Video Game Empire

Du Wenqiang was in high spirits when he walked into Li Xuan's office, but was downcast when he went out. Others in the office area outside also obviously found that the situation was wrong. The relaxed and warm atmosphere suddenly became a little more dignified.

It has been a long time since Li Xuan used such a severe tone to several executives. But just as the so-called embankment of a thousand miles collapsed in the ant's nest, he also found that the company had recently appeared some bad signs, so he simply took this opportunity to stand up. Du Wenqiang is the oldest official who has followed Li Xuan for the longest time. Even he has been reprimanded. Why do other people think they can sit back and relax.

Taking this opportunity, Li Xuan is ready to rectify the company's atmosphere. Although he strongly hopes to provide employees with a relaxed and comfortable working environment, they must wear formal clothes to work, and there is no need to distinguish between superiors and subordinates, but the premise of all this is based on the condition that the work efficiency is not reduced.

Of course, Li Xuan rudely beat Du Wenqiang just now, and he was a little bit angry and helpless. As the saying goes to be prepared for danger in times of peace, as the company's senior management, you should keep your head calm at all times, and should not be blinded by some current illusions in your judgment on the future.

Li Xuan has emphasized several times a long time ago that the prosperity of the arcade industry is not sustainable, but only short-lived, and Dongfang Game Company needs to find new profit points.

In the past 1982 and the first quarter of this year, the sales of arcade machines of Dongfang Game Company continued to grow rapidly, ≦↖, .. The profit contribution ratio accounted for half of the total profit of the entire game company. Under such impressive results, the leadership of Dongfang Game Company, including Du Wenqiang, obviously warned Li Xuan over and over again. It's all on the ear!

At the beginning of this year, Li Xuan asked Dongfang Commercial Company to do a detailed research on the arcade market in the United States. Relevant reports have been sent to the desks of executives of Dongfang Game Company as early as last month. But they still didn't pay attention.

According to the analysis of this survey report, the total sales of arcade machines in the US market last year were compared with the previous year. Growth rate is less than 10%. Since the arcade industry was officially detonated by Taidong Company's "Space Invaders" in 1978, it has only developed for five years.

Because of the apple computer and the arcade industry, it entered the fast-growing personal computer market at about the same time, with a sales growth rate of more than 60% last year. The performance of the computer market is what a sunrise industry should be like, and the arcade industry has only been in a situation of sluggish growth after only five or six years.

According to the analysis of Dongfang Commercial, the important reason for this situation is not that arcade machines are not popular, but that the bosses who operate arcade machines are going bankrupt in large numbers. The U.S. economy experienced a severe recession last year, and the hardest hit was undoubtedly the small businessmen with small capital and low profit margins. And the owners of grocery stores and laundromats who run arcade machines. Most fall into this category.

They operate arcade machines for profit, but arcade machines are just a supplement to their main business. Once the main business that really decides their destiny suffers a huge loss, even if the arcade can make some money back, it is only a drop in the bucket, and the result of closing down is still inevitable.

Some people say that since operating arcade machines can make money, why not open some special arcade halls. This is related to the national conditions of the United States, which is vast and sparsely populated, and the main consumer groups of arcade machines are teenagers in the community. They can't drive dozens of kilometers just to play a few minutes of games.

Japan also experienced an economic recession last year, but the Japanese arcade sales industry relies on professional arcade game arcades as its main market. has achieved rapid growth. Because of Japan's ultra-high population density, it is enough to support game hall owners in cities and villages to obtain a large number of tourists. Relying on the arcade hall model, Japan's arcade industry can still survive until the 21st century.

But America is different. Last year's recession took a step closer to showing the advantages of big companies in cost control. The market vacated by the closure of many community grocery stores was quickly occupied by large supermarket chains represented by Walmart.

Large-scale shopping supermarkets are blooming all over the United States, which has further overstocked the living space of small stores such as grocery stores. So although the US economy has been out of recession since the end of last year. However, the overall sales of the arcade industry have not improved much.

The reason why Dongfang Game Company can achieve dazzling performance is the excellent quality of its own games. As a result, other arcade companies are vying for food, rather than relying on the growth brought about by the expansion of the entire market. therefore. The American arcade industry may still have three to five years of prosperity, but it will inevitably decline in the end.

And once the most important market in North America is lost, arcades can only be regarded as a chicken rib for Dongfang Game Company. Although the size of the Japanese market is not small, it is still not as good as the American market. What's more, the Japanese market is far more xenophobic than the United States, and Japan itself is one of the main export destinations for arcade machines, and the competition here is also the most intense.

The profits created by arcade machines now account for half of the total profits of Oriental Games. Once this back garden is lost, the development of the Oriental Company will undoubtedly suffer a huge blow. The problem facing the management of Dongfang Game Company is to find a new profit growth point before the arcade industry declines.

Dongfang Game Company has almost achieved a complete monopoly in the field of home game consoles and handheld game consoles. The profits of Dongfang Game Company in these two fields will grow synchronously with the expansion of the market, but it will not bring breakthrough changes to the entire company.

The only ones who can really take on this important task are the computer games that are just starting to take off, and they still seem to be synonymous with roughness. You must know that computer games in later generations are the largest and most important part of the entire video game industry~www.readwn.com~ The global output value exceeds 100 billion US dollars.

The reason for the backwardness of the computer game industry is not only limited by computer performance, but also inseparable from too little capital investment. For example, Dongfang Game Company produces arcade games and has a complete set of customized computer development equipment. The investment in this part alone is as high as tens of millions of dollars.

And "Genesis", which left a glorious mark in the entire history of computer games, was originally produced using Apple's apple computer. One side is a device with tens of millions of dollars, and the other side is an Apple computer that sells for less than 2,000 dollars. The difference between the game effects produced by the two can be imagined.

More importantly, computer motherboards like arcades are specially developed for game production. In order to pack enough game content and achieve fast data storage, dozens of memory chips are densely welded on the motherboard. However, the early computer games exchanged data with the computer cpu through tapes and floppy disks with slow transmission speeds. The performance gap between the two is clear at a glance.

This is also an important reason why computer games are not valued by mainstream game manufacturers now, but Li Xuan is ready to change this situation! (To be continued...)