The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 15 Ways to kill channel dealers (read more!)
"Free games?
Where is the profit point of free games? "Ashley asked, "Although this is our first game, its quality is definitely not comparable to free games. "

The free games that people understand in this era are completely different from the free games popular in the later Huaguo.

Most of the free games that are popular now are games that come with the purchase of a computer, system or computer manufacturer, such as minesweeper, spider solitaire, 3D pinball, etc., simple stand-alone games.

The free games that are popular in Huaguo in later generations should be precisely free online games, where free players serve as consumables for paying players, and games that induce people to consume by paying to achieve differentiation.

This kind of free game focuses on interaction, the comparison between players.

In 1998, the network infrastructure limited the survival of similar games.

The free games they understand only stop at the small games that come with the windows system.

From Ashley and Stephen's point of view, Angry Birds is definitely not comparable to free video games.

If their company name is not Riot but Interplay (the developer of the Fallout series of games), Angry Birds has a chance to compete for Cybermania (a video game award that began in 94).

The TGA will have to wait until 2014 for its establishment.

Zhou Xin was questioned by Ashley, because in this era of online advertising, there is no Google or Amazon.

The Internet giant that now dominates online advertising is Yahoo.

Yahoo charges $468-$60 for running a banner ad, which is a 30 x 100 pixel horizontal bar at the top of the page.

However, Google Adword, which Google relies on for survival, has not yet been born, and it will have to wait until 2000.That is, you pay for the page according to the click.

Advertisements on web pages are designated by Google, and the higher the click-through rate of your page, the more money Google will give you.

Now that Google has just been born, Yahoo obviously has no idea of ​​sharing its advertising revenue with other websites.

Stephen added: "Yeah, Newman, I know what you're thinking, put the game on the web and charge for it through online advertising.

But there is a conflict here.

That is, even if we put all our energy on Angry Birds, his update speed is far behind the speed of players' experience.

The amount of time players will stay on our page is limited.

At the same time we have no reputation.

No advertiser would want to place an ad on our page.

After Angry Birds has gained a certain amount of fame, we need to bear high server costs in the middle.

And we probably won't make any money.

As you all know, my father works for AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which is equivalent to Huaguo Telecom and Huaguo Mobile), and AT&T is the first online advertising provider.

Do you know how much they voted for three months?

thirty thousand dollars.

Although this happened in 94, even after four years, the price will not be much higher.

It is because Angry Birds is confident that if we go free, the cost we need to spend on the server will be higher than the cost of advertising.

And it is growing at any time, and advertising costs will not increase because of the increase in our number of clicks. "

Zhou Xin instantly understood where free games cannot succeed, or in other words, free games in this situation are unrealistic at the moment.

"You're right, because Angry Birds is a puzzle game.

We can put the first ten levels on our homepage for players to experience for free.

Then sell the game to interested players.

That is to say, try it first and then sell it. "

Stephen raised his hand: "That still has to go through the channel.

Otherwise, how do we get the game into the hands of players? "

Zhou Xin quickly thought of a way, electronic payment, but in this era, electronic payment has not yet been born.

PayPal wasn't born until December 1998.

But that doesn't mean there's no way around it.

Zhou Xin quickly thought of a way: "We can pass the verification code."

"A verification code?" Ashley asked.

Zhou Xin nodded and said: "Yes, SMS verification code.

What we need to do is guide the payment methods for players.

That is to say, in addition to the first ten levels that are provided to players for free trial on the webpage, teach them how to pay.

Give the other party an account number for transfer, and then after the other party transfers the money, send a six-digit verification code to the other party through the mobile phone number.

They can enter the verification code on our webpage to open the page for downloading the game. "

It's an absolute genius idea in this day and age, but there are still a few issues that need to be ironed out.

Stephen quickly realized the problem:
"If there are too many people, such as a hundred people." He stopped after speaking, "Are you planning to send group text messages via email?"

Zhou Xin nodded and said: "Yes, we need players to send us their mobile phone numbers as a postscript when transferring money.

We communicated with the bank in advance and asked them to provide us with their mobile phone number and transfer amount at a fixed time every day.

If the transfer amount is greater than or equal to our mobile phone number, a verification code will be sent.

Players can download the game after receiving the verification code.

The six-digit number consists of numbers and letters.

With more than 2 million verification codes, our sales will never reach this number. "

Zhou Xin's idea is actually the prototype of electronic payment.

He even plans to set up a company to focus on electronic payment if the effect is good, and take the way of PayPal first.

"I think the idea is totally doable.

As long as they are willing to pay the handling fee, the bank is absolutely willing to provide us with the postscript and the transfer amount.

And it will make a history!
Once we get through this path, there will be no room for future game publishers to survive. "Stephen was very excited. The value contained in this mechanism alone far exceeds the game itself.

Ashley nodded and said: "We cooperate with the bank, and the bank charges a few dollars at most for each transfer, but as an unknown game company, if they cooperate with the game publisher, their charge is at least 50.00% of the game price.

If you cooperate with a larger game publisher, then this ratio will increase to 70%.

Now we transfer this part of the cost into server costs and bank fees.

This cost will be greatly reduced. "

Zhou Xin nodded and said: "So what we need to do next is to firstly perfect the game, and secondly, whether it's sending mass text messages or writing off the amount of money received, we need to build a complete system to count this number.

Then we also need to build an official website, negotiate cooperation with banks, and rent servers.

There are many things, but the path to success is already in front of us. "

(End of this chapter)