my return 2002

Chapter 390 The Whole Game Industry Chain
Just two days after Wang Tao sent Lei Jun and Yao Zhuangxian away, another game company came to his door. This game company is called "Modu Candle Dragon Information Technology". It is a game, mainly because the mainland has tax breaks for technology companies.

At that time, Wang Tao was discussing some details of this stand-alone game platform with Shen Lang, and by the way, he also met with the general manager of the game company - Li Xiang. At first, Shen Lang thought it was the one who built the car, but after the meeting, he found out that it was not.

Wang Tao had a good impression of him, so he introduced: "Mr. Li is an all-rounder in the circle. He has participated in the planning of Xianjian III, Xianjian Wenqing, and Xianjian IV. I originally wanted to recruit him to our company before, but it turned out If you are a step too slow, someone snatches you first."

Li Xiang hurriedly said modestly: "It's just me these two times, so don't brag about it to me. It's not good to reveal your secrets in a while."

Shen Lang greeted with a smile: "Come on, sit down first and tell me, is Mr. Li coming this time because he is interested in our stand-alone game platform?"

Li Xiang said seriously: "To tell you the truth, Mr. Shen, our company has recently made a game called [Gu Jian Qi Tan], which is about to be released, but when I think of the piracy situation in the market, my heart beats. I heard Mountain Dew intends to make a stand-alone game platform.”

In fact, to put it bluntly, it’s just for cheap, but Shen Lang doesn’t care. Although he has never played the game [Gu Jian Qi Tan], a game can be released to the third part, and it has also been extended to an online version. The adaptation of a TV series is enough to explain the quality of the game.

The reason why steam can be done is because there are a large number of high-quality game content on it. Shen Lang's stand-alone game platform naturally cannot do without the support of these game companies.

Don’t be afraid to spend money in the early stage. As long as you make a noise and shake the entire industry, it is worth it. And after the platform grows bigger, the cost can be recovered in the later stage. This is how the Internet industry works.

Shen Lang said sternly: "Let me put it this way, Mr. Li, although our Mountain Dew game platform is a new creation, but you don't have to worry about the promotional resources. At that time, I will ask Duowan to directly open a Mountain Dew stand-alone game area. Mr. Wang also discussed some solutions to the piracy problem."

Wang Tao revealed some details of the previous discussion to Li Xiang, and Li Xiang's eyes lit up when he heard it.

"Mr. Shen, Mr. Wang, if this is the case, we must be interested! But how to calculate the agency share? There is also a follow-up settlement."

Shen Lang and Wang Tao looked at each other and smiled, and Wang Tao patted Li Xiang on the shoulder and said, "You're here today, how about this, your company's [Ancient Sword and Strange Tan] will be distributed to us as an agent, and we won't charge you any agency fees." Yes, as long as you bear the publicity fee, you don’t have to worry about the follow-up settlement, all the proceeds from players’ purchases will be directly deposited into the 360 ​​payment account, and you can withdraw it by yourself after a week.”

Li Xiang couldn't believe that there was such a good thing, he stared blankly at Wang Tao for a long time, wanting to see if he was joking with him.

Seeing this, Wang Tao couldn't help laughing and cursing: "What kind of eyes are you kidding, I don't even have any credit at all."

Li Xiang quickly waved his hands to explain, but still looked at Shen Lang, Shen Lang smiled and said: "What Mr. Wang said is what I said."

Li Xiang quickly held Wang Tao's hand, and was so grateful that Wang Tao's skin got goosebumps.

"Hey, I'm not afraid that Mr. Wang will joke with Mr. Shen. Those of us who make stand-alone games are walking a tightrope. Many companies that are still there today may go bankrupt and dissolve tomorrow. They can't compare with your online game companies. "

Perhaps because the task was completed, Li Xiang also relaxed a lot, and said with a bit of self-deprecation.

Wang Tao patted him on the shoulder to comfort him: "It will get better, isn't that what we are doing."

Seeing that it was almost time for dinner, Shen Lang proposed to have a light meal together. At the dinner table, the three of them chatted about things related to the game. Li Xiang drank some wine and couldn't help complaining.

"Well, the game market in China should be the most deformed game market in the world. If you do online games, you will make money, but you will be scolded. If you do stand-alone games, you will not make money, and you will be scolded."

"What are the current players saying that our domestic stand-alone game company can only do turn-based, and we also want to do real-time combat, but we have no money. Does the motion capture system need money? Does the scene modeling need money? We are a stand-alone game. It only sells for 60 yuan in total, and there are pirated copies everywhere, where can we get the money to support us to do this?"

Speaking of this, Wang Tao also expressed a lot of emotion: "Yes, and the agents have to share a large part of the five or sixty yuan in the end, and the repayment cycle is also very long. Some unscrupulous agents just drag you. If you don’t pay the money, it will drag you until the company goes bankrupt, so you don’t have to pay.”

"The risks and hardships of making stand-alone games, in fact, everyone who has done this industry knows, but players don't care about these, what they want is high-quality game content, the turn-based system is indeed a bit outdated, my personal suggestion, Zhulong if This time I have made money on Gujian, and the next game will try to be a real-time battle, after all, I want players to see the progress of domestic games, so they will be willing to pay for it." Shen Lang said sternly.

Li Xiang nodded, and said with some drunk eyes: "Well, Mr. Shen, you are right. I am just complaining here. We will definitely work hard on the game, so that players can see our sincerity."

Yao Zhuangxian and Li Xiang were just the first wave. Soon news spread in the industry, and stand-alone game companies came to seek cooperation one after another, including well-known game manufacturers such as Heluo Studio.

There are still many fans who just have ideas and haven't started to implement them. After learning about Mountain Dew's determination and preferential treatment as a stand-alone game platform, most of them expressed their willingness to cooperate.

On August [-]st, Mountain Dew game platform was officially established and entered the formal research and development stage. It is expected that internal testing will be carried out in three months.

Shen Lang told Wang Tao: "Don't keep staring at these domestic game manufacturers. You should also contact foreign game manufacturers to introduce their games into China. Only with competitive pressure can domestic game manufacturers be forced to improve. Otherwise, they will compete with the online game market. Same, a pool of stagnant water."

The business environment in the mainland is to pursue short-term returns. In order to cater to capital, game companies often adopt the most conservative solutions, such as many skin-changing games.

In the eyes of many people, changing the skin of the game is the result of game manufacturers being damned and unwilling to make progress. It is true that changing the skin of the game is for making money. The same game mechanism, gameplay, and value, but a set of art effects, suddenly become another game. a game.

But here comes the problem. It stands to reason that players hate skin-changing games so much, so skin-changing games will definitely lose money, right?On the contrary, the commercial success of skin-changing games is sometimes even better than many large-scale online games with good reputations.

The reason is also very simple. Learning a game requires cost. Take the game "Guild Wars 2" as an example. Why is this game not popular in the mainland?It is because the mechanism of this game is too complicated, just the combination of skills and some operations is enough for players to explore for half a year.

On the contrary, those skin-changing games are often transplanted from a certain gameplay of various popular games. Players can get started immediately with almost no learning cost.

There are only a very small number of advanced players who are constantly exploring various gameplays from the game. Most of them are ordinary players who are unwilling to use their brains and just want to lie flat and play games.

When the player lays down, the game company will naturally follow suit. As long as it can make money, what's the point of changing the skin?What is plagiarism?
And it is precisely that capital also likes these companies that make skin-changing games the most. With low R&D investment and high return rate, capital will not care about your technical reserves. As long as they can help capital earn money, they are willing to spend money.

Shen Lang wants to introduce a large number of high-quality foreign games, and drive all those game companies that want to lie flat to get up and run. There is no harm without comparison. Players have played [Assassin's Creed], [Resident Evil], and [The Witcher]. After high-quality games, the natural aesthetics will improve, and they will definitely not be happy to let them play the same turn-based system.

Rolling, only rolling can promote the progress of the entire mainland game industry. In Shen Lang's view, stand-alone games, online games, and mobile games are all indispensable parts of the game industry system.

Good games can also promote hardware update iterations, just like [Warcraft] [Stimulus Battlefield] These games have triggered a wave of hardware update in China, and later [2077] even many players said that they should Thanks to the game for getting them to buy a new graphics card, because there was a frenzy shortly after the game was released, and they couldn't get a graphics card at all.

It's just that Wang Tao's communication with foreign game companies is not smooth, and the reason is very simple. The Huaxia market is a black hole among game companies in various countries. Only a very small number of stand-alone game manufacturers can make money from it. Many stand-alone game manufacturers A lot of publicity and distribution costs have been invested, and as a result, sales volumes that do not exceed three digits abound. This is why many stand-alone game manufacturers have Japanese and Korean versions, but there is no simplified Chinese version.

Wang Tao has no good solution. He can only let his employees continue to communicate with various foreign game manufacturers, send them emails and make phone calls. It lasted for a while, maybe because he felt the sincerity here, he gradually started to communicate with them. .

However, the condition of most foreign game manufacturers is to directly buy out the distribution rights in the mainland, instead of handing over the games to Dew Games.

Wang Tao tried to show them that they could earn more as an agent. However, perhaps because he was scared by the mainland market, many game manufacturers insisted that they could only buy out, otherwise they would not cooperate.

There is no way, Wang Tao can only report to Shen Lang, Shen Lang thinks for a while: "How about this, you do a stand-alone game market survey to see how many players in the group are willing to pay for foreign stand-alone games, and then we first Pick some games with high willingness to pay to buy out, and when we make money, other game manufacturers will naturally ask us to cooperate."

Wang Tao's eyes lit up: "This idea is wonderful, why didn't I think of it."

Shen Lang laughed and scolded: "You really didn't expect it, or you are acting with me here, you know it in your heart, get out of here and go to work, don't do foreign work with me! It's annoying to watch."

Wang Tao chuckled and ran away quickly.

Shen Lang shook his head, there is no way to get to this position, the subordinates see you from a different angle, sometimes people will lose themselves in these compliments.

While Wang Tao was conducting market research, the online game market in the mainland also began to surge. First, [DOTA2] confirmed the internal test time in October, and secondly, Shanda, which had been silent for a long time, announced that the agent [Dragon Nest] would open in August. Open beta on May 8th.

[Dragon Nest] This game has attracted the favor of many players during the internal test period. The Q version of the character modeling and refreshing sense of attack made this game reach 30 simultaneous online during the internal test period. Shanda also relied on This game has re-entered everyone's field of vision.

In fact, although Shanda has gradually faded out of the ranks of the first-line Internet manufacturers due to Chen Tianqiao's investment strategy over the years, Shanda's profits have always been online, and it has hundreds of millions of revenue every year just relying on legendary authorization.

The explosion of [Dragon Nest] this time also rekindled Chen Tianqiao's fighting spirit, wanting to regain the glory of the past.

From the very beginning, [Dragon Nest] has been targeting Mountain Dew's [Ghost Blowing Lantern], which is also a real-time fighting game.

Many [Ghost Blowing Lantern] players were attracted to jump into the [Dragon Nest], and on the day of [Dragon Nest] public beta, the number of simultaneous online users of [Ghost Blowing Lantern] dropped by nearly 20.

Immediately, Wang Tao couldn't care less about discussing cooperation with foreign game manufacturers, and hurriedly called the senior executives of the game department to discuss countermeasures.

However, a group of people discussed and discussed, but failed to come up with an effective method, because the gap in the quality of the game itself is there, and the players are not fools.

Shen Lang also came to the meeting room at this time, Wang Tao just wanted to stand up and give way, Shen Lang waved his hand to signal him to sit down.

"I just stopped by to see, how are you talking?"

The executives shook their heads depressedly, and Shen Lang said: "Actually, sometimes, you don't think your opponent is too strong. You just need to remember one thing, that is Shanda."

"A lot of times, maybe we don't need to do anything, they play themselves to death?"

The atmosphere in the conference room suddenly became lively again. It is true that Shanda has such a showy operation. Some games that are obviously of very good quality have been run by them in a mess, such as: MapleStory, Hot Blood Heroes, and of course Dragon Warriors. Valley is also one of them.

Shanda's current situation is actually more suitable to be completely transformed into a game company, and then lie down to make money for retirement, but Shanda has an ambitious boss Chen Tianqiao. As long as he is there, Shen Lang will not worry about Shanda threatening Mountain Dew because I will kill Shengqu games to death.

(End of this chapter)