My Animation Era

Chapter 1088 Wanbao’s event brand

Strictly speaking, the Gundam series is generally set in space wars, and is a space opera in terms of literary themes.

 But not so pure…

Looking at Gundam by the standards of a space opera, or by the standards of hard-core science fiction works, it is actually not appropriate enough.

Gundam is Gundam!

You can get what Gundam wants to express and feel the charm of the realistic weapon-style robot, then you don’t have to worry about what type of work Gundam is.

 So Gu Miao has always felt that she is not suitable for directing Gundam animation.

 Because with his style of acting, Gundam animation will 100% turn into a "toy commercial" and embark on a path of no return.

Hou Bin is more restrained than Gu Miao in this regard, probably because he is not as philistine as Gu Miao and has fewer factors to consider, so under his conception, the animation is relatively pure.

 “I feel relieved now.”

Gu Miao breathed a sigh of relief and said: "I was worried before that you might not be able to control this kind of realistic weapon-style robot animation. Now it seems that you are better than I thought."

"maybe!"

“Although this is my first time trying robot animation, and I need to learn a lot of things from scratch, I think this subject is quite suitable for me.”

Hou Bin grinned and said: "Gundam is so cool. Which boy can resist the temptation of Gundam?"

makes sense.

Gu Miao smiled and agreed with Hou Bin's words. Boys do have this kind of nature and are full of interest in mechanical creations.

Be it Gundam or Transformers.

 Any boy with a healthy mind would find it difficult to refuse. There is no way, this is the romance that is engraved in the bones and belongs only to boys.

Girls might also like it.

It’s just that compared to boys, there are not that many girls who like and are obsessed with this kind of mechanical creation.

 Hou Bin was the absolute main force in the creation of the animation "Mobile Suit Gundam". Gu Miao, the producer and producer, was more of a helper on the sidelines and gave him suggestions.

He actually didn’t help much.

Even in terms of plot, Hou Bin thought more thoroughly about the idea of ​​the "One Year War" than he did.

This made Gu Miao very discouraged. He felt that he was redundant and an eyesore within the Gundam production team. After all, even if he had seen the original animation, it seemed to be of little use.

The Manpower Edition of Gundam Animation, although roughly similar to the original version, is actually two completely different works.

 So his experience and knowledge are of extremely limited help to the animation production team.

On the contrary, in the game of the same name "Mobile Suit Gundam" developed and produced by Wanbao Games, Gu Miao helped Xiaolin a lot.

 That’s right!

 For the game "Mobile Suit Gundam", Gu Miao was actually half a game planner, providing Kobayashi with a lot of theoretical support on the development route and body design of "Future Gundam".

 Let’s be clear first.

 The animated version of Gundam has a small number of mobile units, and can be broken down into just a few types.

 But in the game, there are a lot of Gundam units, and many of the units that will only appear in future animations have all appeared in the game.

 This is of course Gu Miao’s contribution.

 Animation needs to consider the background and plot. The body cannot appear out of thin air, but the game does not need to consider that much. As long as there is a good body design, it can be pulled out casually.

 Because of this, Gu Miao used the platform of Wanbao Games to restore many classic Gundam body designs in his mind in one go.

Xiao Lin was almost frightened to death.

“That’s enough, that’s enough! There are so many new mechas, it feels like it’s enough to update the game for more than ten years…”

Over ten years?

This is really true!

 Many of the machine designs provided by Gu Miao are the result of nearly ten years. Compared with these machines, the Origin Gundam is as old as a product from a century ago.

“Mr. Gu, you’d better rest.”

　　Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, Xiao Lin said speechlessly: "How can there be any reason to launch so many machines in one go? Many of the designs you provided are not used."

 The original Gundam has just been born, and it will be enough to launch a few "improved versions" of Gundam later.

As for the body designs created by Gu Miao, it’s not that they are bad, they are just too “advanced” and require multiple game version updates before they can be launched smoothly.

 “You’re driving me away too?”



 “I don’t dislike you, it’s just...”

Xiao Lin couldn't laugh or cry and said: "Don't I know what you are talking about? But Gundam has just started now, how can you become fat in one bite?"

Gu Miao was immediately speechless.

 He admitted that he was indeed a little anxious.

 He ​​has high expectations for the Gundam project, so he hopes that the beginning will be the peak, but how can things be as simple as he thinks? The original Gundam has gone through decades, and the Wanbao version wants to hit it right in one go?

 This is unrealistic.

 The food must be eaten one bite at a time, and the road must be walked step by step. There are not so many good things that can reach the sky in one step. Gundam is destined to be a long journey.

 …

Hou Bin thought he was an eyesore, Xiao Lin thought he talked too much, and Gu Miao, who felt uncomfortable in the Gundam project team, simply took a look at the registration status of the "Go Youth" Wanbao Cup qualifiers.

Not to mention, there are quite a lot of people.

  Thanks to the popularity of the animation "Go Boy", an absurd number of children signed up to participate.

This made Gu Miao doubt her life for a while. Are there really so many children playing Go in China? Isn’t Go a popular chess game? Where did so many registered contestants come from?

 “Most of them are just joining in the fun!”

The person in charge of following the entire event explained: “For the primary school and middle school competitions, it is expected that the number of applicants will exceed 100,000, but 90% of them will be young friends who come to join in the fun.”

 It is human nature to like to join in the fun!

It’s just that so many children came to sign up, which really put great pressure on the event organizing committee.

 Fortunately, it’s Go…

 In the case of Go competitions, one indoor venue can host more than a dozen games at the same time, and the space occupied is not particularly exaggerated.

If it is an event that requires a lot of space, such as basketball, badminton and tennis, with so many participating players, it will take a year just to start the qualifying rounds.

According to the rules of the competition, the qualifiers within the jurisdiction of Jiangchuan City will be held at the Jiangchuan Cultural Children’s Palace from 10:00 am to 15:00 pm, with 10 games every hour.

“There are relatively few people signing up for the middle school group, and most of them are primary school students…”

The person in charge smiled bitterly and said: "I asked around, and it seems that because middle school students have a heavier study load, their parents do not agree to participate in such insignificant extracurricular activities."

"normal!"

Gu Miao was not surprised at all.

 Middle school students, especially those in high school, are already under great academic pressure. How can they have the leisure to play Go and participate in so-called Go competitions?

You might say that being a Go champion can give you extra points for the high school entrance exam or college entrance exam, or you can be specially recruited by a good high school or university. Your parents might be able to support you, but that doesn’t add any points! Champions of world-class Go competitions may have the chance to be specially recruited by universities, but it is strange that universities will recognize the level of the Wanbao Cup "Go Youth" competition.

 There are quite a lot of primary school students…

Walking around the venue, seven or eight of the ten contestants Gu Miao met were primary school students.

 Most of them are accompanied by their parents.

There are also a few children who secretly sign up for the competition without telling their families, and their parents are unaware of them.

 The format of the qualifiers is very cruel.

  Only by eliminating two opponents in a row can you advance to the second round. In the second round, you must achieve the top five results in order to stand out from the qualifiers and advance to the final national competition.

 Jiangchuan is already pretty good.

 As an ordinary prefecture-level city, at least Jiangchuan is the hometown of Wanbao, so it generously gave five places.

 In other cities, there may only be one or two places, which shows how cruel the qualifying rounds are.

"congratulations!"

While shaking hands with the winning players of this round, touching their little heads, encouraging them to keep working hard, and looking at the schedule, Gu Miao asked: "When will the national competition be held?"

 “Let’s take winter vacation!”

The person in charge explained: “The preliminaries for the primary school group and the middle school group can be held on the weekends, and it will not delay daily study too much.”

“But the national competition lasts a long time, and we can’t schedule it all on Saturdays and Sundays, so we have to take time off during the winter vacation to do it.”

 This makes sense.

Gu Miao nodded and didn't think there was anything wrong with this arrangement.

  The Wanbao Cup Tennis Competition is also a national competition held during the summer vacation. For a nationwide competition like this, the contestants are still students, so this is the only way.

You can’t let players take time off to compete, right?

How embarrassing it would be to delay other people’s normal class study! And if this is the case, it is estimated that many parents will not agree.

“Let me know when the time comes and I will give the award to the child who wins the championship!”

Gu Miao likes to be an award guest. Every time he sees the excited expressions of the children, he feels a sense of reward.

At the Wanbao Cup Tennis Competition, he awards awards to the national champion team every year, and he also goes to watch the "King of Robots" global finals.

 There were only four-wheel drive and remote control car competitions. He went to present the awards for the first time, but he didn’t go to the following ones...

 There is a reason for this.

The four-wheel-drive competition and the Speedy remote control car competition have become increasingly popular in the past two years, and they have received little attention from the outside world. Why is he still going to the event?

honestly.

If it weren’t for the fact that four-wheel drive vehicles and remote control cars have created a lot of profits for Wanbao in recent years, competitions like this would have been discontinued long ago.

 Especially the remote control car!

 The remote-controlled toy car products of the Raysodeng series are about to be taken off the shelves, but the competition is held every year, and the prize money is still very high...

 There’s really no need to do it, right?

　　Everyone agreed that competitions like this can be stopped. After all, remote control car products are not easy to sell and the prize money is still so high. It is meaningless to continue holding competitions.

Thanks to Gu Miao’s persistence, even though Lei Sudeng has become too cold, she still insists on using high bonuses to attract contestants to sign up every year, so this event can continue to this day.

 “How much is the bonus?”

“You should treat it as advertising. No matter whether the effect is good or not, this event must continue to be held and cannot be abandoned halfway.”

 Gu Miao told Lao Zhang that as long as the company does not go bankrupt and can still make money in its account, it must maintain these competitions and regard them as a long-term strategy.

It’s not just the R-R-R car competition.

In the future, if the Wanbao Cup Tennis Competition, Go Competition and Robot Battle King Competition fail, they will be handled in this way.

 If you don’t expect anything in return, just spend money on advertising.

 It is easy to destroy the brand of an event that has lasted for many years and has a deep influence on people's hearts. It just needs to be stopped.

 But it takes a lot of time and energy to build such an event brand. As the saying goes, it is always easier to destroy than to create.

 The expenses are acceptable anyway.

 It’s nothing more than renting a venue and paying a bonus, which is not a big deal for Wanbao.

Since you can get the money, why not keep doing it? It would be a pity to suddenly suspend the event brand that we have worked so hard to build.

By the way.

Wanbao currently organizes a lot of various competitions, but if we were to choose the most successful event brand among them, it would have to be the "King of Robots" global finals.

As an “e-sports event”, “Game of Thrones”, “Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Frontline” and “Pokémon” together form Wanbao’s e-sports event territory.

 Don't look at the performance of the "The Adventures of Lolo" animation, it cannot compare to either "Yu-Gi-Oh!" or "Pokémon".

But when it comes to event operation, “King of Robots” can lift the latter two into competition...

  The spin-off game "King of Mechs" itself has a gameplay that tends to be a highly competitive e-sports event like "StarCraft".

 In addition, this game is deeply tied to the event. A DLC will be released for every world competition, and 50% of the sales of the DLC will be included in the championship prize pool.

This directly leads to the event attention and prize money being at the forefront of the e-sports industry.

Many well-known e-sports clubs at home and abroad have also formed corresponding "Machine Battle King" divisions to compete in various competition areas and the final global finals.

 Good guy!

 This is the only money-making event brand under Wanbao. Gu Miao was shocked when she found out about it.

ah! Can you still make money by hosting competitions?

 It can only be said that the "King of Robots" global finals was indeed not ugly, and it gave Wanbao a bad face.

Unfortunately…

  The popularity of the game "King of Robots" is still not comparable to the top popular online games at home and abroad, and the popularity of the animation "The Adventures of Lolo" is not very high either.

 Otherwise, Gu Miao would not dare to imagine how popular this event would be!

 If King of Mechs could have half the attention of LOL, I am afraid that the popularity of the game would have been comparable to the S game of League of Legends.

no way!

This kind of real-time strategy chess game is destined to have a very small audience because of its gameplay, and it is impossible to become as popular as Moba and FPS games.

This is also the main reason why there is no sequel project for the animated "The Adventures of Lolo" so far.

 Wanbao will definitely do this again in the future when it comes to changing animations for games, but the specific games to be made are worth discussing.

 Perhaps League of Legends…

 After all, Naifly mentioned this project when they collaborated with Wanbao on the "Angry Birds" animation.

 If Wanbao is interested, given their position in the industry, it is impossible for the other party to refuse to cooperate with Wanbao.

 (End of this chapter)