🗝️ Bosskey Newsletter 15 - China Clones Gaming Industry, Fantasian Neo Dimension - Mistwalker, Western Games homogeneity
# 🗝️ Bosskey Newsletter #3 Things: 1 🎮 Game news, 1 🔎 Interesting Find, 1 📱Social Post. Written by a Part Time Indie Game Dev
🎮 Game News
Here is something different from Summer Game Feat News. Mistwalker is developing bringing the iOS exclusive Fantasian on consoles, including switch and PC (Steam)
The company Mistalkwer and Hironobu Sakaguchi is also reunited with Square Enix to published the game on multiple platforms.
Links:
Japanese Fantasian Official Website: https://www.jp.square-enix.com/fantasian_nd/
Surprise! Mistwalker's Fantasian Is Coming To Switch
Game from Final Fantasy Creator Confirmed for Switch
Fantasian: Neo Dimension Coming This Winter to Consoles and PC
📱Social Post
Homogenisation of Western Studios? Sequals and remakes? This was pointed out by X user Jade Law about the games coming out from summer games fest. Seems like most of the New IPs and Indie games are coming from Asia?
Maybe its true Indie games will have more interesting games than AAA.
🔎 Interesting Finds
China 🇨🇳 Intends to Clone the Whole 🎮 Gaming Industry.
From Belinda Ercan Youtube
An interesting documentary on the China Gaming Industry how they make products by copying them. This is not unique as it happened in the early 2000s with China being a manufacturing hub of electronics which has given rise to tech giants like Huawei and Tencent.
I feel that its more cultural and due to education. China have to do a lot of Route learning due to its language where you learn to memorise for the answer.
I do feel that we learn by copying things, like right now I am learning to clone Vampire Survivirs to learn Godot but that is for learning.
But to make something stand out in the marketplace you have to apply the learning differently. When making my own game, one way is to redesign my own game mechanics and have a different theme applied to the game, that is if I am going to sell it. Product Differentiation is Key.
Check out her substack newsletter for more articles on gaming: https://substack.com/@belindaercan
Article Version of the Video:
Sources:
https://pastebin.ai/vllr6srvtr
Regarding indie games being more interesting than AAA titles, I think that's been true for a while! Although this is slowly starting to change, indie game developers in the past were free to experiment and step off the beaten path of AAA titles. It brought some new perspectives to an otherwise same-y AAA market.
Now though, with increasing pressure on devs to make something that sells (maybe somewhat perpetuated by publishers?) and the almost fanatic way the player base reacts to games that don't meet expectations, I do feel like that magic in indie game titles is starting to go away. Not saying it isn't there...just not what it used to be.
The perils of companies who earned too much and now want to invest even more and get even more. It's either live services, remakes and sequels of already existing brands and other low risk enterprises.
If China wants to clone that...