Top of the Great Era

In this game, Manchester United defeated their rivals in the same city with a score of 4:2 and entered the final of the League Cup.

The opponent is the weak team Fulham.

There is almost no suspense in winning the championship.

Zhou Buqi was very happy. After the game, he heard another piece of better news.

Sure enough, there was news from Yahoo that it hired former PayPal president Scott Thompson as the new CEO and entered the board of directors as a director.

However, Yang Zhiyuan did not quit.

Zhou Buqi called Boss Ma and asked about it.

Boss Ma smiled and said: "Don't worry, everything is going according to plan. This Thompson is the person selected by Yang Zhiyuan. It will take a while for him to resign from the board of directors willingly, right? Don't worry! Just wait! "

Zhou Buqi didn't say much.

He came to the UK this time, in addition to watching football for entertainment and giving his father a private island as a New Year gift, there are two more serious things.

One is Spotify's new round of financing.

It's that simple.

The two parties have a tacit relationship and share the same goal.

Spotify currently has a competitor in the market, called Pandora, which has been transformed from FM radio to music streaming media, and has been born for many years.

However, subject to copyright restrictions, Pandora's development speed is far behind Spotify.Last year, Pandora was listed on Nasdaq.Just like the overall technology situation, it was pretty good at the beginning, but it quickly broke down.

At its peak, the market value reached 30 billion US dollars, but now it is only 18 billion US dollars.

Spotify is different. It has faster growth, greater potential, more music copyrights in its hands, extensive cultivation on mobile terminals, and is more popular among young people.

In terms of paying users alone, Spotify has 40% more than Pandora.

In the last round of financing, Spotify was valued at US$14 billion. This time, the valuation may exceed US$50 billion, and it is striving to raise US$4 million.Although the general environment has not improved yet, as long as Ziweixing International takes the lead, capital institutions will follow suit.

Another thing is related to Changyou.

Zhou Buqi met Christensen, the president of Changyou in the UK. She was a woman who had only been in office for three months. She was an investment manager hired by Don Mattrick from Barclays Bank.

We recruited her because we hoped that she could help Changyou to truly open up the core market in the UK.

By buying, buying, buying.

The first thing to focus on is the well-known British game company Codemasters.

This is a company that specializes in racing games, and it owns well-known racing games such as "Dust", "Extreme Touring Car Race" and "Flashpoint Action".

And the most well-known "F1 Racing" with official brand authorization.

This is very embarrassing.

As early as two years ago, when Changyou was still in charge of Zhang, Zhou Buqi had suggested to Zhang that he wanted him to buy the game company.

The mobile game version of the racing game will definitely shine, so hurry up and make plans!
Lao Zhang did it.

As a result, after talking and talking, the two sides failed to agree on many terms.The main issue is the price. The other party quoted 4.2 million pounds, and Zhang felt that it was worth 2.2 million pounds at most.

After more than two years of grinding and chirping, we still haven't been able to reach a unification.

For the UK market, Lao Zhang just made a small fuss a few years ago, buying a total of 4 small game studios for less than 3000 million pounds.

After Zhou Buqi replaced him, he had to quickly finalize this matter.

The games under Codemasters are not very well-known in China.

It is very hot in the European and American markets.

It has something to do with local culture.

For example, football culture is very prosperous, so EA's "FIFA Football" series and Konami's "Pro Evolution Football" series can be regarded as the pinnacle of this type of large-scale computer games.

For example, the gun culture is very prosperous, and there is a big market for shooting games.

Another example is the popular car culture in Europe and America.

This has led to too many racing games on the market, and many well-known game companies are famous for their racing games.For example, EA's "Need for Speed" series, take-two's "Grand Theft Auto" series, etc., are all masterpieces of their respective game companies.

Another very important point is that racing games can easily get sponsorship from car manufacturers.

If Manchester United elements are to be used in "FIFA Football", EA needs to pay Manchester United the copyright fee.For racing games, if you want to use a certain brand of car in the game, you need the car manufacturer to pay the game manufacturer a promotion fee.

In this way, the development cost of car games is greatly reduced.

Therefore, there are too many racing games on the market, and it is also a large type of game that is very popular with players.

Codemasters is one of the top five game manufacturers in the UK. If Changyou wants to quickly establish a scale in the UK market, it really needs to get the local resources of such a large company.

This acquisition is imperative.

Don Mattrick took up the matter immediately after he took office.

Prior to this, Zhou Buqi received an email from Mattrick.This guy has a very high emotional intelligence, knowing that although the big boss has robbed the second boss, the relationship between the two is very good, so he said something nice.

It is said that Charles Zhang really has a long-term vision and plans ahead. He did a great job in choosing the Codemasters case!
They should be dragged!

If it was bought two years ago, it would cost at least 4 million pounds instead of 3 million pounds.

It is different now, the game industry is sluggish, especially for such traditional game manufacturers, life is very difficult.Drag and drop, and there's a real possibility that a deal could be done for around £2m.

Zhou Buqi met Ms. Christensen, a blond-haired elder sister, in her early forties this year, with ugly looks and a chubby big mouth.

After the meeting, Christensen was very helpless, "There is good news and there is bad news."

Zhou Buqi walked around Changyou's branch office here, and felt that he should change to a better place to be worthy of Changyou's status, and said with a smile: "Okay, let's hear the good news first. Has the acquisition made any progress?"

Christensen nodded lightly, "Well, a preliminary agreement has been reached."

"Oh?" Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows, "Price?"

Christensen said: "£1.85 million."

"Really?"

Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide and looked at her in disbelief.

1.85 million pounds won?

You know, two years ago, Lao Zhang once offered 2.8 million pounds, but the other party refused to talk about it at all, and insisted on the offer of 4.2 million pounds.

This Christensen is really good.

It was sold directly at 1.85 million pounds.

Sure enough, he is an expert.

A shot is an achievement.

Of course, this is also related to the huge reputation that Changyou has accumulated in the global game industry in the past year, and it is also related to Zhou Buqi's influence.

In the past, it was Lao Zhang who came forward...it was very embarrassing, people just ignored him.

Christensen sighed. "But there's some bad news. It's drowning out all the good feelings."

"What is it?"

"EA also quoted?"

"What?" Zhou Buqi was amused, "EA?"

Christensen nodded, "Well, I also just got the news this morning. EA has offered 2.7 million pounds, and it has passed Codemasters' board of directors. Either we continue to raise the price, or they will sign with EA."

"EA..."

Although Zhou Buqi didn't know the inside story, he basically made a good guess.

Depend on!
EA was angry because of the setback of the friend's studio, and Ziweixing International's subsequent high-level cash-out incident at EA, and wanted to take revenge on Changyou.

They want to cut off their beards halfway!