New York 2006

Chapter 130 The company’s new strategy

At nine o'clock in the morning on July 2007, [-], in sunny New York, a business car was driving slowly along Broadway Avenue.Fiona glanced at Luo Ji, who was still sleeping, reached out and patted him on the shoulder, and whispered in his ear.

"Fili, the company is here."

Luo Ji opened his eyes in a daze and looked up to see that he had arrived at the company building.Luo Ji was extremely familiar with this five-story building. Most of Luo Ji's companies, except for a few, were gathered here.

"I'm going to the company. You can take Taylor home to rest." Luo Ji looked at Taylor who was still sleeping next to him and said to Fiona in a low voice.

The sound from the car woke Taylor up from her sleep. She rubbed her somewhat confused eyes and asked, "Are we there?"

"The company has arrived, but I feel that you are very tired. Do you want to go back and rest with Fiona?"

"No need." Taylor immediately retorted after hearing Luo Ji's words. Then she smiled and held Luo Ji's hand and said, "Honey, I'll stay with you."

"Ok."

Several people walked towards the inside of the company building, and Fiona complained at the side: "After a night of flying, can't you go home and have a rest before coming to the company? You earn [-] million meters in cash per year, why are you working so hard? "

"If you don't work hard, you will be eliminated." Luo Ji said seriously.

Luo Ji actually felt a sense of anxiety in his heart. The apocalypse was so elusive that it might disappear completely one day.

Luo Ji knew his composition level very well. His creative ability was indeed average. After studying, he could do it if he was asked to compose some saliva songs.But it's so hard to write top pop songs.

That's why Luo Ji signed so many singers and producers, hoping that others would succeed.Or help him create top songs, but the six signed singers, the most successful Bruno Mars, did not even achieve the achievement of Taylor's first album.But it's okay, he can accept it.

What made him most uncomfortable was that the two electronic music pop singers he had high hopes for failed to succeed in the end and went directly to the street.But the wave of electronic music he expected did not come.

Luo Ji couldn't tell whether electronic music was not the future, whether the quality of the songs itself was too poor, or whether the future of electronic music would take some time.Apocalypse gave him hints, but could not give him clear instructions.

So Luo Ji is now eager to succeed in other areas and hedge against possible failure of his music industry strategic plan.

"Hello, boss." The white girl at the front desk of Huli Game Company said.

"Well, don't worry about me, you are busy with your business."

Luo Ji inspected Holi Network Company and found that the number of employees at one time had grown to more than 30.The office space seems a bit crowded.

When the staff in the company saw Luo Ji, they all lowered their heads and went about their own business, fearing to offend Luo Ji.Because they all know the news that the sales of the "Twilight Saga" game have plummeted.

When the company's president, Yang Jian, saw Luo Ji, he hurriedly greeted him: "Boss."

"Well, how are you preparing for the meeting?"

"It's all here."

Luo Ji then said to Fiona and Taylor behind him, "You two just hang around while I go to the meeting."

"it is good."

When Luo Ji walked into the conference room, there were ten people inside. Luo Ji scanned around and found many people he didn't recognize.The president of the company began to introduce.

"This is a former game developer from EA and has five years of experience in the game industry. This is a former marketer for Sony games and is proficient in various game marketing strategies in the industry. This is..."

After Luo Ji greeted them one by one, and they became familiar with each other, the president of the company began to talk.

"Boss, after receiving your notice, we studied social games and freemium games. This kind of game is developing very fast in East Asia, but it is developing very slowly in Omi, mainly because there is no social giant that dominates Omi yet. , cannot form economies of scale.”

"There is also the closed nature of social networks. Before Facebook, no one would open their social network for others to use. Of course, Facebook's purpose is not simple. They also want third-party developers to develop software And so on, to help them win the social war." Omi's game industry is very mature, and people have always tended to pay for games.

"Paid games are generally divided into two types. One is a one-time purchase with a price of 60 to 100 US dollars, such as the GTA series, the Halo series and of course our Twilight Saga. The other is charged according to the duration. For example, World of Warcraft, Age of Discovery Online, Diablo, etc. These games are generally role-playing online games, and are usually billed on a monthly, daily or hourly basis, and of course there are also lifetime payments."

Luo Ji sat in the conference room, tapped his hands on the table with his fingers, and said, "Tell me about the free value-added games that compete with them."

"Free-to-play, free-to-play, free-to-play games have been developing slowly in Omi, but they are developing rapidly in East Asia. Free-to-play games are free to play, but charge for value-added services. They are generally online games. They are called Internet games. The free-to-play model of games is also called a gold-based game in East Asia.”

"This new model appeared in large numbers in new Korean online games in 2003. Later, this model swept across East Asia. Examples include "DJMax" and "Rocky" which long topped the Korean online game rankings in 2004. China's "Audition" " Popular games such as "Hot Blooded Jianghu" have also been announced as free. The release of "Zhengtu" has brought China into the era of free games. A large number of online games in Japan have also begun to implement this model, such as "Magic Flying Ball" and "Master of Epic" and "Fantasy Wars"."

"This free-to-value model has more revenue and more player participation in East Asia than the traditional paid model, and it has greater influence. However, Omi Media is critical of this and believes that it destroys the fairness of the game. sex."

Luo Ji looked at everyone and asked, "Do you think freemium games can become popular in Omi?"

"It's hard to say. The development time of such an online game will take at least one or two years, and the investment will be at least tens of millions of dollars. At present, no one in the major game companies of OMI dares to take such a big risk to try. Everyone basically follows The traditional path.”

Luo Ji said, "What about social games? I asked you to study QQ Group's strategy? Their game revenue last year exceeded [-] million US dollars. Have you studied their strategy in detail?"

"Most of QQ Group's games are free value-added models. 60% of the revenue comes from online games with relatively high development costs, and the remaining 40% comes from casual games with relatively low development costs. Compared with China's Other game manufacturers in China do not have very high game playability, but relying on their monopoly in the social industry, their operating income exceeds that of a large number of China's top game manufacturers."

Luo Ji asked: "So, QQ Group has achieved great achievements by relying on the strategic model of social + games + free value-added?"

"Yes, boss." The company president continued: "Your suggestion is indeed feasible. This is an unexplored blue ocean in the United States."

Hearing this, Luo Ji no longer hesitated and said: "Then take action. QQ Group is a company with a market value of more than [-] billion yuan. There must be something worth learning about their operating model. Facebook has just launched With the third-party developer platform, we can definitely learn from QQ Group’s social + game + free value-added strategic model, so what kind of game is better to develop?”

"The developer platform launched by Facebook provides Facebook's social network. We are based on Flash technology and embed Flash animations into Facebook web pages. It can achieve the effect of social games."

Yang Jian took out his laptop and demonstrated a PPT: "Since these games are embedded in web pages, they cannot be too large to run. Then we will first exclude large-scale online games, leaving only casual games."

Luo Ji said, "Go on!"

Yang Jian began to adjust the slides: "QQ Group's casual games can be roughly divided into four types: card and board games, mahjong games, casual competitive games and puzzle games."

Luo Ji looked at the various small game demonstration videos in the slides, such as chess, Landlords, Happy Mahjong, Lianliankan, etc.Unconsciously, some familiar feelings arose, as if he had played before.

A white employee stood up and said: "QQ Group's most profitable casual games are card and board games. So after discussion, we all decided to localize and develop Texas Hold'em, the first social game card and board game."

Luo Ji did not refute and said: "Then take action. It is not difficult to develop this kind of Flash game, and it has QQ Group's interface design, social interaction mechanism and value-added services as reference. I need to watch it at the end of this month. Until the game is launched on Facebook.”

An engineer from the company immediately retorted: "We are in a hurry. We need to contact PayPal to connect to the payment system, install the server, find Flash developers, and connect with Facebook. There is too much work, and it will be difficult to complete it in a month."

"You have seen the revenue of QQ Group. The world has never lacked smart people. Facebook's third-party platform has been online for more than a month, and we are already lagging behind."

Luo Ji looked serious, stared at everyone and said, "I can give you the greatest authority on this project. You can use the company's cash flow at any time. You don't need to report to me any expenditures below [-] meters. Who need to be recruited? There’s no need to notify me. I just need to see the results.”

This was the first time Luo Ji had delegated power to the company's personnel in this way, because his instinct told him to accomplish this at all costs.

Yang Jian hesitated for a while and said: "What about the development of the new stand-alone game? We are already one-third of the way through."

"Stop!"

Luo Ji said in an unprecedented stern tone: "I just want to see the results. If the game cannot be launched at the end of this month, don't blame me for missing old friendships."

(End of this chapter)