Chapter 152 - Situation of the Card Game Industry

Chinese card games are a unique concept, and are completely different from card games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering

Games like Soul Hunters and Onmyoji may seem to have different combat systems and cards, but their core are similar.

The so-called Chinese card games are represented by I Am MT. They stimulate the players through combat, obtaining and training cards. The ways they materialise themselves are also constantly changing.

From I Am MT’s cards battling to Soul Hunters’s 2D character models combat, to Onmyoji’s full 3D turned based. The combat may seem different but are similar at heart, all of them are known as Chinese card games.

Chen Mo decided to read the reviews of the popular card games before deciding on which game to make next.

-I Am MT discussion forums-

“I heard there’s a new card game being released with a anime IP, anyone wanna play?”

“Nah I’m good. There are so many similar games, aren’t you tired of this format?”

“To be honest, they all feel just like I Am MT. I’ve played a few of the other games, but I always come back to I Am MT. I’ll do the daily quests everyday, then drawing ten before calling it a day.

“Yeah, I think I Am MT was more fun when it first came out when it felt fresh. Now that there are so many companies making card games, I’m so sick of it.”

“It’s already a miracle that this game is still making money after being copied from for a year.”

“Geez, unfortunately these designers only learn Chen Mo’s way of making money and none of the innovation.”

“Yeah, although I Am MT feels like a scam, it was a revolutionary game. Chen Mo sure does have a lot of good ideas, I can’t help but be impressed.”

“Unfortunately Chen Mo doesn’t make mobile games anymore. Even the updates for I Am MT feel pathetic.”

“It can’t be helped. Chen Mo have now moved onto PC games. He’s made enough money from this and is now focused on making high quality games. Maybe he thinks it’s a better path for his future.”

“Although it is a good thing, I do hope that Chen Mo makes a follow up to I Am MT.”

“I heard that there are a few video game companies who thought about changing the looks of their card games, who knows how it went.”

“The looks?”

“Yeah, they are moving away from cards and switching to 3D models. The combat probably looks much better than cards.”

“Really, then I might take a look, hopefully they add something new.”

—

Chen Mo had an idea of the industry after looking through a few forums for the discussion on the more popular card games.

He felt that the timing was just right and it was a turning point in the industry. The players were starting to get bored of the first generation of card games, and the designers haven’t decided on which direction to head.

At the start of this, the video game designers could make money just by changing the looks, removing the drive for any innovation.

But at this stage, many of the card game players have played a few card games and were starting to get sick of it. Changing the looks without a good IP was no longer a good plan.

Therefore the designers were forced to innovate.

The easiest innovation was the graphics.

Phones in this world are capable of supporting 3D mobile games, which was why mobile games progressed much faster than Chen Mo’s previous world.

In this previous world, I Am MT was released in January 2013, Soul Hunters was released in July 2014, and Onmyoji was released in June 2016.

Every big change took a year or two to happen. This was just a constraint of ideas, but also technology.

But because phones were able to support large scale 3D mobile games in the parallel world, this allowed more rooms for videogame designers to play with. Games that used 2D characters as their selling point already started appearing, which was almost half a year faster than the previous world.

Although the gameplay didn’t compare to Soul Hunters, the artworks certainly exceeded Soul Hunters and the various games that followed it.

If given another six months, a fantastic looking 3D mobile card game might appear on the market.

Of course Chen Mo wouldn’t let an opportunity go like that. AS the mobile card game industry was huge, and the call for developers to innovate was almost at its peak while the designers were still unsure of the direction the industry was about to head.

Players will now be reminded of the horrifying ‘creating happiness mindfully’ incident.

—

Chen Mo was doing a quick sketch on his tablet in his office. It didn’t take long before a ashen haired man with a fan was finished.

Onmyoji’s Abe no Seimei.

Chen Mo could choose between Soul Hunters or Onmyoji, but he felt that Onmyoji was a better choice.

Soul Hunters was also a very classic mobile card game. It wouldn’t be excessive to call it better than I Am MT in every aspect. But the problem was that it’s artstyle was relatively worse, and it didn’t have an IP advantage because of the lack of DotA in this world.

Chen Mo wanted to grab the entire mobile card game industry, letting nothing escape.

From his experience, Soul Hunter and I Am MT were similar and their artstyle weren’t the best of the best, the only improvement was the gameplay.

And the game mechanics of card games were easily referenced by other designers. And because of this, both games have been extensively referenced, and there were cases where the games that referenced it outperformed the original.

Onmyoji didn’t have that problem as the artwork, music, story, and characters were all the best of the best in the mobile game industry, no games should be able to threaten it two years after its release.

As for Fate/Grand Order, Chen Mo couldn’t recreate the entire Fates series as of yet, which was why he had to set it aside for now.

Chen Mo opened a new designer document and started working on the design concept for Onmyoji.

“You’ve copied off I Am MT for a whole year and helped me expand the playerbase for mobile card games. I’ll count that as even. But now, everyone will have to do their best,” said Chen Mo