game trailblazer

Chapter 169
The signing of the contract with Panasonic has been officially completed in the middle of June. As soon as he got the equity transfer agreement, Zhang Lexing couldn't wait to visit MCA Global. MCA Universal is divided into two parts, with studios and offices in Universal Studios between Los Angeles and Burbank, and distribution, other departments, and administrative offices in New York.

Zhang Lexing's first stop was New York, accompanied by Meyer, who had just assumed the post of president and chief operating officer of MCA Global, and he was feeling uneasy at this moment.This can't be blamed on Meyer, who asked him to come to MCA Global less than two months ago, the company has actually changed owners, he has no idea how the new boss is doing, and whether he can continue to sit firmly on the throne of president is even more important. Not sure.So when Mayer learned that his big boss was coming to visit the company, he immediately arranged the reception staff, trying to show the best side of the company, and of course, more importantly, to show his importance in the company.

Mayer introduced the company's situation to Zhang Lexing while walking: "Mr. Zhang, these floors are our music department, which is the office of Universal Music Company in the future...

This floor is the office area of ​​Universal Home Entertainment, they are mainly responsible for the distribution of the company's audio-visual products...

These two floors are the office area of ​​Universal Film Distribution Company, the company's distribution department, and the office area of ​​United International Pictures, which is in charge of overseas distribution. In the hands of Ramon's parent company, Viacom, and another operating company, MGM...

This area is the office area of ​​the company's theme park and resort management department, which mainly manages the two Universal Studios in Florida and Hollywood...

This area is the office area of ​​the company's administrative department..."

While introducing the situation of the company, Meyer kept an eye on his big boss, but Zhang Lexing remained basically expressionless throughout the visit, which made him worried.Fortunately, after the visit, Zhang Lexing finally showed a smile, and encouraged him: "Mr. Meyer, work hard. I believe Universal Pictures will create a brilliant future under your hands."

Now Meyer finally put his heart back into his stomach. In fact, he didn't know that the reason why Zhang Lexing had no expression was because he was thinking about which films he could shoot in the future. The smile he showed in the end was because he had already thought it through. What? "Resident Evil", "Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter", "Transformers", etc. can all be considered.

When Zhang Lexing and his team left the office building of MCA Global in New York, Meyer finally let out a long sigh of relief. This time, except for the financial department being taken over and a few directors changed, he felt that the company had not changed much, and the big boss What he said before he left made him feel very valued, and Meyer couldn't help thinking about his new future in Universal...

The second stop of Zhang Lexing is Los Angeles. In fact, he has been here several times before, but at that time he was either as a guest or a tourist, but today he came here as the host. The same place feels very different. Big difference.Because he has been here many times before, Zhang Lexing did not go to those tourist areas this time, but went directly to the studio to meet with the management personnel.The main purpose of Zhang Lexing's trip is to appease these management personnel. After all, after changing the boss, the people below will always feel a little flustered.After some exchanges, when they learned that apart from the finance being taken over, there would be no changes in other places, and a part of the funds for filming would be increased, the mood of the managers gradually settled down.

In the process of communicating with these managers, Zhang Lexing also accidentally learned that MCA Universal also has a game company Universal Interactive, which is located on North Ontario Street in Burbank City. So after leaving Universal Studios, Zhang Lexing and his entourage went to Interact around the world.

When we came to No. 100 North Ontario Street, where the Global Interactive office building is located, there was already a tall white man waiting there downstairs. As soon as he saw Zhang Lexing and others, he immediately greeted him and asked enthusiastically: "Hi, may I Is it Mr. Zhang?"

"It's me, you are..." Zhang Lexing nodded and asked back.

"Mr. Zhang, nice to meet you. I'm Mark Cerny from Global Interactive. You can call me Mark. Mr. Simberg said you would come to visit. I heard that you have never been here before. I came here on purpose. Greeting you, welcome to Universal Interactive."

"Mark, nice to meet you too, please lead the way."

Following Mark Cerny, Zhang Lexing and his group walked into the office building of Universal Interactive.Along the way, Mark Cerny introduced the situation of Universal Interactive, Zhang Lexing knew that Universal Interactive was originally a company mainly engaged in game publishing, and game development was generally entrusted to game studios. The development funds of the game are provided by Universal Interactive, and even the office space of some game studios is provided by Universal Interactive.

"Mr. Zhang, there are currently three companies developing games for us, Naughty Dog, InsomniacGames and RelicGames, among which Naughty Dog and InsomniacGames are in our office building." Mark Cerny Introduced.

That InsomniacGames and RelicGames Zhang Lexing had no impression at all, but the name of Naughty Dog reminded him of the famous signature "Crash Bandicoot" on the Sony game console, "Jack and Daxter" with a vast and seamless 3D world, and the movie The super expressive "Uncharted Sea", these are some super masterpieces, he almost trembled with excitement when he thought about it.

Thinking of this, Zhang Lexing calmed down and asked Mark Cerny: "Mark, can you take me to see these two game companies?"

Mark Cerny nodded in agreement, and took Zhang Lexing to InsomniacGames first. InsomniacGames said that the company is actually only a studio level, and there are not many developers. It is a glasses brother named Ted Price who is in charge. They are currently researching a game with Western Dragon as the protagonist.After watching InsomniacGames, Zhang Lexing followed Mark Cerny to Naughty Dog on the same floor.

The person in charge of Naughty Dog is Jason Rubin. When Zhang Lexing and Mark Cerny walked into Naughty Dog's office, Jason Rubin was sitting around a round table with his employees, having a heated discussion Looking at something, a lot of food and drinks were piled up on the round table, and some things like sketches were scattered on the table.

"I think there should be such a movement..." A fat man stood up and gestured for a running movement, and said, "When you run too fast, you still have a feeling that you can't hold your feet."

"Dick, please sit down, we are not discussing this, what we need to solve now is how to reflect the feeling of 3D space, to have this feeling, do you understand?" Said in a suspicious tone.

When he was about to approach the round table, Mark Cerny asked with a smile: "Jason, are you still studying the issue of 3D spatialization?"

The young man with messy hair turned around, and it turned out that he was Jason Rubin. After making a frustrated expression, he replied: "Mark, this question is very complicated, you have to think about it carefully, otherwise you asked How do you make a 3D game. Well, the one next to you is..."

"This is the new boss of our company, Mr. Zhang." Mark Cerny introduced.

Unexpectedly, this group of people did not respond at all, and continued to discuss the issue under the leadership of Jason Rubin.Being ignored like this, Mark Cerny looked very embarrassed, and Zhang Lexing felt very uncomfortable, so he leaned over to hear what they were discussing.When he came to the round table, Zhang Lexing could clearly see that the so-called sketches painted cartoon thylacines in different shapes, which seemed a bit like the Crash Bandicoot in Zhang Lexing's impression, and what these people were discussing was "how to integrate the 2D platform games into a 3D world" and so on.

This period is just when the era of 3D games has just arrived. Many game development companies are faced with how to transfer from very mature 2D images to very unfamiliar 3D images. In the past, everyone was used to flat games like "Super Mario". Players are also accustomed to taking risks in such a 2D flat world. With the launch of a large number of next-generation game consoles, especially after the PS game consoles with 3D effects as a selling point have gradually become popular, game development companies are facing new opportunities and challenges. There is an opportunity to enter a brand-new 3D game development world, and the corresponding players will also face the test of the 3D game world, which will be a completely different operating experience from the flat world.

Jason Rubin and his staff are facing exactly this problem. It is not easy to build a 3D world, but it is even more difficult to design an operation mode that can bring players a good experience, because there is no reference at all. However, this kind of difficulty is no longer a problem in front of the well-informed Zhang Lexing.

"Actually, this problem is not as difficult as you think. The so-called 3D can be divided into three situations. One is that the scene is 3D, but the flow of the game is still a straight line, and the player's operation feels similar to a 2D game; the second is full 3D. Not only the scenes are all 3D, but also the space of the characters controlled by the player is also 3D; the third is between the two, the scene is still 3D, but the perspective of the game basically adopts the rear perspective, which is a bit similar to the 2D The game is presented at 90 degrees..."

What Zhang Lexing said made Jason Rubin suddenly realize. He slapped the table and said, "Well said, it really solved our big problem. Mr. Zhang, do you have any suggestions?"

Jason Rubin and his staff were much more respectful than before, and Zhang Lexing felt much more comfortable, so he told all the things he remembered about 3D games, and everyone was fascinated Drunken, Jason Rubin nodded again and again.

Zhang Lexing successfully conquered the members of Naughty Dog with his outstanding performance. After the two sides chatted about the game design for a while, at the request of Zhang Lexing, Jason Rubin talked about the past of Naughty Dog.

"In fact, our company was established as early as 1985, but at that time the company's name was Jam Software (JamSoftware), and the company's employees were just me and my friend Andy Gavin." Jason Lu As Bin Shu said, the expression on his face seemed to go back in time: "The game we first made was called "Crazy Skiing", a game on the Apple II platform. Unfortunately, the response was mediocre, and few sets were sold. But we I didn’t give up, and continued to work hard. Later, I launched a game called "Dreamland" on the Apple II. This time, the results were much better. After that, we adapted it into a version that can run on the PC, and it also supports VGA. screen.

Later, Mr. Hawkins of EA noticed us and invited us to help him develop a game called "Rookie Thieves".The game is quite interesting, in which the player takes on the role of a fledgling rookie thief whose ultimate goal is to steal the city's treasury.The game system includes four parts: theft, adventure, combat and synthesis tools. Most of the time is played in a turn-based system, and the battle is real-time.This time, we finally succeeded. "

Hearing this, Zhang Lexing couldn't help but said: "Unexpectedly, you and Hawkins are quite familiar."

"Mr. Zhang, you also know Mr. Hawkins?" Jason Rubin asked back.

"Of course I do. It can be said that Hawkins and I started the EA company alone, and I was still the major shareholder of EA company at that time." Zhang Lexing replied.

"Life is really amazing." Jason Rubin sighed.

"Yeah, it's really unexpected. By the way, what happened to you later?"

"Later, Mr. Hawkins left EA and started a new company 3DO. He invited us to develop games for him again. This time we made a game called "Road of the Samurai" based on the popular "Mortal Kombat". The sales of the fighting game are also very hot, that is, at this time, the company's name was changed to the current Naughty Dog.

Later, in 1993, I met Skip Paul, the project team leader of Universal Interactive at the CES exhibition. At his invitation, we came here and signed a contract to develop three original games. , is now planning to develop a 3D game for the PS game console, and this is basically the case. "

Zhang Lexing didn't know Skip Paul, but he was very grateful to this old man. If it wasn't for him, he would never have met Naughty Dog here.Since it was a coincidence and we had a good conversation, Zhang Lexing didn't want to miss this opportunity, so he said bluntly, "Jason, do you want a bigger office?"

Jason Rubin looked at the small office filled with computers and various sundries, and nodded.

"Jason, do you want to have sufficient development funds and free development authority?" Zhang Lexing continued with a smile.

Jason Rubin looked at the paper on both sides of the table and the somewhat worn-out round table, and couldn't help but nodded again.

"Jason, do you want to master the first-hand development materials of PS game consoles, as well as the latest development technology?" Zhang Lexing's smile became brighter, and the expression on his face was like a strange uncle who was tempting children with candies.

The ensuing proposals made Jason Rubin feel dizzy for a while, he only knew to nod his head mechanically, and he didn't wake up a little until a hand was stretched out in front of him.

"Mr. Zhang, what did you just say?" Jason Lubin was so dizzy that he couldn't hear Zhang Lexing's last words clearly, but he still stretched out his hand out of politeness.

The smile on Zhang Lexing's face was still bright: "Oh, I just said that I want to invest in you, and I want to buy you Naughty Dog."

Jason Rubin instinctively withdrew his hand, shook his head repeatedly and said, "No, Mr. Zhang, Naughty Dog is the painstaking effort of all of us, and I will not sell it."

"Jason, you misunderstood me. I don't want you to sell the entire Naughty Dog, but I am very optimistic about your game development capabilities and want to establish a long-term cooperative relationship, so I hope to buy more than 51% of the shares. If the acquisition can If it is achieved, I will also inject a certain amount of development funds into you, and provide you with a better development office environment, and even provide you with PS game console related technologies.” After speaking, Zhang Lexing turned his attention to Jason Lu Bin, waiting for his answer.

The offer was very attractive. Jason Rubin knew that it was difficult for him to refuse, and he seemed to be looking forward to it, but he still wanted to fight for it: "Mr. Zhang, your offer is very difficult to refuse, but based on What do you mean that you can provide the development technology of the PS game console, you must know that the US version of the PS console was first unveiled at E3 last month."

"Have you heard of Tianzhiyuan?" Zhang Lexing asked back.

"Mr. Zhang, is that the company that took over the development of The Legend of Zelda?"

"That's right, that's the one. Tianzhiyuan is a game development company I invested in, and the PS game under development was also exhibited at this E3." Speaking of this, Zhang Lexing remembered his own analog joystick and decided to take the opportunity to promote it. Take a moment: "By the way, the analog joystick used in that "Pro Evolution Soccer" game, I think the 3D game you plan to develop is also very suitable."

"Analog joystick? Oh, I remembered, there are two small joysticks that can be controlled by thumbs under the ordinary handle. I played with them at the exhibition, and it was really interesting." Jie Sen Rubin nodded sympathetically, and believed what Zhang Lexing said about the promise of PS game console technology.

"I think you should know what it feels like to operate an analog joystick. If you want to use it in the game, I can also provide relevant technical information."

"Mr. Zhang, thank you. We agree to the acquisition you offered." Jason Rubin looked at his companion's expression, and stretched out his hand again.

Zhang Lexing reached out and held Jason Rubin's hand, and said with a smile: "Very well, I will send someone to discuss the details with you as soon as possible, and the technical information you need will also be brought over at the same time, happy cooperation!"

"Happy cooperation!" Jason Rubin also showed a bright smile.

(End of this chapter)