Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2074 3A Game
When he came to Sweden, Daniel Ek heard that Boss Zhou was investigating the game industry. He laughed and volunteered to recommend him, saying that he knew many people in the industry.

There are too many game studios with excellent game development talents, but suffer from insufficient funds, and hope to obtain investment or be acquired by large companies.

This is not an isolated phenomenon. The five Nordic countries, especially Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, all have very strong game industries.

For example, Zhou Buqi previously led the acquisition of "Angry Birds" from Finland, and "Minecraft" from Sweden.

The weather in Northern Europe is freezing, and there is not much energy to sell. The reason why it is the most developed region in the world is because they are targeting high value-added industries.

Games are one of them.

Making games does not require a high technical level, but mainly relies on entrepreneurship and understanding of the market, so it is very suitable for small countries with few people.

Zhou Buqi saw that Daniel Eck was so active in trying to make a match, so he accepted his kindness and asked Mattrick's team, who was still in Cyprus, to hurry over and investigate the Swedish game market together.

He was originally on vacation, taking care of a little work by the way.

Now that he couldn't leave, he simply walked around Stockholm with Shi Jinglin, Wu Yu, and Sun Guanran, which is also a famous historical city.

It was already very cold in Sweden in mid-October. Aunt Xue and Baoshan went to London to have a rest. Sister Zhenyu followed suit and left for the United States. The Los Angeles Dodgers case has started and progress has been made.

In the evening, stayed in the local Royal Hotel.

Since he was going to investigate the game industry in Sweden tomorrow, Sun Wanran took the initiative to research some information and came over to report, "I think we should focus on investigating P Corporation."

"Station P?" Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows and smiled, "Station P?"

Sun Wanran was slightly taken aback, "What P station?"

"Then what is the P company you're talking about?"

"A famous game company, you don't even know about this? It's one of the top game companies in Europe, with several heavyweight games under its banner."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What is the English of P Club? You tell me your name, who knows what you are talking about when you use a nickname?"

Sun Guanran said, "Paradox."

"Oh." Zhou Buqi suddenly realized and nodded, "Well, I know, I have read some materials. It's not very top-notch, but it's a little famous. But they are all traditional large-scale stand-alone computer games, right?"

Sun Guanran said: "Yes, but the games are all amazing, they are all blockbuster games, absolutely world-class."

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Have you ever played?"

Sun Guanran was similar to him, not a game lover, "I haven't played it, but you don't need to play it at all. You only need to read other people's game introductions to know how powerful this game is. Just like what you taught me , When choosing an investment project, for a truly excellent project, you don’t need to look at any materials or data, and you don’t need to conduct on-the-spot investigations. After hearing what people say, you will be tempted and invest money.”

"Is it such an exaggeration?"

Zhou Buqi hadn’t paid much attention to Paradox, mainly because Paradox was in the business of making traditional games, making large-scale 3A stand-alone games, and making money by selling genuine games.

This business model really has no future.

Make too little money.

A game development budget is 2000 million US dollars. After a year of hard work, a new version is released and the price is 39.9 US dollars. Even if it can sell 100 million sets, how much money can it make?

Not as good as a toe in Angry Birds.

Just like Japan's "Three Kingdoms" series, in the past few years, it has actually been a bit immobile. If it is not a blockbuster, who will develop games?

The larger the game, the less profitable it is; the more stand-alone game, the less profitable it is.

Many traditional game manufacturers make world-class games, which are amazed at many levels, but they just don’t make money.

In the era of mobile games, it is different.

Grandpas and aunts can also play games with their mobile phones, and the sharp increase in the number of players will make the light-weight casual game market shine.

Seeing that he didn't think so, Sun Guanran said anxiously: "It's true, I... Let me tell you about two of their games casually. I checked it out, and I was very surprised. One is called "European Universalis", the timeline It was around 1500, and players could choose the forces in the world at that time, and then lead the people to experience the opening of new sea routes, the Renaissance, become stronger in diplomacy and war, and dominate the world. There is also the Ming Dynasty in it.”

"A strategy game like "Three Kingdoms"?"

"Yes, but this is not a level game, is it?"

Sun Guanran gave him a blank look.

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Okay, what else?"

Sun Guanran: "It's still a strategy game. Paradox mainly produces strategy games. There is also a game called "Hearts of Iron". The timeline is during World War II. Players can choose any power in the world at that time, and then develop and grow."

Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "There are also domestic forces?"

"Yes, the domestic battlefield is also the core battlefield of World War II. The Sichuan Army, the Shaanxi Army, the Ma Family Army, the Feng Clique, the Zhi Clique, the Central Army, the Puppet Manchukuo, the Wang Jingwei Puppet Regime, and... you know." Sun Guanran Smiling, "There is no Chinese version of this game, so it is estimated that it will not be released in China."

Zhou Buqi twitched his lips, "Covering the whole world, how large-scale is this game? The database alone needs 10G, right? An ordinary computer probably can't run such a large game."

"right……"

Sun Guanran is not so clear about this.

Zhou Buqi sighed, "The idea is very good. I am a little tempted to play it, but it is too small. Especially in countries with relatively weak spending power, who can spend a few dollars just to play a game?" Ten thousand yuan to buy a computer?"

Sun Wanran hesitated for a moment, then said with a guilty conscience, "But I have a slightly different idea, do you want to listen?"

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Speaking of which, our understanding of the game is actually similar, and we don't understand much."

Sun Guanran pursed his lips, and then said subjectively: "I think the game structure design for you Changyou is too simple, you can't just make mobile games, and you can't just target the lightweight casual game market. Even if you really do it Well, I don’t think it’s a big plus for Changyou’s brand. If Changyou wants to have a top position in the game industry, it’s probably not enough just to make a lot of money, at least it’s not justifiable.”

Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "Then what do you think?"

Sun Guanran quickly said: "It should be diversified, at least there should be heavyweight games in the lineup. Just like when Ubisoft is mentioned, "Assassin's Creed" comes to mind. This is a top brand. Such heavyweight large-scale games will It is more shocking and more recognized by senior players. Just like Xiaonei, Ziwei Star does not need to make money from Xiaonei, but the existence of Xiaonei plays a vital role in the brand of Ziwei Star.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, "There is some reason."

Changyou has "Dota 2", "League of Legends", "Dragon Babu" and so on, but these games are not considered large-scale games at all, they are far from it.

For truly large-scale games, like "Assassin's Creed" and "Call of Duty", many CG images are like movie shots, which are truly immersive and shocking.

You don't need to play it, you can know that this is a top game if you look at it from the side.

This is often a symbol of the background and strength of a game company.

Zhou Buqi felt that Sun Wanran's statement was correct.

This kind of traditional 3A large stand-alone game really cannot be ignored, and it should be developed in a diversified way to match Changyou's status as a world-class game giant.

This is not over yet, Sun Guanran continued: "The current game sales are no longer selling game discs, but online sales. Didn't Ziwei Star International acquire Steam, which is the most popular genuine game platform now, allowing Players buy games. As long as the algorithm is right, it can guide players to buy 'self-operated' products."

"awesome!"

Zhou Buqi was full of praise.

Especially through the algorithm mechanism to guide the player's consumption, this kind of advanced thinking, that is, the people around Boss Zhou can have such a vision.

Ziweixing International and Changyou are two companies, but Changyou’s games can also be counted as self-operated products for Steam, the game platform under Ziweixing International.

Sun Guanran was very happy when he received the compliment, and said with a beaming smile, "Am I right?"

Zhou Buqi said: "It makes sense, come to my room at night, and I will give you a reward."

Sun Guanran frowned slightly, "You don't want a child with Shi Jinglin anymore? Can she let you go?"

Zhou Buqi said angrily: "You come too, don't delay."

The next day, Don Mattrick brought the team over, and Zhou Buqi followed them to have a general research and understanding of the entire Swedish game industry.

It's really unusual.

There are more than 500 game companies in total, and the industry chain is very complete.It includes both upstream game developers and downstream game publishers.

Various special divisions of labor in the game operation link also have many independent studios that provide services for other companies, such as motion capture, game testing, data analysis, special effects production, etc.

The game category is very complete, ranging from puzzle casual mobile games to large-scale 3A projects.

Of course, the focus of the investigation is P Club, which Sun Guanran highly recommends. This is a company that focuses on the development of historical strategy games. It is related to economy, business, politics, diplomacy, technological development and military power. The complexity of the game can be regarded as the top in the world. , the average player is really not easy to get started.

This will inevitably lead to the slow growth of the company's performance.

For example, "Europa Universalis 3: Kamikaze", released last year, sold only 82 sets worldwide. It took a year of hard work to develop the game, and its revenue was only US$2000 million.

Fortunately, this type of product has strong continuity. "Euroland 3" can use a large amount of data and code from "European 2", so the development will be relatively simple, and the development cost is only 850 million US dollars.

An annual flagship game only earned more than $1000 million, which is really shabby.

However, it is also a good thing for Zhou Buqi.

He prefers history, and is very interested in this kind of historical strategy games. If he wants to initiate an acquisition of P company or acquire part of the equity, the cost will be much less.

The financial pressure on Changyou will not be great.

Later, a board meeting will be held to discuss whether to bet on the field of large-scale 3A games.Now is the lowest period of the global 3A game industry, and it is really appropriate to make a move now.

(End of this chapter)