Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
Chen Mo looked up the recently published games on the market and what the bigger video game companies were testing when he got back upstairs.
The majority of the larger companies would have their unreleased games in their experience stores. As long as they were finished, even if they hadn’t been released on the market, there would be rumors floating around.
Chen Mo managed to find a playtest video on Emperor Dynasty Entertainment’s new game, called Guardian of the Holy Spring.
-Hmm? Emperor Dynasty Entertainment has joined in? I should probably pay attention to this as it was released by Entertainment Dynasty Entertainment.-
Chen Mo played the video, investigating the game more deeply.
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As a new innovative game became popular, a wave of similarly-styled games would obviously follow suit.
Plants vs Zombies had been trendy for two months; if there were other video game designers who wanted to make a knockoff, two months would be more than enough.
Chen Mo was prepared for such an event, but didn’t think it would come so soon.
Plants vs Zombies could be viewed as a descendant of Tower Defense games, but it’s popularity had surpassed most such games, likely because it required more strategic planning.
It wasn’t a difficult task for the video game designers in this world to identify why Plants vs Zombies was so popular. Any C-grade video game designer would be able to replicate it as long as they didn’t care about the opinions of others.
Lunar Defense was a game like that, a game with terrible reviews. An unknown video game designer was able to replicate it in two months.
The thought process of Lunar Defense was clear; utilizing the fact that it was free, it would pick up any players that didn’t get into Plants vs Zombies and sell ads to make a profit.
They targeted the players that didn’t want to spend money on the game, or the ones who were already bored of Plants vs Zombies.
However, Chen Mo didn’t care, as he knew that their thought process was bound to fail!
There were three main reasons.
First, because the video game designers lacked skill, they were afraid to make any changes to the rules of Plants vs Zombies, just in case they removed any of the focal points. That mindset resulted in them essentially making a carbon copy.
It meant that most of the Plants vs Zombies players wouldn’t play through it. If it were the same as the original, why not play the original?
Moreover, the first few levels on Lunar Defense had tutorials. This would greatly affect the players who were already bored of Plants vs Zombies, as they didn’t have the patience to sit through the tutorial again.
Second, games like this weren’t suited to be free!
No matter if it was ads or top-up service, it didn’t look good in the eyes of the players. Compared to Plants vs Zombies, the only thing Lunar Defense would get would be bad reviews.
Third, the playstyle, mechanics and level design of Plants vs Zombies worked very well with the artwork. If the artwork were changed, it would make the game feel disjointed.
This resulted in many players not liking the Lunar Defense, but they were unable to pinpoint why they didn’t like it. Because they changed plants into defense systems and zombies into aliens, it affected the mindsets of the players, which greatly affected their mood when they played the game.
Therefore, Chen Mo didn’t bat an eye at Lunar Defense. The game was doomed from the start, and would only be flooded by the bad reviews from the players. It might not even be able to recover their costs!
It was a classic example of failing at cheating!
After Sky’s Limit Entertainment with Lunar Defense, several other smaller companies came out with Plants vs Zombies knockoffs. However, Chen Mo could tell at first glance that their quality was even worse than Lunar Defense and they would end up being laughingstocks, so there was no need to be alarmed.
The only thing that bothered Chen Mo was Guardian of the Holy Spring, developed by Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.
The designer was Qiu Bin, a B-grade video game designer working under Emperor Dynasty Entertainment. They had a few successful games before this one.
From the video, Guardian of the Holy Spring had many similar features to Plants vs Zombies, but calling plagiarism might be too much, as many points only seemed similar on the surface.
Guardian of the Holy Spring didn’t have five straight lanes in Plants vs Zombies, but had hills and valleys, and what seemed like a fence.
The players needed to place different defense mechanisms around the Holy Spring, such as magic wards, crystal towers, dragon’s nests, and army camps, in order to defend against the demons.
Guardian of the Holy Spring had also made an effort to differentiate itself from Plants vs Zombies in areas such as the abilities of the troops, level difficulty, and playstyle. There were only a handful of features that overlapped with Plants vs Zombies.
If someone said that Guardian of the Holy Spring copied Plants vs Zombies, there would probably be a large number of fans defending it.
Being able to copy something only in essence, but not looks, was the highest form of copying.
Moreover, with so many things changed, it might be a stretch to call it copying, as the core of combat was also changed.
But it was obvious that the game took inspiration from Plants vs Zombies, and the source of entertainment from the game was similar to Plants vs Zombies.
Chen Mo predicted that this game’s achievements certainly wouldn’t be bad. With the promotions done by Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, it wouldn’t be surprising if it managed to beat Plants vs Zombies.
That was the power of having different channels.
However, the game was still in the early stages of testing. According to Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, it was about three months away from release.
The reason it needed so much time to develop was because it needed to include a lot of extra content. They probably had considered that the players might think they were copying Plants vs Zombies, and took the precaution to add different playstyles and content to dampen that feeling.
This was an indication for Chen Mo that he needed to pick up his pace.
Although this ‘copying’ incident wasn’t a threat to Chen Mo, it proved one thing: the video game industry in the parallel world was the same as his previous world, keen and shameless! Maybe even better in some aspects!
Even though Plants vs Zombies had only been online for two months, many companies had managed to create their own bootlegs, much faster than companies in his previous world.
Just as Sky’s Limit Entertainment’s Lunar Defense managed to find a new niche by making it free, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was able to use its huge user base, ‘referencing’ Plants vs Zombies and claiming it as their own.
It was evident that the video game companies weren’t just sitting ducks, but hungry wolves that didn’t have access to great ideas.
As soon as they found these ideas, all the advantages Chen Mo had would be taken away!
He knew that this was the time to make the next game!