my return 2002

Chapter 341 Graphics Card Killer

In 2008, the domestic FPS game market was still in chaos. There was not yet an influential FPS online game on the market, but this market has always existed.

As a classic FPS game, CS carries a lot of growing up memories of those born in the 70s and 80s. There are countless Internet cafes all night long. Many players use this game to pass the time.

A game can be won or lost within ten minutes or even a few minutes. It is exciting and can also reflect the operation. The key is that it is free.

In the early days when online games were not yet popular, many Internet cafes could not even connect to the Internet. Players relied on the LAN inside the Internet cafe to set up rooms and compete with people. It's for this game.

In the era when CS was popular, it almost became the standard configuration of Internet cafes. If an Internet cafe did not have CS, players would definitely turn around and leave. In that era, CS had a market share of 95% in Internet cafes. Of course, almost all of them were pirated.

Later, as there were more and more Internet cafes and the competition became more and more fierce, many Internet cafes would pay special attention to those players who played CS well, and gave them certain online discounts. The most important thing is to keep these CS masters in their own Internet cafes to drive traffic to Internet cafes.

Some Internet cafes will organize teams to compete with other Internet cafes, and these competitions are all spontaneously organized by the people without exception, because the production company of CS has no idea that CS has so many fans in the mainland, after all At that time, V Agency didn't even have an agent in the mainland, and even if players wanted to buy genuine copies, they couldn't buy them.

However, with the advent of the era of online games, the popularity of CS has gradually faded, and many users have begun to embrace online games. The reason is that players like novelty. Even if a game is classic, it will be fine if you play it for a year or two. , After playing for seven or eight years, no matter how patient you are, you will get tired of it.

Moreover, as a game released eight years ago, CS is too outdated on the screen. It is already difficult to attract new players in the face of online games with increasingly gorgeous screens.

Those who still insist on playing CS on platforms such as VS and Haofang are basically old players, but one thing must be admitted is that CS has sowed the kind of FPS games in the domestic game player community.

Zhang Zhidong is also very aware of this, so in the promotion of [King of Battlefield], Zhang Zhidong is taking the route of attracting old CS players. Battle platforms such as VS and Haofang have received the advertisement of [King of Battlefield].

It’s really ironic to say that a large part of the users of these battle platforms are supported by old CS players, and accepting the advertisement of [King of Battlefield] is undoubtedly killing the chicken and picking the egg.

But they still accepted it. The reason is very simple. For each battle platform, CS only plays a role in attracting traffic, and it is impossible to rely on CS to make money. It is too much.

[King of Battlefield] Penguin has paid enough attention to it. Zhang Zhidong personally went to Korea to snatch this game. He spent more than 1000 million US dollars in agency fees. It took more than a year for localization. In addition, Penguin is now There is no game that can be taken out yet.

It is no exaggeration to say that [King of Battlefield] carries Penguin's ambition to attack first-line game companies. Zhang Zhidong personally took charge of the early stage promotion of [King of Battlefield]. It is a rare masterpiece in the domestic game industry in recent years.

In addition to the advertising promotion on the battle platform, various novel websites, video platforms, and game communities, Penguin has spent a lot of money on publicity. What is more interesting is that the publicity department of Penguin Games even contacted Xingchen Chinese Network and Duowan Games Community.

Shen Lang refused without even thinking about it. He was not short of the money, and although [King of Battlefield] had various flaws, there was one thing that could not be denied. The quality of the game [King of Battlefield] was very good. The reason why there was no fire in the previous life is, to a large extent, that the penguin actually made way for crossing the line of fire.

After all, when [King of Battlefield] was launched, CrossFire has become a project that can contribute nearly one billion in revenue to Penguin every year. Fighting against yourself is enough, and there is no need to get bloody. It's all his own blood, the penguin will still settle the account.

Just like the agent [Smite] was also to make way for League of Legends, otherwise, with Penguin's marketing ability, it is impossible for this high-quality game to not even see a decent promotional advertisement in the market.

Shen Lang didn't want to give the penguin even a chance to breathe, if he wanted to hit it, he would beat it to the ground.

Regarding Shen Lang's refusal, Zhang Zhidong was both helpless and depressed. The reason why Penguin's game business has not developed smoothly these years is largely due to the fact that Penguin does not have a dedicated game community.

Since 17173 was beaten down by Duowan Games, Duowan Games has become a gathering place for domestic players. Game manufacturers from all walks of life have gathered to distribute novice cards, event gift packs, and set up game zones in Duowan Games. You can find all kinds of strategies and benefits they need.

It’s not that Penguin has never tried to build a game community to compete with it, but it’s a pity that it has invested a lot of money, but it still can’t do it. There is no way, Penguin can only rely on its own traffic to promote players, but the efficiency will be low in this way. Few, Penguin games are by default the most popular community in the Duowan game community, even some small companies are not as popular.

Of course, Shen Lang is only targeting the Penguin family. Even Shanda, which has had conflicts before, can buy good promotional resources as long as they are willing to spend money when promoting.

Not to mention game makers like NetEase and Ninetowns that had a good relationship with Shen Lang, domestic game makers also acquiesced to this status quo.

Another important point is that Mountain Dew is taking the high-quality route, only one game is released a year, and the competition with other game manufacturers is not fierce.

However, even without the promotional resources to play more games, [King of Battlefield] still caused quite a stir in the FPS player community. After various actual pictures were exposed, many FPS players felt that this game was what they had been waiting for. A game that replaces CS.

However, before Zhang Zhidong was happy, shortly after [King of Battlefield] announced that the closed beta will be scheduled for December 12th, Mountain Dew Entertainment announced that it will start the internal test plan for the first FPS game Cross Fire, and the scheduled time will be on December 15th. On the 12th of the month, even the time is exactly the same.

This was blatantly targeting, Zhang Zhidong was so angry that he slapped the table, and almost became a desktop cleaning master.

Brother Xiao Ma also hated it so much that his teeth itch.

It's a pity that being angry doesn't help. There is no law that stipulates that only one of their games can be tested at a time.

"Why don't we push back the internal test time?" Zhang Zhidong thought for a while and suggested.

Brother Xiao Ma shook his head when he heard it: "It's useless, we're quitting to tell the players that we don't have confidence in [King of the Battlefield], and the announcement has been sent out. If we retreat temporarily, the previous publicity will be in vain."

Zhang Zhidong gritted his teeth and said, "Then we can only fight head-on!"

"Did you find out what's going on with this Crossfire?" Brother Xiao Ma's eyes suddenly lit up.

Zhang Zhidong took out his computer and clicked on the picture folder: "This is a demo of the real machine that was tested by CrossFire in South Korea a year ago, but it's hard to say if it's the same game as before. The ability of self-development is still very strong.”

Brother Xiao Ma is inexplicably agitated. Why does Shen Lang make a game so popular? I originally thought that [Xunxian] would finally hit the market. After three internal tests, the word-of-mouth of [Xunxian] has been improving all the way. The number of people online at the same time in the public beta has soared to 50.

However, when Brother Xiao Ma saw the demonstration picture of the actual machine crossing the line of fire, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Reveal these pictures and let players comment on this game."

"It's a good idea, let's do it like this."

As a result, the real machine demo pictures of Crossfire a year ago appeared on some forums and game reports. Many players couldn't believe that Mountain Dew would release a game with such a spicy picture.

Wang Tao recognized at a glance that the pictures circulating on the Internet were pictures of Hanbok, and was about to refute the rumors, but Shen Lang stopped him.

"At this time, it is actually a good thing for players to lower their psychological expectations. By the time of the closed beta, players will naturally know what kind of game Crossfire is."

The label that Mountain Dew’s products must be high-quality products is the trust of players, but also a burden. The first internal test results of [Xunxian] before are generally largely due to this reason.

With Zhuyu in the front, players will inevitably have higher expectations psychologically, just like players for Blizzard, originally thought that World of Warcraft was just the beginning, but later discovered that there will be no Blizzard after World of Warcraft.

Although Mountain Dew has improved [Cross Fire] in an all-round way in the past year, and has made many optimizations and supplements on the screen, which is several steps higher than the previous Korean beta version, but it is still different from [ Battlefield King] is still not a star and a half behind.

In the midst of all this noise, the time soon came to December 12th, at ten o'clock in the morning, many FPS game players had been guarding in front of their computers, waiting for the moment when the server would start.

For many old CS players, they have been waiting for this moment for too long. They have played a CS for so many years, and finally there is something new to play, and today there are only two games. The happiness came a bit too suddenly. .

No matter it is Penguin Game or Mountain Dew Game, there are backers behind them, and they have a huge user base. There is definitely no shortage of players. It took less than 2 minutes for the server to start, whether it is [King of Battlefield] or [Cross Fire] server. Presents a queuing situation.

Both parties have already prepared countermeasures and started to add servers.

Players appeared in the game in an endless stream, and soon the players of the two games had completely different gaming experiences.

The feelings of [Cross Fire] players are actually not obvious, but when they played a few games of [Cross Fire] and switched to [King of Battlefield], they immediately experienced the gap.

Many players just logged into [King of Battlefield], and then the Internet cafe computer quit directly, either with a blue screen or restarting directly.

At first, the players thought it was just a coincidence, but soon they discovered that it was not a coincidence, as soon as they logged into [King of the Battlefield] and entered the matchmaking, before the loading interface was reached, the Internet cafe computer would go on strike.

This is definitely not an isolated phenomenon, but a common phenomenon. You must know that [King of Battlefield] uses Unreal Engine 3 in order to pursue better picture quality. This game engine is absolutely powerful. Many domestic games are built using Unreal Engine 3, and the picture quality is not outdated at all.

But in 2008, Unreal Engine 3 also had a nickname called Graphics Card Killer!At the same time, an explosive game called Assassin's Creed created with Unreal Engine 3 set off a wave of hardware configuration upgrades in Europe and the United States.

In China, the latest hardware upgrade boom among Internet cafe owners was three years ago when [World of Warcraft] exploded. Players' requirement for Internet cafe configuration is to be able to run 3D online games such as [World of Warcraft] and [Zhu Xian] smoothly.

Of course, there are still some Internet cafes that can drive [King of Battlefield], but you must know that [King of Battlefield] is an FPS game, and it is the kind of game that can determine the outcome with one shot. No, at the moment of life and death, even a single frame of lag will affect the outcome.

"Fuck, what the hell is this game, I'm stuck, don't tell me that the computer configuration is not good, the computer I just bought is all top configuration."

"[King of the Battlefield] is a real card. I changed several Internet cafes before I was able to load the game normally, but before I was happy, I didn't know where the mouse drifted when I met the opponent. The screen was black and white in an instant. pain."

"In our small county town, there is no Internet cafe that can be used. It is really convincing. It is reasonable to say that the internal test game optimization is not good, but it is not so outrageous, right?"

"Hey, I'm tired. I'm going to play [Cross Fire]. Although the picture quality is a bit poor, at least it's smooth to play, and the zombie mode is really exciting."

"Ahem, which area is upstairs? Let me be alone, I also like to play zombie mode."

Zhang Zhidong soon discovered that the number of players in [King of Battlefield] has been in a strange state of fast in and fast out. Many players even went offline within a few minutes of being online.

This can't help but make Zhang Zhidong wonder, isn't this game attractive to players?Probably not. During the internal beta test, the response was quite good, and some old CS players gave it a very high evaluation.

Until Zhang Zhidong opened the official forum of [King of Battlefield], he couldn't help being shocked.

Brother Xiao Ma was also dumbfounded. They only paid attention to the quality of the game itself, but ignored that no matter how good the game is, it's useless if the player's computer can't carry it!
"How about Crossfire?"

"It has been opened to the 100th district."

Brother Ma:
(End of this chapter)