Chapter 204: The Choice Is: Minecraft (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Pass)

Chapter 204: The Choice Is: Minecraft (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Pass)

Without fully explaining to the curious crowd,

After a brief chat, Chen Xu returned to his office alone.

Leaning back in his chair, Chen Xu looked at the platform data Lin Rou had just sent him on his computer, then closed his eyes in deep thought.

Nebula Games Platform currently had 91 million registered users.

Daily active users hovered around 17 million.

The highest peak in concurrent online users was reached last year after the gameplay Expo, when Fall Guys launched, hitting 4.1 million at its peak.

Of course, this number wasn't from a single game, but rather the cumulative total of multiple games.

For a standalone platform, this figure was already extremely impressive.

But compared to distribution platforms, it wasn't particularly remarkable.

Currently, the top-tier competition in the domestic market was dominated by TengHua and NetDragon, two giants.

Some second- and third-tier channels maintained independent operations,

but many had already joined the factions of these two companies.

Moreover, after the launch of Dark Souls: Age of the First Flame, both Tencent and NetDragon had proposed acquiring a portion of Nebula Games' equity and bringing the platform into their ecosystem—proposals Chen Xu had politely declined.

Now, Chen Xu felt it was time to take another bold step forward.

But this step would certainly not be easy.

In Chen Xu's plan, the upcoming games they would release would all center around player connections.

Not purely multiplayer games, but ones that provided features and content enabling players on the platform to interact and share experiences with each other.

Don't Starve would serve as a multifaceted trial run—

a test of purchasing power when launching exclusively on the Nebula Games Platform,

and also a trial to see whether players from the Parallel World could embrace sandbox gameplay.

With 1.9 million copies sold in two weeks, reaching 4 million in the first month wouldn't be difficult, and sales trends remained relatively stable. Players' various MODs were also slowly beginning to emerge.

Both Overcooked and Fall Guys had demonstrated players' creativity, and for the Nebula Games Platform community, the Workshop (modding platform) had become a distinct and prominent feature and selling point.

Under these circumstances, after comprehensive consideration, Chen Xu felt it was about time to launch a sandbox game capable of captivating players.

And this would become Nebula Games' next killer app to further strengthen the platform.

Thus, Chen Xu's choice was: Minecraft.

The reasons for choosing this game were very straightforward, primarily threefold.

The first reason was its overwhelming success.

Just how successful?

In terms of commercial performance, in Chen Xu's previous life, Minecraft sold over 200 million copies worldwide within ten years.

Whether on mobile phones, PCs, consoles, VR, or handheld consoles, Minecraft left its mark everywhere.

The second reason was Minecraft's unique charm.

The world presented in Minecraft wasn't about flashy graphics or special effects, but focused instead on gameplay.

Take building blocks, for example. Most people have probably played with building blocks before. Even if they haven't, they've likely had the desire or thought to create a world entirely their own.

Building with blocks, sketching with a pencil on paper, or constructing it mentally with eyes closed.

Minecraft offered players exactly this kind of channel, in an extremely simple way.

Players could create and destroy blocks within a 3D game space, building intricate structures, creations, and artworks.

Of course, if that were all, Minecraft wouldn't have reached such heights.

Its nearly unrestricted modes allowed players to create in various multiplayer servers or solo modes, along with many special features, such as Redstone circuits capable of logic operations and remote actions, Minecarts and tracks, and more.

Beyond these, players could also go on adventures, defeat terrifying bosses, and play it like an RPG.

But no matter the gameplay style, Minecraft always revolved around one core concept:

Creation.

Not just building like stacking blocks, but including scientific creation, such as Redstone circuit gameplay involving logic operations and remote actions.

One could say Minecraft wasn't just a simple game—without aesthetic design or spatial thinking, you couldn't even build a decent-looking house.

For example, someone else's base is always a luxurious large villa,

while your house looks like a prison from the outside, and when you walk inside... wow, even more so!

Just as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Chen Xu's previous life defined 3D games, Minecraft defined what a sandbox game truly was.

So much so that when people discussed sandbox games in the previous life, they inevitably associated them with Minecraft.

Even though the concept of sandbox games wasn't originally invented by Minecraft, its success and perfection essentially bound the genre to itself.

As many MC players would say, playing MC wasn't just treating it as a game, but as a toy—and the essence lay in providing a toy-like experience.

What kind of game it became depended entirely on what the player believed it to be.

The third reason was naturally to further expand Nebula Games Platform's influence through Minecraft, while the game itself was arguably the most compatible with MODs of any game.

Currently, Nebula Games Platform's operations for the MOD community were already robust enough to support this masterpiece.

................

After deciding on the chosen game, Chen Xu began drafting the concept for Minecraft in his office.

Although this was an incredibly successful game, writing the concept draft for Minecraft was actually simpler than it had been for Dark Souls.

Because the entire game primarily revolved around creativity.

Everything was centered on this single point.

Compared to Dark Souls, which required intricate work in art, numerical design, story, and combat systems across multiple dimensions,

Minecraft wasn't exactly simple, but it wasn't nearly as complicated as one might imagine.

After about two days, Chen Xu completed the Initial Design Concept Draft for Minecraft.

Meanwhile, during this period, Ruan Ningxue, Qin Yi, and others were still maintaining the MOD community for Don't Starve.

Once he confirmed there were no flaws, Chen Xu called Qin Yi, Ruan Ningxue, and the others who were still working into the meeting room for a discussion.

(End of Chapter) <>