Rebirth of the big era of online games

Chapter 402 Sniper "World of Warcraft"

Although the game "Toilet Lock" is known as the most cheating game in history, with the most brain holes and the most routines, in fact, except for the strong response in the first few months, it eventually became a little-known game. Or it was just a small episode, and it didn't get its due place in the history of games.

Because the players who have been tricked voted with their feet, the rating of this game has always remained below 2.0. Those players who want to download the game experience later, see the game comment area, all are "strongly not recommended", So PASS directly.

And the few players who entered the pit, because the game strategy has been written out, so the challenge is not difficult, and they can't experience the pain and helplessness of the first batch of players, which greatly reduces the fun of the game.

This is the case with routines and stalks, which can only be used once. If you know the routines and stalks, those who have played it will not play it a second time. If you have not played it before, because you have mentally prepared in advance, the effect will be greatly reduced. Even after reading the strategy, you will not play it again. Not interested in playing anymore.

The core selling point of the game "Toilet Lock" is to play routines, so it is destined not to have a strong user stickiness, and it will not be praised as a god like "War of Mine". The meaning of its existence may at best just prove Fang Jie, the game master, once made an irrational and willful act.

Of course, to say how much Fang Jie attaches importance to this game, how much he values ​​the feedback from players, or how much he cares about the effect of revenge is not enough.

After patching together the game, he was busy with other things, and the rest was Jiang Taigong who took the bait. He has so many things to do every day, so there is no need to stare at the players' reactions pettishly. At this time, it is better to find a few games to have a good time.

Like Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

At the end of August, "World of Warcraft" was officially open for testing, but it was only on the North American server, and the national server will have to wait until next year.

Of course, this game must be experienced in advance!
But for Fang Jie, it's more about experience than nostalgia.

In his previous life, Fang Jie had been playing on the North American server for more than half a year before the national server went public. It was also his first venture. He opened a game studio and hired more than 20 young people to work in two shifts. Serving bricks in North America, made the first pot of gold in life.

I remember when I saw the game "World of Warcraft" for the first time, Fang Jie felt astonished at the time. There is such a 3D magic game in the world, such a huge game world view, and such a seamless map. Game production technology, there is such a smooth and innovative game operation design, unexpectedly...

In short, "World of Warcraft" is definitely a great milestone in the game, whether it is in the history of the game or in his mind!
For a while, he even believed that since "World of Warcraft", there are no more classic large-scale online games, at least there are no large-scale MMORPG online games worth playing. "World of Warcraft" represents the pinnacle of MMORPG games, Since then, this kind of game has gone downhill all over the world.

Although there were also large-scale MMORPG online games such as "Nine Yin Scriptures", "Jian Wang San", "The Great Navigation Era", "Naishuihan"...but in addition to "Nine Yin Scriptures", other MMORPGs did not How many innovations, it is more like a copycat "World of Warcraft" with a different skin, it is not worth playing.

In fact, after the launch of the national server of "World of Warcraft", there will indeed be no 3D MMORPG games that can compete with it for many years to come, basically "World of Warcraft" is the only one.

As I said before, if you go to an Internet cafe to see which game is the most popular in a certain period, you will know. In the past, most people in Internet cafes played "Legend" and "Miracle", but later almost all of them were "World of Warcraft". , and after "World of Warcraft", it is the game of eating chicken and pushing towers.

This represents a kind of game status. Of course, on the other hand, it also represents a kind of monopoly, which squeezes the space for innovation.

For example, under the operation of capital, the games of eating chicken and pushing towers have been monopolized for too long. Many good games either failed to succeed, or were acquired and then shelved and finally disappeared, so that in the previous life, there were very few such empty streets in China. The popular game appeared, forcing players to search for games on steam.

Before Fang Jie's rebirth, the game economy was already in a sharp decline, and the profit growth rate of major manufacturers in 2021 will drop sharply.

After all, the games on the market are still the same ones, whether it is eating chicken or pushing towers, whether it is "Dream", "EVE", "Jianwang III", or even various versions of "Legend" private servers, all of them are very popular. The old games that have been played for many years are all refurbished. They are similar to the variety shows of those brothers and sisters in the entertainment industry.

Even if the games on the STEAM platform were taken into account in his previous life, for a high-level player like him, he would find that there are very few games that are really worth playing. Most of the time, he would find some independent games to pass the boring time, and then soon I feel bored again, and finally I can only entertain myself by writing game novels...

Not only the game economy, but the Internet economy has also declined sharply. The number of Internet users in the country has reached 11 billion. The demographic dividend and traffic economy are coming to an end. vegetable.

Fortunately, the foreign Facebook changed its name and took the lead in talking about the concept of "Metaverse", so domestic Internet companies have another target to copy, and they also started to talk about "Metaverse".

Metaverse... Isn't this the virtual reality technology mentioned N years ago?

Could it be that changing a vest makes it different and taller?
Fang Jie wanted to say that the "Online Game: The Legend of Jin Yong Qixia" written by him more than ten years ago told stories in virtual reality online games. Among them, there are not only single, double, and five rows, but even tens of thousands of rows!
More than ten years later, you are fooling around with me now, are you stupid, or am I stupid?
Or, maybe you think someone must be more stupid than you?
Well, that's true...

In short, in Fang Jie’s view, the lack of innovative spirit of future domestic Internet companies, especially game companies, is the biggest problem. In the early stage of development, they can copy and learn from it. I have nothing to copy, and I don't want others to stand out, so I abolished my martial arts and reduced myself to mediocrity.

This may also be the biggest difficulty faced by the country in the previous life. In the past, it was catching up. It had mature experience and technology to learn from. Later, it became a leader in many aspects. If you want to move forward, the difficulty is not at 01:30. At least the premise is that the development concept must be innovated, followed by continuous innovation.

This world is currently in 2004, and all aspects are still in the process of catching up, so it is still early to talk about innovation, and more is to learn from. As a very innovative game, Fang Jie still likes "World of Warcraft" of.

Of course, Resby returned to Resby, and the copycat version of "World of Warcraft" "Magic World" at home couldn't stop.

It's not purely for sniping foreign games, or for making money. The deeper purpose is actually to break the game monopoly of "World of Warcraft" for a period of time in the future.

Because of monopoly, it will definitely hinder innovation!

The reason why all kinds of anti-monopoly in the previous life was to break the barriers of monopoly and encourage innovation. Many insightful people at the national level went there. Their knowledge is much higher than that of Fang Jie. Fang Jie can see these problems. May not see.

Fang Jie didn't have too much ambition, it was enough to guard one-third of an acre of his game land, so in the game area, he was firmly opposed to monopoly.

Once "World of Warcraft" enters the country and sets off a game frenzy, and everyone will only play this game in the next few years, how will other domestic game development companies develop and make money?

How to cultivate talents without making money?How is technology changing?
Do we want to be like the chip industry, do not do R&D and production, do not train our own technical talents, do not carry out our own technology accumulation, and finally be controlled by others and can only become a high-end foundry and assembly plant?
From the perspective of ordinary players, the entry of "World of Warcraft" in China is definitely a great joy and good news for players, but from the perspective of Fang Jie, his views and perspectives are completely different. He is from the perspective of the entire industry. Consider the problem from a development perspective.

You must know that with the current size and energy of Boiling Group, if he wants to monopolize, the online games of other domestic companies may have died out long ago, leaving only Boiling Games or games of partners, and other games may even be released on the market. None of the channels.

But these things did not happen, not only did not happen, he also open sourced the boiling game engine, established an open source game development platform, allowing all game producers and companies to participate in the development and production of games.

After the game is developed, they can operate the game by themselves, or cooperate with Boiling Games to jointly operate it. Anyway, it is business, and Fang Jie never deliberately suppresses or forces them to cooperate with him.

He has indeed mastered most of the promotion channels for games and even the Internet, but that is just a kind of self-protection, not for the convenience of eating alone, which is why he is quite respected by people in the industry, and he does not hesitate to call him "Guru".

Of course, this "leader" refers to the leader of the game, not some self-proclaimed leader of Niubijiao.

In short, he can't take care of it abroad for the time being, but in China, "World of Warcraft" will never be allowed to dominate. Even if "Magic World" is scolded as plagiarism after it comes out, this must be done.

In addition to using "Magic World" to snipe "World of Warcraft" which is about to enter the domestic game market, he also used the means of killing.

The so-called killing is to actively brag about how excellent "World of Warcraft" is, to fill up the expectations of domestic players, and to encourage domestic players to enter the North American server in advance to play through proxy IP servers.

And the focus of the promotion, in the end, is not how fun the game is, but how profitable the game is!

In other words, the two complement each other.

It is precisely because the game is fun that the game is easy to move bricks.

The game "World of Warcraft" is not only an epoch-making online game for Chinese people, but also for foreigners, and its appeal is extremely great.

Therefore, there are a lot of foreign players playing this game. During the public beta of the game, the registered number of players all over the world, except for Chinese, directly exceeded 1000 million, and the average number of daily active players exceeded 300 million. Most of them are players from the Americas, especially Old American player.

And as the richest and most developed country in the world, and a country like a nouveau riche, the old American players also have the temperament of a nouveau riche.

This kind of temperament likes to pretend to be aggressive, but often it fails to pretend to be funny, the key is that you are not short of money, and you are willing to spend money.

They also have the high-playing characteristics of European players, that is, they mainly enjoy and experience the game, but at the same time, they don’t have those stinky problems of pretending to be righteous, sanctimonious, and putting on airs. Words starting with F are often on the lips.

If you have both cool pursuits and no shortage of money, it will naturally activate a huge game currency trading market.

In the first three months of the game's launch, a gold coin in it could be sold for more than $3 on Amazon, and on some servers it could be sold for up to $7!

In Fang Jie's overseas game studio, one class, that is, 12 hours, the output of each account can reach 300 gold coins for unskilled workers, and 600-1000 gold coins for skilled workers!
However, since the establishment of overseas game studios, the scale has been small. At most, there were only 200 computers and [-] employees. A game product, even they are still helping Fang Jie with logistics in "EVE".

Such a scale will definitely not achieve the effect of killing people, so Fang Jie’s approach is to build a website, which includes the entire process of making money and moving bricks, game currency sales channels, game moving bricks experience, download links, account registration transactions, etc. , all hung on this site.

Then directly through the boiling Internet cafe management system, all the tools and game programs for the North American server "World of Warcraft" were prepared, and in the name of an overseas game studio, an advertisement for game transfer was released.

The general content is to tell players who come to the Internet cafe to surf the Internet. If they are interested, they can participate in the money-making work of the North American server "World of Warcraft". Overseas game studios will provide a full set of supporting services and tutorials. Players only need to make money according to the tutorial. , send the game currency to the designated game account, and receive the domestic bank transfer within 24 hours.

Of course, there must be a routine in the whole killing process, and they won't do it so blatantly.

At the beginning, it was to promote how awesome this game is, and it would be a pity not to play it.

After arousing the appetite of the players, many people asked: the game will come to China next year, what should I do if I can’t play it now?
At this time, I started to release news, saying that in fact, it is also possible to play in China, as long as there is a proxy server, you can play games overseas. As for the registration of game accounts, I also specially popularized a post in Chinese and English.

After many players registered successfully, they found that the game was still unplayable because there was no monthly card.

It doesn’t matter, here is a popular science post: There are many game point cards on 51mai. Although it is a bit expensive, 240 yuan, but the bimonthly card system adopted by "World of Warcraft", it is equivalent to 120 yuan a month.

What?so expensive?

This is caused by the level of consumption and the exchange rate. In fact, for foreigners, $15/month is not expensive.

What?Still feel expensive?Is it expensive for Chinese people?

You are stupid!This game can make money!

The gold coins and equipment you play can be sold to old American players. A gold coin is now worth 3 US dollars. You can play 100 gold coins in the game casually a day. Your monthly card money, including agent IP money, will be paid back in one day Yes, and make good money!
As soon as they heard that this game is so easy to make money, they can actually pay back their capital in one day, and make a lot of money. Many players seem to feel that there is a golden mountain in front of them, waiting for him to dig it. The only problem is...

ah?Don't know who to sell it to?
Well this...

There are many overseas game studios in China, look for them!
I have a contact information here. You can contact them. In fact, you can also buy game accounts, monthly cards, and agent IPs directly from their game studios. If you are worried about safety, you can also register an account yourself and only buy monthly cards from them. , Sell the game currency directly to them, and they will recycle it!

Anyway, it is probably such a routine that has attracted countless Chinese players and joined the army of moving bricks. In the early stage, according to the strategy posted on the studio website, they quickly mastered the skills of moving bricks and made a lot of money in the future. money.

The brick-moving strategy post of "World of Warcraft" was written by Fang Jie himself.

No one knows how to move bricks in the game "World of Warcraft" better than him. There is no need to open up wasteland like "Paradise". In three days, he even made a teaching video!
Originally, "World of Warcraft" was launched in North America, and he wanted to go in and get nostalgic.

but……

But this game, for other players at the moment, may be like a masterpiece, everything is novel and exciting, but for Fang Jie, it is no fun, and he even feels uncomfortable after playing for a while. threw up.

Because he moved bricks in his previous life.

The sequelae of moving bricks is that this game is no longer a game for him, but a job, a boring job without fun.

In his previous life, there were dozens of accounts in his game studio, at least half of the accounts were trained by him to reach the full level and become qualified money-playing accounts.

A person has practiced dozens of full-level accounts, and there are various occupations. Imagine how disgusting it would be for him to go back and practice an account again.

He even developed a brick-moving occupational disease, that is, during normal game tasks in the game, he always unconsciously analyzes and judges how cost-effective the task is, whether it is worth doing, and if it is worth it, is there a more cost-effective task? If it's not worth it, why do you still have to do this task?

In short, when Fang Jie experienced this game again, he had no sense of novelty or excitement at all, only irritability and disgust, and he couldn't play normally at all.

But if you change your mind and focus on how to improve the efficiency of making money and how to summarize the skills of moving bricks, then the mentality will suddenly improve!
Well, it's so weird, people who haven't experienced it can't experience this kind of mentality at all.

So there is no way, Fang Jie can only take the game of Raiders as fun, and finally came up with the most complete method of "World of Warcraft" in history...

And with his guidance, domestic players can be said to have made a lot of money in the game.

At the beginning, it was only the game studio and a few people who were moving bricks, but after seeing it, relatives, friends or other people in the Internet cafe heard that the game can make money, so they spread the word and joined in the way of a master leading an apprentice Army of moving bricks.

But when there are more people moving bricks, the price of game currency will inevitably plummet, from 3 US dollars to 0.2 RMB in half a year. During this period, the accounts of countless Chinese players were banned.

However, even if each gold coin can only be sold for 0.2 yuan RMB, it is still profitable for Chinese players, because at this time the Chinese people’s proficiency in moving bricks has also improved. A class or even if you play by yourself, at least one day can Play 500 gold, which is 100 yuan, which is better than going to work in a serious manner!

Even if more players enter North America, "World of Warcraft" is not purely for making money as a professional player. At most, it is semi-professional, playing casually, and then selling game coins casually, monthly Internet fees and monthly cards Money can be easily earned back, and such non-professional players are rarely banned.

This leads to a very strange phenomenon.

On May 2005, 5, after "World of Warcraft" came to China through Ninetowns at a large price, there were not many players playing the national server.

It's not that there is no such thing. During the limited test in March, countless players looked forward to it, and a limited test account was fired to more than 3 yuan.

On the day of the official public beta of the game, countless players did pour into "World of Warcraft", causing the game to explode for three consecutive days. , all suffered a big blow, and the loss of players was very serious.

But in less than a month, the players of the national server "World of Warcraft" abandoned the pit without moral integrity. They either returned to the original game, or went to the "Magic World" copied by Boiling Games, or went directly to "World of Warcraft" in North America.

The reason for choosing to go to "Magic World" is very simple. The monthly card fee of "World of Warcraft" is as high as 75 yuan/month, and the gameplay, quality, style, gameplay, operation, etc. are no less than the "Magic World" of "World of Warcraft". World", the monthly card only costs 30 yuan!
Perhaps, whether it is 75 yuan or 30 yuan, it doesn't matter to old American players, but to Chinese players, the difference is too big!
Since the two games are almost the same, why spend an extra 45 yuan to play "World of Warcraft"?
Am I sick?
Is it because it is produced by Blizzard?

Well, let's not blame Blizzard, but blame the agent Ninetowns for being too unscrupulous, right?

In short, it's expensive, and you can't afford it. Without you, a butcher, do you really think we can't eat hairy pigs?
What's more, even without the cloned pig of "Magic World", you can still go to North America to eat the original pork!
The point is, there is almost no cost to play "World of Warcraft" in the North American server. Internet fees, monthly cards, etc., old American players help us out!
The game currency transaction of the national server "World of Warcraft" is also very popular, but what price is that?
1 gold coin can only be sold for 0.01 yuan, it depends on what server it is. In some unpopular servers, the price of game currency has dropped to 1000% and can’t even be sold. Even if it is sold, you can only earn 10 yuan if you play [-] gold coins a day , if we can be so brave, why not go to the North American server to spend money, and get rich early, okay?

All in all, under Fang Jie's strategic control behind the scenes, the current national server "World of Warcraft" has encountered internal and external attacks. Domestic copycat games of "Magic World" compete with it on price, and foreign genuine products compete with it for cost performance. Well, what the hell would it be if he could still monopolize the domestic game market!

Although this sniping did not completely prevent Chinese players from playing "World of Warcraft", as long as it does not destroy the ecology of the domestic game industry and does not hinder the development of making money in the domestic game field.

What's more, when players play the North American server "World of Warcraft", whether it's the game account, monthly card, proxy server, or gold coin sales, they are all under the control of boiling overseas game studios, and most of the consumption of Chinese players has entered Boiling fanny pack.

How much is the monthly card, and Blizzard only made a small profit. The real income is the huge profits generated by the game's virtual item transactions. The daily transaction volume of game currency is at least ten times that of Blizzard's monthly card income. Earned by foreign players!
As far as the company is concerned, Boiling has made a lot of money, and Blizzard has not suffered a loss. At least they have received tens of millions of dollars in game agency fees from Ninetowns. The real big loss is Ninetowns. The money earned from "Miracle MU" Basically spit it all out again.

Fang Jie can only say sorry for this. The so-called loss of money is a blessing in disguise. Maybe it might be a good thing for this company to switch to bitcoin speculation earlier?

But these are all things for later. At the end of 2004, Fang Jie announced a major decision: starting from January 2005, 1, the literature website officially opened the VIP charging mode!

(End of this chapter)