The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 167 Hunger Marketing (6K)

Compared with the Internet winter, game companies have been much less affected.

The vast majority of game development companies are not listed, and everyone's survival does not depend on the capital market, but mainly depends on the support of real money from players.

Therefore, the cold winter of the Internet is a good thing for them to some extent. The effect of advertising on Internet channels that cost [-] US dollars before can be achieved with only [-] US dollars.

For these game developers, the current slump of the Nasdaq index is nothing compared to the Great Depression of the American game industry in 1983.

We must know that the game industry crash caused by Atari caused the game revenue of the entire industry to plummet from US$32 billion to US$1 million, and it only took two short years.

Therefore, the cold winter of the Internet did not affect it, and the 2000 E3 exhibition was held in full swing.

Moreover, this is regarded as the first E21 exhibition after the advent of the 3st century, and the organizers attach great importance to it.

After returning to Los Angeles last year, the attendance is expected to exceed 10 people.

"This is my first time attending E3 and speaking at E3 on behalf of Flamingo.

Flamingo seems to be less mainstream since its birth. Our games are released directly online, without the promotion channels of traditional game publishers.

After the release, I also relied on the spontaneous word-of-mouth of the players to promote it. Later, I even established Riot Games to provide a communication platform for video game players. " Zhou Xin said.

As the founder and chairman of Flamingo, Zhou Xin announced their upcoming new game at E3.

Zhou Xin is not as famous in the game industry as he is in the Internet industry, but his identity and experience determine that everyone wants to hear what he will say and what kind of work he will bring to the industry.

With the quality of games produced by Flamingo in the past, everyone is looking forward to it.

Another reason is that the number of video games released through Riot Games is increasing, and the scoring system of Riot Games is becoming more and more credible.

Now when players see the introduction of a certain game in game magazines or game media, and when they have an exciting idea, they will immediately go to Riot Games to see if the game has any ratings and reviews.

Read the reviews before deciding whether to buy.

The status and influence of Riot Games in the minds of players determines that more and more game developers hope to cooperate with Riot Games.

There have been several rounds of negotiations between Riot Games and host manufacturers such as Sony, Nintendo, and Sega.

Host manufacturers hope that through the verification code mechanism, their console games can also enter the scoring system of Riot Games.

After players buy a cartridge from Nintendo, they will get a verification code. Enter the verification code in Riot Games to rate and write reviews for the game, and the game's purchase badge will appear on the player's personal homepage.

This is a good thing for Riot Games, but Riot Games hopes to be able to take a commission based on the game price. Because I am not a distribution channel, the commission ratio can be reduced. Originally, if it was released through my game channel, I would take 30%. Now I just smoke 15%.

Host manufacturers are naturally unwilling to agree. I just borrowed your evaluation system and you will be charged 15%. This is too expensive. We are only willing to cooperate at a price of US$5 per game.

The two sides have been deadlocked over the method of charging.

Originally, E3 will not be open to the public until 2017. Before that, if you want to apply for a ticket to E3, you need to prove a direct professional relationship with the video game industry.

For example, you need to prove that you are engaged in game development or editor of game media, or a game publisher, etc.

After Riot Games sponsored E3 last year, Riot Games applied for 15000 general tickets from the exhibition organizer, and distributed them to ordinary players through various activities on the forum.

This activity has achieved very good results in the player group, which has greatly improved user stickiness and user activity.

Affected by this, Yahoo Games and Microsoft both sponsored E3 this year, and they also applied for general tickets from the exhibition, and distributed them to their users through the event.

Microsoft even claims to announce the concept map of XBox and the expected official release time at this E3 exhibition.

"The game Flamingo brings this time is also a tower defense game, but it is completely different from previous tower defense games.

This game called Genting Game is a PVP tower defense game, which has a lot of unique and innovative elements added to the traditional tower defense. "

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, a promotional CG of Game of Thrones began to play on the big screen behind him.

When Zhou Xin held a press conference at E3, Riot Games also began to warm up the game of Genting.

As a channel that Zhou Xin mastered, Fist Games pushed this game to the eyes of every user almost immediately.

Yes, Zhou Xin launched Auto Chess, LOL's Auto Chess.

Under the current network conditions, it is difficult to guarantee a 5V5 gaming experience.

In the mid-20s, American's network was the first generation of broadband, namely DSL and cable modems.

The speed of this technology is faster than traditional dial-up Internet access, but only a few hundred K per second.It was not until the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century that it was gradually transformed into a broadband network, the coverage area continued to expand, and the speed was increased to Mbps.

As for the fiber optic broadband got after 2005.

Zhou Xin simply imagined that in a 5V5 game, one or more people would often be disconnected, and then gave up the idea.

Compared with mobi games that have higher requirements on the network and require multiplayer cooperation, the game mode of Auto Chess has much lower requirements on the network.

Auto Chess can be traced back to Dota Auto Chess at the earliest, but in terms of follow-up operations, Dota Auto Chess is far inferior to Genting Game operated by Fist.

The development of the two has little to do with the quality of the game itself. The resources invested behind the operation directly determine the popularity of Genting Game. Every season has small innovations.

However, Dota Auto Chess gradually lost its voice.

Zhou Xin fully communicated the mechanism of Genting Game from S1 to S5 in his memory with Flamingo's planning team, and the effect was very close to Zhou Xin's memory.

Game of Genting is also preparing for the follow-up League of Legends. When the network conditions are mature and the popularity of Genting gradually decreases, the League of Legends can be launched.

"Game of Thrones is a tower defense game with 8 players, and the war chess game may be more appropriate.

But it is completely different from stand-alone war chess games. We don't have a stand-alone mode, we only have player versus player battles.

What you need to do is survive to the end among 8 players.

We will make different styles of boards and heroes. Players need to pay to buy boards and heroes. The boards and heroes will not affect the fairness of the game itself.

And players need to keep climbing the ladder, each time the top four players will get points, and the bottom four players will lose points.

Finally, at the end of each season, we will invite the top 128 players in the ladder to come to San Francisco for offline competitions to determine the final champion.

The final champion will receive a chessboard made of solid gold.

At the same time, at the end of each season, we will launch a champion chessboard, and 50.00% of the revenue from the sale of all champion chessboards will be used as a prize pool.

The 128 players will share the prize pool equally according to the final ranking. "

On stage, Zhou Xin talked about game mechanics to ladder rankings, and from ladder rankings to e-sports competitions.

The media and friends in the audience felt that Zhou Xin was talking about something very new, but is this really feasible?

They are not sure.

"The Biggest Surprise at the Millennium E3 Exhibition - Teamfight Tactics

This is the first time for me to participate in the E3 exhibition, and it is also the first time that almost all the staff of Sohu Game Channel will be dispatched to participate in the grand event of video games.I had never heard of what E3 was before I was an editor.

It wasn’t until I personally experienced the E3 scene this time that I realized that there are so many game developers around the world, so many media can live by evaluating video games, and so many players are chasing their favorite video games like a pilgrimage.

It was also after actually participating in E3 that I realized that games are not just games, why it can be hailed as the ninth art.

This E3 has countless moments that left a deep impression on me.Whether Hideo Kojima participated in the E2 exhibition with the promotional video of "Metal Gear Solid 3", the gorgeous opening, the cinematic storyboard, the soundtrack like a Hollywood blockbuster, the weather and lighting that changed the battle situation, and Kojima's best humor This promotional video surprises me every minute and every second.

Or is it that "Three Kingdoms", as a Huaguo game manufacturer, debuted at the E3 exhibition for the first time, and received a score of IGN8.0 once it debuted.

"Proud Three Kingdoms" is an RTS game, which is the mainstream of RPG. The success of games such as Xianjian and Jin Yong Heroes has allowed manufacturers to taste the sweetness of martial arts games, and similar games are surging.However, RTS games were disastrously hit by "Blood Lion", and few game developers dared to set foot in this field again.

The development team of "Three Kingdoms" first launched "Iron Armor Storm", a sci-fi style RTS.With this development experience, they made persistent efforts and developed an excellent work such as "Three Kingdoms", which is generally recognized by the international game industry.

The author hopes to see more and more faces of Huaguo games at E3 in the future.

Or Ricky Martin's lead dancer and Yu Suzuki signed autographs for players one by one at the Sega booth.The rock climbing competition area at the entrance of the Sega booth also left a deep impression on me.

Or Microsoft brought the Xbox prototype to the E3 exhibition site, and sent the voice of the Internet giant to Sony, Nintendo and Sega, the three major neon console manufacturers. Xbox platform.

But the most memorable moment is the trial session in front of the Flamingo game booth.

"Game of Genting" believes that everyone has received first-line information from Sohu Games. It is difficult to see how fun it is from the information alone.

After Zhou Xin finished the press conference of "Game of Thrones" on behalf of Flamingo, there were only 8 computers on the booth outside Flamingo at first, and a total of 8 players could try it out.

The most unacceptable thing about Flamingo is that only 8 players can try it at a time, and only No.1 can continue to play, and the last 7 players need to give up their positions to the people behind.

In addition to the 8 computers, there is also a huge screen on which is a simple version of the score leaderboard, which is the ladder mentioned by Zhou Xin.

You can continue to cycle to line up, and your name and score in the top [-] will be hung on the ladder list later.

The top [-] players can get a verification code, and after the game is officially launched, they can get the out-of-print chessboard skin through the verification code.

The game itself is very fun, whether it is the bondage mechanism, the mechanism that three pieces can be synthesized and upgraded, or the mechanism of pvp battles, they are all very interesting.

As a game editor specializing in game reviews, this is arguably the most fun game I've ever played.

But unfortunately, I was eliminated in the first round, and when I wanted to line up again, the Flamingo booth was full of people. Later, there were more and more people, and the line grew to more than 1000 people by my visual estimation.

You may not be able to play a game for a day. Later, Flamingo projected the real-time game screen of the live player experience on the big screen at the door.This led to a sea of ​​people at the entire booth, even more crowded than the day when Yu Suzuki signed autographs for the players at the entrance of Sega.

You want to rank in the top thousand, there is only one way, and that is to win as much as possible.But it's too difficult. Genting Chess is a bit similar to Mahjong. Three one-star chess pieces can be upgraded to a two-star chess piece.Three two-star chess pieces can be upgraded to a three-star chess piece.

At the same time, different chess pieces require different gold coins to purchase, ranging from 1 gold coin to 5 gold coins. Whenever a player makes a Samsung 5-gold chess piece, all the players will cheer and scream.

It also has an equipment mechanism, and different basic equipment has different synthesis routes, which leads to the whole game having elements of both game and luck, although Zhou Xin said that this is a tower defense PVP game.But in essence it is completely different from previous tower defense games.For first-time players, the luck component dominates.

So if you want to get as many points as possible, you have to line up for at least two rounds, that is to say, you should be familiar with the rules as much as possible for the first time, and rely on luck to be the number one.Then when it's your second turn, master the rules. After mastering the rules, you can win streaks more easily.

Because I have to interview a lot of booths, I don’t have time to line up at the Flamingo booth. Later, at the end of the E3 exhibition, I had the honor to interview the top 3 players of Genting Game, including the number one player. .

Without exception, they lined up for at least two rounds, and the player ranked number one even lined up with his friends in front of the Flamingo booth during the entire E3 exhibition.

Later, under the strong protest of the players, the number of one-time experience was increased from 8 to 16 people.

Game of Thrones is undoubtedly the biggest surprise at this E3 exhibition, it is difficult for you to look at this game with past experience.Like Zhou Xin's past works, it is filled with a lot of innovative elements.

The general innovation elements mean that players are not easy to accept at the beginning. They need time to accept, and they need word-of-mouth fermentation and media publicity.

Game of Thrones seems to have skipped these processes directly. This game is full of a lot of innovative designs, but players don’t need time to get started. The threshold for experience is extremely low, and they can realize the fun in just a few minutes.

It has a completely different gold coin acquisition mechanism, fetter mechanism, chess piece upgrade mechanism, draft mechanism, PVP interspersed with PVE link mechanism, and it even has an equipment synthesis mechanism.

These are all mechanisms that I have never seen in other games before. Teamfight Tactics integrates these mechanisms, as if they were born to be designed this way.

The most amazing thing is that the mechanism that sounds so cumbersome and full of innovation is very easy to use in the process of real experience, with almost no difficulty.Zhou Xin and Flamingo have developed brand new products in their field of expertise.I am already looking forward to the day when "Game of Genting" is officially released.

The only regret is that there are currently no agents of "Game of Genting" in China. If domestic players want to play, they can only apply for American's fist game account, which may cause relatively high network delays. "

The above is an official report posted by Sohu editors in Sohu's game forum.

Because there are a large number of official accounts in the Riot Games forum, these official accounts will send some official news from the game developer, and will also take the initiative to engage in some forum activities.Other game forums have followed suit, and Sohu has even created a news team dedicated to games.

The reports of Sohu Game News Team will be synchronized to Sohu Game Channel and Sohu Game Forum at the same time.

All players who have experienced Game of Genting have given unanimous praise, and people in other games have also been amazed after experiencing it.

"How do you evaluate the new game "Game of Thrones" brought by Flamingo Games at this E3 exhibition?"

As E3 is in full swing, a lot of news from the front line of the game has been reported by the game media, and these reports are inseparable from the game "Game of Thrones".

Coupled with the official promotion of Riot Games, after the photos of the long queues in the live "Game of Genting" demo were posted on the forum, players were very curious about the magic of this game.

Just from the mechanism and promotional videos, you can't see much mystery.

On Quora, there are a lot of answers given by front-line personnel who participated in the E3 exhibition:

"Newman's promotion at the game conference was completely unable to ignite the enthusiasm of the players. Unlike "Angry Birds" and "Plants vs. It is difficult to tell what kind of game it is from the promotional video or introduction.

Even at the press conference of "Game of Genting", my colleagues and I thought that this game was not worthy of Newman's attention.You must know that this is the first time that Newman held a press conference for a game. Newman has great expectations for it, and we also have great expectations for it because of Newman.

Looking at the press conference as a whole, we feel that it did not meet our expectations. Compared with the promotional video of "Metal Slug 2", the promotional video of "Teamfight Tactics" seems a bit boring, or there is no explosive point.

Including Newman talked about a lot of game mechanics and ranking mechanisms that are not so easy to understand during the press conference.It even includes the follow-up e-sports content, which lacks bright spots for industry veterans like me.

Until the end of the press conference, the open experience, because we are the media, can directly experience "Game of Genting". After experiencing it, my colleagues and I were shocked. This is another typical Newman-style game.

The game mechanism is completely different from the past, the threshold of the game that is easy to master and difficult to master, and a large number of unique and interesting game designs.The real experience is completely different from listening to the press conference, probably because Newman's speech is so bad.

From the perspective of the game itself, we internally agreed to give it a score of 9 or even higher.

It is hard to imagine that the video game industry has developed to this day, with a history of more than 20 years, there can still be games full of innovations. "

This is the answer from the editor-in-chief of IGN, and his answer represents the attitude of the game media.

In fact, the game media don’t like to see Zhou Xin very much, because the emergence of Riot Games and its scoring system has deprived the professional game media of a large part of their power, and even their credibility has been seriously affected.

The game media just gives high marks to games that are not fun, and this score is seriously inconsistent with the ratings of players in Riot Games, which will cause players to question the credibility of the magazine.

After there are many such things, the magazine will be subconsciously labeled as untrustworthy.This also caused game magazines to be less daring to force the meal.

That is to say, for a game that is not good, if the game developer offers money and it is difficult to refuse, then they will not give a score, only talk about the advantages, and lightly mention the shortcomings.

In the Riot Games forum, the videos of the wonderful games played by the trial players that day are put in the forum, and provided for the players to download and watch.

A large number of positive reviews whetted the appetite of the players, and then opened the download link in the fist game.

Flamingo also takes advantage of the cheap Internet advertising fees to promote marketing on related websites.Advertisements can be seen everywhere, and then click to jump to the official website, but I just can't play.

I can only see a string of instructions: It will be officially launched at 5:15 a.m. North American time on May [-].A set of hunger marketing combination is punched down, which is to fill the expectations of the players.

This set of gameplay has very high requirements on the quality of the game itself, and you have fully fulfilled the expectations, which means that your game needs to be able to exceed the expectations of the players.

The reason why Blood Lion's word-of-mouth is rotten is not because they over-extended the expectations. What they finally made did not exceed the expectations of the players, and even the bottom line of the players was not reached.

"Newman, American has surpassed 20 downloads and Europa has surpassed 30 downloads.

This number has exceeded our expectations, and we need to start an alternative plan to increase network bandwidth.

It is so popular, if players don't agree with our charging method, then we will have more users and more losses. "Johnson was helpless.

The American area is okay, and there will be income no matter what. After all, electronic payment in the American area is relatively mature.

But in the Europa region, the electronic payment related bill has not yet been approved.

It will take at least half a year from the approval of the bill to the improvement of electronic payment channels.

That is to say, in the past six months, they could not make any money from the players in the Europa region, and instead provided servers and broadband resources to European players.

　I wanted to write 8K today.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)