Top of the big era

The next day, early morning.

Mai Feixue woke up and stared at the ceiling blankly. Her mind was dizzy. She felt that everything around her was full of unrealism when she accompanied her boss on a business trip to the UK.

I thought that last night would be an anticipated and dreamy sweet get-together with the big boss. Unexpectedly, it was so sweet... It was not a space for two at all.

Ning Lu also participated.

It was after 9 o'clock in the morning, and only a few people got up and washed up.

"Mai Zi, how was your rest last night?"

During breakfast, Zhou Buqi ate a piece of bacon and expressed his concern in an easy-going manner.

Mai Feixue still couldn't be as calm as Sun Wanran and Ning Lu, and her face turned red again, "It's... not bad."

Zhou Buqi looked up at her, smiled and asked, "Excuse me? Are you shy?"

"No, it's okay."

Mai Feixue lowered her head and drank milk to cover up her embarrassment.

Zhou Buqi said sincerely: "Learn English well when you have time. If you can't even communicate with foreigners at the most basic level, how can you have more business trip opportunities in the future?"

Mai Feixue whispered: "I will study hard."

Zhou Buqi said jokingly: "I taught you how to fly in doubles last night. Next time I will teach you how to fly in threes, fours and sevens."

"Boss, you're so annoying!"

Mai Feixue was furious, her face turned red, and she almost covered her face and ran away.

However, there is also some doubt in my heart.

Is this a big shot?

Life is like climbing a mountain. After you go from the bottom of the mountain to the top, you will indeed see many different life scenery from the perspective of ordinary people.

Seeing that she still couldn't let go, Zhou Buqi stopped teasing her, and then turned to look at Sun Wanran, "Who is that from the city hall...McGret? He said he wanted to invite me to investigate the software industry in Manchester?"

Sun Wanran's English is much worse than that of Ning Lu, but it is enough for daily communication and can be used at work. "Well, I want you to invest."

"How's it going? Have you checked the information?"

Zhou Buqi's question is a bit out of line.

Fortunately, Sun Wanran withstood the test. She is not a complete vase, but has a strong subjective initiative. She chuckled and said: "I checked, it's pretty awesome. Manchester used to be an industrial city, but now it's going to transform. It only depends on football." and tourism cannot support such a big city.”

Zhou Buqi picked up a piece of bread in his hand and looked up at him, somewhat surprised, "Transforming into the technology industry?"

"Yes, it's quite impressive. I checked some information last night, and I was quite surprised. In Manchester's current industrial structure, 22% of GDP is created by the technology industry."

"which aspect?"

“It’s mainly software.”

"Well, software." Zhou Buqi understood this better. "Europe's Internet industry is lagging behind. Fortunately, intellectual property rights are well protected and there is a good foundation for the survival of the software industry."

Sun Wanran continued: "In addition to some local commercial industrial software, the main mass market is game software. Now the UK is promoting the development of the game industry from a policy level. Manchester is the second largest game city in the UK."

"Ah?" Zhou Buqi was surprised, "Is it true or false? Did you check wrongly? Why didn't I feel it at all?"

Sun Wanran said with laughter: "It's true. I checked a lot of information to support it. London is the largest game city, with 700 game studios there. Manchester is the second largest city, with only 70, which is one-tenth of London's. one."

Zhou Buqi said amusedly: "No wonder! He's a big boy among the dwarfs, no wonder he can't feel it!"

What second city?

That's because except for London, other cities in the UK are too weak. After ranking back and forth, Manchester ranks second.

Zhen Yu woke up at around 5 o'clock in the morning. She had already had breakfast. She just sat here and watched everyone eating breakfast. After hearing this, she suggested: "If Manchester wants to promote the development of the game industry, let's It’s better to be actively involved.”

"Um."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Zhen Yu pursed her lips and said: "I guess the UK is definitely populated by world-class game giants, such as EA, Blizzard, Microsoft, Konami, Ubisoft, and Changyou. If you go there, it won't be obvious."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "If Changyou focuses on the layout in Manchester, it will be the core leader in Manchester. This is the idea."

To be in the game industry, you don’t necessarily need to do research and development.

Operation, maintenance and upgrades also require a large number of talents, which will also be classified as game talents.

For example, Changyou's "DOTA2" has become popular all over the world. At the WCG World E-Sports Competition jointly organized with Samsung, the prize money for "DOTA2" has reached 1.2 million US dollars, ranking first among all games!

Where there is money, there is a market.

Countless professional players rushed in, and then led many young players to become obsessed with e-sports like fans.

However, it is not easy to operate this game.

With Changyou's current strength, it cannot even operate globally and can only choose some agents to help operate it. For example, in France, a French game publishing company is chosen to be responsible for the operation and maintenance of local players.

This is obviously not the style of the gaming giant.

Game giants like Blizzard, except for a few exclusive markets that cannot enter and can only rely on the agency model to operate, most of the country's business is directly operated. Blizzard directly opens local branches and then comes to operation.

If Blizzard only has one game, "World of Warcraft", the direct sales model is actually not good and the cost will be higher.

However, one of the biggest characteristics of the technology industry is that the larger the scale, the lower the marginal cost.

Blizzard also has many games under its umbrella.

This is a gaming giant.

In this way, Blizzard has set up branches or directly-operated studios in markets large and small to operate and maintain its own games, making the cost even lower.

It is also more conducive to data confidentiality and early perception of future market changes.

After Zhou Buqi took over Changyou, the first thing he had to do was to establish a self-operated game distribution system around the world as soon as possible, so as to be able to vertically lay out many large and small markets.

In the past, when Lao Zhang was in charge of Changyou, even with Zhou Buqi's constant guidance and advice behind him, his courage was still a bit lacking and his steps were still a bit too small.

He led Changyou and indeed acquired three game studios in the UK.

But it's still too slow.

Now is the stage of transformation of the times. It is a critical period for the early stage of mobile Internet. If this excellent entry period is wasted, the cost of waiting for a few years to plan will be too high.

Sun Wanran chose another angle and said softly: "When doing business in European and American countries, the most important thing is to create jobs, not how much GDP is created, because job opportunities largely represent the recognition and approval of the current government by the people. Votes. If Changyou’s games are operated vertically, then these jobs will be provided by Changyou. If they are represented by local game publishers, the jobs will be provided by these agencies. From a social level, The company still needs more employees.”

Zhou Buqi praised: "Well, there is progress!"

Sun Wanran was very happy when she was praised. Yanran said: "I think we should focus on the layout in Manchester, not only the operation and maintenance of the game, but also the development."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I checked. The R\u0026D game companies here in Manchester are mainly casual game software. I also checked that in the casual game software market, the UK is the third largest market in the world, second only to The United States and Japan, this is consistent with your emphasis on Baokai Game Studio!"

"Wanwan, you are getting better and better!"

Zhou Buqi praised him sincerely this time.

China is also a big market for games, but domestic piracy is so prevalent that domestic casual games can only be promoted for free and cannot create much output value.

But things are different here in Europe and America. Software can be sold for money.

Casual games are an important category in the gaming field, especially with the advent of the smartphone era, it is even more critical. The performance of early smartphones was relatively poor, and they could not play large-scale games that were too exquisite or complex. They mainly focused on casual games.

This is also the reason why Zhou Buqi wanted to acquire Baokai Game Studio no matter what.

Facts have proved that this transaction was successful enough.

At this stage, Baokai Studio already has four casual games with "billion-level" users, namely "Plants vs. Zombies", "Jewel Puzzle", "Swallowing Fish" and "Egg Ball" 》.

Casual games are timeless.

Relying on the terminal platform of smartphones, the vitality of casual mobile games is much stronger than the short-lived PC-side social games.

Sun Wanran was encouraged and became even more confident, talking: "There are many game talents in the UK, more than Germany and France combined. If you want to do game business in Europe, the most important thing is the British market. I have also seen A set of data shows that British universities can produce 30,000 game major graduates every year. There should be no shortage of talents. If there are enough good local game companies and jobs, then after graduation, these local game talents There is no need to go to the United States to work.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and praised, "Well, it has height!"

Sun Wanran was a little embarrassed by the praise, and her beautiful eyes became watery, and she was very gentle, "Even the UK faces the dilemma of brain drain every year, so the UK has launched many programs to retain creative talents in the past few years. Policy. Just like...just like "Star Wars", most of the filming and post-production are carried out in the UK. Only the top special effects production will be brought back to the United States to be produced by Industrial Light and Magic."

Lucasfilm is now a subsidiary of Ziweixing Universal. As the closest assistant to Boss Zhou, Sun Wanran usually has access to too much information, and he can draw on it at his fingertips.

"Well, the UK has better policies in the creative industry, with lower tax rates, more subsidies, a more positive environment, and a broader definition of scientific research." Zhou Buqi nodded and said jokingly, "Okay, I I was persuaded by our family Wan Wan! I will obey your arrangements!"