Hollywood Hunter

Although Daenerys Entertainment's game business has a special quota for Nintendo, it is not as good as Capcom and other local veterans. In recent years, Nintendo has felt threatened and has also overtly suppressed Daenerys Entertainment's games.

Simon is well aware of the future development pattern of the host industry.

The last two years have been the last glorious period for Nintendo consoles. After Sony launched the PS, Nintendo will quickly decline.

There is also the rise of PC games.

This is what Simon values ​​most.

PC games, including stand-alone games and online games, have a potential market size no less than console games. In this regard, Daenerys Entertainment and the entire Westeros system still have many opportunities.

Taking advantage of Daenerys’s accumulation of special effects in 3D technology, EA has released several 3D games in the last two years. Although the 3D effects at this time are still a bit horrible in Simon’s view, they are far beyond the 2D host, which is also a PC. A leading position of the platform.

In addition, the real-time strategy stand-alone game originally adapted from the "Dune" series of science fiction novels has also launched an online battle version, which can be said to be the pioneer of online games. Internet interaction is also the advantage of PC games.

In original time and space, because of historical development, the stand-alone game industry in the West has always been very prosperous, and to a certain extent has curbed the development of online games. In contrast, China’s game industry has also encountered a ban on game consoles due to its late rise, leading to the game industry’s prosperity directly from the online game era. The stand-alone game industry has basically not done much because of the lack of copyright protection.

For Simon, the previous development direction is not impossible to change.

At this stage, Daenerys Entertainment, in conjunction with Eaglet, is fully capable of leading and creating a new development direction for the American game industry.

EA headquarters in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto.

It was already Monday, January 17, 1994.

After the reorganization is completed, Daenerys Entertainment's game business is all included in the EA system, including Blizzard, which was relatively independent, and the recently finalized acquisition of Silicon and Neural Key studios, personally leading the determination of EA's next-stage development plan. At the same time, Simon recently In a few days, I personally conceived a cooperation project between EA and the Facebook social network under Eaglet.

happy farm.

This is a web game that Simon remembers very well.

The reason for this idea was not because Simon was on a whim, but because he had other more purposes.

Along with the official launch of online video technology on the Eaglet portal at the end of last year, the Eaglet software department also quietly released two new software, YgritteFlash and YgritteFlashPlayer, the former is a tool software for web interactive animation design , The latter is an embedded player software for users to play web page animations and video and audio content.

Original time and space, the prefix of these two softwares was Micromedia at first, and later both belonged to Adobe.

It's just that Micromedia is completely eliminated by Eaglet's big butterfly fan at this stage. Adobe is still focusing on the development of printer peripheral software, and mainly cooperates with Apple's Macintosh computers. Apple is also one of Adobe's major shareholders. Simon also bought part of Adobe's stock after the 87-share disaster.

Both companies have deviated from the original development track, but the World Wide Web has emerged in advance, and the development of basic tools and software is imperative.

In the previous few years, Ygritte has successively launched YgritteDreamweaver software for web design and YgritteFireworks for web image processing. With the release of YgritteFlash software for web interactive animation design recently, the previous web design'three "Swordsman" was all gathered by Eaglet Software Department.

Not only that, last year Igreat also quietly brought the more mature Photoshop software under its banner. The C girl's Tinkobair company only intercepted a part of the most basic functions and launched a free image browsing and processing software iSee. At the same time, with the launch of online video, Ygritte is quietly developing and perfecting a video editing software YgritteVideoStudio, which is expected to be officially released in the middle of this year.

From the earliest web design software Dreamweaver to the video editing software VideoStudio to be released in the middle of this year, the release of every basic tool software means a substantial increase in the richness of the web platform.

For example, this time Flash and supporting FlashPlayer software.

Egreat Portal has launched online game business in the past two years, mainly some casual games of chess, card and board games.

Before the release of Flash technology, if you want to develop an online mini game with a graphical interface, you need to use a very complex script program, and the display effect is not satisfactory after all.

After the launch of Flash, it is also a small game. It may only take a day or two for an engineer who is proficient in using Flash software to develop and complete, and both the display effect of the game and the smoothness of operation are far beyond the original scripting language. Type games.

Happy Farm is just a web game implemented with Flash technology.

Simon came up with the idea of ​​developing a happy farm game, one of the main purposes is to let developers and users see Flash technology games, and then promote the rapid popularization of this new technology. On the other hand, if Happy Farm can achieve the same success as the original time and space, it can further promote the degree of interaction between Facebook social network user groups and enhance Facebook's user stickiness.

As for making money, Simon didn't think much about it.

The former Happy Farm was developed by a game manufacturer named "Five Minutes Studio". It was initially released on the school intranet platform and quickly achieved success. At its peak, the number of users exceeded 16 million, but the school intranet platform did not bring operators How much revenue will come.

It was not until later that it was transplanted to the QQ platform to become a QQ farm. This small game earned 3 million yuan a year from the Kaixin era and directly skyrocketed to a monthly horror revenue of 50 million in the Tencent era.

Simon has played several versions of "Happy Farm", and was impressed by the setting of the goose factory's changing game props.

Because of the different consumption habits of the East and the West, Simon does not expect North American users to pay for the previous prop system. However, relying on Facebook at this stage almost monopolizes the huge scale of the North American social user group. As long as the game can be popularized, it can only be sold. I believe that you can still get good income by ordering fertilizer items.

After all, the operating cost of this online Flash game is really limited, with a gross profit margin of over 90%.

What's more, Simon's main purpose of developing this mini game is not to make money. As long as the promotion of Flash technology is completed and the stickiness and activity of Facebook users are increased, it doesn't matter if you make more or less, even if you don't make money in the end.

The financial data for the past year is still being counted, but it is only a preliminary estimate of revenue. Yigrete's performance growth in 1993 is still terrifying.

Simon also does not allow Igreat to deviate from his own development direction when he sees what business is profitable.

The four core businesses of search engines, social networks, e-commerce and cloud computing services have always been the top priority for Simon to follow up personally. Even the portal information business with the largest user base at this stage will be given to the four major businesses in case of conflict. The core business gives way.

At this stage, with AOL portals, MSN portals and other types of websites all catching up, the main focus of Eaglet's business is to maintain its industry advantages at all costs and avoid accidental overtaking by other companies.

"All in all, the basic setting of this little game is very simple. The most important thing is the sustainability of the game and the interactive system. Discuss this for yourself. The wild boar attacking the farm set by Vic just now is very interesting, not just pets. To drive away wild boars, friends can also help each other drive away the attackers that appear on each other’s farm, which greatly increases the interactivity of the game. However, you should also pay attention to the fact that the game must be simple enough, too complex systems for this kind of leisure The purpose of the game is very dangerous. My requirement is that the player can start directly after entering the game through a set of simple guided tasks. So, are there any other questions?"

A conference room at EA headquarters.

Simon personally took an hour and a half from his busy schedule to explain the basic design ideas of this game to the technical team selected to develop "Happy Farm". He also named this group ‘FiveminutesStudio (Fiveminutes Studio)’ for a long time of bad taste.

The "Happy Farm" in my memory was developed in only two weeks.

In order to get a work as perfect as possible, Simon gave this group of ten people a full month.

Simon's voice fell, and all ten people in the conference room raised their hands, and there were not many opportunities to speak a few words in front of the BOSS. Simon smiled and clicked on the engineer named Victor Aiken that he had just praised.

The twenty-something young man with only three years of dark skin who had only worked at EA for three years stood up and said, "BOSS, can we leave the city and choose a farm to develop this game? You know, this will definitely provide us with Lots of inspiration."

Simon looked at the others, and everyone smiled, obviously discussing in advance.

Nodded, Simon said: "Where do you want to go?"

Victor Aiken did not hide: "My family's farm in Alabama is very good. I talked to them and everyone wants to see it."

Simon smiled and said: "This is too much, but, well, remember you only have one month. If you can't come up with a game that satisfies me after a month, then you just stay on the Alabama farm. Be a farmer. Next, what are the questions?"

Everyone raised their hands together.

Simon looked around and turned a blind eye, "Well, it seems that there is no problem. The meeting is over, let's prepare."

This kind of cold little humor made everyone laugh again, and unknowingly, they felt less awed and more close to this legendary young BOSS.

The boss said so, everyone stopped asking questions, and got up and left the meeting room.

Larry Probst, the new CEO of EA, who came to the meeting with a pinch of time, walked into the meeting room and complained half-truth: "Simon, you are so indulging them."

Simon took a sip of the coffee handed over by Girl A, and didn’t mean to leave the meeting room in a hurry. He motioned to Larry Probst to sit down too, and said, “I’ve become this good policeman, and the bad policeman wants you. Come and do it."

I just agreed that the "Happy Farm" development team went to the Alabama farm to make this game, but it was just an episode of Simon's "relaxing" the various game studios under EA these days.

The most relaxed working environment and the greatest degree of game creation independence, for Larry Probst, also means that there will be a lot of uncontrollable risks in his next work, if it is not the head of EA. Location and generous salary, Larry Probst is not willing to take over the job.

Still embarrassed, Larry Probst said: "The point is, Simon, if my bad policeman wants to control them, the staff is likely to move you out of this good policeman."

Simon shook his head and said: "Larry, I have never been an unrestrained and laissez-faire boss. The authority given this time is the core of game creation. I hope everyone can have a relaxed game development environment. Other than that. In addition, if any employee has other violations, it is within your management scope. Frankly speaking, I may have been more involved in EA matters in the past two years, mainly to reshape the company’s corporate culture and operational thinking. , Complete these, even if you want me to intervene, I don’t bother to bother about it."

This kind of guarantee makes Larry Probst a mixed blessing, but he has no objections. He is not the founder of EA, who is very fancy of his own power like Tripp Hawkins. As an excellent professional manager, Larry Probst does not lack his perseverance, but he is also better at implementing the will of business bosses.

Simon fired Tripp Hawkins because of this.

Business founders often have a deep influence on a company, and they inevitably have a strong desire for control.

To transform EA, Simon must fundamentally eliminate the influence of the founder on the company.

With some assurances from Simon and understanding the mind of his own boss, Larry Probst is not entangled in this problem, and instead talked about the "Happy Farm" just now and some projects that EA is developing recently.

In addition to the "Warcraft" being developed by Silicon and Nerve Key Studio, which has been in the bag some time ago, there are many well-known games under EA's ongoing or development stage, such as "Dune Castle", "Sim City", "Need for Speed" ", "Dungeons and Guardians" and so on.

EA's basketball, baseball, rugby and other sports games are iconic brands that other manufacturers in the industry cannot match.

In addition, after initially completing the technical accumulation of 3D game development, Simon also selected a 3D first-person shooter game from EA’s many incubation projects. It not only provided many design ideas, but also named it himself as usual, "Counter Strike CS).

Simon also drafted an e-sports competition plan privately, planning to select EA’s current PC games with a relatively high penetration rate to hold e-sports competitions to further promote the EA brand.