Reboot 2003

Chapter 268 047: Andy Beer’s Law (two in one)

Guo Yang seemed to be just doing it on a whim, and Song Ziyun also supported it - they were bored wandering around in the Internet cafe on May Day, and they seemed to have just become interested in these things. Now that they have the opportunity to make something similar, their interest is naturally very high.

Chen Qin's blood pressure rose a little after hearing this. He had set the range so rigidly. Why did these two living treasures have so many ideas?

Fortunately, my niece A Yue was sensible and said hesitantly: "Of course it is possible, but the commercial value needs to be considered in the conditions mentioned by Chen Qin. Do you have these maps?"

Song Ziyun said: "But Chen Qin also said that as long as there are more people playing the game, there will always be commercial value."

Guo Yang also said: "Many large-scale online games now can't compare with it, and the cost is still low. I've seen that editor, and it's at least easier than our Flash. To make a game in two days, I can only find a way here." "

A Yue added: "But the restrictions will be relatively large. It seems that we can only play games within their framework."

Song Ziyun got excited: "But I heard that the Kaitian mobile phone you are talking about is not good. I read on the Internet that it is very slow in playing games. Maybe it is higher than our limit."

Ah Yue naturally didn't believe it. Song Ziyun said that she found the popular Java game "Space Invaders" and installed it on her Java phone with a data cable.

Once you open it and run it, you can see that the adaptation has been done, but when you enter it, a virtual keyboard pops up directly, but the operation is laggy. It is very uncomfortable no matter how you rub the glass to control the direction, and it is indeed stuck - it takes more than a long time to load the first map after entering it. When I go in, the screen also freezes.

At this time, Chen Qin said: "Because the graphics processing pressure of large-screen mobile phones is high, and the touch screen also takes up performance, the performance of the Kaitian system is indeed not very good."

A-Yue was a little hesitant now. She subconsciously felt that making games on a commercial game map production platform was a bit strange. Although the number of users was not small and it was easy to make, since she had to consider commercialization...

Uncertain about paying attention, Ah Yue made a phone call and went out.

"Hello, Uncle Li?"

"Xiao Yue, is something wrong?"

"Uncle Li, I'm sorry to disturb you. When will you be free? I would like to ask some questions about the game..."

A Yue hid aside and made a phone call, but brought Chen Qin to the side to listen; Chen Qin was happy when he heard it, wasn't this Li Yunlan of Moyou Wangzhu City Branch.To talk about today's Warcraft map, of course it is inseparable from the name Moyou.com. Although Li Yunlan is not directly in charge of this, he knows something about it. Moreover, he was discovered by Gu Wenjie and has a better personal relationship with the Gu family.

Li Yunlan praised: "Tell me, I'm in the car now, what's it about? I watched your Super Smash Bros., it's really awesome. Your sister Xiaojun plays it every day recently, and even bought a new costume, haha .”

Ah Yue then asked: "Actually, it has nothing to do with Super Smash Bros., we are doing GameJam these two days..."

Li Yunlan laughed: "Oh, GameJam, I know, that can only be played by experts, haha." Then he asked: "Are you guys going to make a new flash game? This one is very popular recently."

A Yue said: "That's it, Uncle Li, because people in our team suggested that we try other platforms..."

Li Yunlan immediately replied: "Then let's make Kaitian. This is promising. There is also a developer competition. Now you can participate in making games. Maybe you can win a million grand prize."

"No, we originally wanted to open the sky, but we also think the custom map of Warcraft is very good," A Yue asked. "On the one hand, we think this platform is actually quite powerful, but on the other hand, we are not sure what we will do when it is ready." Are there any intellectual property issues, so I would like to ask you..."

A Yue hesitated, but Li Yunlan replied seriously: "This platform is indeed good, but you can think of it as a platform like Haofang or VS. You can think of Warcraft 3 as a technical engine. When it was developed, it was LAN games are not the same thing as the Warcraft map that is now popular through online battles."

A Yue asked: "What about the intellectual property rights of the map?"

Li Yunlan said: "The company's lawyers have studied its user agreement. In short, although Blizzard has restricted commercial use, the intellectual property rights of the works belong to itself."

As he spoke, Li Yunlan paused, as if hesitating whether to continue.

"In addition, according to my impression, our company has recently begun to sign contracts with some foreign producers and teams. The company's legal affairs department has specifically confirmed that they all have complete property rights to their works."

A Yue was curious: "What will happen after signing the contract?"

"We can help them make an independent game client. If it is just a World of Warcraft map, although its intellectual property rights are intact, its commercialization will be restricted by Blizzard."

"All right……"

Ah Yue understood, and then Li Yunlan enthusiastically made a few more suggestions. He also said that if you finish the things, send them over, and your Uncle Li will help you find someone to take a look at Yunyun. The phone call was over.

After the phone call, it was already 09:30, half way through the first morning of GameJam.

A Yue glanced at the time and was a little unsure.

Finally, he looked at Chen Qin:
"Then Chen Qin, what did you say..."

Chen Qin had been watching just now and had not taken the initiative to come up with any ideas until now.

When things develop like this, it seems like Mr. Chen is trying to kill someone by deliberately acting as the Riddler. As a result, these junior high school students understand elsewhere.

But if you think about it carefully...it's not really a big problem.

He wanted to induce A-Yue to make a game on Kaitian. This was of course a beneficial choice for both the Kaitian system and herself. However, making a World of Warcraft map seemed quite senseless at first glance.

However, when Mr. Chen started his business, although he did not make his fortune from the World of Warcraft map, it did play a big role in making him rich.

So regarding the market considerations in this, we can probably say that 'no one knows better than me'... When A Yue asked Li Yunlan just now, Chen Qin thought about it carefully and realized that this proposal is not actually impossible...

So Chen Qin said: "Theoretically it is possible, but no matter what the future holds, its current situation is indeed very different from commercial games. Players get the game for free, find free platforms to play on their own, and producers participate in development for free. The only commercial game The valuable platform has nothing to do with the content side..."

As he said that, Chen Qin asked her: "But then again, what Song Ziyun just said is not unreasonable. If you want to ask my opinion, why don't you think about it, what do you think of this free map update model?"

A Yue didn't react at first: "I heard Guo Yang say that Chenghai 3c was modified by Chinese people on the basis of an old map. Dota seems to be iterated on the basis of an unmaintained foreign map. Players download and play It’s completely free, and you can also go to the community to participate in modifications, and even modify your own games..." Then he had an idea: "It seems like the open source software you mentioned."

Chen Qindao: "Yes, it is actually a primitive form of open source."

Then asked her: "So do you think open source has commercial value?"

A Yue was not familiar with custom maps, but she had heard about open source software from Chen Qin many times before, and she understood almost immediately: "Yes, there is, Kaitian is open source."

Chen Qin corrected: "Kaitian is a platform. The open source platform can attract developers to work on it, and can also increase the confidence of merchants. It also facilitates testing and other developers to participate, and your game is the content."

A Yue thought seriously: "If it's content, attracting other developers will only allow them to suck our popularity away. Besides, although we can't just focus on money, of course the game must directly buy things to make money."

Chen Qin nodded and said to her seriously: "Yes, it's actually a matter of money..."

"For ordinary software engineers, the only problem with open source is that they can't make money. Everything else is a benefit. Open source can help them build their resumes. They can use open source to become famous and find jobs or even project buyers. They can do whatever they want. You don’t have to look at other people’s opinions on how to do it, so this is a system that is extremely beneficial to developers.”

“Not to mention, sometimes not making money is not necessarily a bad thing.”

"Commercialization itself requires managing a lot of people, requiring various certificates and licenses, paying taxes to the government, hiring many people, and then finding ways to improve team efficiency. After all this, the person in charge of a technology startup is often not a front-line technician. Even if the project makes a fortune, the technicians themselves won’t make much money.”

"If it's open source, you won't make any money anymore, and you won't have to worry about all those bad things. Maybe you can do all the work by yourself."

"In the Internet field, you can only make money by commercializing it at the right node. No matter how powerful the technology is, some projects will still operate at a loss even if they join a large company. It is better to open source them yourself. If something is useful and someone uses it, naturally There will be big companies that will buy it at a high price or fund it.”

"The biggest problem with this kind of custom map is money; the game itself is a node that is very conducive to commercialization. It is different from most tool-based open source software. Open source is certainly not an option here."

"So if you are just doing it for fun, then just do it."

"But you are the director of the company. Now that you are directly making customized maps and want to bring commercial benefits to the company, you have to think about how to commercialize it in advance..."

Chen Qin explained this, and Ah Yue understood: "What should we do? Although we are in China, Warcraft is Blizzard's game after all. If Blizzard allows us to use this to make money, they will definitely not do it."

Then he came to his senses: "By the way, Uncle Li just said that their commercialization method is to sign a contract with a game studio and then make another client. Is this okay?"

Chen Qin asked him: "Yes, but the problem is, since you want to make a client, why don't you make it a client from the beginning?"

A Yue racked her brains and thought: "Because when the code is open, more people will use it, and for us, this platform is already very popular, just like many users of Super Smash Bros. are also users of social networking sites. "

Chen Qindao: "That's true. Although the two properties are different, open source is actually attractive to C-end users. It is completely free and as fair as possible. This is a very important prerequisite for competitive games. .”

A Yue then suggested: "Then can we make a fair competition game and then move it to other platforms?"

Chen Qin then said: "Yes, but do you remember the 'first principle' we said? What users pursue is fair competition itself, not open source; if commercial games can be absolutely fair from the beginning, then it will Naturally, it can attract players to play. The reason why these custom maps are popular now is because there is no such game on the market. It is completely the opposite of the cause for us to start from here."

A-Yue hesitated again at this time, but after thinking about it, a sudden flash of inspiration came to her, and she seemed to have figured out something important again. This time, her eyes even started to light up:

"By the way, we can make a game like this first and then transplant it to the Kaitian platform."

Chen Qin also smiled, didn't the answer come?

Of course, the question that needs to be said must be clearly stated: "Then why is Kaitian special?"

A Yue tried to describe her thoughts: "I just think it's time to do this. After all, the Android system is not perfect yet, and there is the 'Moore's Theorem' you mentioned. It may be difficult for us to make a complex game now. That’s great, but it should be fine after a while…”

"Yes, 'Moore's Theorem'... you are half right." Chen Qindao, "The number of transistors in semiconductor chips doubles every 18 months on average, which means that the level of hardware and system support has been steadily rising. Now Although the Kaitian system is stuck, it will definitely be gradually optimized in the future, so let’s make a custom map first and transplant it when the phone’s performance improves, is that what you mean?”

A Yue nodded continuously: "Yes, yes, that's what I said."

Chen Qin also nodded slightly and continued: "Actually, the principle you should know is called the 'Andy-Beale Theorem'. Andy is the president of Intel, and Bill is the president of Microsoft. It means that what Andy gives, Bill takes away." ——Although Moore's Theorem has been making hardware improve rapidly, in fact we still get stuck when we use computers. This is because software engineers will not pay much attention to performance optimization for the sake of work efficiency when the hardware is sufficient. , and although this is not entirely a good thing, as hardware advances, software that was not possible in the past will also enter the market..."

A Yue felt that she also understood: "So we can develop a more complex game. First gather popularity on the custom map, and then when it is ready, we can directly transplant it to the mobile phone. This will make a big difference in the market." Sell."

As she said this, she looked at Chen Qin. Chen Qin did not object this time. After thinking about it, Ah Yue immediately stood up from her seat and said to Song Ziyun and Guo Yang who were still checking information: "Okay, okay, let's say hello." , just do as you two said!"

The two of them were checking information and trying to think of a way to defeat her, but unexpectedly A Yue suddenly changed her mind.

Although the four of them later returned to the small square table, A Yue explained the logic of her considerations just now... The two of them seemed a little insensitive to this kind of business consideration, but they were making customized maps anyway, and they were very sensitive to this opinion. Interested, Song Ziyun said: "In that case, let's make a hero battle map that is simpler than Dota. In this way, it can be directly transplanted to mobile phones in the future and it will feel invincible."

The other two people nodded repeatedly and looked at Chen Qin. Chen Qin scratched his head. I didn't realize it before. You two handymen are so discerning and can figure out the King of Glory in advance...

But no.

"It's possible, but although Moore's Law runs fast, it's actually not that fast." Chen Qin pretended to be sophisticated. "The first mature 3D game engine was Doom in 1993; it took almost 10 years until Warcraft came out. That’s it. The first mainstream 3D engine on the mobile platform was Unity, which appeared in 2006. I estimate that it will be 3 before you can make the 2016D Moba mobile game, and by then the day lily will be cold.”

Several people were not convinced by his assertion. Of course, the conclusion was correct. After all, the Vainglory of King of Glory was officially launched around 2016. Of course, for junior high school students, making a map for ten years is a very big thing. It's a romantic thing, but considering the actual business interests, it seems that I can only think of other ways.

Guo Yang thought about it and said: "Then what should we do? It's simpler than Dota. If you can't run this, other feelings won't work either..."

Chen Qindao: "You can slowly think about the solution, but first of all, the mobile platform has more fragmented application scenarios, but the screen is smaller, so I think there must be a market for casual games and other lightweight games on this platform, otherwise We will directly transplant the social-oriented "Friends Brawl"."

Then he said: "Then the issue after transplantation, this can actually be considered slowly. When we are making maps on the battle platform, we must first consider how to make the game well; now Warcraft maps are not a new thing, and there are so many private experts. Just relying on us middle school students to make an ordinary map may not be popular, so since you two like to play, you should first think about what kind of game can not be too deep and can attract popularity here?"

(End of this chapter)