Video Game Empire

ps: I wish everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival! This is still the first draft, no typos have been corrected, you can read it again in half an hour!

Compared with other game platforms, the biggest advantage of handheld game consoles is its portability, which allows players to play games anytime, anywhere. △ Small, the development game mode created by "Pokémon" is actually very time-consuming for players.

Players can only gradually improve the strength of Pokémon only by leading their own treasures through battles again and again. The a handheld can maximize the scattered and fragmented time of players, and reduce the impact on daily study and work while playing games.

"The third core element of "Pokémon", add it! This is very easy to understand, that is, constantly adding game maps and new species of Pokémon to bring players a continuous fresh experience!

This is not only a major element of the game "Pokémon", but also a requirement for all the company's games! When we plan a new game project, we must have the concept of sustainable development.

Under the same conditions, the possibility of a successful sequel of a popular game is much higher than that of developing a new game. This ǎn is not only applicable to the field of games, such as the 007 series of movies.

More than 20 years have passed since the first "Dr. No" was released in 1962. But the brand still maintains a strong vitality, and it is said that the fourteenth film in this series, "Thunderbolt", will be released this year. "Li Xuan said.

For this ǎn, Dongfang Game Company has already formed a consensus. The game works produced by the company have always been strictly checked, and the quality has not reached a certain level. I would rather put it in the database to rot, and never put it on the market to make money. Until now. The games produced by Dongfang Company have never been sold in one hit, and every game can be sequel.

I want to make a game into a series. It is by no means very easy. First of all, the game must have enough sales and popularity, otherwise a sequel will only be a loss of money. Secondly, the game must have a good framework, not every game is suitable for a sequel.

This Dongfang game company has done better than most of its peers. When building a background world view for each game in the company, it will build a good framework to facilitate the follow-up connection of the plot.

For example, "The Legend of Zelda" produced by this world's Oriental Company, the full name of the game is actually "Hylar's Fantasy: The Legend of Zelda". The background main line of the game is that the Demon King Ganon wants to collect the Holy Triangle and destroy the Hailar continent. And Princess Zelda's nurse, Impa, handed over the heavy responsibility to a boy named Link. Link's mission is to collect the triangular force and defeat Ganon.

In the entire game, only fragments of Link's youth were selected. If the sales of the game are satisfactory after the game is released, you can always create a story about Link's youth when he grew up according to the pre-made outline, because the big devil, Ganon, was only defeated, not completely wiped out, so he could make a comeback.

And after the story of Calculation Link is finished, he can also tell his prequels, such as how the great devil Cannon was born and so on. The Legend of Zelda uses a Western magical background, so the project team even invited a professor of European history from CUHK as a consultant. A 10,000-year time outline is designed for the Hailar continent as the background of the story, which is enough for game developers to keep creating.

In another time and space, the entire timeline of "The Legend of Zelda" is actually very messy due to too many works. After all, when Shigeru Miyamoto created this game. It is simply impossible to think so much in advance.

Even the protagonist Link, later because there are too many works in the "Zelda" series, it is impossible for Link to live in the background of the game for hundreds or even thousands of years. Keep on completing various challenges. So Nintendo simply changed the name Link to the name of the warriors in the Hailar continent, so that the new game no longer has to stick to the previous protagonist.

And now Dongfang Games has enough support. To help Shigeru Miyamoto from the beginning, the framework of the entire story to enlarge. Leave enough space for the subsequent development of the game.

"In addition to vertical development of games, horizontal development also needs to be paid attention to! For example, in the Hollywood film industry, the box office revenue of many movie projects is less than half of the total revenue, and other revenue such as peripheral product sales and video tape revenue may be higher than the box office.

Our game products can also be extended in this regard. For example, Uncle Mario in moustache and overalls can be made into cartoon dolls and sold. Mario's portrait rights can also be widely authorized. I believe that clothing companies and food companies will have a lot of interest.

In this way, while increasing the company's revenue, it is also a promotion of our game image. When our Mario brothers, on the shirts of young people, on the schoolbags of children, in the windows of McDonald's giveaways, appear in everyone's life all the time, that is the greatest success! "As a leader of an enterprise, Li Xuan's eyes will naturally not only focus on a certain game, but will easily spread out.

Du Wenqiang nodded his head: "We have been gradually advancing the work in this area! Before, Li Sheng, you bought the game copyright of "Alien", and we made a lot of money! This time, an American film company proposed to buy "Alien" Movie rights to the King of Fighters game!"

"Oh! Which production company is it?" Li Xuan asked curiously.

In another time and space, "The King of Fighters" was indeed remade into a movie. The director was Chen Jiashang, who directed "Painted Skin", but the content disappointed Li Xuan, and it basically had nothing to do with the game.

In fact, it is not just "The King of Fighters", another famous fighting game "Street Fighter" has also been made into a movie, and there are more than one. Among them, what impressed countless post-80s generations was Wang Jing's "Super School Overlord".

"It's a Hollywood production company called Xingxing Pictures, and the offer is only $100,000! I have already refused!" Du Wenqiang shook his head and said.

When he heard that it was an unknown small company, Li Xuan's interest was immediately reduced by more than half. According to his standards, he is qualified to cooperate with the Eastern Company. Even if it is not the eight major production companies in Hollywood, at least it must be a second-tier film company that can be called a name. Team up with those cats and dogs. It is better to invest directly by Li Xuan himself.

Li Xuan continued to turn the topic back to the original "Pokémon" chat: "The last item of the four elements of the game, exchange! It is literally understood. The so-called exchange is the exchange between players. of various Pokémon.

After all, it is very difficult for a person to collect hundreds of Pokémon by himself. In particular, some of these rare species have a very low probability of appearing! This is also one of the reasons why I asked for a new generation of a-2 mainframes and needed to add networking capabilities!

To further extend the exchange factor, it can actually be defined as a kind of interactive communication. To a certain extent, the game is actually the carrier of communication between the producer and the interactive player.

Producers turn their novel ideas into games and share them with thousands of players. After collecting various feedbacks from players, the producers made corresponding changes in the production of the sequel!

And the success or failure of a game. The interaction between players actually plays a vital role. The main reason why the "King of Fighters" game was popular before was its direct confrontation mode, which inspired players to win!

As the saying goes, solo Lele is not as good as crowd Lele, so I also hope that the "Pokémon" game can be connected to the Internet through a handheld, not only for pet exchange, but for direct pet battles. Only when the battle function between players is realized, the pet development of the previous players will become more meaningful! "

Li Xuan spent a lot of words, and completely relayed his entire plan for the game "Pokémon" to Du Wenqiang, who was sitting opposite. Although he will personally participate in the planning of the game. But after all, it is impossible to put all of our energy on this matter.

Li Xuan is lazy enough now and puts all the daily operations of the group on Han Peng's head. But he still spends more than two hours a day browsing documents and signing. A giant group with assets of tens of billions of dollars and operations all over the world. Every day there is always a lot of important information, which must be reported to him, and even he himself makes a decision.

In Li Xuan's view. The game "Pokémon" will not only be the biggest attention to promote the success of a-2, but also the handheld platform of Dongfang Games. One of the most important killers to maintain its dominance in the next two or three decades.

He needs to convey his huge expectations to the management of Dongfang Game Company accurately. The "Pokémon" project should strive for excellence in addition to the production of the game. Adequate attention should also be paid to publicity and marketing.

"For a long time, there will be a huge gap in the performance of handhelds compared to arcades, home game consoles and personal computers! This makes us have to consider the strengths and avoid weaknesses when making handheld games, and concentrate on the fun of the game. The development of the game emphasizes the interactive communication of players, rather than deliberately demanding the effect of picture expression!"

Li Xuan continued to instill in Du Wenqiang the concept of handheld games of "emphasizing content over graphics".

Compared with arcade machines and home machines, the handheld business is the most low-key among the three pillars of Dongfang Game Company. But this game console is definitely the most brilliant game console ever made on this earth. After it went public in 1980, it swept the world in just half a year.

In the peak years of 1981 and 1982, the annual sales exceeded 20 million units. After that, as the market became increasingly saturated, the sales of a began to gradually decline, but the monthly shipments can still maintain more than 1.2 million units. .

The total historical sales volume of a has almost exceeded 80 million, which is twice that of Dongfang Game Company's other star product, the home video game console. And within two years, it's sure to be the first game console on the planet to sell more than 100 million units.

Although this is not unrelated to the a's low price of $25 (one-eighth of the game console), there is no denying that the a is an excellent product.

The hot sale of a has also made many companies realize the huge potential of the handheld game console market. In particular, Japanese LCD companies such as Casio, Sharp, and Epson all want to enter this industry where the technical threshold is not high.

It's just that the various handheld game consoles developed by these companies have never been able to shake the monopoly of a. The success or failure of a game console ultimately depends on whether the games that run it can win the favor of players.

From the very beginning, relying on a variety of classic games such as "Hong Kong Cube", "Tank War", "Snake", etc., it has firmly caught the attention of players. Later, on the basis of continuously producing high-quality games, Dongfang Company opened the platform to third-party game companies, almost occupying all high-quality game content, making it difficult for other handheld platforms to have enough good games to compete with a. .

"Although the sales of a are good, its profit is a little low! A-2 will take over early, so as to boost the morale of the handheld business department!" Du Wenqiang said with a smile.

"The human heart is not enough to swallow an elephant, and the ancients do not deceive me! You can have a pre-tax profit of 20 million US dollars a month, but you still think the profit is too low! Other bosses in Hong Kong have to spit you to death!" Li Xuan scolded with a smile.

When a first went on sale, in order to beat Nintendo's aa, the retail price was set at $20. Later, when a almost monopolized the market, it gradually raised the retail price to $25.

However, after the production of a has been continuously compressed, it is still as high as $9. In order to leave enough profit for the sellers, Dongfang Game Company distributes it at a price of 12 US dollars per unit~www.readwn.com~. That is to say, the gross profit of each handheld is only 3 US dollars, which is naturally far from the profit of an arcade machine of seven or eight hundred US dollars.

As for the a-2, which has greatly improved its configuration, it is conceivable that the price will also rise sharply. Even if the current profit margin remains unchanged, the profit of a single game console will definitely increase significantly!

"Li Sheng, I'm just a wage earner, you are the boss of the company, okay!" Du Wenqiang gave Li Xuan a helpless look and said.

Li Xuan chuckled, not all the money earned by the game company finally went into his pocket, and he seemed to have the least position to say such a thing.

The "Pokémon" project quickly passed the approval of Dongfang Games. Just when many people in the company were gearing up to fight for the dominance of this project, Tajiri Tomo has quietly taken the position of the main creator into the bag.

In fact, it doesn't mean that Tajirizhi's ideas are excellent. When he was interviewing with Li Xuan, he even listened to Li Xuan most of the time, and then kept his head. In fact, the whole game already has a general framework. Li Xuan's choice of him may be more influenced by his previous life. After all, this is Tajiri Zhi, and "Pokémon" originally belonged to him! (To be continued..)