game trailblazer

Chapter 299
Today is already the day when Craig Smallwood No.20 used his gold member account to log in to "DreamBoxLive". Players recruited by the matchmaking service play a few games online, and of course they also look for new games on it, such as "128 Golden Eye" which is rumored to be released on DreamBox007.

It's a pity that the results are disappointing every time. I didn't find "007 Goldeneye" as I wished, and I didn't even find an FPS game similar to "007 Goldeneye". The situation is the same today.Craig Smallwood closed the game news column in disappointment, and opened the DreamBoxLive store casually, wanting to take a last look to see if there were any new game demo versions to experience.

Craig Smallwood glanced over the string of entries marked with "New" on the DreamBoxLive store, and a message titled "The latest FPS game trial version "Halo"" caught his attention .

"FPS game!" Craig Smallwood's eyes lit up, and he controlled the handle to move the cursor to "The latest FPS game trial version "Halo"", and then pressed the OK button.

A notification that it was opening appeared on the screen, and after about ten seconds, the page about "the latest FPS game trial version "Halo"" opened.Craig Smallwood took a closer look and found that the trial version of "Halo" is an FPS game developed by a company called Bungie. The trial version currently provided is only about half of the content of a level. , it is estimated that the playability is not too high, but the capacity is not large, so he chose to download and install it. Anyway, there are no good FPS games to play now, so it’s okay to try it.

While waiting for the download, Craig Smallwood called up his friends list, found a few players who also love FPS games from it, opened the dialogue window, and entered a sentence "There are FPS games in the store." The trial version of the game "Halo", I am downloading now, if you are interested, you can check it out", and then sent it over.Unexpectedly, before the trial version of "Halo" was downloaded, a person named "Jonassen Fourteen (Jonassen Fourteen)" replied.

"I'm playing "Halo", it's a great game, you must try it!" [Jonathan XIV]

"Really, then I will have to have fun later." [Little Wood (Craig Smallwood's nickname)]

"Well, I won't talk to you anymore, I have to continue the ship defense battle." 【Jonathan Fourteen】

After leaving the last sentence, "Jonathan Fourteen" never replied, and Craig Smallwood knew that the guy must have entered the game. "Jonathan XIV" is an avid FPS fan. This can be seen from the previous exchanges between the two. The FPS game that can make "Jonathan XIV" like it should not be bad, Craig Smallwood couldn't help but look forward to the demo version of "Halo" in this download.

……

Hidaka Genno opened "DreamBoxLive" again, and the "PlayonLine" area that had been grayed out finally lit up, which meant that he had the opportunity to see the latest news about "Dragon Quest", and he immediately moved the cursor to Moved to the icon in the "PlayonLine" section, and pressed the OK button.

About 20 seconds later, the page of the "PlayonLine" area opened, but unfortunately there was no news about "Dragon Quest", but the upcoming "Final Fantasy 9" was everywhere, with pictures of people, " The theme of Final Fantasy 9, appreciation of the music clips in the game, and even a game video, but the speed of the Hidaka Genno family’s Internet access is not fast, so I didn’t try it, anyway, it’s not his favorite “Dragon Quest” ".

Bored in the "Dragon Quest" game circle of friends, he vomited a few bad words, and then discussed the experience of "Dragon Quest 7" for a while. It was released by a Square employee, "...Square will launch the DreamBox5 remake of "Dragon Quest 128" in the near future. On the basis of retaining the original settings, it will make changes to the game graphics, music, etc. Significantly strengthened, and may even add some new content... ".

Seeing such news, Hidaka Yuanno couldn't believe it, but his eyes lit up involuntarily. "Remake! Enhanced graphics and music!! New content!!!" Thinking about it, a smile slowly appeared on his face.

……

In the Oriental Building on Lockhart Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong, a video conference is being held. Participants include Xu Yeming from the Electronic Entertainment Division, Cheng Zhaokang, Zhang Lexing, Yang Xinxin from the Internet Division, and Miller Wilson from the VisualSystem Group in charge of the game business and Internet. Zhao Zijie and others from the business.

Looking at the split-screen images of everyone on the TV screen, Zhang Lexing asked, "How is DreamBoxLive running?"

"Currently, the number of 'DreamBoxLive' users in North America has reached 274 million, and the number is still increasing by about 50 per week. More than one-third of the 274 million users apply for gold users, and the rest are free Silver users... The 'DreamBoxLive' business in Europe started a bit late, and the current number of users is only 90, but half of them are gold users..." Miller Wilson flipped through the information in his hand, introducing road.

"The 'DreamBoxLive' business in the RB region has been open for about four weeks, and more than 195 million people have registered so far, including 95 gold users... The 'DreamBoxLive' business plan in the mainland area will start in July, and related servers are currently being deployed ...The 'DreamBoxLive' business in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other regions is also waiting for server deployment, and the business development time is tentatively scheduled for July..." Xu Yeming then introduced the business development in Asia.

"At present, the 1000 'cloud' server clusters in the RB region have completed online operation, and the average load carried by existing users does not exceed 30%. There is still a relatively large potential to be utilized. There should be no need to add more servers in the short term... Hong Kong About 100 "cloud" server clusters are expected to be deployed in Bian, and about 200 "cloud" server clusters are expected to be deployed in Taiwan. At present, the equipment installation has been completed, and the next system installation and debugging work is expected to be completed in early June. It will affect the opening of the 'DreamBoxLive' business in July... There should not be too many 'DreamBoxLive' services in mainland China. The current plan is to build a scale of about 6 units in BJ, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu. shared 'cloud' server clusters, and then according to the business development of 'DreamBoxLive', reasonably divide and allocate the resources of the 'cloud' server clusters..." Cheng Zhaokang, as the third speaker, added some information about server clusters in some parts of Asia deployment status.

Zhao Zijie, who spoke at the end, introduced the situation in North America and Europe: "The 'DreamBoxLive' business server clusters in North America and Europe are shared with the 'GameLiveNetwork', and the current scales are 2000 and 900 respectively... According to the plan, the future During the three-year period, some servers will be appropriately expanded every year to ensure the normal operation of the 'DreamBoxLive' business and the 'GameLiveNetwork' business..."

"Well..." Zhang Lexing nodded after listening. The information introduced by these people is basically the same as the information he learned from other sources. From the perspective of the number of users, the results of "DreamBoxLive" are still quite good. The annual fee for gold members alone is about $1.15 million.

Seeing that everyone had finished their introductions, Yang Xinxin talked about the topic she was most concerned about: "The profitability of the 'DreamBoxLive' business is still relatively poor. Of course, this is mainly because the business has just started, and there are not many paid content on 'DreamBoxLive'. , basically except for the annual fee of gold members, there are no more paying users for the time being. If this situation cannot be fundamentally changed, I believe that with the increase of 'DreamBoxLive' users, especially the increase of free users, the loss situation will expand further.”

What Yang Xinxin said is indeed true. Unlike the "GameLiveNetwork" business, the "DreamBoxLive" business is only aimed at users of the DreamBox128 game console. A little membership fee income is not enough at all, and the annual fee of gold members can't even cover the cost of server clusters.

Zhang Lexing had thought about this issue, so he didn't spend much time thinking, and quickly replied: "The current situation is that the 'DreamBoxLive' business itself will not make much profit in the short term. The stickiness of the users of the DreamBox128 game console is also to enrich the game applications on the DreamBox128 game console and increase the attraction to new users. If we can achieve the popularity of the DreamBox128 game console in key regions to a scale of more than 2000 million units, Then the next development will be relatively easier. We can make money by launching games on it, or develop the DreamBoxLive store on the scale of 'DreamBoxLive' users, and launch more projects that attract users to pay, such as publishing through the Internet low-priced games, game add-on content that can only be downloaded through the Internet, game music selection, and even physical transactions such as game peripherals. As long as the scale of users can be increased, and suitable 'DreamBoxLive' content is supplemented, then in the future, willing Naturally, more people will swipe their credit cards for the DreamBoxLive store, and this is a sustainable profitable project that can be done for a long time, unlike selling hardware, which is basically a one-time transaction.”

"Well, I know that, you mentioned it when you talked about 'GameLiveNetwork'." Yang Xinxin nodded, still with a trace of worry on her face: "But now there is a competitor of PS2, the future development of DreamBox128 will be smooth sailing ?"

"Don't worry about this problem, we already have countermeasures." Zhang Lexing said, and sent a reminder message to Xu Yeming.

Xu Yeming immediately understood, and then said: "For the PS2 game console, our main strategy is to open the way for game masterpieces, coupled with price wars. After preliminary preparations, we have arranged the launch cycle of games in the next two years. The way of mixing excellent works will always maintain strong pressure on the PS2 game console. In addition, due to the high production volume of DreamBox128, coupled with the improvement of the production line, the cost of producing a DreamBox128 is only about half of the initial cost One, so the price war has enough room to operate. Starting from these two aspects at the same time, I believe it will have a great impact on the sales of PS2 game consoles. Our plan this year is to complete the sales of 3000 million units, and the global The sales volume exceeds 6000 million units, of which the RB region strives to reach the level of 1900 million units, the North American region targets 2500 million units, and the European region 1800 million units. These three regions will be the focus of this year...the specific sales plan will be attached Please pay attention to the following emails."

……

Then we continued to chat for a while about the development plan of "DreamBoxLive" and DreamBox128 game consoles. Although Yang Xinxin's worries had not completely disappeared, she finally gained some confidence. At this time, Zhang Lexing hurriedly switched the video conference to the new one. At the venue, we are going to discuss with Hong Mingjie, the general manager of Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd., Li Chunlin, the general manager of Creative Workshop, Wang Hao, the general manager of Fengyun Investment Holdings, and Chen Jingyi, the general manager of Fengyun Interactive, and others about game development.

The reason why these people were called together for a meeting was that Zhang Lexing came up with an idea that he thought was pretty good after reading the analysis and statistics report from Fengyun Chain Internet Café Newspaper. Take a new path.

Looking at the split-screen images of everyone on the TV screen, Zhang Lexing asked, "Have you read the recent Internet cafe game statistical reports provided by the system?"

Hong Mingjie, Li Chunlin, Wang Hao, Chen Jingyi and others all nodded. The big boss called everyone to a meeting, so how could he not do some homework in advance.Otherwise, if I missed the timidity and affected the big boss's opinion of me, then my career path in the future would be difficult.

Looking at everyone's expressions, Zhang Lexing continued: "According to the data analysis, I found an interesting feature, I don't know if you have noticed it. The customers of Internet cafes are divided into two categories, one is regular customers, that is, they often go to the same In most cases, several people go to the Internet cafes to play online games together. The other category is new customers. Most of these people go to Internet cafes for entertainment, and the Internet cafes they go to may not be fixed. , generally playing games alone, and often trying new games.”

Everyone nodded again. The analysis data they read also had similar content. In fact, this kind of thing is also very common. New customers often have them. They belong to the fresh blood of Internet cafes and may also bring new popularity. It is essential for Internet cafes, and they are an important support for the popularity of Internet cafes.

"Internet cafes often have new customers, and many of them may not have computers at home. Internet cafes are the only place where they can touch computers. Naturally, they have fewer opportunities to play computer games, and the corresponding experience is not too rich. So for For this kind of people, many games may be too complicated, so that they may not understand how to play without spending an hour or two, but many people only play for an hour or two in Internet cafes. These seemingly more complicated games are likely to become an obstacle for them to come to Internet cafes again. So I thought, why not develop some games suitable for this type of novice according to the characteristics of Internet cafes?"

"Games for Internet cafes?" Wang Hao said with a little doubt, and several other people also had doubts on their faces.

"That's almost what it means." Zhang Lexing nodded: "In my vision, the games for Internet cafes should be the kind that are easy to learn. It only takes 5 minutes to master the basic gameplay, and 10 minutes to experience the fun of the game. But it can be played repeatedly, the number of levels can be more, but it is best to control the process of each level within an hour, so that players can play more happily within a timing cycle, and it will not appear. It takes three or four hours to play a level, or it can be divided into several days, I believe that such a game may be more suitable for the unique environment of Internet cafes.”

"Boss, I probably understand what you mean." Li Chunlin nodded on the screen and said, "You intend to let our creative workshop develop games customized for the Internet cafe environment, to make it easy for players to learn, but It cannot be cleared quickly, or the game can be repeated many times, that is, to maintain a strong stickiness to the player, but the game time of each stage cannot be too long..."

Zhang Lexing nodded in relief. Li Chunlin already understood what he meant. In fact, he was so serious about inviting Hong Mingjie, Li Chunlin, Wang Hao, and Chen Jingyi together for a meeting just to try his novel idea of ​​"games for Internet cafes". First invest a part of the manpower to develop an experimental game, and then put it in the Fengyun chain Internet cafe for testing, and then make adjustments according to the feedback.

Although Zhang Lexing is very optimistic about "games for Internet cafes", after all, he has never heard of such a thing, that is to say, this step has never been confirmed by others. Or the guess that the game can be repeated many times" is only based on his own experience of going to the Internet cafe. Whether other players will have the same idea, he is actually very uncertain.

Just from the perspective of probability and statistics, there should not be too few people who have the same idea as him, but it is still unknown how many people there will be and whether they can support the market of "games for Internet cafes", so Zhang Lexing I didn't plan to rush into the entire creative workshop, but planned to try two games first. If it succeeds, it's good, even if it fails, it won't have much impact.

As for game ideas, Zhang Lexing has a few ready-made ones. For example, "Plants vs. Zombies" seems quite suitable.If the strategy of "games for Internet cafes" is successful, then it can be further refined, such as games for different age groups, games for people with different preferences, and even some games suitable for women can be considered.Just like doing marketing, only by fully understanding the preferences of different users, and then targeting suitable games, can we better occupy the market and give players the opportunity to experience a more unique gaming experience.

(End of this chapter)