I just want players to save money, but I was made the richest man.

Chapter 178 The Fall of the Godfather of Games! (Complete chapter on world view, don’t jump if you don’t like it)

It was as if he knew there was an eavesdropper in the bedroom behind him.

Kejun leaned back slightly and leaned on the sofa.

Then, he lit a cigarette and talked about the past.

----

blue star.

Last decade, the late 70s.

As a university exchange student between China and Neon, Ke Xiangyang successfully completed his studies at Dongjing University.

But he did not stay in Neon to further his studies, but resolutely chose to return to China.

College students at that time were still very rare.

Especially those who returned from overseas before the neon economic bubble collapsed.

Ke Xiangyang gained the attention of the local government in Jianglin, and he was included in the system without taking the exam.

I hope he can contribute to Jianglin's construction.

However, Ke Xiangyang, who is quite repulsive to the world of people and sophistication in the workplace, has made no progress after staying in the company for three years.

He gradually became tired of this boring day-to-day lifestyle.

Since he became interested in computers, which had just begun to become popular, during his college years, Xiangyang Xiangyang quickly taught himself programming.

One day while staring at the computer in a daze, he had a sudden idea.

Since there are many interactive entertainment methods offline, such as board games, table tennis, badminton, etc.

Can you create this kind of function online so that you can relieve your boredom in a boring environment?

And soon, after a week of repeated attempts to use the code and continuous improvement.

The first true electronic game in the history of Blue Star was born!

The naming of the game is very simple.

"Badminton Game"

Moreover, the design of the entire game is quite clumsy from today's perspective.

The game has no UI guidance interface.

After clicking start, there will be a series of green numbers on a black background consisting of 1 and 0.

Your own side is a stickman outlined with 1, while the enemy robot is 0.
The badminton grid in the middle is also condensed with 0.

And the computer AI will start serving the ball at the beginning.

If you're not careful, you may lose a point as soon as you open the game.

In addition, the gameplay of the entire game is also very boring if you look at it now.

It’s a best-of-5 game, and the characters can’t even move.

It's nothing more than seeing the badminton flying over, tapping the space lightly to hit back.

Moreover, when the game was first created, Ke Xiangyang didn’t think that much because he didn’t have any lessons learned from the past.

The program set for the AI ​​is always invincible and can accurately hit the ball back every time.

It's such a simple little game.

But colleagues who happened to pass by were shocked when they saw it.

The game itself may not be fun enough, but the fact that a computer can play games is shocking enough.

Before this, computers were in everyone's eyes.

It is just a large abacus specially designed for office statistics and data to complete complex calculations.

You can also play entertainment games on the computer, which really amazed my colleagues.

At the request of his colleagues, Ke Xiangyang helped several male colleagues quickly copy his badminton game.

A few days later, I received some suggestions from colleagues.

'Can you let me serve first? Every time I open the game, the opponent serves. I really can't react.'

'Can the computer program on the other side be set up a little more clumsily?It feels really uncomfortable to play for a long time but never win.Let it make mistakes occasionally, but don't tell me when they make mistakes, so that I can get... um, surprise after winning?hapiness? '

'Can you set up a few more sets of actions, such as bumping the ball, smashing, etc., and then the score can be slightly changed. '

Looking at this matter now, there will be an exclusive term to define the behavior of this group of colleagues-internal testing.

Ke Xiangyang also absorbed the opinions of his colleagues and made subsequent optimizations and improvements.

Although the graphics of "Badminton Game" have not improved much, the gameplay has obviously been improved a lot.

He added a UI interface to start the game. When the player is ready and clicks start, the game will actually start.

In addition, he also set the strength of the swing based on the advice of his colleagues, which was divided into three levels: low, medium and high.

Although there is still no matching picture, the figure in the picture is still waving what looks like a wooden stick.

But at least players have more choices.

At the same time, Xiangyang also realized.

Whether it is an offline game or this video game in your own hands.

Emotional feedback is always the ultimate pursuit of players.

A game that can never be won will naturally no one play over time.

Therefore, he subdivided the computer AI and set entry difficulty, normal difficulty, medium difficulty, and advanced difficulty.

Among them, the AI ​​error rate in entry-level difficulty is the highest.

The AI ​​error rate in advanced difficulty is only 5%.
After this series of optimizations, colleagues began to like this 'video game' more and more.

In an era when even BB machines had not yet been born, having such an electronic entertainment to kill time, and getting a certain sense of satisfaction after winning the computer really made this game popular in the entire office for a while.

Then, a colleague gave Ke Xiangyang some advice.

I think Ke Xiangyang can try to patent this game and then sell it to make more extra money.

'This game will definitely be popular' everyone said.

Ke Xiangyang also plans to give it a try.

But it is a pity that the awareness of patent protection in that era was too weak.

Moreover, video games were something that was previously unheard of for people in the intellectual property protection department.

If you move a badminton game from offline to online, does it become yours?
After that, you successfully digitized chess, can you say that it is yours?
It can only be said that people at that time did not realize that this was an invention with cross-epochal significance.

It has nothing to do with chess or badminton.

"I understand, just like if I create a badminton game with virtual screen projection technology, the important thing is the technology itself, not who invented badminton." Kejin concluded.

"Well, you can understand it this way." Kejun nodded and spoke again.

Although it was not protected by property rights, the Internet at that time was still very congested and everyone used LAN.

Information can only be transmitted to each other online within the same company. Just like today's wifi signal, the connection cannot be connected beyond a certain distance.

Therefore, the property rights of Xiangyang’s game did not spread so quickly.

He can still make money from this game.

The method is stupid. Take time to go to other companies, wait for others to get off work, and personally ask them if they need an electronic product that can be used for "light entertainment" on the computer.

The price is a dime a piece.

At first, many people regarded him as a fool.

Can the computer still play games?
Did you wake up from your sleep?
It was just discovered after someone out of curiosity actually paid a dime to come and install it.

It’s really fun!

And this little game... is somewhat interesting.

Can you still play badminton without leaving home?
How fresh!

And it is indeed a great tool to pass the time.

It's better to play some digital coding games on the computer that the boss can't understand than to secretly read a Jin Yong novel and be caught by the boss.

Soon, as Ke Xiangyang continued to run errands, his "Badminton Game" gradually spread in various IT industries.

Later, employees from other companies even sent representatives to form groups to purchase his games.

It wasn't until a far-sighted businessman learned about this later that he came to Xiangyang to buy out the game and signed a transfer contract with him.

Ke Xiangyang also relied on this move to successfully accumulate the first pot of gold in his life - 1000 yuan.

And used the money to complete the wedding event in his life.

"In the late 70s, the monthly salary of an ordinary worker was 30 yuan, which was equivalent to three years' salary." Kejun added.

After marriage, because Kejun was about to be born.

The pressure of survival also increased instantly.

Relying on the small salary from the Kexiangyang unit, it is difficult to provide a relatively happy family for a family of three.

In addition, Xiangyang was really bored with the boring and trivial tasks in the unit every day, so he resolutely quit his job.

Get ready to start making money making games.

Since "Badminton Game" can be sold for 1000 yuan.

Then if I make a "Basketball Game", "Table Tennis Game", or "Football Game", is that okay?
This time, Ke Xiangyang invested more energy than before, and even found a partner who was also talented in programming.

The two began to devote themselves to making table tennis, China's national sport.

Moreover, it has absorbed the shortcomings of the last "Badminton Game".

Unlike before, where the player could only swing on one X-axis, the character is fixed and players only need to hit the blank space.

This time he added an extra Y-axis.

It can make the character generated by any code run back and forth around the table tennis table.

There is even a charge bar set up.

It allows players to control whether the ball lands far or near the table.

I thought this game would be a big success and the boss would continue to take notice.

Because it is obviously an improvement compared to the previous game.

But what Xiangyang and his partners didn't expect was this.

This time he visited many investors specifically, but all were rejected without exception.

Investors looked at the games they developed and couldn't help but sneer and backhandedly showed them the games currently on the market.

Only then did Ke Xiangyang realize that he was shocked.

In less than a year.

He was stunned by how fast the games on the market were changing.

"Badminton" was bought by a boss, who then raised the price and promoted it. It was a great success and earned almost 10 yuan.

When an emerging industry shows high profits, it will naturally attract countless talented people.

Ke Xiangyang is not the one with the best programming among them all, nor is he even the one who is best at seizing opportunities.

A few months after "Badminton" became popular, it also inspired many designers who know programming.

They have already begun to take a step towards the sun and began to develop various offline competitive games such as football, basketball, table tennis and even racing.

The investors said, 'As early as half a year ago, I had seen five different people come to your doorstep with the work of your table tennis game and ask to buy it out, and many of them are more fun than yours.'

'People in the office need more ways to have fun. '

'And you waited a full year before you started making new work. '

'Boy, in an era where technology is changing rapidly, no one will remember the founder'

'No, you are not the creator of video games. The designer of the most popular basketball game is. '

A series of sarcasm or advice.

Let Ke Xiangyang feel the fierce competition for the first time.

And quitting your job and immersing yourself in gaming has made life even more difficult for families who were not already wealthy.

Ke Xiangyang, who was deeply hit, also locked himself in his home for a full month.

I think about it every day when I open my eyes and close my eyes while eating.

All major real-life sports competitions or chess and card entertainment have been done by others. What innovations can you make?
And finally, one day my wife complained that the TV at home started flashing snowflakes again.

As if being struck by lightning, Xiangyang thought of a brand new way!

This time, Xiangyang plans to abandon the previous ancient programming.

The most advanced assembly language on the market is used.

That is, there is no need to enter 0 and 1 to directly form the game screen as before.

Instead, you can use the keyboard to enter corresponding instructions so that the machine can understand human operations.

Let it transcode to form pixels on the grid.

Then use pixels to generate game graphics.

The advantage of such a game is that the picture accuracy is higher and it can also show richer colors.

It is not like a string of green 0s and 1s like before, which can almost dazzle the player's eyes when moving.

"Wow! From the coding era to the pixel era?" Ke Yu walked out of the bedroom without knowing when and sat down directly next to Ke Jin.

As if witnessing history, a pair of bright eyes were even more round at this moment.

"Pixel games were defined by our grandfather?" Ke Jin's eyes were full of admiration.

Although it is said that Ke Jin, who was resurrected, already knew about the game's development journey when he was on earth.

However, the history of games on Blue Star is different from that on Earth.

And no matter which world view you are in.

People who can bring about creation are great and worthy of admiration.

Soon, Kejun spoke again.

……

At that moment, Xiangyang completed a pixel innovation.

He didn't polish it very carefully like the previous failed game "Ping Pong Game".

Sometimes, seizing the opportunity is more important.

The invention of the second fuel engine in history was only 7 days late from the first.

He can't guarantee that this pixel game will be No. 1.

The heavy financial burden on his family made him worry that if he continued to polish it for a while, even pixel games would be ruined.

Therefore, the game created by Ke Xiangyang this time is just a visual pixel.

On a dark computer screen, white pixels will advance in a constant manner until they absorb another randomly generated pixel on the screen.

Then, the two pixels are merged together.

At this time, another random pixel will appear on the screen.

What the player needs to do is to control the up, down, left and right keys on the keyboard to make the pixels move in different directions to merge the randomly generated pixels.

In order to make the game more playable, Ke Xiangyang also added a mechanism.

Each time the player fuses a new pixel, the player will move slightly faster.

There will also be a timer at the top of the game.

The ranking summarized by this timer can be connected within the entire LAN, so that other players in the LAN can also see this record.

"This game is a huge hit, right?" As soon as Ke Jin spoke, Ke Jun was stunned.

"How do you know that kid?"

"No, I guessed it." Ke Jin said casually and then said to himself.

How can I still not know this?

Isn't this the famous greedy snake...

However, in different time and space planes, even the variables have the same evolution.

But there will still be gaps in the details.

Although the behavior of this game played by Mr. Ke is almost the same as that of a greedy snake.

But it's not called a greedy snake.

But it has another name.

"Dots Make Face" actually fits the image of the game.

It was originally a small dot, but as the player merged more pixels, it gradually became a long and thin line.

And when the line is long enough, the player's movable range becomes smaller and smaller.

You can only start circling in a limited space.

There is only one final ending to the game.

That is a long line covering the entire screen until it is connected to a whole surface of pixels.

This game, as expected, exploded on Blue Star.

This comes from Ke Jin, who has played countless games and has a deep understanding of the core of the game.

Snake-like games can be played in any parallel universe, regardless of whether the 3A game masterpieces in this world are popular, whether the picture quality is amazing, or even with virtual fusion technology.

As long as the Snake game has never appeared, it will take the world by storm when it appears.

the reason is simple.

The user-friendly difficulty level means anyone can play it at a glance.

Secondly, very simple and intuitive growth feedback.

You can move faster by eating pixels. From a certain perspective, you have indeed become stronger.

What follows is a natural difficulty setting.

It's the same as eating pixels. Every time you eat one, the difficulty is actually equivalent to increasing by one level, and it will also bring a new challenge to the players.

So no matter how primitive or simple it is, these few elements can make it a casual game suitable for all ages.

not to mention.

The old man also made a move that Snake had never done in his previous life.

Integrate rankings into LAN.

Human beings are all competitive.

Otherwise, competition like sports will not develop.

With such things as rankings, there will be people who want to compete and break records.

There are many people with such thoughts.

Then more and more people will play this game.

"Using Points to Make Noodles" quickly became popular among major companies in Jianglin in almost a very short period of time.

What made "Points to Face" even more popular was that - almost at the same time, BBS was born.

Although the forum at this time was not as convenient and fast as it is now.

Even within a cycle, the main server refreshes it once and then presents different user data.

But it is also a major feat in advancing the Internet process.

People who are slightly farther away can start leaving messages in a closed community, and after waiting for periodic refreshes, they can see each other's messages.

Compared with one-to-one phone calls, this many-to-many communication model is obviously more popular with everyone.

And "Points to Face" also became popular with the emergence of BBS.

Many people at the time excitedly called it the 'first gaming revolution'

Obviously, this is indeed a great transition from programming games to pixel games.

However, there is one development that is very similar to the earth in the previous life.

Almost everyone only remembers a certain game, such as Snake and Tetris.

But the game designers behind it are rarely known.

Most people won't recognize them unless they specifically search for them.

Mr. Ke, who designed "Dots to Make Noodles", is obviously one of them.

And after experiencing "Badminton Game", Mr. Ke has also begun to realize the importance of copyright.

With copyright, you can maintain your poor economic situation for a long time.

But in China at that time...

It’s almost difficult to defend your rights.

Although the game design of Ke Xiangyang was successful this time.

But it also failed.

The so-called success is BBS, and failure is BBS.

BBS made "Points to Face" famous.

But it began to be misappropriated by a large number of people, and then began to bear fruit in office entertainment everywhere, but Mr. Ke did not get much profit from it.

Until——a visit from across the ocean.

A computer system developer from the United States paid a special visit to Ke Xiangyang when he came to China to discuss business.

The games he designed are already well-known across the ocean.

Ask him if he intends to cooperate with you.

The way of cooperation is to implant the game "Dots into Faces" into their upcoming home computers, in order to increase the willingness to buy computers.

Ke Xiangyang was shocked to learn this.

My games have already spread all over the world through one local BBS after another.

In the United States, where copyright protection measures were already relatively complete at that time, the copyright of this game had always been his.

However, it didn't get any better.

The copyright belongs to him, but because he is outside the country, the profits are naturally eaten up by some businessmen in the United States.

But this time, as long as Xiangyang nods and agrees, and chooses to cooperate with this computer company.

He will be able to hold this income in his own hands permanently.

Moreover, the price offered to him by the other party was also very attractive.

For every computer sold, he will be given a dividend of 0.99m.

Although at that time, the price of a computer was still as high as 1500 yuan.

1 knife doesn’t seem like much.

But in an era when the per capita salary in China was only in the 30s to 50s, Xiang Xiangyang promised that he would receive at least 500 dollars in income every month.

The old man was a little moved, but he looked at his son who had just turned one year old and his hard-working wife at home.

Xiangyang was a little hesitant.

And then, the other party completely convinced Ke Xiangyang with one sentence, and went to the United States with him.

"I can't remember the original words clearly. When your grandfather told me about his experiences back then, he didn't explain them in such detail."

"The general idea is that in the United States at that time, home computers had begun to become popular, but in China, no matter how ambitious he was and no matter how fun the games he designed were, no one would care about him for a long time."

"The country of China at that time had just reformed, and office computers were not widely available in many small businesses, let alone home computers. Even well-off families could not afford them."

"Maybe it was to give me a better growing environment in the future, or maybe your grandfather had already vowed to break out of the world. No one knows what he thought, but he still followed that person in the end. went."

After arriving in the United States, Ke Xiangyang did start to get on the right track.

Countries where copyright awareness is protected are indeed a good thing for creators.

His income became prosperous.

He even sends a cross-border mail to his family every month. The letter contains a thick stack of money and a piece of paper expressing his longing for his family.

And after having better creative conditions.

The sun shines brightly and lives up to expectations.

An explosive game output and iteration began.

In that era when pixel style began to rise.

Mr. Ke has successively produced "The Apple Eaters" (similar to Pac-Man, I won't go into details) and "Galaxy Battlefield" (the originator of Blue Star barrage games, similar to "Thunderbolt").

And after the further development of technological capabilities after 85.

Higher resolution has brought the word color onto the stage of computer history.

At the same time, the pixel accuracy is getting higher and higher.

Xiangyang began to develop a newer generation of "Martial Arts Master" (similar to Street Fighter) with brighter colors and finer pixels.
Because Li Xiaolong is already famous in the United States.

Chinese Kung Fu games are also very popular in the West.

With "Martial Arts Master" selling well in the United States.

In the same year, Ke Xiangyang co-founded Blue Ocean Paradise, the first gaming company in Blue Star, with his partners.

Blue means blue star.

The blue ocean also describes the great prospects of the gaming industry.

Needless to say about heaven.

for each year after the company’s incorporation.

Ke Xiangyang will almost create a new game type.

Some of these game types have gradually declined.

Some popular genres, such as 'FPS (TPS)', 'ACT', and 'RPG', are still strong today.

It can be said that compared to the current number one player, such a pioneer.

Carve the blue sea paradise founded by the old man.

It's more like a creator.

It has customized rules for all subsequent game manufacturers.

This made Ke Jin sigh secretly in his heart.

good guy...

Let's just say.

Our old man.

Could it be that he is also a time traveler...

No wonder Dad said that Ready Player One's current achievements are not comparable to those of Mr. Ke.

How the hell are they side by side...

No matter how latecomers make sandbox games, they can't surpass "Minecraft".

But Kejin thinks it's hard to say.

I still have several world-shattering game types on hand that I haven’t released yet.

Sandbox.

Open world.

CRPG
soul-like
RTS
MOBA
These are categories that have not yet appeared in Blue Star.

And around these types, countless hits and even masterpieces can be born.

Given time, Kejin feels that Ready Player One may not be able to achieve, or even surpass, the achievements of Blue Ocean Paradise.

However, as the long memories come to an end.

The Ke family brother and sister finally figured out the ultimate reason why their father had insisted on not letting the two of them play games for many years.

That year, Ke Xiangyang and his partners jointly opened Blue Ocean Paradise.

At the same time, that partner was expelled from the computer system industry by the sudden rise of Microsoft, and then concentrated on transitioning to the gaming field.

Seeing that several shareholders worked together to make Blue Ocean Paradise bigger and bigger, and in the late 90s, there was a faint tendency to monopolize the development of the entire game industry.

A business incident occurred.

Mr. Ke had strong disagreements with several other shareholders regarding the concept of game development.

Several other American shareholders are out-and-out capitalists.

They believe that since Blue Ocean Paradise has successfully gained momentum and is far ahead.

Then we should hold high the banner of monopoly and apply for patents for all game types to achieve monopoly.

Any game developer who wants to develop a game must first pay a high patent fee to Blue Ocean Paradise.

Otherwise, all players around the world will only be able to play games developed by Blue Ocean Paradise.

By then, a huge gaming empire will have been established.

It will make countless real industries avoid taking three points.

And Xiangyang is the core chief game designer.

However, he believes that monopoly in the game industry is very dangerous.

He believes that the game industry can even rival some art-level cultural industries.

Most industries that can be classified as art-level have one characteristic.

Strong extensibility.

For example, in the case of literary works, no one can patent a writing method invented by themselves.

Otherwise, it will completely hinder the creation of more updated inspirations in the future.

The same goes for the gaming industry.

Once the RPG patent is locked.

In the future, no one will be allowed to design RPG-related games.

Then it will be difficult for it to develop branches and leaves and produce more flowers.

But for capitalists.

If you don't let him have a monopoly, it's even more difficult to accept than killing the nine clans.

At that time, Xiangyang held a large number of shares in Blue Ocean Paradise. Without his approval, the entire plan would naturally not be able to advance.

Soon, a group of capitalists came up with an excellent idea.

Consolidate shares.

That is, the shares in the hands of several people are first diluted into their respective subsidiaries, and finally integrated into the hands of one subsidiary, and a shell shareholder is appointed to inherit the company.

In turn, the subsidiary company is used to control the parent company. (If you don’t understand, you can refer to the split and then suddenly come together in "Ball Wars". Although it is more abstract, it is very similar)
The puppet shareholders selected by the capital suddenly became the largest shareholder with the decisive say in the entire Blue Ocean Paradise.

Ke Xiangyang has always been obsessed with researching new game types and more scalable gameplay.

Having made no achievements in business, he naturally cannot defeat the capitalists.

I was stunned by this unexpected share consolidation.

Before he could react at all.

Blue Ocean Paradise completed the identity change of its largest shareholder and completed a hostile acquisition of a small portion of the shares held by Ke Xiangyang.

And banish it from the blue sea paradise.

Completed the biggest rebound in the entire history of Blue Star games.

And after that.

In order to prevent Ke Xiangyang from making a comeback again with his amazing talent.

Through a series of complex and sophisticated operations, he shorted the company's shares, causing Ke Xiangyang to suffer a loss in stock price overnight, and inexplicably shouldered a huge debt that would be difficult to repay in several lifetimes.

And this huge unwarranted debt was sold to the Federal Reserve Bank of America at a very low price.

All subsequent consumption will be subject to US legal supervision.

This move also completely cut off Ke Xiangyang's path to re-emergence.

Now nearly forty years old, Ke Xiangyang, a former famous New Yorker, was once called the godfather of the gaming industry, and even a Chinese player who made gamers all over the world crazy about him.

Standing in despair in New York Times Square in the late 90s.

He looked up numbly at the big screen that continuously played negative news about him, and listened to the harsh comments of passers-by on the bustling street.

His eyes were a little dazed.

The corners of his mouth gradually widened weakly, until a desperate smile formed.

Blue sea paradise?

No.

It is too far from heaven and too close to capital.

(End of this chapter)