

If they actually tried to make a Three Kingdoms game themselves, they would realize that this IP was a trap.

As there would be a few Three Kingdoms games every month, it was completely overdone. If the gameplay was average, they would have no chance of making a break in the market. IPs like anime or popular novels would blow Three Kingdoms out of the water.

For example, if he made a One Piece game now, there would be a large number of players playing it, but if he made a game with Three Kingdoms in its title, would anyone play it?

There were many companies using Three Kingdoms in their games who intentionally excluded the words ‘Three Kingdoms’ from their titles. For example, Rivaless Thrashing, Beating Wei Shuwu, Immortal Conquest, and Gong Cheng Lue Di had emphasis on warring and sieging in their titles in order to reduce the bad taste the players would have surrounding that theme.

A feature of a good IP was it being able to make money and differentiate itself. If you had an IP like One Piece or Naruto, even if the game was just a reskinned first generation card game, it would still be raking in money.

But what about Three Kingdoms? If you reskinned a game using Three Kingdoms, not only would you not be making money, you would look bad doing it too!

That was proof that the IP of Three Kingdoms didn’t add anything to the game.

Then why was OMG! Kingdoms so popular? It wasn’t because of its theme, but its game quality.

The system functions, playstyle, and numerical settings of OMG! Kingdoms were the top among card games. Its success was entirely on its game quality, and not the IP.

Even if it was called Let Go of Water Margin it would still be popular, albeit slightly less.

If it was able to get One Piece or Naruto as its IP? It would probably hit the moon, doubling or tripling its monthly income.

This was what many players neglected, the charm of the playstyle itself.

Why were Chinese card games done over and over again, despite there being so many more other games on the market? Why did the players continue coughing up money, despite it all being based on the same genre?

For example, Onmyoji was very popular, a game that managed to perfect its artwork. Ignoring how well it did in the art department, it was still a card game at its core.

Chen Mo was working in the direction of OMG! Kingdoms and Junior Three Kingdom, replicating anything he could. Even if the game didn’t reply on the IP of I Am MT, it would still be a fun card game!

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Two weeks later…