<h4>Chapter 195: Donut Principle</h4>


    They basically snatched it out of Chen Mo’s hands in order to install the game onto their PCs.


    “Wow! Co-op?”


    “Incredible, I thought it was a pure single yer game!”


    “I heard there’s only up to four yers. Guess it’ll be us four in a group, you guys make your own groups.”


    “I’m ying Barbarian! What about you?”


    “I’ll y Wizard then.”


    “This is exciting, though I’m still sad that we can y with more yers.”


    “I’m done installing. I’ll wait for you guys at New Tristram.”


    “I’m done too. Huh, it really resembles that RPG map from Warcraft, like a official remastered version!”


    “Yeah, I was just about toment on how familiar this felt.”


    “But how can youpare this to an RPG map?”


    “Of course, this is the manager’s own work!”


    “I thought there wasn’t anything fun about third person games, but it turns out to be quite fun!”


    Diablo was now the new trend in the experience store. The yers that were here for other games stopped what they nned and pivoted to ying Diablo instead.


    Diablo’s online mode wasn’t like other games, nor was there a synergy between different sses.


    It resembled a LAN game like Diablo 2, more suited for a small number of yers. The game would change its difficulty based on the number of yers to prevent the loss of a challenge with more yers.


    Rtively speaking, co-op modes reduce the difficulty of the game as noobs could depend on better yers to beat bosses. Moreover, abination of various sses also helped with clearing levels.


    However, when taking the preference of multiyer games, new yer experience, and prevention of cheats into consideration, an online mode was inevitable.


    It didn’t take long before the yers were immersed into the dark world of Diablo.


    Chen Mo breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this, as the first phase of the Diablo ‘donut principle’ was in effect.


    There was a lot of debate whether or not Diablo 3 was sessful. But based on the sales and feedback, even if Diablo 3 didn’t reach the levels of Diablo 2, it was still a sessful game.


    The ‘donut principle’ referred to how the yers would eat the donut from the outside in when ying diablo.


    The outer parts were new yers, deeper into the donut were mid-core yers, and the hardcore yers would be deeper still.


    When they reach the centre of the donut, the yers will realise that there’s only a hole to leave.


    The new yers are drawn into the game by its art style, high quality gamey, and excitingbat and story.


    Mid-score yers are attracted by the differentbinations of abilities, equipment attributes, differences between sses, rankeddder, and professional mode for greater challenges.


    And when they be hardcore yers, they will keep grinding everyday just to find ebtter equipment, experiment again and again for the best build, and would aim for the top every season as they relentlessly aim to be the best.


    But after the hardcore yers were done experiencing that, managed to find the best equipment, done climbing thedder, or were just tired of the game, they would find the exit and leave the game.


    Of course, there were yers leaving before they be hardcore yers.


    But an important point of this ‘donut principle’ was to not worry about yers leaving.


    Many online games try their best in order to retain yers, integrating daily or seasonal events just to hope that their yers continue ying.


    Although this worked, it could also create the opposite effect, affecting the ratings of the game. The yers would find the game incredibly boring, leaving the game never to return.


    This was where the ‘donut principle’ came in. New yers could leave the game after experiencing the story, and hardcore yers could leave the game after getting sick of climbing the rankeddder. The game wouldn’t use various tactics to try and retain yers.


    This meant that all the yers would have yed everything they wanted to y before they left. Dragging out a month’s content into three months wasn’t what Diablo was about.


    The yers would naturally return when the game received updates like new in game story shards, new sses, or new content.


    Therefore the ‘donut principle’ suited Diablo’s profit model and its ystyle.


    So far Diablo’s first steps seemed to have gone well. Chen Mo’s idea of the art style and atmosphere seemed to be right judging from how focused yers were on the game. It wasn’t a game that had a niche audience, turning its unique art style into a selling point.


    —


    Diablo was ready to be sold in two weeks as the follow-up work progressed steadily.


    In this time, many ytesting videos were leaked onto the inte as topics like ‘Chen Mo’s new game’ and ‘Diablo’ were gaining more and more buzz.


    “There seemed to be some leaks on the cinematics and gamey of Diablo, have you seen it?”


    “Isn’t that some ancient RPG? What’s so special about it.”


    “It really isn’t, the graphics look amazing, and the cinematics seem to be higher quality than Warcraft.”


    “Really? Is he stupid? It’s a singleyer game. Even if he sells five hundred thousand copies at ny-nine RMB each, that’s just fifty million RMB gross, about thirty million. That’s not even enough for the cinematics right?”


    “Yeah, the cinematics surely cost more than fifty million? Is he trading money for fame?”


    “It’s hard to tell, the game does seem quite fun. You guys should take a look at the gamey, it seemed quite high quality.”


    “So what if it’s high quality. Just the words ‘third person’ is enough to give the game a death sentence. There’s no way the game gains poprity.”


    “But I think the game is so high quality that Chen Mo could’ve made it a first person game.”


    “Then... Then Chen Mo is just digging his own grave, there’s not much else to say. I don’t believe that it’s possible for a third person game to gain poprity anyways, I’ll eat my keyboard if it does.”