And now, Thunderbolt Gaming Platform was at a crucial turning point as it was about to make its first move.
And what Chen Mo will do next will shock the entire video game industry.
—
Eighth of October.
It was the first day after national day, where most have yet to recover from their holiday mindset.
It was the afternoon, and many office workers were finishing up what they left behind from last week, haphazardly planning out this week’s work before heading to their lunch break to deal with their first day back from a break.
During their lunch break, many will pull out their phones to play a game and kill some time.
And at this moment, they received shocking news.
This spread like wildfire in the videogame industry the moment it was out.
Chen Mo released an important message on the Thunderbolt Gaming Platform’s front page..
From today onwards, Thunderbolt Gaming Platform will become a comprehensive gaming platform as well as a social platform. The difference was that it allowed any other indie game developer to sell their games on the platform and promote the games for them. They will provide them with free resources and get a cut.
Of course, these games must have gone through the Game Committee’s review, and only then will they be able to release them on Thunderbolt Gaming Platform.
This meant that Thunderbolt Gaming Platform will no longer be just Chen Mo’s game, and will be similar to Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform or Fantasy Gaming platform, hosting games of other developers and use the resources of the platform to promote their games.
And there was even more shocking news to follow.
About the sales.
First, the developer can sell their games on other platforms after hosting their gaming on Thunderbolt Gaming Platform, but the game cannot charge money bypassing Thunderbolt Gaming Platform.
Second, Thunderbolt Gaming Platform will give developers pricing and marketing strategy suggestions, but the developer has the final say.
Third, Thunderbolt Gaming Platform will only take a ten to thirty percent of the gross revenue of the games, and everything else goes back to the developer. This will be decided by the quality of the game. If the game is of good quality, there will be a one to nine slight (one for platform, nine for developer).
The first two were nothing special as most other platforms had the same.
Although there are some exclusive games overseas, in general, in China, most games were across multiple platforms, especially on PC and mobile.
Different gaming platforms had different marketing strategies. Emperor Gaming Platform and Fantasy Game Platform will push for their own strategy when faced with designers that didn’t have much power, and sometimes abuse the game to gain the maximum amount of profit.
This meant that Chen Mo would provide guidance, but absolutely wouldn’t interfere with their decision.
The most shocking one was the third point, especially the mention of a one to nine split.
The official app store had a two to eight split, twenty percent of the profits taken by the Game Committee for operations costs. This was already an incredibly low number.
The other distributors usually did a fifty fifty split. Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform for example, only the great games got a fifty fifty split. Works from newer designers that didn’t seem incredible might only get ten to twenty percent of the revenue if they posted it onto Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform, with the platform taking eighty percent of it.
To the developer however, because of how many players Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform had, the revenue still looked great with eighty percent of it taken away.
Therefore, distributors still held great power in the videogame industry. Emperor Dynasty Entertainment’s development was comparable to Zen Entertainment’s, yet they were able to keep Zen Entertainment under control, all due to Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform.
And Chen Mo’s profit splitting strategy was straight up breaking the unspoken rule of the gaming industry.
According to Chen Mo’s strategy, Thunderbolt Gaming Platform would only take thirty percent of the profit of games. if the game was a better performing one, this could be reduced to ten percent.
This was extremely attractive to some of the newer developers.
As Thunderbolt Gaming Platform was one of the three largest video game platforms in China with a huge player base, there was no questioning its promoting abilities.
And the ultra-low cut that the platform takes could increase the profits of the developers by multiple times, much better than Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform.
(Of course, the official app store also takes a tiny cut. But because of the large number of games and the restrictive promoting strategies, new games must start from nothing, so the promotion wouldn’t be as good.)
—
A tossed stone raises a thousand ripples[1].
This was a hot topic among players, designers and large distributors alike.
-In a designer circle-
“Have you heard that Chen Mo’s Thunderbolt Gaming Platform is about to be opened to the public, so you can upload your games onto his platform1”
“I’ve heard about it, and they take a tiny cut too, thirty percent at the highest!”
“This is absolutely good news! I plan to post my new game onto the Thunderbolt Gaming Platform to test the waters.”
“Beware of scams.”
“That wouldn’t happen. Thunderbolt Gaming Platform is the third largest platform in China. And Chen Mo said that there wasn’t any exclusive rights, no direct interference with promoting and pricing strategies, and takes a thirty percent cut at most. He already posted this onto the front page of the platform with countless witnesses, how could he take that back?”
“Yeah, Thunderbolt Gaming Platform had been doing so well these few years. It’s an incredibly influential platform in China now.”
“It really is a good opportunity. Sad indie developers like us could finally make a buck or two.”
“But what is Chen Mo thinking? Setting aside the ability for him to make money from such a low cut, isn’t he plainly attacking Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform and Fantasy Gaming Platform?”
“Yeah, isn’t it in the unwritten rules that it should at least be a fifty percent cut? Chen Mo reduced that all the way to thirty percent, isn’t he trying to start something?”
“Chen Mo is going to end up on the bad side of many this time.”
“Yeah, although he had never been too friendly with Emperor Dynasty Entertainment in the past, he’s a videogame designer and a developer after all. But now he used his identity as a distributor and did that, he’s stopping the others from making money!”
“I think Chen Mo has quite the ambition. Perhaps he plans to turn Thunderbolt Gaming Platform into the largest gaming distributor. This is just a battle of pricing!”
TL note: [1] It’s a Chinese idiom