game trailblazer

Chapter 346 The Eve of Online Game Prosperity ([-])
Room 4, Building 202, Area A, Jinhu Garden, Jinbi Road, SZ City, Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Jinzhi Tower...

Zhou Tianwei clicked on ICQ, and received a few game development pictures sent by a colleague. After the marketing plan of "Very Men and Women" was arranged, their department received a new task, which was to work for Sihai Studio. The developed online Mud game "Across the World" conceived a preliminary marketing strategy.

The current focus of the development studios under Jinzhita has turned to the more optimistic online game market. The development of stand-alone games is either subcontracted out or simply compressed directly. There may be only "Legend of Gu Long Heroes" and "1937 Special Forces", one is an imitation of "Legend of Jin Yong Heroes", and the other is a plagiarized "Allied Expendables". Of course, according to the company's internal statement, this is not Plagiarism is called borrowing.

In fact, Zhou Tianwei knows that the reason why the company attaches so much importance to online games is that they are scared by piracy. Now the domestic stand-alone game market is basically monopolized by Fengyun Interactive. All are wonderful, except for some companies that are closely related to Fengyun Interactive, other game companies can only share the remaining leftovers. If there is an Internet cafe game promotion plan, perhaps many companies that love stand-alone games have already I can't play anymore.

At this time, Zhou Wu, the general manager of the company, came up with a good idea, that is, to develop online games. Stand-alone games can only make money by selling CDs, while online games can be charged continuously through monthly cards, and online games The core is the server side. Even if the client side is pirated, the end user still has to log in to the genuine game server to continue playing.Zhou Tianwei actually agrees with this point, because there have already been demonstrations made by "Swordsman: Loyalty to Serve the Country" and "King of Kings". It is a very remarkable achievement to get a share from China Telecom for a long time. Think about how incredible it is to be able to charge China Telecom in this era when only China Telecom charges.

According to the official statement of the company, "Jianghu", which required 1.2G hard disk space at the beginning, was the first attempt at Mud games, but there was no such thing as networking at that time, and later developed "Jianghu Biography", "People in the Rivers and Lakes" and the like, but in Zhou Tianwei they are all stand-alone games with the Mud brand, or just some kind of enhancement of the text-based Mud, which can really be regarded as an online game (that is, the so-called graphical Mud). There should be only "Very Man and Woman" and "Across the World" which are about to be completed, and "Very Man and Woman" here is more like a graphical dating community, only "Across the World" can be called a game.

According to the description of Sihai Studio, "Across the World" is a Chinese graphics Mud that combines different game forms such as management, cultivation, and adventure. The screen style is the cute Q version, with various icons or menus. To replace a large number of tedious and repetitive keyboard operations in the previous text MUD, you can input any command you want to execute with just a light click of the mouse.

After Zhou Tianwei got the actual development screen and demonstration of "Across the World", he realized that it looked too familiar. Except for the game screen setting was a little different, it was just like the simplified online version of "The Age of Voyage". Even the game's The backgrounds are very close to the "The Age of Discovery" series.

"...In the middle of the 16th century, China was still one of the most powerful and rich empires in the world. The richness of the homeland naturally aroused the covetousness of the powerful neighbors. Therefore, the eastern coast was always invaded by Japanese pirates, which made the people restless. Seriously affected China's social and economic development.

Europe was in the late stage of the Renaissance at this time, and there were great developments in all aspects.The United Kingdom has just replaced the Spanish Armada as the strongest country at sea, but it has also triggered hostility with a large number of countries, such as Sweden, which has just risen in the North Sea, and another emerging power-the Netherlands.

The role played by the player is a navigator who has countless dreams and is full of adventurous spirit. Through continuous work and completing various tasks to accumulate funds, he finally got his first boat and rushed to the vast and mysterious ocean fearlessly. , to explore the unknown world..."

Of course, the game is still different from "The Age of Voyage", because "Across the World" is called a graphical Mud, which is an online game. According to the introduction of Four Seas Studio, although "Across the World" can be played on a single player, more content needs to be played. It can only be experienced by connecting to the game server, such as some branch plots that require human cooperation. It is said that this is still an innovation of the company for online games, and they plan to call it an online interactive game.

The so-called online interactive game "Across the World", in Zhou Tianwei's opinion, is probably another product "borrowed" by the company, but what does all this have to do with him, anyway, he is only in charge of marketing, and only needs to use a bunch of The colorful gun draft promoted the game. As for whether the game is fun or not, and whether it can keep players, these are not issues he can consider.For example, what Zhou Tianwei wants to do most now is to post a message on ICQ, asking when "Across the World" is expected to be completed, so that he can make his marketing plan.

"What a broken game, it's not as fun as "Legend"!" Zhou Tianwei muttered in a low voice, then clicked on the message window of the contact person of Sihai Studio on ICQ, sent the question he wanted to ask, and then browsed The latest game information on the homeless tribe, while waiting for the other party's answer.

Soon, the ICQ icon in the lower right corner began to flash...

……

At the end of October, Jinshan Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd., No. 10, Jida Shihua West Road, Xiangzhou District, ZH City...

Kingsoft Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. was formerly known as the Xishanju Game Development Studio under Kingsoft General Motors. After years of development, the number of people has expanded to more than 160, and it has become one of the important sources of Kingsoft General Motors' income.Perhaps because Shenzhen was too noisy, at the beginning of the year, Xishanju moved from the bustling Shenzhen to the relatively quiet Zhuhai, and was officially upgraded to a company.According to Qiu Bojun's plan, when the future conditions of Kingsoft General Motors permit, he even plans to invest in the establishment of a research and development base in Zhuhai. He even has a good idea of ​​the place, which is in the Shikeng Mountain area of ​​Tangjiawan.Today is the first plenary meeting since the relocation and name change of Xishanju. This is a meeting related to the future direction of Xishanju. In this meeting, it is necessary to make a decision on whether to continue the development of stand-alone games in the future or to find another way. .

"First of all, I want to tell you a piece of good news." Qiu Xin, who came from BJ, stood in front of the whiteboard in the conference room and said with a smile on his face, "According to the latest statistics, our "Swordsman Love 2" has been sold in mainland China." In addition, a total of 20 sets were sold in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other regions, and a total sales revenue of 22 million was achieved, which is quite good.”

After hearing the good news, everyone in the meeting room smiled knowingly, and applauded under the leadership of R&D Director Luo Xiaoyin.Starting from "Revelation of Zhongguancun", "Swordsman Love 1", "Anti-Japanese War - Landmine Warfare, "Decisive Battle in North Korea", etc., until "Swordsman Love 2", which was released a few months ago, everyone in Xishanju can be said to have poured a lot into it It is a good encouragement for everyone to achieve such results with hard work.

"3800 million, this number sounds very big, but as a development company, according to our current level, we can only get 20% of it, which is 760 million." While talking, Qiu Xin wrote on the whiteboard. After writing "3800 million", "20%" and "760 million", he turned his gaze to the other people in the conference room, looking forward to their reactions.

Perhaps it is already used to the current "20%" sharing ratio, and compared to other domestic companies, Xishanju is still living a relatively good life. Many people did not have any strong reactions after hearing "760 million" , and someone muttered in a low voice: "Isn't there still Internet cafes that don't count!"

Qiu Xin didn't hear the whispers of some people, even if he heard him, he wouldn't be surprised. If he hadn't gone to BJ to get the scriptures, he would be no better than these people here.Seeing the indifferent expressions of the participants, he turned around and wrote down the formula on the whiteboard. Qiu Xin pointed on the whiteboard while explaining: the two-line formula "1×0.3×24×28×12＝ 2419.2", "4032×0.7=1693.44".

"I believe that some people should have heard that the online games "King of Kings", "Legend", and "Three Kingdoms on the Internet" that have just become popular are different from the one-time consumption of stand-alone games. Online games are charged according to the operating hours. Whiteboard In the formula above, 1 represents online games with an average of 1 people online, and 0.3 represents the game service price of 24 cents per hour, 28 hours a day. Taking into account downtime and maintenance, the average game service is 12 days per month, and there are 2420 games in a year. months, then the market share brought by this online game in one year is RMB 30 million, and considering the 1690% channel discount, the turnover brought by the game to the operating company is RMB 6 million, and a game with [-] people online In one year, it will bring in a turnover of over [-] million.”

"Wow!..." The mouths of the participants in the conference room all became O-shaped.

"In addition, I have inquired and calculated it myself, including all development, bandwidth, server, customer service, marketing expenses, etc., the cost of a game with 6 people online is at most 4000 million, that is to say, the gross profit rate can reach More than 60%, much higher than what we can get from stand-alone games at present. As far as I know, the current online number of "Legend" has reached the level of close to 5 people, and I also asked their technicians I heard that the goal of "Legend" next year is to reach 30 online users. You can do the math yourself, what a huge number that will be!"

"Oh!..." The eyes of the participants in the conference room bulged into balls.

……

Soon, people who were still a bit dismissive of online games changed their minds one after another, and unanimously approved Qiu Xin's proposal to develop online games. Considering that Xishanju has the most accumulated and richest information on "Swordsman Love", So everyone unanimously chose "Swordsman Love" as the first game on the Internet, and on this day, the "Swordsman Love Online" project proposal officially started.

……

Room 95, 6th Floor, Building D, No. 601, Zhongshan Avenue, Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province...

Wu Xisang, the general manager of Tianxia Technology Co., Ltd., stood sideways behind the producer Liang Yuchong, staring at the background program of "The World" on the screen. The number of people currently online is 523, and the number of registered people is 12322. This data and There is still a big gap between their original expectations, but at this time they can only lament that they were born at the wrong time.

The dream of "The World" started last year, when Wu Xisang was still in Fairchild Digital, and Liang Yuchong was even overseas.When Wu Xisang accidentally heard that Ourgame had received tens of millions of investment, and then developed rapidly and became the game website with the largest number of online users in the world, he couldn't help being tempted, and he also keenly discovered the development potential of online games It was a huge virgin land, so he and another friend Chen Zhongwen contributed capital, and then attracted Liang Yuchong, so the original team of Tianxia Technology was born.

Today's Tianxia Technology is no longer just the original three musketeers. The main program Xu Kang, the main planner Hu Zhihui, Gu Yue who is in charge of client development, Wu Guoxi, Yunfeng and others have joined in, and the development team has rapidly expanded to more than 20 people. On a human scale, with the efforts of everyone, "Tianxia", which started from scratch, gradually took shape bit by bit, and it underwent internal testing in June this year, and it was officially opened to the public in July.

That is to say, starting from July, the people who worked hard at Tianxia Technology's development suddenly discovered that things were not as good as they imagined.During the development process, they estimated that the number of online users of the game could reach 1000. This is based on their estimation based on the past situation in the text-based Mud. When the development of "Tianxia" was first started last year, there was no decent large-scale network in China. Among the games, the only one is "Online Genesis" imported from abroad.

But when "Tianxia" was officially launched, first "King of Kings", followed by "Legend" and "Three Kingdoms on the Internet", one online game after another appeared in front of everyone, the worst thing was "Tianxia" It was too conservative in the initial development process, or the technical strength of the development team was not strong enough. The picture effect of "Tianxia" is obviously worse than that of "King of Kings" and "Legend". The running speed of "Wang" is slow, and there are many machine freezes, especially during the period when it first started operation, the game process of "Three Kingdoms on the Internet" is very boring. , The reaction of the players is also the same, but there is still a "Legend".

The development team of "Legend" comes from the most powerful creative workshop in China, and the company in charge of operation is the powerful Fengyun Network. The speed is slow, the machine is stuck, the content of the game is also very rich, and the operation is also very convenient. It can be said to be the benchmark of domestic online games.With such a powerful opponent on the side, Tianxia Technology's initial expectation of thousands of people online has come to naught. At present, it can reach the scale of 600 people if it is exhausted. Many of them are friends who come to join. "The operating situation can be said to be very bleak.

And now there are some problems with Tianxia Technology's funding. I originally planned to wait for "The World" to start operating, and then try to find a way to raise some funds from venture capital, but the bursting of the Internet bubble made this wonderful idea come to naught. The world's venture capitalists looking for someone to spend money have disappeared. Wu Xisang tried to take the initiative, but now the venture capitalists have become cautious, and they immediately avoid anyone who has anything to do with the Internet.Although the company will not shut down immediately without follow-up funds, it can last for a few months at most. By then, if there is no new capital invested, Tianxia Technology may really close down.

Thinking of the bleak future of the company, Wu Xisang could not help but sigh softly...

……

In the late autumn and early winter of 2000, countless eyes were on the emerging market of online games. Still watching other people's situations, trying to find a more suitable time to intervene, but more people are frightened by the bursting of the Internet bubble, and have not noticed that the eve of the prosperity of online games has quietly arrived amidst the gloomy clouds. Arrived……

(End of this chapter)