Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: Feiyun

Does it all depend on peers to set off the "cold rice king" to the "conscience of the industry"?

On the morning of June 13, Capcom held an online exhibition. The exhibition announced the intelligence of games such as Dragon Creed 2, Locke X DiVE offline version, Ghost trick: Phantom Detective, reversal referee 456: Wang Nixi Collection, Pragmata, only: the way of Goddess. Although there is a lot of cold food, limited new works, and the postponement of the most eye-catching "Pragmata" (from 2023 to pending), on the whole, it is quite something to look forward to. In the eyes of many players, "stable output of good quality games" has become the new image of Capcom in the current era.

A few years ago, when players took one "card bitch" at a time, this did not seem to be the case. Now can leave a good impression in the minds of players, on the one hand, it is set off by peers, on the other hand, it is also related to the tortuous development of Capcom itself-two days ago, June 11, was the 40th anniversary of Capcom.

Like many established Japanese factories, Capcom got rich from arcade families in its early years. The horizontal version of action games represented by the "Street Fighter" series has achieved brilliant results on the arcade platform, making Capcom one of the famous game companies in Japan, and its influence continues to this day. After entering the mainframe era, Capcom has come up with famous series such as "biochemical crisis", "Ghost crying" and "Monster Hunter", which has been leading the trend in the field of action games and is affectionately known by players as "Action Heaven".

Entering the PS3 era, due to the impact of European and American 3A masterpieces on the entire Japanese console game industry, and the wave of departures within the company, Capcom experienced a double crisis of word-of-mouth and revenue before and after 2013, and had to be reborn in the form of a large number of "biochemical crisis" series transplants and collections. Bad-sounding nicknames such as "Cold Rice Tianzun" also spread from then on.

But in recent years, Capcom has found its own style in fried rice, game quality and maintaining players' reputation, not only with excellent works such as "Monster Hunter: the World", "Monster Hunter: rise", "biochemical Evil 7", "biochemical Evil: village" and "Ghost crying 5".

From the "King of Cold Rice" 10 years ago to the "conscience of the industry" today, the performance of Capcom can not help but be full of emotion.

"reverse referee" series painter Tu he also drew a unique stunt for the 40th anniversary a game manufacturer can survive the wind and rain, but also maintain rising game sales and gratifying financial figures, there must be some unique stunts of their own. As players are familiar with, Capcom's only stunt is decades of experience in action games.

Domestic players have early access to Capcom games. In the 1990s, the arcade had a brief boom in China, and horizontal action games once became the mainstream of the arcade hall, in which works such as "Dinosaur Quick fight", "devour Heaven and Earth", "Knight of the Round Table" and "Quick whirlwind" all came from Capcom. Until now, this is also a masterpiece that veteran players have relived repeatedly on the simulator. When I was in primary school, I used to fight with my friends in the arcade hall "devouring Heaven and Earth 2: the Battle of Red Cliff" and "Dinosaur Quick fight", so I formed an inextricable bond with Capcom. Many years later, when I had the PS host, I went through the customs of "devour heaven and earth 2" many times.

Capcom, the talent selection interface familiar to veteran players, continued to carry forward this advantage. After entering the PS era, "Ghost Warrior" and "Ghost cry" series can be said to define the standards of 3D action games, attracting many manufacturers to follow. In the era of PS and PS2, Sega's "endure Shinobi" and "Dororo" and Tecumo's "Argos Warrior" are all excellent works. The era of PS2 can be called the most prosperous period of 3D action games, and it was Capcom that opened the curtain of this era.

However, the so-called boom and decline, after the boom, 3D action games in the PS3 era appeared a relative decline, the number of sharp decline, there are not many masterpieces. Even Capcom itself, which did not release a sequel for many years after the release of Ghost weeping 4 in 2008, has only outsourced a version of DmC: crying Ghost. The game, made by the British company Ninja Theory, has a different style and a polarized reputation.

Not everyone can accept this style of "ghost cry". In fact, 3D action games encountered serious bottlenecks and innovation difficulties at that time, and most of the classic action game series came to a standstill-not only Ghost Cry, but the "God of War" series came to a standstill after the end of the third generation, and it was not until 2018 that the new "God of War" made a comeback through an open world and heavily RPG experience.

By contrast, Capcom is more affectionate about action games. In 2019, Capcom released Ghost crying 5, which did not choose to open the world as Ares IV did. It is still a pure 3D action game, which represents Capcom's persistence in this field and shows the strength of making action games for many years.

In terms of the basic elements of 3D action games, such as action design, variability, personalization, input feedback, visual effects and rhythm, and sense of shock, Ghost cry 5 still maintains the top level of the times. the moves of each character in the game and related systems are the focus of many companies around the world that study action games.

Its own high quality, coupled with the reduction in the number of hardcore 3D action games in recent years, has made "Ghost crying 5" a great success. According to the sales list released by Capcom, "Ghost crying 5" sold 6.9 million units, making it the highest-grossing film in the series.

The king has finally returned.

The freedom of playing "Ghost crying 5" is amazing. Since the 1990s, the star producers among Japanese game manufacturers have been the focus and conversation of players. On the other hand, the admiration for star producers also poses a hidden danger for the manufacturers themselves: once these producers run away or retire, it is easy for them to fall into an awkward position, especially in terms of word-of-mouth. After looking at the ups and downs of personnel troubles in major companies, we will find that it is Capcom that has handled this relatively smoothly.

Capcom has also had many star producers, such as Tokuhara Fujiwara, the father of the "Demon Village" series, Miami Seiji, the creator of the "biochemical crisis" series, and Hideki Miyani, who made a splash with "Ghost weeping" in the PS2 era. In addition, Kobayashi Yukuki, Okamoto Jiqi, Chuanshui Jixiao and Tanaka are also familiar names.

Basically all of these producers have left Capcom. In the past few years, there has been a wave of departures from Capcom, and the departure of Meiji has shocked the industry and players. Many people think that Capcom will not recover because of the brain drain.

With the departure of the star producer, the player's goal is likely to shift (the picture is "evil spirit possession"). In the end, Capcom survived. In business, Capcom's approach is, on the one hand, to reduce the influence of star producers and stop hyping new celebrities; on the other hand, although many famous producers leave, the methods and experience they have established are retained and shine in the newcomers' jobs.

For example, General Kawada, one of the heroes of the revival of the "biochemical crisis" series, is not a genius like Miami. He was only an ordinary staff member when he participated in the production of "biochemical Evil" in his early years, but he had a strong studious spirit. integrate some of the early scrapped cases of the "biochemical crisis" series that Sansuji once conceived and left in the company, and return to the original secret room terror style. Made the biochemical Evil: the Apocalypse, which was well received that year.

Later, the production of "biochemical Evil 6" led by Yuxing Kobayashi was mixed, and General Kawada became the producer of "biochemical Evil 7". Biochemical Evil 7 not only returned to the Chamber of Secrets adventure style, but also enhanced the horror experience through the first person, reversing the decline of a series of word-of-mouth, and sales by leaps and bounds. Official figures from Capcom show that Biohazard 7 has sold 12 million units.

General Kawada, not so big star halo, but Meiji also praised "biochemical Evil 7" many times in an interview. He mentioned that he wanted to use a first-person perspective when he conceived the first version of biochemical Evil, but gave up the idea only because of the performance limitations of PS hosts at the time. From this point of view, Kawada will Yonghe "biochemical crisis 7" can also be regarded as the realization of the ideal of Sanshang Shinji.

In addition to General Kawada, Liangzhang Ping has made frequent public appearances in recent years as the producer of the remake of biochemical Evil 2 and biochemical Evil 4. As the representative of "cold rice and hot stir-fry", these two remaking plates have been highly praised.

It is worth mentioning that perhaps it is because the level and personality of the new generation of producers are difficult to compare with those star producers in the past, or that Capcom intends to balance the relationship among multiple producers. In the new and remade series of "biochemical Evil" series, Capcom often arranges multiple directors to co-produce-there are as many as four producers of "biochemical Evil 7", namely Kawada, Takeuerun, Peter Fabiano, and Kanda. The director is the history of China and the West. The reproduction of "biochemical Evil 2" and "biochemical Evil 4" allows Pinglin Liangzhang to partner with Director an Bao Kang Hong. With solid production skills and rich project management experience, these relatively low-key producers can also make a difference on the shoulders of their predecessors.

Liangzhang Hirayashi was Mikami's deputy in the production of the original biochemical Evil 4, just like General Kawada in the biochemical Evil, and Yingzhao Izino is the hero of the "Ghost Cry" series. In his early years, he participated in the production of a series of works with the father of "Street Fighter," and later took over the position of director of "Ghost weeping 2," and then he was the director of three, four and five generations. Hideaki Izuno is a key figure in the series that continues to this day.

After the sale of the outsourced work "DmC: crying Ghost", Hideaki Izino was dissatisfied with the change of development direction of Capcom and submitted his resignation. Capcom executives tried to retain him and asked how he could stay at the company. Hideaki Izino took the opportunity to say that he hoped to regain the development rights to the "Ghost cry" series. Capcom executives agreed to his request and approved the new project of "Ghost crying", which became the later "Ghost cry 5".

Hideaki Izino is relentless in order to "cry for ghosts" at the same time, Capcom is also constantly training new people. When Keiji Inagawa left, there was a considerable storm, Capcom had to recruit a number of school students. A few years later, these newcomers played an important role in the development of Monster Hunter: the World.

Generally speaking, although Capcom has experienced many brain drain, it has done fairly smoothly in the intergenerational transition, which to a certain extent reduces the classic IP outage caused by the difficulty of replacing the old and the new. Perhaps after many waves of departures, the company's executives finally realized who really knew how to play games.

After the training of new employees at that time, they became members of the "Monster Hunter: the World" team to adapt to the times. in the PS3 era, European and American 3A masterpieces such as "call of Duty" and "War Machine" had a great impact on Japanese manufacturers. Not only by virtue of the grand cinematic scenes frequently achieved tens of millions of sales, these games also brought another concept to the industry-New year goods. The "car Gun Ball" series, which is familiar to many players, laid the foundation at that time.

With the development of the New year game, to a certain extent, it has become synonymous with "can", "lie flat" and "do not want to make progress", but even now there are stable shipping frequency, guaranteed sales and high income, although the volume of condemnation is high, but it is difficult to resist the players who place orders silently, and it is very difficult for game manufacturers to resist these temptations.

No matter what Activision Blizzard's reputation is, the "call of Duty" series has attracted countless Japanese manufacturers over the years, and they have begun to follow suit, one of the most important measures is to develop their own engines. A typical example of this is Infinity Ward, the development team of the call of Duty series, which has improved picture quality and R & D efficiency with its own "endless" engine. In fact, most European and American game companies based on 3A masterpieces began to develop exclusive engines very early. Even if "Unity" and "illusory" are mature, there are still many manufacturers using self-developed engines.

After seeing the advantage of Europe and the United States at that time, the Japanese companies that wanted to learn were Capcom, Konami, Square Enix and so on. Finally, only Capcom persisted and produced a lot of results.

In recent years, Capcom has been able to launch "biochemical Evil 7" and "biochemical Evil: village" with astonishing efficiency, as well as the second, third and fourth generations of the "biochemical Evil" series, as well as many games such as "Ghost weeping 5" and "Monster Hunter: rise". One of the important reasons is that Capcom has spent a lot of resources developing the RE engine. At GDC and other industry conferences, Capcom also shared the experience of engine research and development for many times, causing concern and heated discussion.

Today, this logo appears in most game titles of Capcom, compared with the attempts of Konami and SE on their own research engines.

Konami was led by Hideo Kojima to produce the "FOX" engine many years ago, but it was only used in a few games such as "Alloy equipment 5: phantom pain". Later, Hideo Kojima left and the engine was gradually abandoned. SE also put a lot of effort into developing the "Night" engine, and the "final Fantasy 15" screen developed with this engine performed well, but it did not become a general-purpose engine for SE. "Heart of the Kingdom 3", "final Fantasy 7: remake" or even "final Fantasy 16" were not used. To make matters worse, the new work "the Land of the Curse" developed by the Night engine has a reputation for turning over, and the future of the engine is also bleak.

In addition to the engine, Capcom has made many changes in the design of games such as Monster Hunter: the World, reducing the threshold and difficulty of operation, adopting open areas, and improving screen performance, and the game looks more popular. In particular, open areas, because "Monster Hunter: the World" is not actually a complete and seamless open world, but divided into several areas, players are free to explore in each area. From this point, we can see that Capcom is flexible in design ideas.

Monster Hunter: the World, which boarded the PC platform, also lived up to expectations, becoming Capcom's first game with more than 10 million sales and giving up its own research on mobile games. This does not seem to be "in keeping with the times", but it is in line with its own situation. It's not that Capcom has never played mobile games, but few of them can live long. In this premise to decisively give up self-research mobile games, only to do its IP outsourcing authorization, in fact, it is wise to concentrate resources on operating mainframes, PC games.

At the same time, Capcom has also used a group of European and American producers such as Peter Fabiano to take up leading positions in some of its games in an effort to make the style of the "Ghost cry", "Monster Hunter" and "biochemical Evil" series more global. The recent release of "Street Fighter 6" by Capcom actually uses the open world way to play. It is rare to design combat games like this, which requires not only a vision of the times, but also courage and courage.

The change of "Street Fighter 6" is amazing. As an old player who loves Capcom games, I have passed more than 100 Capcom games since childhood. I must be looking forward to the recovery of Capcom and the announcement and launch of many new works today.

From "Cold Rice King" to "industry conscience", among the changes in word-of-mouth, Capcom has undoubtedly done a lot of things right: insisting on developing action games, balancing intergenerational changes, and adapting to the development of the times. It is now one of the relatively reassuring Japanese game manufacturers in the minds of players.

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