How Sony's China Star Program will help Chinese games succeed - Final Fantasy 15 game director says

As the blockbuster before this year's CJ, the PS VR Chinese version announced at the PlayStation China conference has definitely become a piece of news that shocked the Chinese game industry. However, amid this series of news, the people at the conference seemed to have overlooked another effort of Sony, which is the "China Star Project".

This project will strongly support Chinese-owned game developers, mainly start-ups, to enter China and move towards the global market through the PlayStation platform, hoping to contribute to the cultivation and development of China's game industry. However, facing such a tempting piece of cake, what kind of domestic games does the Chinese PS4 need?

The simple "Final Fantasy 15" is actually not simple in content

In fact, before the announcement of the "China Star Plan", Sony took two steps to achieve the development of PS4 games in China. The first was to introduce overseas games, which was highly anticipated by players and had been ongoing. The second was to focus on supporting domestic developers capable of developing games and provide excellent works to the PS platform. Perfect's "Neverwinter" and Snail's "Nine Yang Divine Art" are representative examples.

However, such development is still not enough to fill the gap in PS4 games in China. It is not that there are not enough game producers, but that there are too many. Due to the influence of the domestic game development environment, many manufacturers have a lack of high-quality content because the content is too similar and lacks novelty.

Are only games with extremely high difficulty able to stand out in the eyes of players?

In fact, this is not the case. In a conversation with Final Fantasy 15 game director Hajime Tabata, Tabata said that when creating Final Fantasy 15, we felt that no matter what kind of player it is, as long as they get the remote control, they can play the game very easily.

The battle system is what Tabata is most proud of. Because the battle is very simple, with a little effort, there are many different ways to fight. Now Final Fantasy 15 is compatible with the console's controller, so that everyone can operate the game more conveniently on the big screen. This is a great effort.

In fact, as Tabata Hajime said, there is actually a fine line between switching between simplicity and complexity. The multiple simple designs not only satisfy the appetites of old players, but also allow new players to operate smoothly. For a game, this cannot be explained by just being fun, and this approach also shows that "Final Fantasy 15" is not simple.

How can one be considered a Chinese star?

Faced with Sony's efforts to vigorously support the development of domestic console games, this has also created many good opportunities for domestic companies. However, it can be both a good medicine and a poison. Nowadays, there are actually not many companies in China that have the ability to independently develop games. Although the game industry seems to be developed, it lacks novelty. There are too many works that want to be masterpieces simply by relying on their complexity. This has also led to the fact that there are actually not many high-quality games in China.

In fact, for game developers, the production of a game needs to be considered from many aspects. The target audience, game mode, playability, difficulty level, etc. are indispensable. However, the most important of them may be the control of content as mentioned by Tabata. Piling up various high-quality content will not necessarily result in a masterpiece. The incoordination of various parts will also make these works fail.

In fact, there are many excellent domestic developers, such as Zen Master Chen Xinghan's "Journey", whose gameplay is actually very ordinary, but its content has a further derivative meaning, which also makes the game more interesting. In fact, Chinese developers do not need to create excellent content, simple and innovative content is actually enough, which is exactly what many excellent independent games abroad contain.

For Sony, the original intention of launching the "China Star Project" is to promote the development of China's game industry, but how can we win this China Star? Not forgetting the original intention and taking players seriously may be a good starting point.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.