Top of the big era

If you want to persuade others to do something, talking about lotus is just the last step. The most important thing is to be profit-driven, to be able to think from other people's perspective, to find and solve problems from the other person's perspective.

Zhou Buqi wants to solve the copyright problem of "Spider-Man". What he wants to do is to discover the current difficulties Sony is encountering, and then use Ziweixing's resources to help solve the problem, reach strategic cooperation between the two parties, and complete the transaction.

The same goes for Tang Binchen. He wanted to persuade Boss Zhou to enter the game and play games, so he had done enough homework. He knew that the big boss’s recent focus was Ziweixing Global, so he would look for a breakthrough from here.

Seeing that the big boss's interest was aroused, Tang Binchen said eloquently: "Among film and television works, a large category is game adaptations. I checked it and found that among the theater movies that have been released by Hollywood, game adaptations are There are dozens of movies. "Super Mario Bros." in 1993, "Street Fighter" in 1994, "King of Fighters" in 1995, "Iron Wing Commander" in 1999, "Street Fighter" in 2000 "Dungeons and Dragons", "Tomb Raider" in 2001, "Resident Evil" in 2002, "House of the Dead" in 2003, there are a lot of them."

Zhou Buqi was amused by him, "You have a very good memory!"

Tang Binchen smiled and said, "Actually, there are some, such as "Final Fantasy", "Detective Pikachu" and "Monster Mayhem", which are also available in China. "Legend of Sword and Fairy" has also been adapted into a TV series, which is very popular."

Zhou Buqi didn't expect to bring the topic to movies, which was quite interesting. "Movies adapted from games don't seem to do well at the box office."

Tang Binchen said: "That's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with the movie."

"You know it well?"

"I don't understand movies, but I know data analysis. I specifically checked the ratings of these movies on IMDB, and then I can calculate that the ratings of those movies that are not blockbuster are very low. It is because the movies themselves are not made well enough, so the result is It didn’t do well at the box office.”

"Yeah?"

Zhou Buqi has never done any investigation and feels he has no right to speak.

Tang Binchen continued: "Not only does the game adaptation not lose points, but it is a bonus. Many movies with very low IMDB scores, such as "Max Payne" released last year, only had an IMDB score of 5, with a production cost of US$35 million and a box office 85 million U.S. dollars. IMDB’s full score is 10 points, but in fact all passing works, game adaptation movies with a score of more than 6 points, have achieved great success, which is much lower than the starting point of non-game adaptation movies. For example, "Bionicle" "Crisis" series, as well as "Tomb Raider" and "Silent Hill" released a few years ago. The year before last, "Ya Dragon" had a rating of 6.3, a production cost of US$20 million, and a box office of US$100 million. It was also a huge success. "

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "It seems you have worked hard."

Tang Binchen said: "I also have a statistic, which is that the games with the strongest brands all appeared in the period of industry change. For example, in the Famicom era, there were "Super Mario" and "Street Fighter"; for example, in the handheld era, There were "Tetris" and "Monster Hunter"; in the early days of computer games, there were "Red Alert", "Need for Speed" and "Warcraft". In the early days of online games... if you look at the domestic "Legends", they are still playing over and over again. Selling feelings over and over again."

Zhou Buqi understood what he meant, "Well, now is also a period of industry change."

Tang Binchen said: "Yes, that's what you said, it's the mobile Internet. The situation in Japan is enough to illustrate the problem. I made "Happy Farm" a mobile game and pushed it to the iOS side, which immediately exploded the market. I analyzed After a while, there are probably three reasons."

"explain."

"First, the competitors are very weak. Traditional Internet giants and game giants are developing on the PC side, and they have not entered the market. Those who have entered the market are individual developers and small start-up companies, and they even lack funds. Only a paid version can be launched. However, Ziweixing can rely on its strong financial resources to promote a fully free version and quickly expand the market. "My Farm" has only been online for one month, and it has already dominated the desktops of Japanese iPhone users. I guess it will give me more In 2-3 months, I think My Farm will be installed in 85ne."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Even white-collar workers, professors, politicians, celebrities, and entrepreneurs will play this kind of casual game occasionally. This is the biggest difference from large-scale games."

Tang Binchen was very happy to see that he had followed his idea, "Yes, lightweight casual games have a wider audience and are suitable for every user group. It is easy to build a brand, just like "Super Mario" That way.”

"What about the second one?"

"The second is the quality of the games. The competitors are very weak. Even if they make free games, the quality is very poor. Ziweixing can keep improving and create high-quality games to dominate the early stage of the mobile Internet revolution and create a number of products with great coverage. A wide range of games to carry out multi-channel brand development.”

"Well, is there anything else?"

“Third, it’s game inertia.”

"Oh?" Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows, "What do you mean?"

Tang Binchen said with a smile: "This has something to do with you. The concept of social games was proposed by you. From "Grab a Parking Space" to "Happy Farm", Japan has also learned from it. There are many social games on Ameba, among which Including farm games. Users have played the web version of the game before, and it naturally continued to the mobile version."

Zhou Buqi asked: "Are the gameplay the same?"

Tang Binchen said: "It's not the same, but it doesn't matter. This is a model. "My Farm" is adapted from "Farm Player" that Ameba came to visit. I entrusted the development to the team of Ziweixing International Department in Shanghai Magic City. Ameba has a live product that is very popular in the market. It cannot be copied exactly, but the details of the gameplay can be learned from it. This makes development very easy, and the most difficult cultural differences are overcome."

No matter how poor the performance of today's smartphones are, the mobile games they can run are more complex than the social games on the web.

In other words, when designing mobile games, you can refer to the most popular social games and adapt them to create inertia in the gameplay, allowing players to easily get started without any barriers. At the same time, you can take advantage of independent apps to enrich the texture and gameplay of the game to a certain extent.

The logic of an attractive and appealing casual mobile game has been established. As long as the game is well-made and operated for free, it will be easy to succeed.

In fact, it is the idea of ​​​​"overtaking on a curve" that is often said in China.

Tang Binchen said: "The most difficult thing about making games is the creativity and gameplay design, but web social games have been around for several years. The track on the web is obviously homogeneous, but the mobile game market for smartphones is still blank. Who will enter first? , whoever has a chance."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "You can find inspiration from Facebook's open platform."

"Yes, the more complex the game, the smaller the audience, and the more simple the game, the wider the audience. Casual games have a low threshold and are suitable for both men and women, all ages, and are the easiest to build a strong game brand."

"This is the right direction."

"Again, casual games will not overly immerse players like large-scale games. They will have more casual and puzzle attributes and will not have any negative impact on society. They will not destroy the value system you have established for Ziweixing. I think you can think about it a little more, and really, now is a great time to get in.”

"Don't think about it!"

Zhou Buqi waved his hand.

Tang Binchen knew from his expression that the matter was mostly done, so he said excitedly: "Is the plan feasible?"

Zhou Buqi said decisively: "That's it, Ziweixing will officially enter the casual game market. This is a strategic continuation of the social games on Friends.com and extended to smartphones!"

At this time, he suddenly remembered that this kid seemed to be a gamer.

At that time, Tang Binchen was not the first group of people to join Ziweixing. He was a graduate student at Beihang University.

After Zhou Buqi invited him many times, he finally agreed to work part-time. His first job was to join the game group at Friends.com, where he was responsible for the development of "Slave Trading" and "Grab a Parking Space".

Because the game development was very successful, it attracted Zhang Yiming's attention.

Later, Tang Binchen also felt that going to school was not interesting and the instructor's level was not as good as his own, so he dropped out of school and officially joined Ziweixing, and then he rose through the ranks.

Tang Binchen said: "If you want to do this business, you must focus on Japan. In terms of the number of world-class game brands, the whole world combined is not as good as Japan. 70% of the game movies adapted in the past came from Japanese games. There are too many Famous game companies, Nintendo, SNK, Sega, Capcom, Sony, Konami, there are a lot of them.”

Zhou Buqi doesn't think so, "Times have changed, and Japan has fallen out of step with the world trend. Let's do this. Ziweixing International will set up a new business group, the game business group. You will also serve as the president of the business group and be in charge of China, Japan and South Korea. The Asian market. Set up another center in the United States, set up a co-president, and focus on developing the European and American markets. You are right, now is the pioneering period of the mobile Internet era, and both iOS and Android systems are completely blank. For smartphone users, there is a lack of high-quality games and playability. Now is the best time to enter the market, and it can easily occupy users' mobile desktops."

"Where's the Symbian system? Where's the Microsoft system?"

"It's not important. The focus is on Google and Apple. These two giants are the leaders of the mobile Internet. Do you know what is the biggest difference between doing PC business and doing mobile phone business?"

"You come and teach me."

Tang Binchen actually had some ideas in his mind, but he was still willing to learn with an open mind. This is a new product of the new era, and we still have to trust the judgment of Boss Zhou.

Zhou Buqi said: "It's a change in the way of driving traffic. On a computer, it's very easy to drain traffic. You can jump between websites at will. Apps on mobile phones can't do this. Every time the traffic jumps, a large amount of traffic will be lost." users. So in the mobile Internet era, the ultimate goal is to occupy the smartphone desktop. The more you occupy, the more advantage you will have."

Tang Binchen smiled and said: "I know, haha. I have thoroughly understood the Japanese market. The domestic market is the base camp, so it is not a problem. Even the Korean market is under control. If you ask me, the world-class casual games launched by Ziweixing, It's most likely from Asia."

Zhou Buqi half-smiled, "So confident?"

"Well……"

When Tang Binchen saw his strange expression, he knew that the situation was not good.

Zhou Buqi said: "There are many good casual game companies in the United States. I will go back and inquire about them and acquire several good game studios. As you said, it is much more difficult to do business in the American market than in Asia. You can't Start from scratch.”