Chapter 231: Nebula Games Platform Transformation (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Pass)

On the official Weibo account, Chen Xu also announced in advance the news about the mobile and VR versions of Minecraft.

They were set to launch on March 31st.

The reason for choosing March 31st was mainly due to the special significance of April 1st. Otherwise, it would have been meaningful to release it as a two-month anniversary of Minecraft's launch.

As for pricing, it surprised many players.

The VR version was priced at 148 yuan, and overseas at 29.9 USD.

For the mobile version, anyone who had already purchased the PC or VR version would receive automatic activation.

However, if a player didn't want to buy the PC or VR versions and only wanted to play the mobile version, they could purchase it separately.

Pricing: 28 yuan. Players who had already bought the mobile version would only need to pay the remaining balance if they later decided to purchase the PC or VR versions.

This pricing strategy caused countless players to exclaim, "It's so good!"

After announcing the VR and mobile versions, Chen Xu himself didn't pay much attention.

After all, with the PC version's sales performance as a benchmark, the VR version's sales were unlikely to be poor.

Moreover, compared to other games on the VR platform, Minecraft at 148 yuan was practically a bargain.

However, while Chen Xu remained calm, the rest of the gaming industry's designers and media closely monitored the situation, intensely focused on the data.

The next day, Nebula Games did not release the data as they had with the PC version of Minecraft.

But a third-party statistical company quickly compiled the figures.

VR version of Minecraft: 2.41 million domestic sales.

Mobile version of Minecraft: 1.52 million domestic sales.

April Fool's Day!?

Many industry designers and media who were paying attention were momentarily stunned.

The numbers were simply too unexpected.

The VR version's sales weren't particularly surprising.

According to data from the Game Department, the current number of VR users in the country was around 30 million.

But in reality, this number was definitely higher.

The reason was that this data tracked the number of activated VR gaming pods.

That is, VR gaming pods that had been activated and used.

But the key point was that not every player bought a pod; VR experience stores and similar venues also accounted for a large proportion.

These experience stores had a fixed number of pods, but the players using them were constantly changing.

So the actual potential user base was far higher than the data suggested.

The PC version of Minecraft had sold like crazy, and it was still extremely popular.

Given the superior experience and the fact that the VR version wasn't particularly expensive, selling this many copies wasn't surprising.

But what truly shocked people was the mobile version.

These were sales figures, not player counts!

This meant that over a million players had never purchased the PC version—these were entirely new players.

…………………

While the industry was filled with self-doubt, Chen Xu at Nebula Games was now thinking about something more important.

On the display in front of Chen Xu, a list of current games under Nebula Games was shown.

Mirror (Game) (crossed out), Undertale, To the Moon, Overcooked, Sanguosha, Fall Guys, Outlast, Dark Souls, Valiant Hearts: The Great War, It Takes Two, Dark Souls: Age of the First Flame, and Don't Starve and Minecraft... hmm, the one with the big hammer was temporarily excluded by Chen Xu.

So far, the Nebula Games platform had a total of twelve games to offer.

Among players, these games all had significant recognition.

For a game store, Nebula Games was already very successful, much like Blizzard's Battle.net in Chen Xu's previous life.

But for Chen Xu, clearly, he had no intention of stopping here.

A platform that merely integrated his own company's games was never Chen Xu's goal. From the beginning, Chen Xu had always aimed for comprehensive digital platforms like Steam and GOG from his previous life.

102 million registered users, 23 million daily active users, 77 million monthly active users, and a peak average of 8.17 million concurrent users.

This was mainly due to the recent popularity of Minecraft, which boosted Nebula Games' active user data.

Regardless, these numbers indicated one thing: Nebula Games had grown into a game store with major influence.

Now, its wings were fully developed, and the release of Minecraft was originally meant to support this plan.

Chen Xu had long discussed this with Zhang Yida from the Marketing and Operations Department.

Now, leveraging the influence of Minecraft, Nebula Games could finally take this step.

………………

April 15th.

Although it was a Sunday, all employees of Nebula Games were at their posts.

On major gaming media websites and gaming communities, the trending topic was originally Minecraft.

But soon, the top spot was seized by the term "Nebula Games."

Many players who opened the Nebula Games platform, intending to enter Minecraft, were stunned as soon as the platform loaded and a pop-up window appeared.

"Starting today, the Nebula Games Store will transform into a comprehensive digital game platform, allowing all game designers to publish games on the store and providing corresponding promotion and services."

"This includes features such as cloud saves, user feedback, Workshop (modding platform), store friend connections, and granting game designers sufficient autonomy, of course, within the established rules."

Of course, these games must first undergo appropriate censorship and obtain publishing qualifications before they can be launched.

Simply put, Nebula Games was transitioning from an independent platform running only its own games to a comprehensive distribution platform.

What excited game industry designers even more was Nebula Games' sales terms.

In this Parallel World, like most game stores in his previous life, the official game store took a 30% commission.

But this was the official store. For large channels like TengHua and NetDragon, the situation was completely different.

For top-tier game designers and powerful developers, a 30% revenue share was naturally available.

But what about regular game designers and smaller developers?

In his previous life, many said that platforms like Steam and Google taking a 30% cut was already high.

But domestic mobile app stores typically started at a 50-50 split.

Want a 30% cut? No problem. List your game on my platform, but I won't promote it—that's 30%. But if I provide promotion and server usage, then it's 60%.

And don't complain it's too high. Some even went as far as 70-30.

70% for developers and 30% for the channel? What are you thinking! It's 30% for developers and 70% for the channel!

In more extreme cases, you couldn't even decide how your game should be operated.

What? You say that's like begging on your knees?

Exactly! That's precisely what it's like—begging on your knees. And even then, many people couldn't even get that chance!

Compared to the major domestic app channels of his previous life, the channels in this Parallel World were just as harsh.

So why were there still so many designers willing to accept this?

No choice. Building your own platform and selling through your official website required massive promotional costs you couldn't afford.

As for official game stores, while they had a decent user base, issues like recommendation slots and rotation meant that even with some exposure, the algorithms were quite outdated.

After all, since it involved the government, they couldn't actively intervene in the market.

So unless a game was a genuine blockbuster, it rarely became popular on official platforms.

And in reality, most games didn't have the unique characteristics to become blockbusters; they simply appealed to a specific segment of players.

So even though channel providers took high cuts, at least they ensured exposure.

Circumstances are stronger than people. You could only gnaw on bones while the channels ate meat and drank soup.

After all, making money—begging on your knees—isn't shameful.

Now, what shocked the gaming industry designers was that on the Nebula Games Store, Chen Xu's revenue share terms were only 25%.

Whether it was large game developers or individual game designers, a flat 25% commission would be taken for the platform's daily operations.

As soon as this news broke, it triggered a major upheaval in the gaming industry.

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