Meizong Wealth Life

Chapter 92 As we all know, Steam is a financial management platform
After seeing Jamie's amazing gaming skills, G Fat Gabe Newell enthusiastically invited Jamie and Chuck to have lunch.

The location is a pizza shop not far downstairs.

Chuck had no appetite for the high-fat, high-calorie cheap pizza offered in the store, so he only wanted a cup of coffee.

Jamie didn't refuse anyone who came, and like Fatty G, he ordered a large beef pizza.

At first, Fat G was worried that Jamie would not be able to eat so much with a standard figure like Jamie. Who would have thought that he had only eaten half of his meal, but Jamie had already finished it all, and it seemed that he was still only seventy percent full.

So G Fat has one more thing he envies Jamie for.

He can eat so well and still maintain such a good figure.

Envy turned into envy, Fatty G quickly stuffed the remaining pieces of pizza into his mouth. While chewing, he grabbed the Happy Fat House water on the side and took two sips of it happily. After that, he started to talk about business with Jamie.

"Mr. Dutton, I have read the purpose of your visit and that of your friend in the email you sent me before. To be honest, I didn't take it seriously at first."

Jamie and Chuck looked at each other.

They have already felt it since they visited Villefort and were left alone for more than ten minutes.

Fatty G immediately added.

"Of course, this is definitely not intentional against you. In fact, we have this attitude towards most of our visitors."

Jamie and Chuck feel this too.

Who would have imagined that a game company that is well-known in the industry and has developed popular masterpieces such as "Half-Life" and "CS" still doesn't even have a reception room.

From the fact that G Fat took everyone to play games with him at work, it can be seen that Wilfor is really not short of money now, so it is definitely not that he cannot afford to rent a reception venue, but it is really not necessary.

However, G Fat showed great interest in Jamie's email mentioning the establishment of Valve's own battle network.

"Actually, when I saw Mr. Dutton complaining about Snow Mountain Le's Battle.net in the email, my first reaction was that you were exaggerating. Although Snow Mountain Le is the game publisher of Valve, I shouldn't complain about them like this, but their Battle.net is indeed very good. rotten."

"But now I no longer think so. If I were playing "CS" on Battle.net and met a master like Mr. Dutton, I would probably think that you must have some kind of cheating device. In fact, we have always used cheats. The biggest challenge in developing a game.”

Seeing Fat G's headache, Jamie couldn't help but think about it.

The real headache is still to come!

In his previous life, Valve was hacked by hackers while developing Half-Life 2, and part of the version was exposed online in advance.

The most annoying thing is that the hacker arrogantly sent a job application email to Fat G, claiming that his hacking behavior was just to join Valve.

In the end, Fatty G extended an olive branch to the hacker regardless of past suspicions.

The hacker came to the interview excitedly, but found out that the interviewer waiting for him was the FBI.

Because of this incident, G Fat could only overthrow and redo Half-Life 2, which was almost completed.

Perhaps the shadow left was so deep that all of Valve's later games were only developed into the second generation and then came to an abrupt end.

The meme "G is fat and can't count to three" has also begun to circulate on the Internet.

After complaining about his own publisher, Fatty G changed the topic and talked about the issues he was most concerned about.

"I am very sure that the two of you will not have nothing to do and fly all the way from New York to Seattle just to help Wilfor build his own battle network."

"Although it's really cool to be able to develop and build your own Battle.net and anti-cheating platform without spending your own money, I still want to know the real purpose of the two investment in doing this."

Not only Fatty G wants to know this question, but Chuck, who has been watching the conversation between Fatty G and Jamie as an outsider, also wants to know.

This was also the main reason why he was willing to fly all the way from New York with Jamie.

This time, Jamie didn't show off.

"You are absolutely right. Our investment in establishing Battle.net for Valve is not free, but before answering this question, I would like to ask a question first."

"If Valve abandons Snow Mountain Le's Battle.net and forms his own battle network, will your games continue to be distributed by Snow Mountain Le in the future?"

G Fat told Jamie very frankly that if Villefort established his own battle network, he would definitely kick Xueshanle away.

Even though the cooperation between the two parties was quite pleasant before, who made Villefort's wings hard now?

Even if they don't cooperate with Snow Mountain Music, there are still a lot of publishers willing to publish Valve's new games.

The most important thing is that Fatty G is very unhappy with the Vidywang Group, the holding company behind Snow Mountain Music.

In fact, in the entire gaming circle, the Vidywang Group can be said to be notorious.

What Vidy Wang is best at is dismantling and reorganizing valuable companies and then reselling them at high prices.

As a result, there are very few successful cases, but many are disturbed by this kind of split and reorganization.

Xueleshan also developed its own games before, but after being acquired by Vidyone, it was divided into five parts. As a result, two studios declared bankruptcy the next year, and a large number of employees resigned.

In the end, Xueleshan no longer developed games and only retained its publishing function.

Even Blizzard, which is known to everyone in the gaming industry, was almost wiped out after being acquired by Vidy One.

In the previous life, "World of Warcraft", the product that established Blizzard's dominance in the gaming industry, its development team was once reduced to only 10 people by Vidywang.

The reason was that in the game market at the time, no one was optimistic about the prospects of this kind of MMORPG game.

After the success of "World of Warcraft", Vidywang went from one extreme to another, betting most of his energy on "World of Warcraft".

Blizzard's other projects under development have experienced the same experience as "World of Warcraft" before it was launched.

The number of project developers has been significantly reduced.

However, this is not Vidhivan’s biggest mistake.

In 08, an employee within Blizzard code-named "Ice Frog" proposed to the company that it give him some manpower and funds to develop DotA, the most famous player-made map in "Warcraft 3", into an independent game.

Unfortunately, this time coincides with the launch of the most famous version of "World of Warcraft", "Wrath of the Lich King", with global sales exceeding 280 million copies on the first day of release.

Vidywang, who was full of joy, asked Blizzard to focus all its energy on the operation and subsequent development of "World of Warcraft".

At that time, Vidywang was already negotiating with Activision and planned to sell Blizzard. For them, "World of Warcraft", which could boost Blizzard's stock price the fastest, was the most worthy of investing resources.

Ice Frog's proposal was directly rejected by the company's senior management.

In the end, Ice Frog left, joined another more inclusive company, and developed a new game independent of the "Warcraft 3" engine.

The famous "DOTA2".

And the one who took advantage of Blizzard was none other than Fatty G, who was sitting in front of Jamie.After confirming that Fat G had decided to part ways with Vidhiwang, Jamie revealed his real plan to him.

"My idea is not just to help Valve develop his own Battle.net platform. I also want to move all the games developed by Valve to this platform for sale. Game manufacturers can publish games online, and players can play games without leaving home. You can pay to download games, and you can also update them online to prevent piracy and cheating.”

To better explain the role of this platform, Jamie compared this platform to Amazon that only sells games.

In fact, this platform mode also has a name that is more familiar to players in later generations.

Steam!

The "first time" for most domestic players to embrace genuine games was taken away by this platform.

The person who created Steam in his previous life was none other than Fatty G in front of him.

Jamie's operation was to sell G Fat's ideas to him in advance.

The only difference is that G Fat’s original intention when developing Steam was to create his own Battle.net platform, but he accidentally made it the largest digital game distribution platform on the PC.

At that time, it was also because of G Fat’s Buddhist style that, except for the games developed by Valve, other game manufacturers did not have exclusive games released on Steam, which gave later competitors some opportunities to take advantage of.

Even so, Steam is still a great choice for players.

I just grab every discount on Steam and buy a bunch of games that I might not even click on to play.

I comforted myself afterwards. As we all know, Steam is a financial management platform.

After all, Ma Ge, the leader in the gaming industry, once said that money is not spent, it is just a way to stay with you.

In this life, Jamie plans to register the copyright of this sentence.

From now on, this sentence will be regarded as the core concept of Steam to brainwash players.

Of course, the premise is that Jamie must first deal with the fat G in front of him.

After all, Steam was quickly accepted by players in its previous life, and Valve's "Half-Life 2" played a crucial role.

However, Jamie still underestimated Fatty G’s shrewdness, or greed.

"Mr. Dutton, I admit that your idea of ​​​​this digital game distribution platform is very creative, but with all due respect, Valve is not short of funds now. We can completely develop this platform ourselves and then build our own digital game distribution platform."

Before Jamie could speak, Chuck on the side made harsh words.

"Of course you can copy our platform ideas, but first you have to prepare enough money to litigate with us. If you think Valve has sufficient funds to fight with the Bass family, the largest real estate developer in New York, and the Dutton, the largest rancher in the United States, If there is a family confrontation, you can definitely give it a try."

Fatty G let out a strange cry of "Wow". It seemed that he was not frightened by Chuck's threat at all, but looked eager to try.

Then Jamie spoke.

"Okay, Newell, put away your boring temptation. I admit that Valve is indeed the best choice in our digital game distribution platform cooperation plan, but you are not the only option."

"We can support its more obedient game companies, launch flagship products like "Half-Life", and at the same time attract other game companies to release new games on our platform at a lower publishing price."

"If Valve avoids us and creates a similar platform independently, you will not only face a long and costly litigation war, but also the most cruel price war."

"I can guarantee you that, except for the works developed by Valve, no third-party game manufacturer will choose to publish games on your platform, because the conditions we offer will always be more favorable than yours!"

After careful consideration, Fat G did not choose to accept Jamie’s cooperation proposal.

But Jamie's threat obviously also played an role.

G Fat told Jamie that he felt that although Xueshanle’s Battle.net was terrible, it was not to the point where players could not tolerate it.

The implication is that Valve will not immediately start developing its own Battle.net platform.

But there is no guarantee that we will not do so in the future.

After Fat G left, Chuck immediately asked Jamie.

"What the hell does he mean?"

Jamie shrugged.

"Obviously he was stalling for time."

"He doesn't think that we can really support other game companies to develop works comparable to "Half-Life". After we fail, we will eventually go back to him, so that he can take the opportunity to propose a higher price to us. Price tag.”

Not to mention that Fat G doesn’t believe it, even Chuck doesn’t believe Jamie can succeed.

It's never that easy to develop a game, let alone develop a masterpiece that can compete with "Half-Life".

So G fat mania also has his reasons for being crazy.

"Then what should we do now?"

Chuck is quite optimistic about the prospects of the digital game distribution platform proposed by Jamie, but apart from money, he is powerless in other aspects.

"Since Fat G still plans to continue using Xueshanle's Battle.net, let's go talk to Vidywang and see if we can directly buy Xueshanle's Battle.net."

G Fat wanted to delay time, so Jamie used another method to force G Fat to cooperate with him.

However, there are disadvantages to this.

First of all, if Vidywang had noticed Jamie's true intention of purchasing Snow Mountain Lezhan.com in advance, he would definitely take the opportunity to speak loudly.

And Jamie is [-]% sure that once the negotiations begin, Vidhiwang will be aware of their true intentions in advance.

Even if they don't react on their own, Fatty G will "enthusiastically" remind them.

The second disadvantage is that it will prompt G Fat to make up his mind faster and develop Valve's own Battle.net platform.

The first disadvantage can be easily solved. As long as the negotiation is resolved quickly, Xueshanle's battle network can be quickly acquired at a price that Vidy Wang cannot refuse, without giving G Fat a chance to inform in advance.

The most difficult thing to deal with is the second drawback.

G Fat now has the strength to leave Xueshan Lezhan.com and go it alone. If Jamie can't come up with more convincing chips, even if he and Chuck buy Xueshan Lezhan.com with lightning speed, they can indeed force him out in the short term. G Fat can only choose to cooperate by pinching his nose, but in less than two years, he will be able to force G Fat's own Steam.

While Chuck's dad's private jet is still there, Jamie plans to go to the EA headquarters in California to talk to a studio that developed "Medal of Honor."

Because next year most of the members of this studio will change jobs and establish a new game production company alone.

The first game they launched was called Call of Duty.

(End of this chapter)