Video Game Empire

In another time and space, "Sim City", which was launched in 198-9, can be said to be the originator of simulation business games. The entire SimCity franchise, and later The Sims franchise, has been a top-selling game in the United States.

The main content of "Simulated City" is that the player serves as the mayor, planning and developing a city freely from scratch. Whether it is residential, commercial and industrial land, or the construction of various facilities such as roads, railways, police and fire stations, and even the distribution of taxes and various public facilities expenditures, players need to design themselves.

Watching a barren land turn into a metropolis full of high-rise buildings under your own planning, with airports, ports, subways and other facilities, this kind of exciting satisfaction is the biggest playable thing this game brings to players. place.

Of course, the upcoming "Simulated City 1987" still has many shortcomings in the eyes of Li Xuan. Its pictures are all inflexible 2D technology, even if the player builds the world's tallest skyscraper for his city, it can't really reflect its majesty on the flat map!

Moreover, the gameplay of this first-generation version of “Simulated City” is relatively simple. In fact, the player is cyclically carrying out the four steps of planning, construction, expansion, and management, and the complexity is not high enough. In Li Xuan's own memory of "Sim City", as the mayor, even if he chopped down a few more trees, environmental groups would protest.

Of course, these more complex and interesting gameplay can be slowly introduced in subsequent versions. With a novel perspective that "SimCity 1987" has never had before, it is enough to make a lot of money in the current game market. And when players get bored, it's time to launch a new version of the game!

To learn to run the water. Instead of taking out all the good things at once, this is the way capitalists make money. certainly. The development level of game software is actually closely related to the progress of hardware technology.

With the current mainstream -5 computer configuration level. If the city screen of "Simulated City" directly opens the 3D effect, and can use the three-dimensional perspective to show the city's skyline, it is estimated that the computer will crash directly in an instant.

Aikon's next-generation personal computer-6, which will be launched next year, uses the erm-3 processor, and its performance will be much higher than the current erm-2. Maybe there is a chance to make the "Simulated City" picture more gorgeous. .

However, the "Sim City 1987" game is not going to be released until the -6 computer comes out, but is still developed according to the -5 hardware standard. Because the popularity of new computers takes time, taking the previous -5 as an example, it took nearly two years to replace the -3. It has become the mainstream configuration of the personal computer industry. But -3 and even older -2 and -1 actually still have a lot of room for survival.

So -6 became the workhorse of PCs, probably in the 1990s. Although Dongfang Game Company also has benchmark projects like "The Lord of the Rings", it is directly aimed at the latest and highest-end configuration, and even has the ambition to accelerate the upgrading of computers.

But the risks faced by this approach are actually very high! Taking "The Lord of the Rings" as an example, the total investment of Dongfang Games in this game is as high as 15 million US dollars. If the ex-factory price of each game copy is US$30, at least 500,000 copies of the game need to be sold to recover the cost.

If the sales target of 500,000 copies is placed in the 21st century. Naturally a very easy number. But in the 1980s, when computer games were just beginning to rise, that wasn't an easy goal to achieve. In particular, "The Lord of the Rings" has too high requirements on the configuration of the computer in order to ensure the sophistication of the game effect.

These -3 and -5 on the market are unable to OEM games, and I have given up a large piece of the target market with myself! Only the next -6 computers listed. have enough power to run the game. That is to say, if existing computer players want to experience the excitement of the "Lord of the Rings" game next year, they must first buy an expensive -6 computer. This is for the Lord of the Rings game. Definitely a big challenge!

So one or two game projects like "The Lord of the Rings" are enough to highlight Dongfang Game Company. As the world's most famous game company's high force! If every project is done like this, even Dongyou Company can't bear it!

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After more than a minute of buffering. The game on the new web page that was opened in the selection has finally been downloaded. This kind of online small game in the AOL community is actually downloading the game data to your computer first, and then you can start the trial play. In fact, it is the online game of later generations, and there is not much data that really needs to be transmitted online in real time.

For example, data such as maps, characters, and background music are actually retrieved from the client installed on the computer. Therefore, the more sophisticated the game, the larger the client installation package. The installation package in the era of 2D online games is usually only a few hundred meters, but in the era of 3D, it directly becomes a few grams!

This online mini game opened by Li Xuan is also called "Simulated City". This is supposed to be part of a promotion for the upcoming release of SimCity 1987 on the US Online community by Dongyou Company!

Of course, the size of the game package of "Simulated City 1987" is 5.8m, while the small game of the same name in the AOL community is only a few hundred kilograms. Naturally, the two are not on the same level at all. But Li Xuan only found out after playing for a while that the gameplay of this small game is indeed similar to the "Simulated City 1987" that he first experienced not long ago.

After closing the mini-game webpage, Li Xuan manipulated the mouse to enter the chat room of the AOL community. According to Derek Owen of the previous company, this online chat room is now the biggest highlight of the American online community.

After all, if users want to browse the news, they don't need to go online at all. All they have to do is turn on the TV, the three PBS, cbs and . A large amount of global information is broadcast every day, and there are channels such as n that broadcast news 24 hours a day. In fact, the company does not have its own news-gathering department. All information on the AOL community, purchased from broadcasters!

And if the user wants to book air tickets, hotels and other services. In fact, you don't necessarily need to be online. You can achieve these goals without leaving home by phone. Of course, AOL also has its own advantages. For example, it can get a lot of discounted tickets by negotiating with airlines.

Users only need to input their own itinerary on the computer, and they can see the ticket information of all airlines at a glance, so as to make the most favorable choice for themselves. And you can't call the booking hotline of dozens of airlines, and then make a ticket purchase choice!

But AOL also has its own weaknesses, such as its online payment system is far from perfect. Although the company has developed a paypal online payment system, most banks in the United States have not yet recognized its security.

By comparison. Online chat rooms have instead become the most popular section of the American online community. Because of the emergence of online chat rooms, the boundaries of space are broken and a new way of interaction is provided for everyone.

We also have the opportunity to discuss issues of common interest with new friends from all over the United States without leaving home. And compared to the popular bbs and newsgroups, online chat rooms are more real-time and interactive.

AOL's chat room now has an average online number of 15,000 people, and the highest number of people online is as high as 312,000. The entire chat room section is divided into two parts, public chat room and private chat room.

The maximum number of people in each public chat room is 100. If the number is full, then the paid premium members have priority access and can squeeze out the free regular members. The private chat from the first to the third level, respectively, can accommodate 50 people, 100 and 200 people. But only for premium members. Only have the right to create your own private chat room.

Every night during the peak Internet access period, AOL's chat room is always very lively. In particular, many hot topic rooms are often full, and the advantages of senior members are reflected at this time. They can squeeze in unrestrictedly to chat. Ordinary members can only stare outside, even if they are already participating in the chat. There is also the danger of being squeezed out at any time!

Does this trick feel very familiar? That's right, Li Xuan learned it from the "Twisted Vine" of the Penguin Empire. After the online chat room was developed. Li Xuan sent a creative copy to the company. But he then forgot about it. Unexpectedly, Derek Owen immediately understood the essence of the operation of the penguin empire in another time and space from his creativity, and did everything possible to make money!

Although AOL's free ordinary members can enjoy most of the basic services in the virtual community, paid members enjoy more preferential treatment. Owen and the company's technical team encourage and guide ordinary users to become paid members by distinguishing different user experiences.

For example, in the game area of ​​AOL, the number of online games that paid members can try out is double that of ordinary members. And even the rights of paid members have been divided into many levels by companies that fall into the eyes of money! This is most evident in the most popular online chat rooms.

For example, a general senior member can only build 3 private chat rooms with a maximum online number of 50 people. And if you want to build more chat rooms, then you need to pay additional fees. Or if you want to increase the upper limit of the number of simultaneous online users in a private chat room to 100 or even 200 people, you will also need to pay additional fees!

Are there really so many people willing to pay extra to open their own chat rooms? The just-concluded 85th mlb world competition undoubtedly gave the best answer!

MLB is the abbreviation of Major League Baseball. It and NFL (Major Football League) are more popular in the United States than the NBA, which is well known to Chinese people. The World Series is the year-end finals of the mlb season.

Every year, the MLB World Series is a best-of-seven game, and the two teams competing for the championship this year, the Minnesota Twins and the Louis Cardinals, have been evenly matched. After the two sides tied three to three in the first six games, when the seventh game, which finally decided the outcome, started, the AOL community specially opened 50 special chat rooms that can accommodate 200 people.

As a result, these 50 chat rooms were all full, and almost all those who could squeeze in and chat were paid premium members. In addition, there are as many as 779 private chat rooms about this championship battle!

In order to participate in the chat, more than 10,000 users specially upgraded to premium members on the day. You must know that the annual fee for a premium membership of the AOL community is as high as $150, which means that the company has brought in $1.5 million in revenue in one day.

Of course, that's mainly because online chat rooms provide fans with a new way to communicate with like-minded friends across the country without leaving their homes. After all, the more people watching the game, the more interesting it is, but not everyone can gather a bunch of friends to watch the game together, so it has become a new choice to have fun with other people online!

With this year's World Series, the company invested $1 million in advertising just to promote its AOL community. And the money was well spent, as AOL registered an increase of nearly 100,000 subscribers during the World Series alone. Even users of many other online service companies are starting to know about the AOL community where they can sign up for free and become a part of the AOL virtual community!

Of course, the reason why the company's competitors, such as computer service companies, are far behind the company is that they are not as willing to burn money as companies. Exchanging a lot of money for traffic and data is the first thing Yahoo!

In the 1980s, the company's approach was a bit too aggressive. But from the perspective of Li Xuan's reincarnation, this part of the investment is actually completely worthwhile. The company now holds the "AOL Community" and "Navigator" browsers, which has actually occupied the commanding heights of the future Internet era.

For example, the information section of America Online can be transformed into a portal website next. And paypal can be developed into an online payment system, and now the online chat room can evolve into an online communication software in the future. And other businesses such as online shopping, search, group buying, etc., with the help of AOL's huge user base, it will become easier to succeed!

Li Xuan spent an hour carefully exploring the "AOL Community" and "Navigator" browser~www.readwn.com~ and basically found out the company's development status. For the development of the company, apart from providing some creative copywriting, he did not have too much direct intervention.

However, the development speed of the company still made him quite satisfied. As for the huge loss of the company, it was not an unacceptable thing for Li Xuan. In fact, after the company completed the latest valuation, he has prepared for Derek Owen, and another new fund of up to 100 million US dollars, which is enough for the next stage of the process company's cash-burning operation.

Before the commercialization of the Internet, Li Xuan did not intend to make money from the company at all! Therefore, when he went to the company to inspect the company in person the next day, he was more to cheer up the management team, let everyone give full play to their imagination and creativity, and expand the value that the Internet can realize! (To be continued.)

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