Chapter 1627 Games Are Good in Every Way, Except They're Not Fun? (Bonus Chapter for Monthly Tickets)

August 7th, Wednesday.

Qiao Liang hid in his small room, wearing the latest Doubt Pro VR headset, operating his hands rapidly while chuckling to himself.

If both of his hands weren't occupied with controllers, the scene would definitely lead to some very serious misunderstandings.

On his game screen, there was a beautiful, refined, and otherworldly maiden, clad in traditional Chinese attire. Her clothes fluttered, resembling a fairy descending from ancient mythology.

Qiao Liang, however, was in the entry-level mode, editing the fairy's clothing, modifying the sleeves or the skirt, or changing the color scheme of different sections of her outfit. He was utterly absorbed in it!

After a long while, Qiao Liang felt his eyes getting a little tired, so he reluctantly removed the VR headset.

"This game is so much fun, it's basically a super-sized character creation simulator."

"There are other games with complex character creation systems, but this is the first one that pays so much attention to the details of the clothes."

"Most importantly, it's a VR game, so you can check out the girl from any angle, with a 360-degree view."

"If there are any flaws? Well, there are a few."

"First, there are only three-dimensional girls, no two-dimensional ones. It would be even more exciting if there were anime-style options."

"Second, the girl can only stand still or do some simple actions. There's no in-depth interactive gameplay, so it's still relatively monotonous."

"Third, no matter how you customize her, this girl is always wearing underwear. Although the style of the underwear can be adjusted according to the outfit, it can't be completely removed, which is a bit of a shame."

"Ahem, I shouldn't say too much about that, or I'll sound like a pervert."

"I'm a well-known game UP, a popular single-player game streamer, I need to maintain my image."

"But then again, this game's popularity isn't particularly high right now, probably because of the hardware requirements. Once there are more players and more great designs online, this game is sure to explode!"

The game *Liangti Caiyi* (Measure Body and Cut Clothes) has been on sale for three days now, and Qiao Liang has been following its latest developments.

Three days have passed, and Chixing Studio doesn't seem to be planning any large-scale promotions. Instead, shills are very active, generating a lot of initial buzz for the game.

Many players who saw the shills criticizing the game for its lack of gameplay realized that Chixing Studio had released a new VR game.

Qiao Liang naturally bought the new VR headset and the game as soon as possible, and after carefully experiencing it, he understood the reason for the game's initial poor reception.

Basically, it boils down to two points.

First, the game's configuration requirements are too high. To experience it at the highest settings, you need not only a high-end computer, but also the latest 8K VR headset. If you use older equipment, the graphics quality will suffer a bit.

Often, the graphics quality directly affects a game's first impression.

Second, the game content is indeed relatively monotonous. It only has one type of gameplay: designing clothes. Although you can interact with other players and use some of the design schemes created by the masters, there are currently few players, so there aren't many designs online. This aspect of interactive gameplay hasn't been fully developed yet.

The gameplay itself doesn't have the characteristics of rapid spread, and Chixing Studio's initial promotional efforts weren't very strong, so the low initial popularity is a natural consequence.

Aside from these two issues, Qiao Liang thinks this game has a lot going for it.

Being able to make character creation and clothing design functions so complete, turning this game into a character creation simulator and a tailor simulator.

This is something that other games have never tried.

And the gameplay of designing clothes can be enjoyed for years without getting tired by many female players and farming-type players.

Qiao Liang is considering whether to make a video to introduce this game to the players?

But he hasn't found a good angle yet.

He had originally wanted to create some very beautiful outfits or recreate some of the game characters from many well-known anime. That way, as long as he posted the entire character creation process online, he could achieve a good promotional effect.

Some games have become a minor hit online just by allowing players to create the faces of various anime characters, let alone this one, which can fully reproduce everything from the face to the clothes!

But the problem is that Qiao Liang is willing but unable. His brain thinks he can, but his hands tell him he can't.

He tried hard to recreate a well-known anime character from online, but after two or three hours, he had to give up helplessly.

This kind of professional operation is completely beyond his capabilities.

So Qiao Liang gave up very decisively and decided that changing clothes for the little sister in the game was more suitable for him.

Since he gave up on that idea, he had to find a new way to make a video.

But if he just introduced the gameplay, it would seem very hollow, wouldn't it just confirm the rumors online that *Liangti Caiyi* has monotonous gameplay and isn't very fun?

Qiao Liang was a little confused, so he decided to look online for reviews of the game to see how others were praising it, hoping to find some inspiration.

As he was scrolling, he came across a review titled "《Liangti Caiyi》 Shows That Some Domestic Game Designers Have Entered a Dead End."

Qiao Liang frowned slightly, disagreeing just from the title.

But he saw that this review seemed to be very popular, with a large number of likes and comments, so he thought that maybe it had some valid points and clicked to view it.

…

The review began by giving a brief introduction to *Liangti Caiyi*, especially praising the high degree of freedom in the character creation and clothing design systems.

In addition, the review also highly praised the updates to the hardware and the improvement in the game's graphics quality.

Clearly, this was a standard technique of praising before criticizing!

The author of the review didn't want to appear to be blindly bashing the game, so he started by listing some of the game's better aspects.

The author clearly wasn't worried that these advantages would impact what he wanted to say, because he had already found an excellent direction to attack.

"Although I have listed many advantages, I still believe that the appearance of *Liangti Caiyi* shows that some domestic game designers have entered a dead end."

"This dead end is called neglecting the fundamentals and pursuing the trivial."

"This game has indeed put a lot of effort into character creation and clothing production, creating the most customizable dress-up game to date. In professional mode, players can even modify the shape and color of each piece of fabric, or start completely from scratch, using different fabrics and dyes to make clothes."

"But diligence in tactics cannot hide laziness in strategy, and the richness of game details cannot hide the lack of game playability!"

"For this kind of game, we players have a common saying: This game is good in every way, except it's not fun."

"In fact, this game has a lot of functionality and allows players to freely design all kinds of beautiful clothes. Maybe in the future, this game will also be linked to GoG and other games. But the problem is that right now it's just a tool, not a game."

"For games, gameplay is the most important thing."

"The creators of this game clearly didn't understand this point, and spent too much energy on some minor details. Although they created a rich and complete system, they failed to bring enough fun to the players!"

"More precisely, it should be a tool, a tool for clothing design or game fashion design. It can only satisfy the niche interests of a small group of people, and cannot have a greater impact."

"After all, clothing design is a very professional category, and requires a very strong professional knowledge to create clothing that truly conforms to the trend and the public's aesthetics."

"So I think that although this game is expensive and well-made, its starting point was wrong from the beginning! It's difficult to generate enough popularity, it's difficult to recover the development costs, and it's also difficult to have a significant impact on players' game life or real life!"

…

After reading the review, Qiao Liang felt a little itchy with hatred.

Too much!

It's not that the review was outrageously negative. If it were the kind of negativity that turned things upside down and distorted the truth, it would be easy to refute, just refute it with the facts!

But this review was negative from a unique and skillful angle.

First, it briefly introduced the game's advantages, showing a very fair position, and then criticized the game's playability severely.

"This game is good in every way, except it's not fun!"

For a game, this is arguably the greatest irony, even an insult.

For games, gameplay and playability are of course the most important things. Otherwise, no matter how beautiful the graphics or how exquisite the production, it's just a soulless beauty. Just an empty shell.

But this sentence is clearly an abuse of language here.

Is the game *Liangti Caiyi* really not fun? Not necessarily.

It's just that its fun is relatively niche. Players who are generally not patient may not be able to appreciate its gameplay. But for players who like character creation and making their own fashions for their characters, the gameplay of this game is obviously off the charts, okay?

So interesting!

Although Qiao Liang isn't a core player of this type, he can still feel the fun and thinks that this game can at least keep him entertained for a month or two.

So this game review is actually shifting the goalposts, using mass entertainment to deny niche entertainment, and attacking the game for not having gameplay.

Qiao Liang wants to post a game review or a video to refute it right now, but after thinking carefully, he can't think of any strong arguments.

If he insists too much on the point of whether this game is fun or not, he may be at a disadvantage.

Because this game is indeed a game with relatively niche appeal. If he keeps arguing about the fun and keeps pestering the other side, he won't be able to completely refute them.

Only by finding another angle can he completely dismantle the other side's arguments.

"But what kind of angle should I look for?"

Qiao Liang frowned and fell into deep thought.