Rebirth of the Wild Age

Xiao Ma was left by Song Weiyang. Not only that, Song Weiyang also summoned Ding Sanshi, Zhang Chaoyang and Rebs.

A few people were sitting in the No. 3 shop of Time Café, and Song Weiyang went straight to the subject and said: "The agency of World of Warcraft must be won. This game is absolutely profitable, and it may even be more profitable than "Legend". Moreover, online games in Europe and the United States do not. With so many low-level BUGs in Korea, it is easier to act as an agent."

"Why doesn't Excalibur Network participate in the agency fight?" Rebs asked curiously.

Song Weiyang said: "Excalibur Network is developing "Shan Hai Jing". In the future, it is going to compete with "World of Warcraft". You can't grab "Warcraft" to play left and right? That will distract your energy. It's not good."

Xiao Ma said: "In fact, I am also very optimistic about World of Warcraft. I personally participated in the "World of Warcraft" Singapore forum at the end of February, and successfully passed Vivendi’s inspection. Now only Ninetowns and Ninetowns are qualified agents. Guangtong, Tencent, Ogilvy and Ubisoft (Shenghai) five. But I plan to abandon the agency competition because the asking price of Vivendi is too high!"

"How high?" Zhang Chaoyang asked.

Xiao Ma said: “The signing fee will be several million US dollars, and the later copyright fees will be paid quarterly, at least several million US dollars per month. Moreover, I think the development funds for "World of Warcraft" are not enough. The agent pays the initial R&D investment and the initial promotion expenses in a lump sum, and these expenses are at least 20 million U.S. dollars. In other words, regardless of the later copyright fees, the money given when signing the contract is almost close to 30 million U.S. dollars, which is converted into RMB 2 Billion yuan."

"Too expensive?" Ding Sanshi exclaimed.

Song Weiyang shook his head and said, "It's definitely not a one-time payment, otherwise which domestic agency company can afford it?"

In fact, Xiao Ma expected it well, and the development funds for World of Warcraft are indeed tight.

So as early as September 2001, Blizzard released the news of "World of Warcraft" in advance, and began to look for agents, trying to earn some signing fees to fill the funding gap. Then at the end of 2002, Blizzard came to China for publicity. At that time, it attracted hundreds of Chinese companies. Many game companies were even temporarily registered, and they didn't even have a specific office location.

The Chinese companies competing for the agency rights of "World of Warcraft" are really mixed, and Blizzard has to put forward hard requirements: first, there must be an independent carrier-class computer room with direct backbone network lines; second, no other games or services should be placed in the computer room. Used servers; third, each group of servers consists of 3 SERVER and 1 NASERVER. China plans to build 25 sets of servers, each of which supports 6000 people online, ensuring an average of 70% of the server's online load...

There are many related requirements, and even the CPU level of the server is limited, which causes a large number of competitors to automatically withdraw.

Too harsh!

Spend so much money to build such a high-level computer room, what if you can't get the agency right? Even if you get the agency rights, who knows when "World of Warcraft" will be launched? Historically, even Shanda, which is rich and powerful, chose to withdraw because of these harsh conditions. Of course, the reasons for Shanda's withdrawal are complicated, not just because of this.

By mid-February this year, there were about 10 competing manufacturers left, and only 5 were left at the end of February.

Just a few days ago, the vice president of Blizzard and the Vivendi China manager came to Shenghai to personally screen the 5 Chinese companies.

Zhang Chaoyang suddenly said: "If "World of Warcraft" really makes a lot of money as the boss said, then Sohu can participate in the competition. Sohu's "Knight OL" is a bit unsatisfactory."

Ding Sanshi shook his head and said: "NetEase has already operated two online games, and is developing the third one. For the time being, I don't have so much energy and financial resources to represent new products."

Rebs also said: "Jinshan is fully developing "Jian Xia Qing Yuan OL" and can't spare any extra money."

Zhang Chaoyang smiled and said, "Since this is the case, Sohu will do my part."

Xiao Ma suddenly reminded: "According to my contact with the Vivendi China manager, Vivendi intends to hold back, and no matter who gets the agency rights, he will bleed heavily."

"Rip up?" Zhang Chaoyang didn't understand.

Xiao Ma nodded and said: "It's just a ripped off. Because Chinese game companies are too enthusiastic about "World of Warcraft", and nearly a hundred companies are vying for it. What would you think if you were a seller?"

"Sit on the floor and start!" Rebs said.

"It's not just as simple as sitting on the floor and starting the price," Xiao Ma said with a wry smile. "During the course of several negotiations, Vivendi's attitude has changed significantly. At the beginning, some substantive content was said, and then nothing was said. I didn’t ask for it, I just talked about which companies we would continue to investigate. We will inspect this one today and that tomorrow, forcing us to keep raising prices. At the end of last year, Tencent gave a signing fee of 1 million US dollars and promised to invest 2 million US dollars. Early-stage development costs are all listed as key manufacturers. By the beginning of this year, Tencent had to increase the contract fee to US$2 million, and other costs have also increased significantly, but Vivendi’s attitude has become more and more ambiguous."

Ding Sanshi smiled and said, "This is to use Chinese agents as triumphs."

Brother Xiao Ma said: "That's why I said that I want to win the agency rights of "Warcraft", aside from the subsequent copyright fees, other funds will be at least 200 million yuan. And look at it, Vivendi will still let us For several months, Chinese manufacturers have not negotiated but only inspected, forcing Chinese companies to offer a sky-high price."

And Vivendi's approach is more shameless than Xiao Ma said!

The agency fee quotations given by Chinese manufacturers are getting higher and higher. Vivendi still feels that he can squeeze more oil and water, and even wants to have one woman and two marriages, and one goods for two sales. China is divided into two major regions, north and south, and handed over to two. Different companies act as agents. After this proposal was put forward, it caused strong opposition from Chinese companies, and none of them were willing to follow suit.

Vivendi had to come up with a second set of plans to separate the technical support of the game from the market operation. The technical support platform is handed over to operators who are good at technology; the market operations are then handed over to operators who are good at channel promotion; and Vivendi registered a joint venture company to connect the communication technology and the market.

It was still selling two goods at one price, which directly broke the industry rules. At that time, Shanda was hesitant, and it was because of this that it decided to withdraw.

The game industry was in an uproar, calling this an "unequal treaty", calling operators willing to cooperate as "traitors", and even several major companies threatened to "clean up the door." Moreover, the agency fee of "Warcraft" at that time, because of Vivendi's strategy of raising Gu, was too high, almost equivalent to 10% of China's online game market share!

The agency fee of a game actually accounts for 10% of the entire Chinese market. It is strange that operators do not jump up and scold their mothers.

Of course, the price is overwhelming, and the money is paid back on the ground. Because Vivendi sells two goods, the agency fee will eventually drop a lot, and a large part of it is paid in installments. In the end, Jiucheng Hezong Lianheng betrayed his teammates and successfully obtained the sole agency as a "traitor".

"Since you are not willing, then forget it." Song Weiyang said.

Zhang Chaoyang said: "Sohu can try it."

Song Weiyang said: "Sohu's family definitely doesn't have that strength, so count Sogou, anyway, Ding Ming also wants to do online games. Sohu and Sogou jointly established a game company, um, the name is'Sopai Changyou'. Remember, No matter how outrageous Vivendi's requirements are, you can choose to follow up, and you can just jump back to pressure the price when it is critical."

"Yes." Zhang Chaoyang chose to agree, because Sogou's capital flow is very healthy, and its spare money is more than that of Sohu, which is already listed.

Song Weiyang's intentions were very sinister. He asked Sohu and Sogou to jointly bid, just to act as a **** scrambler. With Vivendi’s peculiarities, as long as there are many competitors, it will continue to drag down, and the price will be higher and higher. At that time, Chinese manufacturers mistakenly thought that Vivendi wanted to operate its own games, because everyone couldn't see Vivendi's sincerity and felt Vivendi treated all companies as monkeys.

Song Weiyang is to let Sohu and Sogou make trouble. The longer it is, the more interesting it will be. It's better to drag it until the "Shan Hai Jing" goes online in advance.

Regardless of the result, Song Weiyang won't suffer.

If Sohu and Sogou take the agency rights, then "World of Warcraft" will be operated by their own companies; if they can't get the agency rights, then the launch date of "World of Warcraft" in China will be delayed. For this reason, you can even falsely report the high price, making Vivendi think it is profitable, and then lower the price before the official contract. When Ninetowns and other companies want to take over, you can continue to talk about it. The previous repentance was only because of internal opinions. Unite.

Vivendi can be so disgusting, why can't we fight it?

Even Song Weiyang said to several others: "Netease, Kingsoft, and Tencent can all join in and pull the agent up ~www.readwn.com~ to make it look like an agency. Several of us. The company teamed up to muddy the water, making Vivendi think that the agency fee could be several hundred million yuan, and it would take him a year and a half to talk about it."

Ding Sanshi suddenly became happy: "Lao Song, you are buying time for your own "Shan Hai Jing", right?"

"That's what it means," Song Weiyang said with a smile, "all the costs of your companies competing for the agency rights of "Warcraft" can be paid by Excalibur Network. It is just to accumulate your own negotiation experience."

"Old Song, you are too bad!" Rebs smiled with squinting eyes.

Zhang Chaoyang was a little dizzy: "So Sohu and Sogou are competing for agency rights, is it true or not?"

"Fake is true when it is true, and when it is true, it is also true," Song Weiyang said, "Don't worry, when did I make a mistake in judgment? "World of Warcraft" will definitely make money. Sohu and Sogou will be true if they can compete. , It’s fake if you can’t get it. Even if you can’t get it, let the winning company bleed heavily!"

In another time and space, according to the listing application submitted by Ninetowns, Ninetowns paid more than $74 million for "World of Warcraft" in four years. However, the initial expenses only cost more than 10 million U.S. dollars, and everything else was paid in installments, which was nearly half cheaper than when the agency fee was the highest. Vivendi was so greedy that it scared too many operators away and was not at the highest point. Finalize the power of agency.

If Song Weiyang's network companies all join the competition, they might be able to scramble the initial agency fees to more than 30 million U.S. dollars, directly causing Vivendi to lose his sanity and let "World of Warcraft" land in China more than half a year later!

In fact, not only in China, but also in the United States, "World of Warcraft" has been delayed for several months before the internal beta started because of the resignation of Blizzard's bidding chief and Vivendi's insatiable expression.

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