Game Maker: Starting by Healing the Players Chapter 14: Planning the Next Game

Mirror was a hit—there was no doubt about that.

Of course, it wasn't going to reach the level of a AAA blockbuster or beco so cultural phenonon.

But based on the current trend, Mirror had the potential to influence its entire category.

Maybe even the future of this specific genre.

In fact, even in his past life, after Mirror ca out, it sparked a short-lived boom in adult gas.

During that ti, almost every adult ga started using the match-3 galga combo.

Of course, the quality varied a lot—so were good, so were just there to cash in.

For a long ti, the general impression of 18 gas—both among players and in the ga industry—was that they were low-quality.

Aside from a few "special elents," they really didn't have much to be proud of.

But Mirror was different.

The match-3 gaplay wasn't new, but Mirror added a full battle and character progression system on top of it.

You'd fight, earn gold, then buy new skills and items.

On top of that, the voice acting and character art were surprisingly touching. The story even made people reflect—and this was an 18 ga!

Not only that, the ga's rating stayed around 9.2.

Even as more players joined and the score started to shift a little, it remained impressively stable.

This shows just how popular the ga is.

Also, since it's a short ga with only a few characters, it's possible for so people to play it just to take advantage of the refund window.

But very few players actually asked for refunds after buying Mirror.

Of course, part of that is because Mirror only costs 10 bucks.

So no matter how you look at it, Mirror really did beco a hit.

Because of its unique content, it's impossible for mainstream dia and platforms to cover it.

But in the adult ga community, Mirror is without a doubt the biggest star right now.

A lot of people in that circle even say it's a groundbreaking adult ga.

Compared to other poorly made gas in the sa genre, Mirror shines the brightest.

And even within the industry, Mirror has inspired many adult ga developers with new ideas.

They realized this kind of adult ga could actually sell this well.

Mirror's arrival was like a shining lighthouse in the dark sea of the adult ga industry.

Like an oasis appearing out of nowhere in a burning desert.

It's clear that Mirror is that lighthouse, that oasis.

The strong demand from its target audience showed up clearly in the ga's numbers.

Sales just kept climbing.

70,000 copies sold in the first week, 160,000 total by the second week.

By the end of its second week, according to third-party sales data, Mirror had sold 230,000 copies.

For an adult ga, that's unbelievable.

Even compared to so high-quality indie gas, those numbers are impressive.

It made a lot of indie devs in the wider ga industry take notice.

It was just that shocking. And even though sales had started to slow down,

that was just the normal trend of the market.

After all, Mirror is a pretty niche ga, ant for a very specific type of player.

...

While the industry was amazed by Mirror's performance,

Lucas also analyzed why it managed to do so well.

As a ga developer, he didn't believe that a ga that succeeded in his past life would succeed again just because it had before.

In fact, a lot of gas that blew up back then had very limited reasons for their success.

For example, if he remade Legend from his past life, Lucas figured there'd only be one outco:

It'd flop completely. The art isn't competitive, the gaplay isn't fresh, and the story and worldbuilding are basically nothing.

That was clearly a ga that relied more on its era than on its quality.

As for Mirror, Lucas believed it succeeded because it stood out.

It's an 18 ga, but it mixes a galga experience with match-3 gaplay.

Of course, as either a pure match-3 or pure galga, it wouldn't have been enough. But as a ga for a thirsty niche audience, it hit the mark.

It was that contrast and mix that made Mirror work.

It's just like how players enjoy building systems in adult gas, or sneaking adult content into normal gas.

Looking at the sales numbers, Lucas knew he'd made the right call.

Even if this ga wouldn't bring him fa in the mainstream (since it's an 18 title), it got noticed in the industry.

To most regular players, a $10 adult ga wouldn't get much attention outside of its target group.

Lucas also didn't plan to keep making this kind of ga—this was just a way to get so initial funding.

And the most important thing was: it made money.

The ga was priced at 10 dollar, and by now had sold nearly 230,000 copies.

After taxes and the platform's cut, the first month's revenue was around 1.5 million dollar.

Lucas rubbed his chin and nodded slightly.

With this, he now had his initial funding. Plus, with his title as a ga designer, he got an official notice at the end of Mirror's first release week to go register with the ga departnt in Magic City.

As for the emotional points from the system, Lucas wasn't too satisfied.

So far, he'd only collected enough for one 7-pull, which was around 700,000 points.

But thinking about it more, that made sense. The emotional peak for players probably only lasted a minute or two.

So maybe only felt it for a few dozen seconds. Lucas figured the longest might've been five minutes tops.

Given that... whatever, it was understandable.

Looking at the ga store's backend stats, Lucas leaned back on the couch at ho, thinking about what to do next.

His current plan was still to focus on selling single-player gas.

Partly for reputation, and partly to keep growing on his own.

Why not make a pay-to-win ga? The reason was simple.

It wasn't that he was scared of backlash. In fact, his past life had plenty of decent-quality gacha gas.

But after thinking it through, Lucas decided not to go down that road.

Mainly because it wasn't the right ti. Also, the gaming environnt in this parallel world was quite different from the one he rembered.

Back then, mobile gas ruled the market, and the free-to-play with in-app purchases model was the norm.

But in this world, paid gas with one-ti purchases were more common.

On top of that, gacha gas had a lot of limitations.

Take card gas for example—they went through several key phases in his past world.

It started with titles like I Am MT, Great Master, and Million Arthur, which made card gas popular. Then Dota Legends revolutionized things, kicking off the action-card genre.

Later, KOF 98 Ultimate Match OL saved the struggling SNK company, boosting its annual profits sixfold. That helped spark the wave of IP-based card gas.

That's when the genre started to diversify.

Traditional stat-based gas like Three Kingdoms, polished gas like Onmyoji, and IP-driven ones like FGO were all key examples.

Lucas had also done his research on this world's card-based mobile gas.

Right now, they were sowhere between high-quality developnt and IP branding.

A mature industry chain had already ford.

For Nebula Gas, jumping into that space now wasn't as good as just making a new ga from scratch.

The reasons were the sa: no money and no connections.

Even if they could make the ga, without a big enough marketing budget—

If it didn't go viral when it launched, it would just beco free material for other ga companies.

Card gas are different from other genres.

Their gaplay and stat-based reward systems are easily copied.

If this world didn't already have mature ideas about gacha and card gas, that would be good news for Lucas.

But right now? There were too many unknowns.