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

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Touch Music (ID: chuappgame), author: Zhu Siqi

"It's like the gears of fate... they've already started turning. "

Yi Tao and Ai Xi from TSC Studio, and Soldier, another individual developer, arrived in Chengdu a day or two earlier than me. On the eve of the "My World" developer conference, they seized the time to meet and eat with a group of developers who usually only type and talk online, met around Chengdu for a circle, and chatted with many Netease staff.

They were young and looked much like I had imagined them to be-Yi Tao and Ai Xi were tall, thin and bespectacled;Soldier smiled and spoke shyly, taking his online name from Rock Kingdom, which he played with friends as a child. Among the three, Soldier is the youngest and is still in his junior year; Yi Tao and Ai Xi have just graduated from school and are working together to set up their own module studio TSC, chatting from time to time about recruiting people for the studio.

Their common identity was Minecraft's player for many years and developer for many years. At the same time, they are starting or planning to start businesses with the resources they have acquired in the game. I chatted with them at the annual Minecraft developer conference.

This is not just the story of two groups of developers, but also the story of two groups of young people who accidentally found their own path clear when faced with life choices by their peers.

The name Einst_Yi Tao is not unfamiliar in Minecraft mods circles, and in the early years he was the author of many hardcore mods in the game.

Many of Einst_Yi Tao's works are familiar to players. It all started seven or eight years ago. He was digging and building houses with his friends in Minecraft, but he found out how his friends could play something he couldn't play-props he hadn't seen, gameplay he hadn't seen, strange monsters he hadn't seen... friends told him that those were modules downloaded from the post bar. Yi Tao felt very curious, so he went to browse the posts and happened to see a module teaching post.

"I felt that this kind of thing was very interesting, and the production process was not difficult, and it was easy to understand. I started to try to do these things. "said Yi Tao. At first, he wanted to use snowballs to simulate the final shadow pearl that was not installed on the phone at that time. Seeing that someone had done it online, he went to ask them for advice. From this, he discovered the existence of Minecraft developers and joined a studio.

Said it was a studio, Yi Tao described it as more like "a group of children gathered together to entertain themselves," we rely on self-study and discussion to explore some knowledge that can not be learned in school, mainly programming skills. As he played, he realized that he had already started making quite a few things.

Soldier has experienced similar "pit" opportunities. At that time, he was only in the second year of junior high school, and a classmate gave him a book on his birthday, Java from Introduction to Mastery.

Whatever the student's motivation--whether it was simply fun or Java was cool--changed Soldier's life in some way. Because he soon discovered that this programming language was the same as Minecraft, which he was playing. Soon, he began to use his knowledge to create various server plug-ins. Soon, he applied for the plug-in version of the "My World" Chinese forum moderator, unexpectedly passed. Six years later, he still holds that position at the Forum.

Although "entering the pit" is accidental, the subsequent development shows a little inevitable flavor. Not long after trying to make his own module, Yi Tao's original head of the studio felt that the content he developed was more promising, so he handed over the entire studio to him. He renamed the studio "TSC," short for "Talented, Simple, Clever," which continues to this day. Aichi was invited to join them because of his outstanding achievements in map making.

"At that time, it was just to play together..." For Yi Tao, everyone was in a very pure stage at that time, did not think of commercializing the studio, age is not yet to think about these practical problems.

But the studio still made some progress. Their works are represented by various forms of hardcore survival modules, and even started a trend for a time. Among them, the most popular module has reached 2 million downloads. Studio members have not been idle, has been updating maintenance for free, up to now iterated more than a dozen versions.

Such achievements make "taking Minecraft developers as a profession" no longer seem so remote.

Inevitably, as we age, just as childhood ends, games don't always remain games. The question of career development was first raised by Eich. After both of them went to university, he suddenly called Yi Tao one day and asked him what he should learn if he wanted to develop in the direction of gaming in the future.

Yi Tao's advice is "look at your own interests." If Aixi liked painting, she could develop into art and modeling. Aixi was also very quick. She immediately went to a training class during the holidays. After learning it, she made a skeleton model using a new interface provided by Minecraft at that time. When she came back, she made a skeleton model using a new interface provided by Minecraft at that time, allowing players to operate characters more flexibly in the module.

Now it seems that the visual effect of that model is still relatively simple, but Yi Tao originally focused on the program, although the previous works are fun, the processing of the image is indeed lacking. Moreover, Minecraft's original style was more pixelated, and the weapons were all paper. Suddenly a 3D model appeared, which was very surprising. From all angles, that model allowed Yi Tao to see the possibility of long-term cooperation.

This possibility eventually became a seed, and by the time he graduated from graduate school, it finally took root.

Soldier's specialty is mainly on the server side. The server plug-in world is more technical, and you need to consider data preservation and database security. Perhaps because of this, his image in the community is more like a mentor, and others will come to him with any technical questions.

At this point, Soldier was a little embarrassed. He reflected that he usually "may have a bad temper," sometimes feel that the other party can't understand for a long time, will feel very impatient. But he felt that the process of helping others did teach him a lot. If he encountered a problem that he knew, he could directly say it. If he encountered a problem that he didn't know, in order not to disappoint the other party, he would investigate it first and think of a way to solve it. This year, he also participated in several Netease Creation Camp activities, as a mentor to other developers to answer questions.

In a sense, becoming the developer of Minecraft early also changed Soldier's life trajectory. In fact, when he first entered university, Soldier applied for another major. But as he moved away from programming, he became more aware of what he was interested in. "I still want computers. "He made up his mind and switched majors for it.

In fact, what makes him happy is not only "interesting," but also the feeling that learning is useful: "If it is not" My World,"I learned Java and it is useless. "Even Soldier learned English in Minecraft. "After all, a lot of early documentation was done by foreigners, and the programming language itself was English…In short, I really learned a lot from this game. "

Now, he and another programmer and two administrators together, four people together to do their own server projects, also received a certain income.

Will you become a full-time developer of Minecraft in the future? Soldier is still looking forward to this possibility. He doesn't object to finding an ordinary job like many people, being an ordinary programmer, but he does feel that the current employment situation is not ideal,"afraid to go out and find no job at all." If you go to other game companies to apply, the content may not be completely corresponding. If you can do better in Minecraft and decide to start a business, obviously better. He hopes to go to Shanghai after graduation and partner with another programmer on the team.

Soldier's creations are popular with players, but these are still a long way off for Soldier. He still has college life to enjoy, and peace of mind in his studies remains a top priority.

For Yi Tao and Ai Xi, starting a business is already a fait accompli. This made Yi Tao's style of doing things appear more mature than his peers and considered more. At the dinner table, he was very concerned about what platform the conference would be broadcast on and how many people would see it. His most widely used prefix was "Einst," an abbreviation for his idol Einstein; now he and Eich have changed their prefix to TSC,"We need to be found by more people."

Einst_Yi Tao's team's in-game home page Entrepreneurship is something that graduate students decide after returning home. In the face of all kinds of risks, parents naturally held an opposing attitude, Yi Tao spent a long time communicating with them.

"The main thing is that the employment situation in the past two years is really relatively ordinary... Even if I find a job, even if I find a job with a good income, I may not like what I do. "Yi Tao said," And I think since the studio already has very good works, at that time I also had 1.8 million fans this very good base, if completely put aside to do something else, will feel wasted opportunity. "

Even if the foundation is solid, starting a business from scratch is never easy, and these difficulties are beyond the reach of peers. On technical issues, Yi Tao can still ask people around him for advice. However, no one could teach him how to start a company, rent an office, recruit people, go through formalities, and carry out all kinds of management. It was a new field, and naturally brought him some anxiety, even "a little loneliness."

But this anxiety also comes with independence and freedom. Yi Tao is proud of one thing: TSC Studio's start-up funds come entirely from the proceeds of previous modules, without asking his parents for a penny or financing. "I want to try not to rely on others. "said Yi Tao.

The profits from Minecraft also make Soldier seem more comfortable than his peers. "I don't need my family to give me living expenses and tuition fees. I pay them myself," he told me."And I can go out for a trip on weekends. There's no pressure." Before attending this conference, he specially arrived in Chengdu a few days early, played around nearby, and happily told me interesting things about visiting the panda base.

On the day of Soldier's in-game homepage developer conference, I saw Yi Tao and Soldier both mount the stage arranged in a square style in the commendation session to receive their respective awards. They received awards for best content and community contribution, respectively. Before that, Yi Tao and Ai Xi also came on stage to share their creative experiences with everyone.

I saw young people who were similar to them coming on stage one after another, talking a little nervously but enthusiastically about the market, talking about product evaluation, talking about platform traffic support... These very professional, very "Internet" words popped up one after another, which seemed to be similar to other similar occasions, but it seemed different. Minecraft seems to form a strange force field or enchantment that envelops young developers. They do gradually come into contact with some commercial and market-oriented rules, but because there are various platforms behind them, there is an overall harmonious community atmosphere protection, and the real harsh part is avoided, retaining the ideal and enthusiastic temperament of them.

At the end of the interview, I asked three people the same question: "What would you be doing without Minecraft? "

They laughed and said,"It's hard to answer." Because, even if they have not yet or just entered the society, Minecraft has occupied a large part of their lives, accompanying them for six or seven years or more, shaping their social circle and career direction. "It's like the gears of fate... they've already started turning. "Yi Tao joked. They don't know what they would have done if they hadn't been exposed to Minecraft,"mostly ordinary workers," but one thing is certain: their lives wouldn't be as interesting as they are now.

Being able to do what you like and get benefits is quite rare in the current environment. This may explain why, although both Yi Tao and Soldier describe moments of uncertainty and anxiety about life choices, I don't see in them the real confusion or even negativity that is now spreading among young people. We've seen enough of the angst and disappointment of the times in young people, so I feel both envy and reassurance when developers tell me very firmly that they "decided early on what they want to do." From player to developer in middle school, choose a major related to development in college, and finally turn full-time or become a real programmer…Because of Minecraft, they will meet on this road, get together, and move forward together.

Although there are bound to be difficulties, the path seems broad enough for now to carry them far. This was already a good thing.

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