Hollywood Hunter

When countless media tried to contact Simon to verify the authenticity of a series of revelations, in the following days, Hearst Group continued to use its own media platform to throw out a number of heavyweight gossip related to Simon, including Catherine who was actually Simon’s lover, Simon Having an affair with the wife of a certain action actor, the Westeros system once interfered with the 1993 New York mayoral election, etc.

Unfortunately, perhaps most of these are facts, but Hearst Group has basically failed to produce much substantive evidence.

No evidence is tantamount to slander.

In a society like the United States, defamation is a very serious crime.

Simon certainly wouldn't sit still.

While quietly launching the Westeros system's lawyer team to collect information that can be prosecuted, the Westeros family's public relations team also launched with all its strength to resolutely counteract the news of the Hearst Group's media.

Not only that, the Westeros Company also issued a strong stance to other large media forces in the United States. In this incident, as long as they stand on the side of the Hearst Group and participate in the booze, they will always be the enemy of the Westeros system in the future. Once the enemy is selected, there will only be confrontation in the future, without cooperation, and the Westeros system will no longer give any possibility of reconciliation.

In the face of Simon's unreserved strong position, not to mention the several established paper media groups that are in cooperation and negotiation with Eaglet, and many other traditional media forces have quickly died down after a little follow-up at the beginning.

Different from the complete tearing of the Westeros system and the Hearst Group, other media forces know very well that if they participate this time, they will really not leave room for themselves.

Even some established media families don't quite understand what the Hearst family is going crazy.

The recent toss, even if the Westeros couple really turned against each other, which caused the divorce battle and caused the Westeros system to be greatly injured, could the Hurst family get any benefits afterwards?

However, there are always too many unreasonable things in this world.

Probably the Hearst family believed that such a shot would allow Simon Westeros to taste the power of a century-old media family in controlling public opinion, like many enemies of the Hearst family in the past, and retreat from then on, and even actively seek compromise.

It's just that it is no longer a hundred years ago.

Obviously, the Hearst Group originally wanted to use its own media platform to take the lead in triggering a public opinion storm with the full name against Simon Westeros, just like the large-scale manipulation of public opinion during the heyday of the Hearst family many years ago. In that way, however, when other large media companies with a little strength in North America all died down, the Hearst Group was exposed for a while.

Most of the public think they are very smart and can see the essence of many things.

When they discovered that all the media platforms that attacked Simon Westero had become a series of media of the Hearst Group, other paper media should either remain neutral and watch the excitement, or they were still saying good things for Simon Westero, Hearst The credibility of the group's news fell sharply.

Simon Westero's handling of the tax evasion incident of ‘waist essence’ and ‘leg essence’ that was initially exposed has even aroused the goodwill of many netizens, mostly women, on the Internet.

After the two lovers were arrested by the IRS, the young super tycoon did not rush to publicly deny picking himself out because of the media's revelations. It is conceivable that this must be a common practice of many other rich and famous people. However, Simon Westero openly asked his team of lawyers to release the two girls on bail in less than an hour, and then generously paid the taxes for the two girls.

Not only that, in order to prevent the two women from being harassed by the media that swarmed in, Westero also dispatched his own private jet to pick them up from New York.

Don't talk about lovers, even many husbands may not be able to do this.

Isn’t it right for a man who can bring real security to any woman to have many lovers?

As for the Hearst family.

The ins and outs of the whole thing have been exposed on the Internet clearly.

Such a notorious media family that used to relied on exaggeration to instigate its own business did not keep its business promises, but still relied on its own media resources to be repaid. It was so despicable that there was no need to continue to exist.

Including Doris Fecher, who kept exposing the privacy of her former employer during this period, was also poached by the media.

This waitress, who once enjoyed the rich treatment of the Westeros family, not only didn’t know how to be grateful, she was caught on the spot when she sold her employer’s privacy to the Hearst Group, and was forced out of the game. This time she was obviously still out for profit. Is there any credibility for a woman who provokes right and wrong?

When Doris Fecher was interviewed by a local TV station under the Hearst Group, she burst into tears and revealed that she was kidnapped by Simon Westero, who was like a mafia, and thrown to the remote island of Tierra del Fuego in Latin America and almost died. , The result was not sympathy, but many people expressed great satisfaction on the Internet.

For the betrayer, it was too cheap to throw her to Tierra del Fuego.

It should be thrown directly to the Antarctic to feed penguins.

Therefore, after such a tossing, the whole thing's impact on Simon is probably only the stock prices of a series of listed companies in the Westeros system that fluctuate again because of the market's worries about the possible divorce of the Westeros.

However, when some hedging capital realized that the short contracts they had thrown were immediately absorbed by the market, and the connected capital of the Westeros system was still generously lending the stocks of various subsidiaries, it immediately suppressed the idea of ​​large-scale shorting.

In the coming March 1994, the ups and downs of the technology stock market have made many short capitals suffering huge losses seem to be surprised.

Sensitive trends in the hedging field quickly spread to the stock market.

Even if the exact news cannot be obtained from within the Westeros system, because of the conservativeness of the market, in the last few trading days of March, the stock prices of listed companies such as Cisco and AOL at the core of the Westeros system fluctuated, but they did not. The downtrend of the first half of March appeared again.

Even, many sensitive people realized that Simon Westero deliberately did not clarify.

Because March is the final delivery month of the first quarter, many hedging contracts will be delivered in the near future, and there are also a lot of new positions to be established.

The uncertainty of the market is the best way to attract capital to venture into the market.

If the Westeros publicly clarify that there is no rift in their marriage, whether it is true or not, the stock prices of companies such as Cisco will tend to stabilize, and many of the hedge capitals that have just lost heavily in the volatility of technology stocks in March will inevitably shrink even more. Will not enter the market rashly.

This is indeed the case.

In recent days, Cersei Fund Management probably liquidated a US$5 billion long stock contract while continuing to establish a new US$2 billion long position. The total long position for technology stocks is still as high as US$9 billion.

At the same time, as of March 31, Cersei Fund Management’s total book funds have increased from US$5 billion at the beginning of the year to US$6.7 billion now. Only the first quarter’s book profit reached US$1.7 billion, a growth rate. As high as 34%, this has exceeded the one-year yield of many hedge funds.

This momentum continues. In 1994, Cersei Fund Management, which continued to bet on net long technology stocks with large and low leverage, is still expected to bring investors not less than 100% of the annual net income.

The operation trends of Cersei Fund Management Company, together with the lessons learned in March, have caused more and more hedge funds to turn to net long positions in technology stocks. This is also the case that Cersei Capital’s recent long position in technology stocks has shrunk from US$12 billion. To 9 billion US dollars.

There are fewer and fewer short sellers and no one takes orders for long contracts. Cersei Capital’s operation team is already preparing to operate directly through the stock spot market.

As the Nasdaq technology stocks continue to rise, directly buying technology stocks at this stage, as long as they can suppress greed and exit at the right time, they can also get very generous returns.

Generally speaking, under the strong suppression of the Westeros system, the disturbance caused by the Hearst Group did allow the public to see some unknown aspects of Simon, but if it is said to the Westeros system The substantial impact of is basically equivalent to nothing.

Users did not refuse to use the World Wide Web because of Simon’s negative comments, nor did viewers stop watching Daenerys Entertainment’s films because of Simon’s scandal. The capital market continued to pursue Westeros concept stocks. The momentum of development in the first quarter is still strong.

As for Simon's personal reputation, as a person with a strong heart and a cold heart, the harassment of the outside world over the years has never really changed his mood.

The public is always forgetful.

When the trend passed, what more people saw was a figure standing at the top of the pyramid of the world that everyone could only look up to. Even if it still has a negative heart, it is difficult to say that this kind of thinking is based on true moral principles. Still pure jealousy.

Friday, April 1.

April Fools' Day.

On this day, Hearst Group was still using its own media platform to tirelessly attack Simon. In the morning, Eaglet suddenly released an April Fool's Day joke-like industry news. The content is about the first web social game "Happy Farm" in Internet history that opened last Friday. This is the first practical application of Flash animation technology developed by Eaglet in the field of online games.

From last Friday at 9 o’clock in the morning, it was officially opened at 9 o’clock in the morning on April 1st, 7 days later, it was directly recommended by the homepage of the Igreat portal, relying on the large-scale Facebook social network’s "Happy Farm", but In just one week, 6.97 million gamers were harvested.

6.97 million, what is this concept?

A series of popular Nintendo console games in recent years, all of which have sold more than 5 million, are very few.

Therefore, a social game that has already gained 6.97 million users in just one week after its release, it is difficult to find other more appropriate words to describe it except for ‘miracle’.

Of course, some people realized the difference in this game for the first time.

"Happy Farm" is a free social game. Although it has an in-app purchase system, most users can play it without spending money. Therefore, this disadvantage seems to be immediately blown up by the actual sales of the console game.

According to the high price of US$60 or 70 for single-player games, if the same sales volume is 6.97 million, the concept is completely different.

However, the Eaglet portal also announced the first week's revenue of this pioneering Flash social game.

In seven days, not only was the player increment of 6.97 million people, but through the relatively simple fertilizer items of "Happy Farm", in the first week, this game brought Eaglet’s revenue of 2.61 million US dollars. Incoming.

The US$2.61 million seems to be similarly small. When converted into console game cassette sales, it is only about 30,000 or 40,000 boxes.

But one thing that no one can ignore is that this is only the income of the first week of "Happy Farm" opening.

Even without considering the continuous increase in the number of users of "Happy Farm", if a weekly income of 2.61 million US dollars has been maintained, in theory, the total annual income of this game will reach 135 million US dollars.

At $135 million, this is no longer a revenue scale that most console games can match.

However, the actual total revenue of "Happy Farm" must far exceed the figure of 135 million US dollars.

This is because this social game, which has shown an elephant-level trend in just a week after its opening, is still in the early stages of a continuous explosion of users.

In the press release of the Eaglet portal, the official forecast is that the total number of global users of "Happy Farm" is expected to reach 50 million in the next two years, and the estimated annual revenue is as high as US$300 to 400 million.

Although the article also frankly, the life cycle of social games may be short, only two years at most, but the average annual income of 300 million to 400 million US dollars, two years, needless to say, based on the total revenue of 700 million US dollars, whether it is development EA or the operator Facebook are definitely making money and making money.

You know, a well-known Facebook game blogger later revealed that "Happy Farm" is a social game with a development cycle of only two months. The budget expenditure is mainly the salary of the development team, and the overall production cost is less than 1 million US dollars. .

Budget expenditures of less than US$1 million have been exchanged for huge revenues of US$700 million for two years. This can already be described as money grabbing.

Following the official report of Eaglet, many users who were not too interested in "Happy Farm" have clicked on the game pass-through interface of Eaglet’s portal. Users who did not open Facebook originally wanted this The game opened its own social platform.

Whether it is online portals or traditional media, following the report of Eaglet Portal, they were all attracted by the sudden popularity of this game in a short period of time.

Then, when media reporters gathered information to prepare related reports for the next day, more and more people realized that the root of the success of "Happy Farm" may not lie in the game itself. Of course, for players, this web game that integrates leisure and social interaction, and is also the first web game that uses Flash animation technology from Eaglet, which is very interesting and playable, but it is successful The root of this is that Eaglet has almost monopolized the huge user base of Internet portals.

In recent years, industry analysts who have been concerned about the Internet industry have been curious about how Eaglet Portal can monetize its huge user base. After all, in the past few years, Eaglet’s main source of income has always been software sales. Although the fast-growing advertising business and e-commerce rely on Eaglet’s large user base, the relationship is not too direct after all.

As a result, some media even predict that as the number of Internet users continues to increase exponentially, in the face of rapidly expanding huge operating costs, Eaglet is likely to have to actively allocate this exclusive network interface to reduce costs. .

Or the previous MSN portal and AOL portal were opened for this reason.

Now, a social game with a production budget of less than US$1 million, as soon as it was born, directly proved the huge commercial potential of Eaglet’s huge user scale.

In two years, the total revenue is estimated to be 700 million US dollars. According to the sharing rules excavated by the industry, Eaglet will first take 20% of the total revenue as operating expenses. In fact, there may be as much as half of the water. , The remaining 80%, Eaglet and Daenerys Entertainment's developer EA are equally divided.

Taken together, Eaglet is able to make more than 400 million U.S. dollars from the estimated total revenue of 700 million U.S. dollars. Even if all expenses such as marketing and operating costs and post-taxation are excluded, the net profit is expected to be no less than 200 million U.S. dollars. Net profit of 100 million US dollars per year.

In the 1993 Fortune 500 list of American companies previously announced in March, only 129 companies had annual net profits of more than US$100 million.

For Eaglet, this is just the benefit of a social game.

Now that the success of this model has been proven, will Eaglet only launch this game?

Of course not.

It is conceivable that the future will only be an online game, relying on its own huge user base that can be called terrifying, as long as it is properly operated, it can bring huge profits to Yigrete.

For Simon, who flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Friday because of "Happy Farm", the popularity of this game was both unexpected and expected.

In the past history, "Happy Farm" can be said to be the first social game that was copied by North American game manufacturers and achieved great success.

China's "Happy Farm" was launched in 2008 and achieved phenomenal success. In 2009, Zynga, a game studio in the United States, followed suit and launched "Farmville", a copycat game that relied on the rapidly growing Facebook platform that year. , In just two months, it became the first social game on Facebook to exceed 10 million users.

In the following years, the number of peak players in Farmville exceeded 80 million, which brought a large amount of revenue to developer Zynga.

During the most prosperous period, Zynga relied on the income of "farmville" to hold grand carnival parties every week. The company also presented international travel to all employees, and built a headquarters building worth hundreds of millions of dollars in San Francisco. The hard-working studio that bought out the operating rights of "Happy Farm" with a few million dollars, Zynga can be described as a great success, and the subsequent IPO has also been sought after by the market. At its highest market value, it once exceeded 5 billion US dollars.

This time, the new "Happy Farm" led by Simon himself, relying on the almost monopolized Internet interface of Eaglet, is also the first Internet social game developed with the new Flash animation technology. It has more than 20 million daily active users. The homepage of the Eaglet Portal has been pushing for nearly 7 million players in just one week, which did not exceed Simon's expectations.

At the peak of "Farmville", the user scale reached 80 million. This time, "Happy Farm", Simon did not feel that the forecast of the world's highest 50 million users of the Eaglet operation team was out of reach.

Only in the first quarter that has just passed, the number of users accessing the World Wide Web in North America has exceeded 52 million, the number of Internet users has reached 85 million, and the number of Internet users worldwide has approached 150 million.

It is estimated that by the end of 1994, the scale of Internet users in North America alone will reach 115 million, and it may be close to 200 million worldwide.

In 1995, with the large-scale outbreak of overseas Internet users, the number of global Internet users may even reach 400 million.

This is the basis of "Happy Farm"'s 50 million users worldwide.

On the other hand, the Internet at this stage is like the TV industry in the era of monopoly by public TV networks.

Because video entertainment modes such as cable television and streaming media have not yet emerged, several major public television networks in North America often still have phenomenal TV series such as "The Story of Seinfeld" with more than 70 million viewers. This is completely unimaginable in the era of rapid development of streaming media in the full bloom of cable TV.

Similarly, the Internet at this stage is far less rich in entertainment content than in the previous "Farmville" era. At that time, there was "World of Warcraft", and there was already YouTube. The production level of stand-alone games was close to the movie level. Smartphones were also becoming allies. There are so many other options for entertainment.

Now, at least until other social casual games of the same type are launched, there is only "Happy Farm".

Not only that, but the phenomenal success of "Happy Farm" has obvious non-replicability. In the past, both Chinese and American manufacturers of phenomenal farm games have never broken their own records with their subsequent products.

Therefore, in Simon's view, the peak user scale of 50 million players is not impossible to reach in North America, let alone the world.

When the user scale of a game is large enough, even if only a few people contribute a small part of the revenue, combined, it will make many ordinary big-selling games beyond the reach.