game trailblazer

Chapter 333 Operation Flashpoint and Serious Games

Monday, September 9th, sunny...

Yang Nanzheng is sitting in his office, looking at the game data sent by his assistant. This is a military part of "Special Forces 2". As the company's internal military technical support department, he needs to review the information related to The reliability of data such as weapons, equipment, vehicles, etc. Of course, he is not the only one doing this work now.

Yang Nanzheng took out a document related to the vehicle from the folder, spread it out on the table, and then turned on the computer to connect to the company's internal database.Now he is used to looking up all kinds of information through the computer. After all, it is easy to make mistakes if you rely on your brain to memorize, and it is not convenient to look up paper-based information. So he joined Iron Blood Studio not long ago. A sub-database of military information has been established in the company's database. Of course, it is impossible to have any too sensitive data. Most of them are collected through public information, and a small part is obtained through relationships.

With the continuous improvement of this database, Yang Nanzheng also gradually felt the benefits of using a computer at work. If he wanted to look up any information, he only needed to enter something into it, and then click with the mouse.Turn to the first part of the vehicle file. This is the WZ551 wheeled armored vehicle that is planned to be designed into the game. It is a high-mobility battlefield vehicle produced by North Industries Corporation. Have a preliminary understanding of tool modeling.

Yang Nanzheng clicked on Data Search, entered "WZ551" in the search bar, and then pressed the search button, and a prompt "Searching..." appeared on the screen.At this moment, the phone on the desk rang. He casually picked up the phone and put it to his ear. A heroic voice came from the phone: "Staff Yang, I haven't contacted you for a long time, haha."

"You are...Chen Tianbai?" Yang Nanzheng couldn't believe it, it was actually an old comrade-in-arms calling.

"Haha, Lao Yang, I heard that you are doing well now, but you are a senior white-collar worker."

"It's so-so, let's do it by the way. Old Chen, I heard that you have been promoted again."

"Where is it? It's not just running errands for the leader."

"Old Chen, you must have something to do when you call." Yang Nanzheng was well aware of the temper of his old comrade-in-arms, he never did meaningless things, and he would not do such things as chatting on the phone when he had nothing to do.

"Old Yang, that's the case." Chen Tianbai stopped being polite, and said straight to the point: "Isn't it the informatization of the army now? The Automation Office of our army also wants to do something different. The end of last month At that time, I happened to see a game match broadcast on TV, it seemed to be a 48-player match in "Special Forces", and I felt that this was what we were looking for."

""Special Warfare Heroes"?" Yang Nanzheng frowned slightly. This game was not actually produced by Iron Blood Studio. "Heroes 2" will be put into Jagged Studio, and the scale of the studio will be expanded accordingly, but this is news that has not yet been finalized.

"Old Chen, do you want to use "Special War Heroes" to assist training? If so, you can just buy it at a software store, and it's not expensive."

"What we need is not "Special Warriors", or just "Special Warriors" is not enough, we hope to develop a more realistic and professional auxiliary training system based on "Special Warriors"." Chen Tian Bai said on the phone.

"This... I need to report to my superiors." Yang Nanzheng knows that this matter is not up to him. If it was in Jinpan Electronics before, he would have rejected it immediately. In his opinion, the game company and military support The training system is far too poor, but now it is in Iron Blood Studio, and if there is any business visit, it has to be reported to the upper management. After all, I am just a consultant.

"It's okay, Lao Yang, I can wait. But how long will it take for you to get feedback, if it takes too long, I won't be able to handle it."

"Well..." Yang Nanzheng thought about it for a while, and it seemed that the decision-making speed in the company was super fast, at least much faster than the Jinpan Electronics he had worked in before: "I can't say the exact time, but usually it takes a day or two." If there is an answer, or Lao Chen, please leave a phone number, so that they can contact you directly."

"That's fine, my external contact number is xxxxxxxxxx," Chen Tianbai reported a bunch of numbers on the phone: "With this number, you can usually find me during working hours during the day."

"Old Chen, don't worry, I'll upload the information on this matter right away." After speaking, Yang Nanzheng launched the data query system, transferred to the enterprise management system, wrote the matter mentioned by Chen Tianbai into the email, and then selected Mr. Li Chunlin The manager was the recipient, and he also copied a copy to the big boss. After pressing the send button, the next step was to wait for the feedback from the leaders.

……

Chen Tianbai put down the phone in his hand and heaved a sigh of relief. It was actually his whim to contact the game company. The culprit was the 48-player match of "Special Forces" that appeared on TV that day. For ordinary people, it might be It's fun to watch, but what a professional soldier like him sees is something deeper in the game, such as team actions, such as the reasonable use of weapons and equipment, the offensive formation of troops, and so on.

"Special War Heroes" is very different from the games Chen Tianbai has seen. Other games may be games, but "Special Warfare Heroes" is already a bit close to a real military simulation. Of course, there are many shortcomings. From a professional point of view, the appearance of the weapon aiming line is the biggest bug. In the real battlefield, apart from the individual weapons that use the scope, there is a reticle to assist you in aiming.

However, Chen Tianbai also thinks that "Special War Heroes" still has great potential. If it can be made more realistic in terms of specialization, it may not be impossible to use it for auxiliary training. In this case, their automation office can also be regarded as military informatization If you have made achievements in one aspect, then the following things will be easier to handle.

……

"The professional militarization of "Special War Heroes"..." Half an hour after Li Chunlin, the general manager of the creative workshop, saw the email sent by Yang Nanzheng, Zhang Lexing looked after Chen Zishan who was resting at home, and when he reopened the enterprise management system, he saw Yang Nanzheng's email. The email from Nan Zheng and the comment email from Li Chunlin.

When Li Chunlin was arranged to be the general manager, Zhang Lexing explained that general affairs should be handled by Li Chunlin as much as possible, unless it is necessary to report things that cannot be handled by the creative workshop itself. Obviously, in Li Chunlin's view, this matter is no longer a problem that game companies can solve.

Seeing such an email suddenly, Zhang Lexing couldn't help but think of "Operation Flashpoint", a very special FPS game. It is said that the pursuit of real virtuality has been pursued since the beginning of development. It has a wide range of virtual environments and excellent visual effects of modern military weapons, and emphasizes the shape details and physical characteristics of virtual objects that are consistent with reality, which is completely different from conventional FPS games such as "Quake" that emphasize the refreshing feeling of the game.Of course, this may be related to the development direction of Bohemia Interactive Studio, the developer of "Operation Flashpoint". Zhang Lexing remembers that after developing "Operation Flashpoint", Bohemia Interactive Studio also worked out more professional "Virtual Battlefield Space" is said to have been successfully sold to a large number of NATO military departments such as West Point Military Academy, the US Marine Corps, the British Ministry of Defense, and the Israel Defense Forces for military auxiliary training. It can be called "national-level military tactical training software. "Are.

"It is estimated that the army needs more professional military training software like "Virtual Battlefield Space"!" After reading the email, Zhang Lexing thought in his heart. "Special War Heroes" was not originally designed for military training. The game engine itself did not consider too many battlefield characteristics. After all, if everything is simulated, the performance of conventional computers may not run at all. not moving.Of course, if you want to redesign, as long as you are willing to spend a little more time, it is not impossible, but after all, the creative workshop is located in China, and it is not easy to collect the data required for military-themed games. This is when Zhang Lexing established Iron Blood Studio. I didn't expect that I didn't feel it until the Jagged Studio had been in operation for a while. Fortunately, if it's just to deal with players, the data collected from public information is almost fine, but if it's a professional military organization like the army, it's not So easy to fool.

"Well, it seems that we have to try to start from the Bohemia Interactive Studio." Zhang Lexing touched his nose and secretly made up his mind.He remembered that "Operation Flashpoint" seemed to be on the market in 2001, which means that if you contact Bohemian Interactive Studio now, you may still have a chance.But now there is a problem. After such a long time, Zhang Lexing only remembers that "Operation Flashpoint" was developed by Bohemia Interactive Studio, which is located in the Czech Republic. As for other situations, he has long forgotten Cleaned up.

"It seems that we need to find someone to investigate first." Zhang Lexing immediately picked up the phone on the computer desk, called Revande Business Consulting Company, which was responsible for the investigation in the European region, and entrusted them to go to the Czech Republic to find a company named The game company of Bohemia Interactive Studio (BIS).

Putting down the phone, Zhang Lexing heaved a sigh of relief. He believed that as long as the Bohemia Interactive Studio really existed, then Ruiwende Business Consulting Company would definitely be able to find it. Missed a growth opportunity for the company.

"The letter has been received... The professional militarization of "Special Warriors" can be approved. If necessary, some personnel can be transferred from the original development team of "Special Warriors" to join the Jagged Studio, and then the Jagged Studio will be operated independently. Except for the development In addition to military simulation games, by the way, you can also do some business like military auxiliary training software..."

While writing this email, Zhang Lexing suddenly remembered something that was almost missed—serious games.Serious games refer to those games whose main content is to teach knowledge and skills, provide professional training and simulation, which is the legendary "education through entertainment". Compared with boring textbooks, serious games are more like a game. But if compared with regular games, serious games will appear more serious.

In fact, serious games appeared a long time ago. In the 80s when Zhang Lexing was still struggling, many serious games were born, covering military, medicine, industry, education, scientific research, training and other industries, including Sid Meier's " Civilization, Will White's Simcity, and even Konami's Dance Dance Revolution can be considered dance training software.According to the analysis of a research agency, serious games have a market size of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, which does not include "educational games" developed for primary and secondary education.It can be said that the market for serious games has a very promising future, and in the domestic environment, "education through entertainment" is still very moving.

In fact, it is not that Zhang Lexing has not taken any action in serious games. The Yulefang software development company established in the early years is engaged in this field, but it is mainly for the education industry.Now that we think about serious games again, it is necessary to invest more in this area, which can also open up a new way of survival for game companies.

Thinking of this, Zhang Lexing wrote two more emails, one to the creative workshop, asking Li Chunlin to set up a studio dedicated to developing serious games. As for the business, he can first try to transform the previous game "Game Dream" into a professional one. Training software for game companies can also be divided into two different versions for stand-alone game companies and online game companies, and even special versions can be designed according to different training roles, such as a special version for game customer service and a special version for data balancers.As long as the game data is professional while maintaining the fun of the game, I believe it is still very useful to use it to train employees for your own company, and it may be sold to other companies in the future.

Another email was sent to Hong Mingjie, the general manager of Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd., after repeating the arrangement for the creative workshop, he also asked him to set up a serious game development studio in Hong Kong and North America, and try to use it in medical, animation and painting. , finance and other industries to expand the business of serious games. Anyway, my group is so big and involves many industries. There are many places where there are opportunities to use serious games for training, which can reduce training funds. If you do well, you can still try Selling to other companies can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

In addition, Zhang Lexing also intends to set a good example for those domestic game companies through his own initiative. On the one hand, it is to tell more game companies what serious games are, otherwise, maybe the ones that come out of their hands will become only serious games without games. The so-called "serious games" are like those educational software that are said to improve grades, but are actually serious enough to compete with textbooks.

On the other hand, I hope that more game companies will pay attention to the emerging market of serious games. After all, it is not so easy to get other companies to do something besides the companies Zhang Lexing invested in, especially since they have never done anything. Maybe some people will say: "A serious game is a bird".So the best way is to speak with the facts. As long as you earn money from serious games, even if Zhang Lexing doesn't say anything, there will naturally be a lot of people who will sharpen their heads and get into it. It's much more effective to force them to develop serious games.

(End of this chapter)