My Animation Era

Strictly speaking, the Gundam series is generally based on space wars and is a space opera in terms of literary themes.

But it’s not that pure…

Looking at Gundam by the standards of a space opera or by the standards of hard-core science fiction works is actually not appropriate enough.

Gundam is Gundam!

If you can get what Gundam wants to express and feel the charm of the realistic weapon-style robot, then you don't have to worry about what type of work Gundam is.

Therefore, Gu Miao has always felt that she is not suitable for directing Gundam animation.

Because with his acting style, Gundam Animation will definitely turn into a "toy commercial" and embark on a path of no return.

Hou Bin is more restrained than Gu Miao in this regard, probably because he is not as philistine as Gu Miao and has fewer factors to consider, so under his conception, the animation is relatively pure.

"I feel relieved now."

Gu Miao breathed a sigh of relief and said: "I was worried before that you might not be able to control this kind of realistic weapon-style robot animation. Now it seems that you are better than I thought."

"maybe!"

"Although this is my first time trying robot animation, and I need to learn a lot of things from scratch, I think this subject is quite suitable for me."

Hou Bin grinned and said: "Gundam is so cool. Which boy can resist the temptation of Gundam?"

makes sense.

Gu Miao smiled and agreed with Hou Bin's words. Boys do have this kind of nature and are full of interest in mechanical creations.

Be it Gundam or Transformers.

Any boy with a healthy mind would find it difficult to refuse. There is no way, this is the romance that is engraved in the bones and belongs only to boys.

Girls might like it too.

It's just that compared to boys, there are not that many girls who like and are obsessed with this kind of mechanical creation.

Hou Bin was the absolute main force in the creation of the animation "Mobile Suit Gundam". Gu Miao, the producer and producer, was more of a helper on the sidelines and gave him suggestions.

He wasn't really that helpful.

Even in terms of plot, Hou Bin thought more thoroughly about the idea of ​​"One Year War" than he did.

This made Gu Miao very discouraged. He felt that he was redundant and an eyesore in the Gundam production team. After all, even if he had watched the original animation, it seemed to be of no use.

Although the Manpower Gundam animation is roughly similar to the original version, it is actually two completely different works.

Therefore, his experience and knowledge are of extremely limited help to the animation production team.

On the contrary, in the game of the same name "Mobile Suit Gundam" developed and produced by Wanbao Games, Gu Miao helped Xiao Lin a lot.

That's right!

For the game "Mobile Suit Gundam", Gu Miao was actually half a game planner, providing Kobayashi with a lot of theoretical support on the development route and body design of "Future Gundam".

First let’s be clear.

In the animated version of Gundam, there are only a few mechas that appear, and they can be broken down into just a few types.

But in the game, there are a lot of Gundam units, and many of the units that will only appear in future animations have all appeared in the game.

This is of course Gu Miao's contribution.

Animation needs to consider the background and plot. The machine cannot appear out of thin air, but the game does not need to consider that much. As long as there is a good machine design, it can be pulled out casually.

Because of this, Gu Miao used the platform of Wanbao Games to restore many classic Gundam body designs in his mind in one go.

Xiao Lin was almost scared to death.

"That's enough, that's enough! There are so many new aircraft, it feels like it's enough to update the game for more than ten years..."

Over ten years?

This is really true!

Many of the body designs provided by Gu Miao are the result of nearly more than ten years. In front of these bodies, the Origin Gundam looks as old as a product from a century ago.

"Mr. Gu, you'd better rest."

Wiping the cold sweat on his forehead, Xiaolin said speechlessly: "How can there be any reason to launch so many machines in one go? Many of the designs you provided are not used."

The original Gundam has just been born, and it will be enough to launch a few "improved versions" of Gundam later.

As for the body designs created by Gu Miao, it’s not that they are bad, but they are just too “ahead of their time” and require multiple game version updates before they can be launched smoothly.

"You're going to drive me away too?"

Gu Miao was furious and gritted her teeth and said: "Okay, okay, forget it if Hou Bin dislikes me, even you dislike me. It seems that you have really hardened your wings."

"It's not that I dislike you, it's just..."

Xiao Lin didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Don't I know what you are talking about? But Gundam has just started now, how can you become fat in one bite?"

Gu Miao was immediately speechless.

He admitted that he was indeed a little anxious.

He had high expectations for the Gundam project, so he hoped to reach the peak from the beginning, but how could things be as simple as he thought? The original Gundam has gone through decades, and the Wanbao version wants to hit it right in one go?

This is unrealistic.

The food must be eaten one bite at a time, and the road must be walked step by step. There are not so many good things that can reach the sky in one step. Gundam is destined to be a long journey.

…

Hou Bin thought he was an eyesore, Xiao Lin thought he talked too much, and Gu Miao, who felt uncomfortable in the Gundam project team, simply took a look at the registration status of the "Go Youth" Wanbao Cup qualifiers.

Not to mention, there are quite a lot of people.

Thanks to the popularity of the animation "Go Boy", an absurd number of children signed up to participate.

This made Gu Miao doubt her life for a while. Are there really so many children playing Go in China? Isn’t Go a popular chess game? Where did so many registered contestants come from?

"Most of them are just joining in the fun!"

The person in charge who followed up the entire event explained: "For the competitions in the primary school and middle school groups, the number of applicants is expected to exceed 100,000, but 90% of them are just kids who come to join in the fun."

It’s human nature to like to join in the fun!

However, so many children came to sign up, which really put great pressure on the event organizing committee.

Fortunately, it's Go...

For Go games, an indoor venue can host more than a dozen games at the same time, and the space occupied is not particularly exaggerated.

If it is an event that requires a large area such as basketball, badminton and tennis, with so many participating players, it will take a year to start the qualifying rounds alone.

According to the rules of the competition, the qualifiers within the jurisdiction of Jiangchuan City will be held at the Jiangchuan Cultural Children's Palace from 10:00 am to 15:00 pm, with 10 games every hour.

"There are relatively few people signing up for the middle school group, and most of them are primary school students..."

The person in charge smiled bitterly and said: "I asked around, and it seems that because middle school students have a heavier study load, their parents do not agree to participate in such meaningless extracurricular activities."

"normal!"

Gu Miao was not surprised at all.

Middle school students, especially those in high school, are already under great academic pressure. How can they have the time to play Go and participate in so-called Go competitions?

If you want to say that being a Go champion can give you extra points for the high school entrance examination or college entrance examination, or be specially recruited by a good high school or university, then forget it. Your parents may be able to support you, but this doesn’t add any extra points!

World-class Go competition champions may have a chance of being specially recruited by universities, but it would be strange for universities to recognize the level of the Wanbao Cup "Go Youth" competition.

There are quite a lot of primary school students...

Walking around the venue, seven or eight out of ten contestants Gu Miao met were primary school students.

Most are accompanied by their parents.

There are also a few children who sign up for the competition secretly and without telling their families, and their parents are unaware of them.

The qualifying format is brutal.

Only by eliminating two opponents in a row can you advance to the second round, and in the second round, you must achieve the top five results in order to stand out from the qualifiers and advance to the final national competition.

Jiangchuan is already pretty good.

As an ordinary prefecture-level city, at least Jiangchuan is the hometown of Wanbao, so it generously gave five places.

In other cities, there might only be one or two places, which shows how cruel the qualifying rounds are.

"congratulations!"

While shaking hands with the winning players of this round, touching their little heads, encouraging them to keep working hard, and looking at the schedule, Gu Miao asked: "When will the national competition be held?"

"Let's take winter vacation!"

The person in charge explained: "The preliminaries for the primary school group and the middle school group can be held on the weekends, and it will not delay daily study too much."

"But the national competition lasts a long time, and we can't schedule it all on Saturdays and Sundays. We have to take time off during the winter vacation to do it."

This makes sense.

Gu Miao nodded and didn't think there was anything wrong with this arrangement.

The Wanbao Cup Tennis Competition is also taking advantage of the summer vacation to hold a national competition. For a nationwide competition like this, the contestants are still students, so this is the only way.

You can’t let players take time off to compete, right?

How embarrassing it would be to delay other people's normal class study! And if this is the case, it is estimated that many parents will not agree.

"Notify me when the time comes and I will give the award to the child who wins the championship!"

Gu Miao likes to be a guest presenting awards. Every time he sees the excited expressions of those children, he feels a sense of joy like a reward.

In the Wanbao Cup Tennis Competition, he will present awards to the national champion team every year, and he will also go to watch the "King of Robots" global finals.

There were only four-wheel-drive and remote-control car competitions. He went to present the awards for the first time, but he didn’t go to the following ones...

There is a reason for this.

The four-wheel-drive competition and the Thunderbolt remote control car competition have become increasingly popular in the past two years, and they have received little attention from the outside world. Why is he still going to the event?

honestly.

If it weren't for the fact that four-wheel drive vehicles and remote control vehicles have created a lot of profits for Wanbao in recent years, competitions like this should have been discontinued long ago.

Especially remote control cars!

The remote-controlled toy car products of the Raysodeng series are about to be removed from the shelves, but the competition is held every year, and the prize money is still very high...

Is there really no need to do it?

Everyone unanimously said that competitions like this can be stopped. After all, remote control car products are not easy to sell and the prize money is still so high. It is meaningless to continue to hold competitions.

Thanks to Gu Miao's persistence, even though Lei Sudeng was too cold, she still insisted on attracting contestants to sign up with high bonuses every year, so this event can continue to this day.

"How much is the bonus?"

"You should treat it as advertising. No matter whether the effect is good or not, this event must continue to be held and cannot be abandoned halfway."

Gu Miao told Lao Zhang that as long as the company does not go bankrupt and can still make money in its account, it must maintain these competitions and regard them as a long-term strategy.

It’s not just the R-Stop remote control car competition.

In the future, if the Wanbao Cup Tennis Competition, Go Competition and Machine Battle King Competition fail, they will be handled in this way.

If you don't want anything in return, just spend money on advertising.

It is easy to destroy the brand of an event that has lasted for many years and has a deep influence on people's hearts. It just needs to be stopped.

But building such an event brand requires a lot of time and energy. As the saying goes, destruction is always easier than creation.

Anyway, the expenses are acceptable.

It's nothing more than renting a venue and paying a bonus, which is not a big deal for Wanbao.

Since you can get this money, why not keep doing it? It would be a pity to suddenly suspend the event brand that we have worked so hard to build.

Just a quick mention.

Wanbao currently organizes a lot of various competitions, but if we were to choose the most successful event brand among them, it would have to be the "King of Robots" global finals.

As an "e-sports event", "Game of Thrones", "Yu-Gi-Oh!: Battlefront" and "Pokémon" together form Wanbao's e-sports event territory.

Regardless of the performance of the "The Adventures of Lolo" animation, it cannot compare to either "Yu-Gi-Oh!" or "Pokémon".

But when it comes to event management, "King of Robots" can hang up the latter two...

The gameplay of the spin-off game "King of Mechs" tends to be a highly competitive e-sports event like "StarCraft".

In addition, this game is deeply tied to the event. A DLC will be released for every world competition, and 50% of the sales of the DLC will be included in the championship prize pool.

This directly leads to the event attention and prize money being at the forefront of the e-sports industry.

Many well-known e-sports clubs at home and abroad have also formed corresponding "King of Machine War" divisions to compete in major competition areas and the final global finals.

Good guy!

This is Wanbao's only profitable event brand. Gu Miao was shocked when she found out about it.

ah! Can you still make money by hosting competitions?

It can only be said that the global finals of "King of Robots" were indeed not ugly, and it gave Wanbao a bad face.

Unfortunately……

The popularity of the game "King of Robots" is still not comparable to the top popular online games at home and abroad, and the popularity of the animation "The Adventures of Lolo" is not very high either.

Otherwise, Gu Miao really couldn't imagine how popular this event would be!

If King of Mechs could get half the attention of LOL, the popularity of the game would have been comparable to the League of Legends S game.

no way!

This kind of real-time strategy chess game is destined to have a very small audience because of its gameplay, and it is impossible to be as popular as Moba and FPS games.

This is also the main reason why there is no sequel project for the animated "The Adventures of Lolo" so far.

Wanbao will definitely continue to change animations for games in the future, but the specific games are worthy of discussion.

Maybe League of Legends…

After all, Naifly mentioned this project when they collaborated with Wanbao on the "Angry Birds" animation.

If Wanbao is interested, given their position in the industry, it is impossible for the other party to refuse to cooperate with Wanbao.