Top of the big era

For the "Ziwei Galaxy" industry, London is definitely the most important place. The European headquarters of companies such as Ziwei Star International, Chaowan Commune, Spotify, Netflix, Changyou, and Ziwei Star Global are all in London.

However, the gaming industry is different from the Internet industry in the conventional sense.

The operating model of game companies is different. It is a studio system and will be flatter.

Generally speaking, the headquarters of a game company is the administrative center and operations center.

Then, below are dozens or hundreds of game studios distributed around the world. If it's an operating studio, it's fine. It will follow the arrangements of the headquarters and coordinate the allocation of some resources.

The R\u0026D studio is different.

Game studios of this type generally operate independently and have great autonomy.

This is a creative work, and the big leaders at the headquarters cannot interfere casually.

It's like Universal Pictures is going to make a movie.

How the movie is shot is decided by the "studio" of the crew, and negotiated by the producers, directors, and screenwriters. It is impossible for the chairman or president of Universal Pictures to just come up and start dictating.

It's okay to make suggestions occasionally. If the president of the company guides them on how to make a movie and how to design a plot, then the movie will definitely fail.

This is the particularity of the creative industry.

We must give creative talents great freedom and give them great respect.

After the game development studio has produced the game and has passed the approval and is waiting for release... this will be different. At this time, the game will enter the operation phase. This is no longer a creative industry, and the studio will have no autonomy. We must follow the overall arrangements of the headquarters and allocate group resources in stages.

Zhou Buqi and his team walked around Manchester and investigated a total of 5 local game studios. They felt very good.

All we make are games for the local market.

The largest family has 150 people and annual revenue of 83 million pounds; the smallest family has only 7 people and annual revenue of 820,000 pounds.

Zhou Buqi had never heard of those local games. After watching them play for a while, he found them quite interesting, especially a boxing-type game software with annual sales of more than 40 million pounds.

Go home in the evening.

Swim first and relax.

Accompanying her are four mermaids, Zhen Yu, Sun Wanran, Ning Lu and Mai Feixue.

After swimming around, everyone went ashore.

We talked about the local layout of the gaming industry.

"Are you really coming to Manchester?"

Zhen Yu is very concerned about this decision.

Zhou Buqi sat on the recliner and turned to look at her, "What's wrong? Will it affect you?"

Zhen Yu said with a smile: "The new plan of the Manchester United Hotel. If Changyou will arrange it here, it means that in addition to Manchester United, you also have a relatively important industry here. When the time comes, you can set up an office area on the top floor of the hotel. , and then arrange it in the living area, it’s justifiable. People from Manchester United can’t say much.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "You are really cautious. I am the great savior of Manchester United. They don't even have time to thank me! Running Manchester United is actually the easiest. As long as you have good results and care about the fans, you can do whatever you want. They are not like listed companies. Shareholders are so picky. It’s like evaluating a woman, one thing covering up all the bad things.”

Mai Feixue had just been hired and was still in the new period. She was squeezed into a recliner next to Boss Zhou. When she heard this, she opened her eyes wide and asked curiously: "Boss, do you like white girls?" ?"

"I don't like it." Zhou Buqi said simply, "It's not interesting."

"oh……"

Mai Feixue twitched the corner of her mouth and looked strange.

If it were just the words "dislike", she wouldn't be able to hear anything, but the big boss later added "it doesn't mean anything", which revealed a lot more information.

It seems that the big boss is indeed a well-educated woman who has seen a lot.

Here, Zhou Buqi confirmed Senior Sister Zhen Yu's guess, "Well, Changyou can set up a layout in Manchester, mainly as a research and development studio."

Zhen Yu blinked, "Is it risky?"

"As long as it's research and development, there are bound to be risks." Zhou Buqi is relatively relaxed about this. "If you want to succeed in research and development, whether it's a high-end technology, a game, or a movie, it's not easy. Fortunately, I have the management skills to manage it." MSI Global’s experience.”

Zhen Yu chuckled and said, "Are movies and games similar?"

"Well, it's very similar. Movies are a creative industry, but Hollywood blockbusters can also follow their footsteps. I pointed out a few directions for Ziweixing Global, such as inertia, popcorn, special effects, and family fun. Creativity in the game industry, You can also find an industrial model of this kind."

Zhou Buqi has already thought about it. Next, Changyou will buy more localized game studios all over the world.

Because this kind of studio only caters to the local market, the prices are extremely low. In addition, now is the trough period of the global game industry, so the prices are even lower. And doing well locally shows that the creativity is very good.

Next, Changyou only needs to industrialize this idea.

Just "copy" some localized ideas to other parts of the world. The game "Genshin Impact" that became popular in China in later generations was actually a domestically developed mobile game of "Stitch Monster" born under this kind of thinking.

The same goes for many female online novels. At first glance, they look so wonderfully written. After investigation, it was found that he was suspected of plagiarizing dozens of novels, taking the best from dozens of novels, and then integrating them into his own novel.

Gather the strengths of thousands of families!

Then, the novel became awesome, became popular, and became a TV series that became popular all over the country.

As long as the copyright factor is stripped out, this is actually a very good creative production model that can be industrialized.

An author's energy is limited. Even if he plagiarizes, how can he copy so many books? In fact, behind the scenes, many people read the book together to find the essence, made summaries, and then worked together to stitch it together.

This idea is a very effective way of creating creativity that was born in the domestic creatively barren environment.

Foreigners must not understand.

As soon as "Genshin Impact" came out, foreigners also fell into collective despair.

Applying this method to Changyou will be enough to kill everyone overseas.

Sun Wanran seemed to be very interested and said with a smile: "Then tell me, how many of them can you teach us?"

"What's there to teach..." Zhou Buqi actually didn't want to say too much, but when he saw Sun Wanran pouting, he immediately changed his words, "Okay, then I'll just talk about whatever comes to my mind. ”

Sun Wanran smiled sweetly, "Okay! Maizi, stop pestering your boss, sit up and listen to the class!"

"oh."

Mai Feixue first adjusted her swimsuit to cover up her beauty, then got up from the big boss's arms and sat on the side, looking very curious.

Zhou Buqi said slowly: "The game industry seems to be the Internet industry and is run by Internet companies. In fact, the business model and philosophy are completely different."

Sun Wanran pursed her lips and said, "That's not accurate. Game companies like Ninetowns that only act as agents are based on the Internet model. However, R\u0026D game companies have different ideas, very similar to movie companies."

"Huh?" Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows, somewhat surprised, "Awesome!"

Sun Wanran laughed, very proud.

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, game development is very similar to movie development. Just like Universal Pictures. Every year, Universal Pictures launches about 25 movie projects. Each movie project is equivalent to a 'game job' The studio' has great autonomy. After the film is shot, it enters many links such as publicity, distribution, screening, peripheral copyright operations, derivatives development, etc. These links basically have nothing to do with the director and actors. It is done by a professional operation team. Directors and actors will look for inspiration and start new film projects."

Sun Wanran nodded lightly, "But the game still needs subsequent upgrades, updates and revisions."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Those are all details, there is no difference in the big picture. Especially for casual games, we always have to constantly introduce new ones. After the development team develops a game, one person from the development team remains The small team is responsible for subsequent upgrades, updates, and revisions of the game, and then hands the game over to the operations team. The main force of the development team will then change direction and develop new games."

Sun Wanran frowned slightly, "How can we explain the special nature of the game industry?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Normally speaking, the more concentrated resources are, the easier it is to deploy and the lower the cost. Therefore, there is a common phenomenon in the Internet industry, which is to survive in clusters. This includes Hollywood, where film companies cluster together. Resources are easier to integrate. When operating a product, the more concentrated the industry is, the lower the difficulty of operation, the easier it is to solve difficulties, the higher the efficiency and the lower the cost."

Sun Wanran thought it made sense.

But I can't tell why.

It was Senior Sister Zhen Yu who was more interested in gaming, and said with a chuckle: "For products in the Internet industry, between R\u0026D and operations, subsequent operations are more important. For products in the game industry, between R\u0026D and operations, R\u0026D is more important. The essence of the Internet is In industries where industry resources are integrated and operated, in many cases, even if they are not innovative enough, they can still rely on their strong resource integration capabilities to launch products. Games are different. The core is R\u0026D and creativity, just like movies."

"Right, that is it."

Sun Wanran suddenly realized.

Zhou Buqi concluded: "So, operations require resource integration and industry concentration. Therefore, Changyou's operation center must be located in London. But there is no mandatory requirement for R\u0026D studios. They should be located in Manchester, Liverpool, and Derbyshire. , Scotland, or even a few more R\u0026D studios in the UK."

Ren Yuxin once said that the Penguin game business he leads has 10 R\u0026D studios in China, distributed in 10 different cities.

It doesn’t have to be Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Because the game industry is not a high-tech industry, it is a creative industry.

High-tech talents gather in big cities, but game development is mainly about creativity. Just recruit some second- and third-rate technicians and develop according to creativity.

In other words, second- and third-tier cities can also develop top-notch games.

Therefore, to build an Internet company, you must move to big cities. Not only are there many high-tech talents, but the key is dense industries, resource integration, and lower operating costs.

Game development is no longer necessary.

Going to Manchester is even better than going to London.

Because the salary standards in Manchester are lower, the labor costs of setting up a game studio in Manchester will be lower than in London.