Rebirth of the big era of online games

Chapter 463 "The Ark: Farm Simulator"

The second season of "The Great Master of Dance" doesn't need too much nonsense. With the proofing of the first season, and having traveled around the world, and participated in the hosting of "The Great Master of Dance" in many countries, there is no need for specific affairs. Jay took care of himself.

As for the content of the program, it is also because of the first season, and it is held every two years. At present, domestic choreographers and dance troupes are already gearing up and have accumulated a lot of "ammunition". I have completed my stage show on the show.

Therefore, Fang Jie's main focus is still on the game business.

The huge plan of the Ark game cluster, if each game is to be well-crafted and implemented at a normal speed, it will take a long time to complete.

But Fang Jie obviously can't afford to wait, and neither the Ark game nor the Boiling game can cover everything, and there are many other development plans and tasks. It is impossible to devote all the personnel, time and energy to this plan. Production experience is also insufficient.

Therefore, Fang Jie's method is to directly cooperate with other game companies, and directly "borrow chickens to lay eggs" based on the products of related game companies.

There are two most well-known business simulation games in the world.

One is the German game company Giants Software, whose representative work is "Farming Simulator".

The other is Citigroup Maxis Software, which is known as the "Father of Simulation". This company is a studio or brand company under Electronic Arts.

Two years later, Fang Jie completed negotiations and cooperation with these two companies, and finalized a series of "Ark" online version simulation management game production cooperation plans.

For example, "Ark: Farming Simulator" is an online version of "Farming Simulator" based on Giants Software's masterpiece "Farming Simulator".

In this way, it is much less troublesome than remaking a game from scratch. Giants Software only needs to use the Ark engine to change the stand-alone version of "Farming Simulator" into an online version, and the relevant game data and programs are set according to "Ark". Can.

In addition, according to Fang Jie's game planning requirements, Giants Software will also be responsible for similar games such as "Ark: Simulated Forest Farm", "Ark: Simulated Ranch", "Ark: Simulated Fishing Field", "Ark: Simulated Workshop" The development and production of "Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishing" and its related labor industries are to create an online game that meets the requirements of Ark World.

And Maxis Software is responsible for "Ark: Simulated Restaurant", "Ark: Simulated Hospital", "Ark: Simulated Logistics"... and other service industry simulation business games, which are integrated into the "Ark: Simulated City" simulation construction game.

For such a cooperation project, no matter whether it is Giants Software or Maxis Software, it is natural that anyone who comes will not be rejected, because this is definitely a good project for mutual benefit and win-win.

For example, Giants Software's "Farming Simulator" series, the first one released in 08, was little-known at the beginning. Even though "Farming Simulator 2011" became popular in Europe last year, only 50 sets of game software were sold worldwide. .

The global sales of 50 sets of game software is of course impressive for Europe, but compared with the huge player base in the world, there is obviously still a lot of room for growth.

Now "Farming Simulator" is tied to the chariot of "Ark", with the strong influence of the "Ark" game itself, the promotion of the Ark game platform on the whole network, and the full support of Ark Entertainment Video, the sales of 50 will increase by ten times, it is not impossible to reach 500 million copies.

Since it can make money, it can bring huge benefits, and there will be a series of follow-up simulation business game projects. For Giants Software, this kind of cooperation is simply pie in the sky. The surprise came too suddenly, of course not reject.

The same is true for Maxis Software. Although its parent company Electronic Arts is to some extent a competitor in the industry with Ark Games, and its qualifications in the industry are much higher than Ark Games, the temptation of huge economic interests Directly let the capital behind it put down that worthless face.

Even the executives of Maxis Software asked Fang Jie privately if he intended to buy them from Electronic Arts, because these executives felt that mixing with Fangzhou International seemed to have more prospects and "money" prospects.

However, Fang Jie’s principle of doing things has always been to make more friends and less enemies, especially in the field of games. He is absolutely confident that he will not lose to any game company in the world. There is no need to engage in monopoly and poach people to offend people, so the acquisition of Maxis Software is fine. Anyway, doesn't that mean they are also working for themselves?

Leaving aside the service industry and construction simulation management game projects related to Maxis Software, the first labor industry simulation management game "Ark: Farm Simulator" was released rapidly in just over two months, that is, on May 2 Labor Day. Completed production and listed.

After all, there is the framework of the "Farming Simulator" series of games. It doesn't take much to temporarily change the online version. It is nothing more than that the resources of the game are linked and shared with Ark World, and the details of the game are closer to reality. Therefore, the difficulty of the game Also multiplied.

However, the difficult online version of "Ark: Farming Simulator" did not dampen the enthusiasm of the vast number of international players. As soon as the game was launched, the sales volume exploded.

The sales volume of "Ark: Farm Simulator" exceeded 300 million copies in the first week, each priced at $15, which is equivalent to earning $4500 million in a week, and this is just less than 3 million copies spent by Ark Games and Giants Software. It took only one month to upgrade the original game, and the investment in game production was almost negligible.

The main reason why the game sales are so hot is that players feel that buying this game is very cost-effective, and there is no loss at all.

Because "Ark: Farming Simulator" itself is a fairly classic 3D simulation management stand-alone game. It is equivalent to a discount promotion, which naturally stimulates the desire of countless players to buy.

The fundamental reason is that the online version of "Ark: Farming Simulator" can make money.

$15 is a piece of shit, just play Ark: Farming Simulator and run it well and it will pay for itself in no time, and even make a lot of money!
Therefore, this game is not only very cost-effective, but also has a high return ratio. If you invest 15 dollars today, maybe a week later, you can recover 10 times the cost and earn 150 dollars!

In the past, when players played this kind of stand-alone games, they only had investment and no return, or the return was the game entertainment experience. Now, not only the game entertainment experience, but also the opportunity to make money, not to mention serious players, even passers-by will be moved Ok?

Of course, then again, a large group of players swarmed into "Ark: Farming Simulator" to run their own small farms. Under the laws of the market, it is hard to say whether they can actually make money in the end.

And to play the online version of "Farming Simulator", the upfront investment is actually far more than $15.

Because the online version of "Farming Simulator" is not like the stand-alone version, the game system will provide players with starting funds and resources. Players playing "Ark: Farming Simulator" are equivalent to playing "Ark", and the world of Ark is a real simulation of reality. , After entering the game, there are no resources, just starting to develop from nothing.

Therefore, after players enter the game, the most basic guarantees of survival, such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation, are enough to cause players to burn out, let alone open any farms.

If players want to play normally in "Ark: Farming Simulator", they must first spend real money to buy certain survival resources, such as food, wood, stone, clothing, etc., and secondly, they must open the farm in the Ark World Near the gathering place of players, otherwise these resources cannot be transported, and they are easily attacked by wild animals.

For example, at least there must be something to eat, so before you can grow crops, you have to collect wild fruits and vegetables or buy food to feed your hunger, and you have to have a place to live, so you have to cut wood yourself or buy wood to build a house. If you cut wood yourself, you must buy a felling axe.

And these resources need to be purchased with money or Ark work points, which means that additional initial investment is required. If the player dies in the online version of the game, all game skills will be cleared, and re-playing will also require a $0.5 resurrection fee.

Some people may ask: Since "Ark: Farming Simulator" is no different from Ark World, why do you have to spend an extra $15 to buy this game and just go directly to "Ark" to farm?

The reason for this is that the game system of "Ark: Farming Simulator" provides professional and systematic suggestions and guidance for ordinary players, and players themselves do not need to master too professional knowledge.

If in Ark World, players can plant whatever they want, even if they don’t understand anything, they go to the desert to plant rice in a very stupid way, and no one will interfere or remind them.

But if you enter the game from the online version of "Ark: Farming Simulator", the game system will give very detailed professional tips and guidance.

For example, the location of the farm chooses mountains, plains, swamps, forests, river valleys and other landforms, chooses different longitudes and latitudes, and in different seasons, the game system will give professional tips and suggestions for what kind of crops are suitable for planting.

For another example, when encountering problems such as bad weather, natural disasters, or pests, the game system will also provide corresponding solutions, so even a person who has never farmed the land can perform professional agricultural operations like a professional farmer.

If an "Ark: Simulator Shipyard" is released in the future, the same is true. Ordinary players can also produce professional ships by themselves like professional technicians and engineers.

Therefore, the online game of the Ark Simulated Management series can actually be regarded as a semi-open guide for beginners in the Ark World, which greatly reduces the professional threshold and industry threshold, and provides opportunities and conditions for ordinary players to conduct self-employment in the Ark World, rather than All industries are monopolized by game capital.

Because of this, agricultural production in "Ark: Farm Simulator" does not require any professional knowledge. It is much simpler and more advantageous than directly carrying out production activities in Ark World, so that ordinary players can also carry out agricultural production. Professional farm operation.

Of course, the premise of all this is that players must survive as much as possible in the game. The longer they survive, the higher the skill bonus, the higher the production efficiency, the stronger the production cost and market competitiveness, and all the required resources need Collect it yourself or find other players to buy it.

The game is extremely difficult, mainly in terms of survival and resource acquisition. On the contrary, professional operations have become easy, even foolish operations.

Fang Jie created such an online version of the game. On the one hand, it is naturally to attract people. Only ordinary players and even passers-by can participate in professional operations and see the profits generated by them, so they will actively enter Arkworld to seek gold.

Secondly, after these players enter the game, the basic material needs for survival will also expand the transaction volume and output of the resource market, further consolidating the value and status of game resources in the international financial market.

Of course, the game "Ark: Farm Simulator" itself is also very playable. If you are willing to invest in the early stage, you can see your farm grow from scratch, from wasteland to large tracts of farmland, and after it has produced Being able to sell for a lot of money brings an unparalleled sense of accomplishment.

During the May [-]st period, after the game was launched, Fang Jie naturally entered the game to experience it for the first time, and also broadcast the game live on the Boiling Video and Ark Video platforms.

Simulated business online games like "Ark: Farm Simulator" can still be recommended to domestic players. After all, this game is more about creating value through labor, and Chinese players who are not rich can fully carry forward the spirit of hard work and hard work. , Earn money by moving bricks in the game.

"At the same time as the online version of "Ark: Farming Simulator" was launched, this time "Ark" has also undergone a simultaneous upgrade, adding player age bonus settings and the game's internal professional skill certification system..."

"After this game upgrade, especially for production and life management players, long-term survival is more cost-effective. If they can survive in the game for a long time, it can greatly improve production efficiency and reduce production costs..."

"And it is foreseeable that after the game is upgraded, players' demand for various living materials will continue to increase sharply, and the supply may even exceed demand in the short term, so it is not necessary to fight and kill in the Ark game world. It might be a good way out for life players to farm the land and move bricks honestly..."

"However, if you want to carry out agricultural production and move bricks through this game, a certain amount of investment in the early stage is necessary. Automatically converted into game work points, with this start-up capital, it is enough to buy basic living supplies..."

After the live broadcast of the game started, Fang Jie opened the game client and logged in the game while giving a popular science explanation of the game.

The game interface, system, and painting style of "Ark: Farming Simulator" all inherit the realistic and simple style of "Ark", but simplicity does not mean simplicity, and the game login process is quite complicated and professional.

Since it is an online mode, creating a game character is equivalent to creating a game character in "Ark", and the place of birth is also selected on the world map or directly input the latitude and longitude coordinates.

However, "Ark: Farming Simulator" is characterized by more professional guidance than "Ark", and it focuses on farm themes, so the specific details of the birthplace selection are slightly different.

"We can choose a birthplace at will like entering "Ark", or enter the coordinates to airborne, but we'd better follow the professional advice of the game system and carefully choose an area suitable for agricultural production as our base."

"First of all, we need to choose the suitable climate zone, such as temperate zone and tropical zone. Different climate zones are suitable for different crops. Tips and suggestions will be given in the upper left corner of the game system, and the corresponding climate zone will be highlighted on the game map, indicating that we can Choose the place of birth within this demarcated area..."

"After choosing the climate zone, you also need to choose the continent, because different continents have different crops and specialties. In the game world where transportation is not very developed, growing corn in Asia is obviously not as good as growing wheat and rice. Because wild corn seeds are currently only relatively easy to find in South America, this game system also has hints and suggestions..."

"Now proceed to the next step. I set my birthplace in my hometown, East Asia, Huaguo region... As you can see, this area is lit up, and the game system has marked it with different color blocks."

"The green color block area is mainly concentrated in several coastal ports, indicating that this is a gathering place for human beings. Human activities are relatively frequent, indicating that this place is relatively safe. The nearby wild animals have been almost cleaned up, and it is relatively convenient to buy and obtain daily necessities. "

"The red area also indicates an area with frequent human activities, but it is a war danger zone. There may be human forces fighting, and the gray area represents no-man's land. The areas of these two color blocks are obviously not suitable for production..."

"We select the green block and then zoom in on the map. At this time, we can see that the area is divided into six color block areas, representing plain farms, forest farms, mountain farms, riverside farms, beach farms, and wilderness farms. ..."

"Farms with different terrains have different advantages, disadvantages, and specialties. Farms of the same terrain have different proportions of usable, arable, and buildable areas. This game map is the real map in the world of Ark. , so there won't be 100% perfect terrain for farming."

"We can see that the suggestion given by the game system is to choose a plain farm, which is suitable for beginners to develop. Just find a plain farm area, continue to zoom in on the map, and select one of the squares..."

"This square represents 1 hectare of land, which is 100 square meters of land. The game system also shows that the proportion of usable land on this map has reached 92%, of which 68% is arable land. The data not bad."

"Of course, 100 square meters is enough to build a house for yourself. If someone wants to be a big farmer in the future, he must also take into account the surrounding available land. The larger the surrounding land available or arable area, the more suitable for the future long-term development and planning."

"but……"

Speaking of this, Fang Jie showed a typical capitalist smile to the live broadcast camera: "Although the land in the game is virtual, there is a fee~, the name is: land management fee!"

Upon hearing this, countless netizens who watched the live broadcast were in an uproar.

Doesn't that mean that Fangzhou International is actually the big landlord in Ark World?
Paralyzed, playing a game and planting a land in it, the game company actually charges land management fees for these virtual lands?
It's just a money grab!

Fortunately, Fang Jie's next words dispelled many doubts of the players.

"The land management fee is only a symbolic charge of 0.01 work points/square meter/real year. Didn't everyone buy this game and exchanged 15 work points, which is enough to lease the right to use 1500 square meters of land for one year, and it is inevitable for everyone in the future The land will often die in the game, and the work points for each resurrection transformation are enough to pay for these expenses..."

"And this management fee can be refunded at any time according to the time of use. For example, if you don't want to do it anymore, or the land is occupied by others and you can't continue to operate, the remaining work points system will be automatically refunded to everyone."

"To be honest, this fee is charged only to recover a certain cost of computing power. Although these lands are virtual, they are also data resources, especially for people who have been cultivating these virtual lands for a long time, which requires a lot of computing power. Therefore, it is reasonable to charge a certain management fee.”

After hearing this, the players felt that there was nothing wrong with it. The main reason was that such a low management fee was nothing to argue about. The key was that it only cost work points and "no money", which was easy for everyone to accept.

In fact, long before the launch of the "Ark" game, Fang Jie had already planned this land fee. No matter how the power or capital of the players in the game fought to enclose the land, Fangzhou International was able to guarantee income in drought and flood.

After all, recovering the work points is equivalent to recovering the shares of Fangzhou International, and also recovering the funds.

The logic of this is that players consume cash through games and exchange for work points to obtain shares in Fangzhou International, and then spend the work points through game consumption, and Fangzhou International earns cash through games, and then takes back work points shares through games , completing an economic closed loop.

Although the management fee of 0.01 work points/square meter/year seems to be very low, its cost is almost negligible to the players. The management fee for leasing 1 hectare of land is only 1 US dollars or work points for 100 year. If you plant anything on the land, even if it is just grass, the forage income will be much higher than the management fee cost.

Such a cabbage price is completely impossible in reality.

But we must know that the land area of ​​the entire earth is as high as 1.5 million square kilometers, which is equal to 150 trillion square meters. In theory, the annual income of game land management fees can be as high as 1.5 trillion work points...

Even though this is only theoretical data, most of the land cannot be leased by players, but even if only 150% of the land is leased, the annual land management fee income will reach [-] billion work points.

In other words, Fangzhou International is engaged in the business of large landlords in the entire virtual world. Even with small profits but quick turnover, it can make tens of billions of profits every year. Otherwise, international capital would not be so stupid and join Fangzhou International one after another. They can calculate accounts more clearly than anyone else.

However, this matter has to be done step by step to prevent players from rebounding too much. At present, this land management fee is only charged to the farmer players of "Ark: Farming Simulator". In the future, it will gradually charge the entire industry through various simulated online games.

In fact, this so-called land management fee did not have any impact or rebound on the players in the end, because the players' capital forces in the game directly borne this part of the costs for the players.

Of course, the player’s capital forces didn’t have any good intentions. They spent huge sums of money to enclose land. One of their purposes was to get commercial taxation or protection fees within their own territory, so the land management fee was eventually allocated. It is collected uniformly in the commercial tax in the game.

Even after these player forces established the country in the game, what Fangzhou International did was even more explicit, selling land directly to make money.

For example, enclosing a piece of land, saying that you want to build a city here, and you will get the protection of the country established by the players in the game, then the land price in the city is very valuable. After all, if you are doing business in the city, the flow of people is large, and the business is easy to do. You have to buy a piece of land first, so the real estate business in the virtual world was formed in this way.

Of course, these are all things to say. At present, Ark World is still in the stage of enclosure movement. There are warlords, but the national power has not yet formed. The land, who will be the master here in the future may not be known yet.

In short, the matter of the land management fee did not cause much disturbance, and Fang Jie, who was engaged in the live broadcast of the game, only briefly mentioned it, and quickly shifted the players' attention to the gameplay itself.

When it comes to gameplay, the core gameplay of the game "Ark: Farming Simulator" is farming to accumulate wealth, and its pleasure mainly comes from specialized, scientific, and refined farming, processing, transportation, sales, and the interaction with others during production and life. Various interactions with hundreds of millions of other players in the world of Ark.

During this process, the player, who started from scratch and even faced a huge crisis in survival, experienced countless deaths, and finally built a log cabin and warehouse that could shelter from the wind and rain on a piece of weedy wasteland that he had set aside. The reservoirs and reservoirs were cleared, the weeds were hoeed, the land was plowed, the seeds were sun-dried, and the seeds were sown, and finally the harvest was reaped, which brought a very strong sense of accomplishment.

But this is just a basic operation, and it can only represent a small farmer's completion of the basic process, how to expand production, how to improve production efficiency, how to resist natural disasters and pests, and how to reduce costs, which involves a lot of accumulation methods.

For example, at the beginning, players can only plow the land, sow, and harvest crops manually, which is almost a state of slash-and-burn farming.

But with the interaction with other players in Ark World, players began to use cattle, horses and animal power, and then various automation tools began to be used, such as rotary tillers, seeders, sprayers, harvesters, etc., and even various processing machines Trucks, transport trailers, and water tankers have all started to be used, and the area of ​​farms is getting larger and larger.

And looking at the endless fields of wheat waves, the warehouse full of grain, and the expensive modern agricultural machinery parked beside the courtyard wall, the sense of accomplishment is further sublimated.

The big farmers who can reach this step all have made a lot of income, and all the previous output income has been thrown into the game, and they are completely locked in by the game. Ark has become a daily life for them. Living and working, and the income and profits brought by such living and working are enough to maintain their needs in reality.

Moreover, all agricultural tools, including cattle, horses and livestock, need to be manufactured or raised by other players, so many related industries and workshops have been born. Correspondingly, simulation games such as simulated ranch, simulated forest farm, and simulated workshop have also been launched. Not only It has driven the development of other industries and allowed more passer-by players to enter the pit completely.

It can be said that "Ark: Farming Simulator" has achieved a point-to-point effect, and the productivity has increased, and the production cost of the product has dropped significantly. Coupled with the launch of the game's internal professional certification system, the so-called running knife players have gradually become a thing of the past.

Players can afford to eat, live, wear, and use things gradually. It is better to lose a set of weapons and equipment if you die once in the game. The longer you live, the more powerful the player is. It has become the focus of recruiting and protecting players from all sides.

And Fangzhou International's business income from the death and resurrection of players has not decreased but increased, because the era of hot weapon war has finally arrived. Although the death rate and starvation rate of players have dropped sharply, the death rate in battle has begun to soar.

The number of players killed by hot weapons on the battlefield is as high as hundreds of thousands every day, and after these players are killed, their weapons and equipment are cleaned and reused by the enemy, so there are more and more ordinary hot weapons on the battlefield. The less valuable, on the contrary veteran players with combat experience and high-tech weapons have become scarce items.

Moreover, with the launch of various online versions of simulation games, the player base has increased exponentially, and the natural death once a year in real life has also offset the impact of the decline in the player's fatality rate.

Of course, this process does not happen overnight. It just means that the Ark game world has finally returned to the right track, developing normally in the direction Fang Jie intended, and the game civilization continues to move forward.

In the second half of 2012, Fang Jie not only continued to devote part of his energy to games, but also strengthened the research and development of artificial intelligence with the other part of his energy.

But this can also be said to be one thing, because in many games, especially in FPS shooting games, the IQ and performance of AI man-machine are very important, which directly determines the pleasure that players can feel when fighting against AI.

Don't be afraid that the AI ​​man-machine is too strong, but be afraid that it is too weak. If it is too weak, the AI ​​man-machine will become a foil for players to score points.

If the AI ​​can be like the player, or even a little smarter than the average player, although it may hurt the self-esteem of some players, such a game is interesting to play, which is also in line with the "flow" psychology.

At present, whether it is domestic or international games, the AI ​​IQ in them is very worrying, and the performance is very dull, including the game AI in "Ark: Battlefield", which also seems a bit brain-dead.

As a perfectionist, Fang Jie decided to take care of the AI ​​man-machine in the next upgrade of "Battlefield", which also lays the foundation for the future AI intelligent management system of virtual reality online games.

(End of this chapter)