Rebirth of the Internet: Starting from Games

Chapter 122
Nowadays, NetEase, Sohu, and Sina are known as the Three Musketeers of Portals and belong to the first echelon of Internet portals today.

When they saw the rapid rise of Shanda and Century Interactive Entertainment through game agency, they were not willing to lag behind.

In 1994, Xing Ye set up his own business and established Cai Xing Company, investing 4500 million in the filming of "Westward Journey".

In 1995, "Westward Journey" was released in Hong Kong and the Mainland. Except for the first two days, audiences flocked to the theaters because of Star Master's name. Unfortunately, the setting of this movie was too advanced at that time.

For example, the moonlight treasure box can travel through time and space with the help of the brilliance of the moon, frequent time travel that disrupts the order of the world, character creation that breaks the inherent image, another ending for another protagonist in a parallel world, etc. The open ending is also given a blank space. The audience has the power to use their imagination to define the happy or sad ending.

The audience at the time did not quite understand these avant-garde elements. After watching it, they felt that the style of this movie was completely different from Xing Ye's previous movies, and the plot was also messy and difficult to understand.

So they didn't buy it, which led to a disastrous box office performance and the collapse of Color Star Company.

Since 1997, it has been circulated in various colleges and universities in the mainland and on the Internet and quickly became popular. As the saying goes, "You don't recognize the meaning of the film at first, but the next time you watch it, you are already a character in the film." Later, the majority of movie fans discovered the classic aspects of Westward Journey. , there were also claims such as owing Mr. Xing a movie ticket.

Why do I mention this movie? It’s because this movie also had an unexpected effect, that is, it left an indelible impression on Ding Sanshi’s heart when he saw Journey to the West for the first time.

By chance, after the establishment of NetEase, when the Internet winter came in 2000, major portals were looking for new profit growth points.

In January 2001, Huayi launched "Stone Age" in mainland China and achieved great success. NetEase saw the right opportunity and jointly operated "Stone Age" and tasted the benefits. Since then, it has embarked on the road of independent research and development, out of its obsession with Westward Journey. , Ding Sanshi spent a lot of money to obtain the copyright of Westward Journey to Westward Journey and create a turn-based "Westward Journey to Westward Journey".

And based on this foundation, we made improvements and launched "Westward Journey Online 2" last year and asked Mr. Xing to be the spokesperson, creating a precedent for online game spokespersons.At the same time, the agent "Elf" also achieved the result of nearly 10 people online at the same time.

Now Ding Sanshi has been sharpening his sword for ten years, especially after seeing "Stone Age", "Magic Baby" and "Ragnarok RO" just launched by Century Interactive Entertainment, drawing inspiration from them.

And using the engine foundation of Westward Journey 1 and 2, Ding Sanshi personally supervised the formation and led the technical research and development team to carry out drastic transformation to polish the next Westward Journey masterpiece "Fantasy Westward Journey".

Ding Sanshi was at the Guangzhou headquarters, looking at the first draft of the game character submitted by the artist, and he was very satisfied.

The various preliminary frameworks of Fantasy Westward Journey have been finalized, drawing on the turn-based system of "Stone Age", the bonus points of "Miracle", the cartoon style of "Ragnarok RO" Q version, plus original gameplay, and a unique epic plot of Journey to the West.

The technical team is currently conducting research and development in an orderly manner and is expected to be available for public testing within the year.

Ding Sanshi, who has reached his forties, is sitting on a large boss chair. He is full of unlimited confidence in this game. He is thinking about other competitors. He admits that Legend Miracle is very strong now, but when he takes out this game A big killer, how should you deal with it?

It is different from NetEase’s strategy of main R&D and auxiliary agents.

The remaining two are mainly agents.

Among the three portals, Sohu started late and was also the slowest. When he saw Shanda making a lot of money, Zhang Chaoyang belatedly established the Sohu Game Division in July 2002.

At the end of 02, Sohu announced that it had obtained permission from a Korean developer to represent the first massively multiplayer online game "Knights Online", which would be released in 2003.

In fact, Sina had no intention of entering the gaming industry at the beginning.

It was because the great success of "Legend" in China brought great excitement to Korean game companies, including NCsoft, the number one game company in South Korea at the time.

At that time, "Legend" could only be regarded as a second-rate online game in South Korea. The most popular online game was "Paradise" launched by NCsoft in 1998. Many Korean online game designs such as "Legend" imitated "Paradise".This makes NCsoft very unwilling. A little brother is making trouble outside, and the big brother has to show his respect no matter what.

In 2002, NCsoft tried to set up three sets of "Lineage" CN servers in South Korea. However, due to network conditions, the game experience was extremely poor, and only a few players had the patience to continue playing.

This method will not work. Seizing the Chinese market is an important goal of South Korea's largest manufacturer.

How to do it?Then they set their sights on Sina, one of the three major portals.

The two families hit it off immediately. Although they had the same goal, the process also went through many twists and turns, after nearly half a year of pulling and negotiating.

In November 2002, Sina and NCsoft, China Internet and the two giants in the Korean gaming industry, decided to join forces.

On January 2003, 1, Sina and NCsoft announced the establishment of a joint venture company, Sina Legu, and officially launched "Paradise" in mainland China.

Sina President Wang Yan, who serves as the CEO of Sina Legu, said in every interview that Sina's goal is to become the leader in the domestic online game market within two years.

At the Sina Legu establishment press conference, Sina CEO Mao Daolin and NCsoft CEO Kanazawa sword dueled, which may also become a true portrayal of the feud between the latter two for several years.

Traditional powers began to exert their strength, but Shanda, one of the representatives of newly emerging forces, fell into a quagmire.

In view of the fact that multiple warnings had no effect, Shanda Network still insisted on going its own way and launched "Legendary World" last year. South Korea's Wemade Company filed a complaint and took Shanda to court.

At the same time, Shanda also countersued South Korea's Wemade Company over private servers, plug-ins, and revenue sharing. The two sides were at loggerheads, starting a feud that lasted for several years.

On January 2003, 1, Actoz unilaterally announced the termination of the licensing agreement with Shanda for "Legend".

On January 2003, 1, Shanda responded strongly and announced the independent operation of "Legend".

2003年2月06日，Wemade在其官方站上发表对盛大1月31日声明的反驳。哪又冒出来个Actoz，这就不得不说三者的关系。

Wemade is the developer of the "Legend" series of games, Actoz is the overseas agent of the "Legend" series of games, and Shanda is the Chinese agent operator of "Legend 2".

Shanda's operating income must be shared with Actoz, and Actoz must be shared with Wemade.

Shanda was already the largest online game operator in the country at the time, and Actoz was a company listed on Kosdaq in South Korea. The weakest company was Wemade, because it was only a small Korean technology company whose main business was game development.

In fact, the weakest Wemade looks like it is barefoot and not afraid of wearing shoes, and looks like it would rather die than cooperate with Shanda.

But Actoz has been relatively indecisive and indecisive, giving Shanda some room for mediation.

Wemade is currently secretly developing "Legend 3" and it is expected to be launched in the middle of the year. By then, no one will choose Shanda as an agent. There are not many better agents in China. In addition to Shanda, Century Interactive Entertainment, which has been gaining momentum recently, has entered their vision.

On Chen Tianqiao's side, apart from letting his subordinates deal with the lawsuit and guide the world, the rest is daily Black Century Interactive Entertainment.

The price reduction of Legendary Point Cards and the free Spring Festival strategy have achieved very good results, from the previous [-]-[-] opening with Legend to the current [-]-[-] opening.

He is now using private servers, unhandled game bugs, plug-ins and other issues to hold back South Korea's share of the money, which has led to these lawsuits.

The negative impact caused by previous public opinions has been washed away by the news about Century Interactive Entertainment.

Although the market share has rebounded to a certain extent, it has no impact on Miracle. The other party is still the leader in the market.

Chen Tianqiao recently discovered something strange. The more he scolded Ragnarok and Bubble Hall, the faster the online number of these two games increased.

Looking at the official data released by these two games, Ragnarok RO has exceeded 10 in less than a month, and the other Bubble Hall is even more frightening, directly exceeding 20 people online at the same time.

You must know that at the peak of Legend's operation in a year, there were only 60 people. At present, the total number of Legend world plus Legend, and online at the same time has dropped somewhat, but it is still around 50 people.

Crazy Tank, which is also a casual game, has a scale of just over 10 people.

The more he curses, the more he gets angry. Damn it.

Chen Tianqiao then thought about it, no, these data were only officially announced by them. It could not be ruled out that Chen Hao, a little fox, might try to bluff again to scare himself away.

I just didn't get what I wanted, so I'm not in a hurry, I'll just scold him for a while.

The network box is just a concept in his mind now, and Chen Tianqiao has no intention of putting it into action immediately.

Now that the gas station has been built, let’s run this one well first and then look for opportunities to open other stores.

Now he is asking Danian to secretly carry out a recruitment plan, spending a lot of money to recruit various hacker masters on the Internet, preparing to use it as a combat weapon.

Sun Tzu's Art of War says that in any battle, both are indispensable: a perfect combination and a surprising victory.

This year, his plan is to let Legend World account for 8%, with Legend and Crazy Tank as supplements, make good financial reports, attract investment, and then hit the market next year!

After all, powerful enemies are around, and the foreseeable games and fights in the future require a large amount of food and fodder to be prepared in advance.

Chen Hao didn't pay attention to this. He had never regarded these people as opponents. To him, everyone present in the market was just ahem.

It's just that when someone appears in front of him and becomes a stumbling block, blocking his progress, he can only work hard, lift the person away, and then move on until the next one appears, and the cycle repeats.

Chen Tianqiao's legend is currently being suppressed by Miracle, and is involved in a lawsuit. It has begun to go downhill.

This year, except for Sanshi's Fantasy Westward Journey, which needs to be focused on, the games represented by other companies will not become popular.

At this time, Penguin has not yet risen, NetEase is still in its infancy, and its decline has already begun.

Century Interactive Entertainment has a smooth road ahead. Now he just needs to be himself, give full play to his full potential, seize the first-mover advantage, leave everyone behind, and stand out from the crowd.

Easier said than done. Although he knows the result in advance, the final effect of different abilities is the same. It may only be done in half, or the final result may be magnified by 200%, so Chen Hao wants to do his best to achieve the latter.

Paying too much attention to your opponents will only distract your energy, and the gains outweigh the losses. His only opponent now is himself.

Chen Hao, who had just made up his mind to strengthen his belief, saw Chu Xuan submit the "Three Kingdoms Online" game settings and architecture plan.

It is a complex structural diagram and densely packed with text, spanning dozens of pages.

Chen Hao's scalp suddenly became numb, the corners of his eyes twitched, and he sighed secretly,
Otherwise, it might be easier to think about suppressing competitors.

(End of this chapter)