game trailblazer

Chapter 116 Prelude to Acquisition

After letting go of his concerns about game development, Zhang Lexing began to think about how to solve the problem of teachers on Lao Xiao's side. After all, he had guaranteed this matter for him.The solution to the problem of teachers is nothing more than two ways of self-accumulation and foreign aid. Now the creative workshop has more than [-] people with rich development experience. After excluding those who participated in the development, there are only eight or nine people left. That's all, for the training class with the game academy as the development direction, there are a little less people, not to mention that not everyone is suitable for teaching.When it comes to asking for foreign aid, the target is naturally the United States and RB, the two regions with the most developed game industry. However, Zhang Lexing has done some investigations in the past few years. The United States and RB do not have special game training institutions, only some games with outstanding strength The development company has its own training department, and it is not easy to invite people to come. Moreover, it is limited to language communication issues, so it cannot invite more foreign aid.

Since this is the reality, Zhang Lexing can only tap the potential from within.The eight old employees who have not been assigned development tasks for the time being are all assigned to Xiao Donghai, together with two or three colleagues who were former teachers invited by Lao Xiao, and they will work together first, trying to select the lecturer for the future training class. Of course, the more important thing is to get out the training materials first. Don’t expect them to be comprehensive and in-depth. At least get out the basic training materials for programming, art, and planning. Not only training courses can be used, but even creativity The workshop's own employee induction training also has the opportunity to use it.

However, when taking inventory of his family, Zhang Lexing noticed that the strength of Dongfang Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd. was really weak.Zhang Lexing is not worried about the future of Eidos in Europe and Activision in North America, but in Asia, Dongfang Electronic Entertainment is Maxis in Hong Kong plus Tianzhiyuan and the newly established creative workshop in the mainland.Among them, in terms of strength, only Tianzhiyuan can do it. After all, the development time is the longest, and the variety of Maxis company is too single. In the past few years, most of them have released "Simulation XX", which can only be regarded as a professional one. A simulation game development company, and the creative workshop has not been established for less than a year, and even the official work has just been completed not long ago, so it can be said that it has no influence.After this calculation, Zhang Lexing suddenly found that RB Oriental Electronic Entertainment has basically made no achievements except for accepting the game distribution network from Kunpeng Animation, and its influence is too weak.

"Are you considering setting up a branch of Dongfang Electronic Entertainment in RB?..." Zhang Lexing began to think carefully about this question.However, it is very difficult to transfer manpower from our own company to develop a branch company. The key is that our manpower is not sufficient, so it is difficult to deploy again.If you don't deploy people to set up a branch company yourself, then you can only consider the way of acquisition.Thinking of this, Zhang Lexing dialed the office number of the person in charge of the Blue Information Market Research Company, and asked him to investigate the details of the well-known RB game company, so that he could choose the target for acquisition. Next, Zhang Lexing just needs to wait quietly... …

Time continues to pass day by day...

On May 5, RB Tokyo Akasaka.Sony held a press conference again. At the meeting, Kenichi Fukunaga, head of the publicity department, announced that Sony had officially parted ways with Nintendo and would release high-performance home game consoles independently. The difference in choice is, in his words: “Nintendo puts too much emphasis on providing entertainment for players of the younger age group, while Bishe believes that it should focus on the older age group to develop its business, and there is a huge irreconcilable difference in market positioning. It was the main reason why we and Nintendo eventually parted ways!"

In the United States during the same period, after the MPC1990 (first-generation multimedia PC platform standard) standard was released in 1.0, the Multimedia Microcomputer Market Committee released a new version of the standard MPC2.0 (the second-generation multimedia PC platform standard). Increase the processor to 486 (the clock frequency is required to be no less than 25MHz), increase the memory size to 4MB, increase the hard disk capacity to 160MB, require a double-speed CD-ROM drive, audio sampling and quantization accuracy of 16 bits, etc., on the one hand, set up for user upgrades On the other hand, it has once again promoted the upgrading of hardware, bringing new opportunities for many software and hardware manufacturers.

During this period, after the "Legend of Sword and Fairy" project team came up with a formal planning report, they began to perform their duties. The programmers worked hard to study the writing method of the RPG engine, and the planners were busy designing on the basis of the main plot. Some interesting branching plots and a large number of dialogue scripts are being written at the same time. The artists are communicating with the planners while making detailed descriptions of large maps, scenes, and characters.The game system has been determined in the previous discussion, but some adjustments have been made in the details. The only thing added is a system called "semi-intelligent NPC", which is to give the original dull NPC (non-player character) A certain degree of autonomy, for example, in a village, NPCs will work at sunrise and rest at sunset, and have a certain area of ​​activity. Even when talking to NPCs, they are no longer faced with only a few words Repeated "dialogue jars" in .What's more interesting is that the game characters can no longer rummage through the boxes in the NPC's house under the name of a hero. There will be a large number of catchers, and the ending can be imagined.

During this period, the recruitment organized by Chu Jing was held again. Through newspaper advertisements and participation in the job fair, another 35 people were attracted to join the company. However, the main part was the program, followed by the artist, and five or six administrative staff.Most of the recruited programs and artists are for the trio led by Ken Silvermanzer. Most of them have some experience in the industry (of course not in the game industry), and joined the 3D engine development after a short-term training. Team, Ken Silvermanzer has complained for a long time that the manpower problem has been temporarily relieved. Although the addition of newcomers has brought him a lot of new troubles, they can still help with simple tasks.In addition, Chu Jing did not know where to find an amateur studio for playing computer music. There are only five people in total. These people are not too old, and they are quite interested in games. Although it is not possible to expect any excellent game music from this studio right now, at least it can be regarded as a start.

At the end of May, Zhang Lexing received a package from the United States. The sender on it was marked "Jenny Yang".When I opened it, I found that there were three video cassettes and an independently packaged game inside. The cover of the game box said "Dune II", which turned out to be the famous "Dune II".There was also a letter inside the package, Zhang Lexing opened it, and it turned out to be Yang Xinxin's handwritten letter, which wrote: "...Dear brother, long time no see, have you missed me recently... everything here Well, the video tape sent with the letter is from DreamWorks. It is a film "Jurassic Park" that has just been produced and has not yet been officially released. My sister, I have watched it first. It is very interesting, especially in the If you have time, remember to take a look. I saw that set of games from a magazine. The introduction was very good. What did you say created a new game mode? My sister remembered that your birthday is coming, so I bought a set. Your gift... :-)"

After reading the letter, Zhang Lexing knew what was going on. The video tapes turned out to be the "Jurassic Park" that Spielberg mentioned back then. This must be a box office hit. It seems that DreamWorks has The financial statements should look much better. Although "Jurassic Park" is good, Zhang Lexing is not interested in rewatching it on low-resolution media such as video tapes. If you want to watch it, you should at least have to watch it on DVD.As for the famous "Dune II", Zhang Lexing has no interest in playing it, but it does not hinder the use of it to broaden the horizons of everyone in the creative workshop. Maybe someday we can come up with a very good real-time strategy game.

On the second day after receiving the package, Zhang Lexing heard a piece of good news from Hong Kong on the phone. Hua Ziqing finally persuaded Zheng Weijian to transfer the shares of Standard Chartered Bank held by the Bao Yugang family, plus the part previously acquired in the market In terms of tradable shares, Orient Holdings holds a total of 19.3% of the shares of Standard Chartered Bank, becoming the largest single shareholder of Standard Chartered Bank, successfully joining the board of directors of Standard Chartered Bank, and spent a total of 128 billion Hong Kong dollars for this.However, the benefits are also obvious. With the support of the bank, it will be much easier to raise funds whether it is company operations or asset acquisitions in the future.

At the beginning of June, the long-awaited blue information market research company's investigation report on RB game company was finally delivered to Zhang Lexing.In the survey report, it is written: "At present, RB's well-known game companies include Nintendo (Nintendo), SEGA (Sega), Capcom (Capcom), Bandai (Bandai), Namco (Namco), Konami (Konami) , KOEI (Glory), Tecmo (Tecmo), Square (Square), Enix (Enix), Taito (Taidong), Hudson (Hudson), Altus (Aites), ChunSoft ( Chunruan), Banpresto (Pabrest), SNK (New RB Planning), Falcom (Falcon), Takara (Baobao), etc. The details of these companies are described later.

Founded in 1889, Nintendo was originally named Nintendo Koppai (Nintendo Koppai). The first president was Fujiro Yamauchi. At that time, it mainly produced flower cards...

Sega was officially founded in 1954 by an American Jew, David Rosen, in RB...

Capcom (Capcom): Founded in 1979, the original name was 'IRM'...

Bandai: One of RB's major toy suppliers, founded in 1950...

Namco (Namco): Founded on June 1955, 6 by Yaya Nakamura in Chigami, Tokyo...

Konami（科纳米）：1969年3月21日在大阪府成立，1993年4月，科纳米总部功能迁至东京本社……

KOEI (Glory): Founded in 1978 by the couple Yoichi Erikawa and Keiko Erikawa, and started to get involved in the game development industry in 1981...

Tecmo (Tecmo): Founded on July 1967, 7, it specializes in making action games...

Square (Square): Originally a subsidiary of Dianyousha, it was acquired in 1986 and became a holding subsidiary of KF-Panda...

Enix (Enix): Established in 1975...

Taito (Taito): Founded in 1953, it was originally mainly engaged in the game development and sales of arcade and FC game consoles...

Hudson (Hudson): Founded on May 1973, 5, the head office is located in RB Tokyo...

Altus: Founded in 1986 by Naoya Harano, Hideyuki Yokoyama, and Koshi Okada...

ChunSoft (春soft): Founded by game producer Koichi Nakamura on April 1984, 4, located in Shinjuku, Tokyo...

Banpresto (Pabresto): A game distribution company established in April 1977, and has been partly owned by Bandai since 4...

SNK (New RB Project): Founded in 1978, the president has launched many fighting games...

Falcom (Falcom): Founded in March 1981, it mainly develops computer games...

Takara (treasure): One of the toy manufacturers, has launched some games based on toys...

......"

After reading this report, which included the introduction of many well-known game companies and the main financial situation, Zhang Lexing was a little dizzy. There are too many good companies, but it seems that it is not easy to start.

"Which company should I choose?" Zhang Lexing fell into deep thought...

(End of this chapter)