my return 2002

Chapter 389 Standalone Game Platform
Director Qiu also revealed some news to Shen Lang: "Actually, it's not aimed at you this time. The main reason is that some game companies have adopted many illegal methods in order to attract players. Anti-addiction is only one of the links in regulating the market. .”

Shen Lang's complexion is now slightly better. The online game market in 2010 was indeed a bit overheated. Even those who sell health care products and cosmetics have started to invest in games. It seems that as long as the online game market is operated by individuals, they can definitely make money Same.

However, the real situation is that, except for Mountain Dew, Netease, Shanda and other first-tier game manufacturers, the rest of the second- and third-tier manufacturers have a hard time. It costs at least tens of millions of RMB from production to operation, and it will be even more terrifying if the later publicity is added.

On the one hand, with the development of the online game market in the mainland these years, players are no longer "earth leopards" who have never seen the world, and it is not an era when game manufacturers can serve up a lot of food, and players can eat happily.

Players have a certain pursuit of the game's plot, gameplay, graphics, and social system. Games without characteristics basically die directly when they go online. Among them, there are some very popular online games in South Korea, which eventually collapsed into dust.

However, this does not prevent hot money from rushing into the online game market. In 2010, thousands of online games of various colors were launched. Most of them did not last until the launch, because investors could not afford to burn the money and finally gave up. s project.

These projects not only waste a lot of money, but also damage the basic protection of game practitioners. After many game companies go bankrupt, employees can't even get their wages back.

Those games that are lucky enough to be launched, because they have no special features, can only adopt some side-by-side promotional methods to attract players. The official website is almost like a small movie website.

In the face of all kinds of chaos, it is normal for the higher authorities to issue policies to regulate management.

However, Shen Lang is not optimistic about the effect of using administrative management to restrain the market. As long as hot money is still pouring in, there will still be many game manufacturers playing around the edges.

In the final analysis, the root cause is that China currently only has online games and no stand-alone games.

"Single player game."

After sending Director Qiu away, these four words kept lingering in Shen Lang's mind. At this time, the domestic stand-alone game market can only be described as rotten. Users would rather spend thousands of dollars to recharge krypton gold online games than Dozens of dollars to buy a genuine stand-alone game.

Of course, domestic stand-alone games are not good, and foreign stand-alone games are also caught in the mainland market. Various cracked versions are flying all over the place, and stand-alone game manufacturers can hardly get money in the mainland. This is why many stand-alone games are almost all languages, but there is no simplified version. The main reason for Chinese is that who wants to do Sinicization if there is no money to make?
After thinking for a while, Shen Lang called Wang Tao and other executives of the game business to the meeting room.

"How many game companies are still making stand-alone games?"

Shen Lang's words stunned everyone in the meeting room, and finally Wang Tao smiled wryly.

"Mr. Shen, how can there be a game company making stand-alone games these days? They can make money by making terminal games, browser games, or mobile games. Stand-alone games are a life of losing money. Who wants to do it?"

Shen Lang nodded and asked back: "What if we can let them make money?"

Li Qing looked at Shen Lang expectantly: "Mr. Shen, I don't quite understand what you mean."

The executives who worked in the early days all switched from making stand-alone games, and they all had a plot of making stand-alone games. As soon as they heard it, they became interested and stretched their necks to look at Shen Lang.

Shen Lang said with a smile: "I mean, if we build a platform to help these stand-alone game manufacturers sell their works and at the same time help them defend their rights, do you think any game companies will be willing to participate?"

Wang Tao said hesitantly: "I'm afraid it's still difficult to achieve this, right? Now players would rather send hundreds of money to krypton gold online games than spend money to buy genuine games."

The rest of the people nodded in agreement.

Shen Lang shook his head and said, "No, haven't you noticed that players' tastes have changed? Let me ask you, why do players like to play online games?"

"Because online games have social attributes that stand-alone games can't match, just like legends. The reason why they were so popular back then was largely because social software was not developed at that time. Players can make friends while playing games, and experience The excitement of chasing and being hunted down, after all, fighting with people is a lot of fun."

Speaking of this, Wang Tao and others nodded in agreement, and they all had a deep understanding of this.

Shen Lang continued: "But what is the current online game environment? There are a lot of free games, but there are almost no games that can really make ordinary players enjoy themselves without spending money. Ordinary players are prepared by game companies for krypton gold players. gaming experience."

"This is also the reason why competitive games like League of Legends are on the rise. Players are tired of those free krypton gold online games, and they want to get a better gaming experience in a fair environment."

Upon hearing this, Li Qing raised his hand and interrupted: "However, stand-alone games still can't solve the problem of social interaction."

Shen Lang nodded: "Stand-alone games do have the problem of short process and weak social interaction, but now as players get older, they spend less and less time playing games, and it is difficult to have time to play those games that need to be online every day. If you are doing online games for daily tasks, stand-alone games and competitive games will be a good supplement.”

"It is definitely not profitable to make stand-alone games in the early stage, but as players' mentality changes, stand-alone games will inevitably rise again, and what we have to do is to help these people with dreams of stand-alone games, build a platform, and use our advantages To help them survive, so as to make a better stand-alone game."

Wang Tao said with emotion: "If there was such a platform at the beginning, we would not have transformed into online games later."

Shen Lang scolded with a smile: "Stop flattering, just treat it as a big environment, if I do this platform, I don't know where I will die, and I can only follow the trend when I do anything. Going against the trend of history will definitely die very badly." awful."

This is also the principle that Shen Lang has always followed. All his layouts are established on this premise. Those who can succeed against the trend of history are all men born from heaven. He is just an ordinary person who can't be more vulgar. It is necessary to make life difficult for yourself.

"How about this, Mr. Wang will communicate with the game company to see how many people are willing to make stand-alone games. If they have good projects, we can also invest in them. After all, we have to get real money out of it. Let others take risks if you talk empty teeth." Shen Lang reminded.

Wang Tao smiled: "Mr. Shen, I'll just wait for your words, and I'll contact you right away."

Wang Tao and the others still have a wide network of contacts in the game industry. If they spread the word, many game companies will soon come to inquire about the news.

But what Shen Lang didn't expect was that Lei Jun was the first to find him.

"Are you really planning to restart the Swordsman Love: Xie Yun spread this project?"

Speaking of "Swordsman Love III", this project is also ill-fated. It was originally established in 2002, but it caught up with the shrinking of the stand-alone market and the explosion of the online game market. Doing online games, so there was the later Jian Wang Yi.

The "Swordsman III" project has been put on hold for a long time. Later, Jinshan was collapsed by Zhou Hongyi, and the team was also torn apart. Originally, Zhou Hongyi retained the game team and the WPS team, intending to rely on the game to make a comeback, but the result also failed. up.

Recently, Lei Jun talked with Zhou Hongyi about the acquisition of the WPS team, and also met with some old subordinates before, so the game team also wanted to continue to follow Lei Jun.

With Xiaomi's current market value and some of Lei Jun's own investment, he is now financially free, so he thought of realizing his own dream.

Lei Jun nodded and said rather self-deprecatingly: "It can be regarded as an explanation to the past."

I have always had deep feelings for Jinshan Leijun.

Shen Lang patted him on the shoulder: "Since you want to do it, then go ahead and discuss the specific matters with Wang Tao."

Lei Jun immediately went to talk to Wang Tao, but when he arrived at Wang Tao's office, he ran into an old acquaintance——Yao Zhuangxian. He directly said that not many people knew his name, but when it came to "Father of Immortal Sword", there were very few gamers who didn't like it. knew.

"Boss Yao, why are you here?" Lei Jun asked in surprise.

Yao Zhuangxian shook hands with Lei Jun: "Hey, I still want to ask why you are here."

After Wang Tao's introduction, Lei Jun knew that Yao Zhuangxian had actually heard that Mountain Dew was going to be a stand-alone game platform, so he wanted to find out about the situation and see if he could get some benefits for the under-development [Legend of Sword and Fairy 5] .

Lei Jun was delighted when he heard it: "Isn't it a coincidence, my purpose is similar to yours."

Yao Zhuangxian also felt a lot of emotion when he heard that Lei Jun was going to restart "Swordsman Love III". Daewoo and Jinshan took two completely different routes. Jinshan chose to devote himself to online games, while Daewoo continued to insist on making stand-alone games. After that, Daewoo was forced to disband, and Yao Zhuangxian had to re-establish a company in Beijing, Soft Star, to continue producing [Legend of Sword and Fairy 4].

Wang Tao joked: "You two really take care of me. I just let out the wind, and you came to the door with business."

Lei Jun used to be Wang Tao's head, and laughed and scolded: "Why are you not welcome? We are here today, you are ready to let blood."

Wang Tao said helplessly: "Bleeding is no problem, but we don't have a specific implementation plan yet. We have to hand over the plan to Mr. Shen for review."

Lei Jun thought for a while: "Then, tell me, what are you going to do with this stand-alone game platform?"

Wang Tao said sternly: "We have recently studied the development trajectory of the Steam game platform, and it is safer to follow its path."

Yao Zhuangxian hurriedly asked: "But in this way, how to solve the problem of pirated cracking?"

This is a very tricky question. After all, to do piracy in the past, you need to buy a genuine disk. Now you can download it directly from the Internet. Wouldn't it be worse for the game company?
Wang Tao spread his hands helplessly: "The problem of cracking pirated versions is not a problem that our family can solve. Players who are willing to take the risk of downloading cracked versions will still download cracked versions, and now many computers do not have CD-ROM drives. It is inevitable to open online downloads for stand-alone games. You can't imitate the trend."

"However, I communicated with Mr. Shen privately. We are going to take two-handed preparations. First, we will negotiate with some cracking and pirated studios. We will help them get some business cooperation. They promise not to crack our games for at least two years. Secondly, those Pirate cracking studios that do not cooperate with us and insist on going their own way will collect evidence and sue them directly for bankruptcy, as long as they kill a few chickens, they will always be able to deter those ghosts and snakes."

After listening to Wang Tao, Yao Zhuangxian's eyes lit up: "This is a good idea!"

In fact, Yao Zhuangxian has long wanted to sue those pirate cracking studios, but such small studios are everywhere on the Internet, many of them even have only one person, and they often crack for free and share them on various online forums, and then use All kinds of Trojan horses and crawlers steal user information to make money. It is very secretive, and it is difficult to sue them even if they are caught.

But if this matter is done by the Inspur Group, the situation will be completely different. Given the status of the Inspur Group in the Internet in the Mainland, if those online forums cover these people, they will have to weigh whether they will be sued.

Lei Jun also nodded: "This method is feasible. We would rather pay them some protection fees. As long as they don't mess with us, it shouldn't be a big problem to recover the cost."

Wang Tao reminded: "This can only deter some large studios, but those small personal workshops, players who purely share, need you to improve your anti-cracking capabilities."

Yao Zhuangxian smacked his lips. This is what caused him a headache. Anti-cracking is not so easy. Stand-alone games are not like online games. When starting up, they will scan local files for abnormalities.

When a stand-alone game is downloaded to the user's computer, the game company will completely lose control. Even if it has a powerful anti-cracking ability, some players will overcome it after a long time. The creatures like technology nerds are really terrible. They are more interested in shells that are difficult to crack, not for anything else, just to prove their skills.

Wang Tao thought for a while: "How about this, why don't you just use an online mode when you are playing the game, you don't need to scan the local files when you are alone, but if you find that the local files are cracked when you are online, you will not be able to log in to the server? "

Lei Jun slapped his thigh: "Okay, this is a wonderful idea, so that at least 30% of pirated players can be reduced."

Yao Zhuangxian rubbed his chin: "Just in this way, our production cost and later maintenance cost will also increase."

"How can there be a perfect thing in the world? You have to pay a price to prevent theft, isn't it?"

(End of this chapter)