Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 426 Is NetEase's stock price beyond saving?

The game "Primordial Era" is currently divided into two major regions.

The first major region consists of the original servers of Momo Legend, which have undergone a series of mergers, resulting in a total of 50 servers.

The second major region is the new region that was launched after the closed beta of Honghuang Zhanji, and it has now reached region 73.

Currently, the first region far surpasses the second region in terms of both spending and activity.

Accounts in Zone 2 are extremely scarce right now. Cheng Yi searched for quite a while on the equipment guarantee website before finally managing to buy a level 37 War Demon account.

He casually equipped himself with some gear and joined the Straw Hat Pirates' Third Division as a legendary warmonger.

The Straw Hat Gang has four branches, all of which come from the Legendary faction. Most of these people are Legendary treasure-hunting teams. When their patron comes here, they naturally have to follow.

Yiren Fengcai's account is also in the Three Kingdoms, and it's a level 47 War God account.

She arrived too late, so she couldn't buy a max-level account.

Nevertheless, Yiren Fengcai's account already possesses 12 weapons and a +10 set of equipment.

The emergence of the server-wide material auction house has relieved these big spenders of their worries about materials.

During the Spring Festival, online rates were at their lowest for both games and other activities, especially on the first, second, and third days of the Lunar New Year. 8L was almost never online, while Chen Zhi, who had been exiled to Southeast Asia, was online almost every day, leading his men to chase and kill members of the Straw Hat Gang, having a great time.

These past two days, apart from receiving relatives at home, Cheng Yi has spent the rest of his time in his bedroom, becoming a true homebody.

On the contrary, Du Yusheng was high-profile, attending various occasions and classmate reunions, enjoying the feeling of being a superior person.

When Huang Wenrong was in the third year of junior high school, he brought his daughter Huang Xiaotong from Jingzhou City.

Upon seeing the vice president of Momo Group arrive in person, Cheng Jianshu and his wife immediately got to work.

Huang Xiaotong has changed a lot. The little girl who used to be pale and thin has now become a graceful young lady.

"Why did you come all this way?" Cheng Yi asked Huang Wenrong to sit down, smiling.

Huang Wenrong glanced back at Huang Xiaotong, who was playing with the kitten in the yard, and laughed, "I don't have many relatives, but we should visit them during the New Year, right? Otherwise, Tongtong won't know what it's like to visit relatives."

"Well, you've really put a lot of thought into this ceremony." Cheng Yi laughed and poured Huang Wenrong a cup of tea.

Huang Wenrong looked at Cheng Yi and said, "President Cheng, the share price of NetEase has increased somewhat. Should we continue to hold it or sell it?"

"How much did it go up?" Cheng Yi asked.

Huang Wenrong said, "We bought it at $0.8 and the current price is $1.4."

"1.4 US dollars? How is that possible?" Cheng Yi was somewhat surprised.

In early 2002, Cheng Yi had Huang Wenrong register sixteen companies to purchase a total of 2471 million shares of NetEase, spending a total of 1.32 million RMB, which represented 21% of NetEase's shares.

Since the shares were held separately by the companies, with each company holding less than 2% of the shares, it did not attract the attention of NetEase.

At that time, as long as there were people willing to buy their shares, they would be overjoyed.

Cheng Yi didn't buy NetEase stock for stock speculation. Even if it rose to $10 like in his previous life, it would only be a tenfold increase, which would be a small amount for the current Momo Group.

He bought 21% of the shares, solely for the game "Fantasy Westward Journey" that NetEase was developing.

Huang Wenrong asked doubtfully, "The price has already risen sharply. If we make a move, we can basically earn more than 90 million."

Cheng Yi frowned and said, "This shouldn't be the case."

Cheng Yi remembers clearly that Duan Yongping bought NetEase stock for $0.46 and then sold it for $14 in January 2003, making a huge profit.

It's almost February 4th, the start of spring, so why hasn't NetEase's stock gone up yet?
In retrospect, it's highly likely that the failure of NetEase's "A Chinese Odyssey" a year ago, coupled with the fact that Sinnet and Sohu joined the Momo ecosystem and encroached on the market that NetEase should have been profitable from, led to the capital market losing confidence in NetEase.

"That won't do," Cheng Yi said, sounding worried.

If Ding Sanshi were to fall into a slump, wouldn't "Fantasy Westward Journey" be aborted?

Momo Internet Cafe is currently lacking a strong game. Having only one game, Honghuang Zhanji, is clearly not enough. For now, it's okay, as Honghuang Zhanji is enough to support the development of Momo Internet Cafe. However, once Momo Internet Cafe develops to a certain extent, relying on just one game, Honghuang Zhanji, will definitely not be enough.

Since the rise of Honghuang Zhanji and Legend of Mir, which have been relentlessly squeezing out domestic game time, most of the previously popular online games have been left in a state of near-death.

Games like Magic Baby and Stone Age are almost completely ignored; only the Phantom Ranger from Time and Space Internet Cafe can barely stay online.

Both Magic Baby and Stone Age are Japanese games. Although the domestic distributors were very keen to access Momo Internet Cafe's distribution channels, the Japanese developers rejected the proposal outright.

The reason is simple: Momo Internet Cafe's system is not a Microsoft system, and they don't want to cause any unnecessary trouble.

Not to mention the system in Momo Internet Cafe, even Apple's system doesn't offer game versions.

Game developers are too afraid of Microsoft. Even though Microsoft hasn't publicly banned them from logging into Apple's operating system and Momo's operating system, these game companies are very sensible.

The only way to populate Momo Internet Cafe's database is to acquire games.

Cheng Yi has initially decided on two games: NetEase's "Fantasy Westward Journey" and GRAVITY's "Ragnarok Online".

In its previous life, the South Korean company GRAVITY was considered the pioneer of reskinning games. They reskinned Ragnarok Online dozens of times and created dozens of games based on it.

Although the company is wholly owned by a Japanese company, its game development team is an independent studio. This is a clever move by the Koreans, including the Legend of Mir, where one game has three copyright holders.

Enze Capital had been in talks with South Korea’s Gravity about investment six months ago. South Korea and Japan don’t get along very well, and Enze Capital’s vice president is a South Korean, Stephen Tony, so they naturally preferred Enze Capital.

According to Stephen Tony Chengjian, they will acquire GRAVITY by March at the latest.

If GRAVITY of South Korea acquires the rights, Ragnarok Online can fill the gap in the Q-version game market.

After all, the fighting and killing in the Primordial Era is not very friendly to girls.

In addition, Huang Wenrong's trusted lieutenant, Duan Jianguo, has also gone to South Korea to compete with Shengda Group for the agency rights of "Bubble Fighter". Huang Wenrong was unaware of Cheng Yi's thoughts, and seeing Cheng Yi's furrowed brows, he couldn't help but feel a mix of emotions.

The boss is the boss after all; he's still not satisfied even though the investment has doubled.

Cheng Yi thought for a moment and said, "How many shares of NetEase are still in circulation?"

Huang Wenrong said, "There are still more than 700 million shares."

"Buy it all," Cheng Yi said. "After the eighth day of the lunar month, I'll have a proper talk with Ding Sanshi."

“If we buy these shares, we will now own 26% of NetEase Group, which should give us enough say.” Huang Wenrong asked doubtfully, “NetEase’s situation is getting worse and worse. According to my analysis of their finances, their prospects are not optimistic. NetEase was originally the only profitable portal website, but since Xinlang and Sohu joined us as third parties, their revenue has far surpassed NetEase’s. Moreover, recently, NetEase made a desperate move and started charging for its email service, which caused huge losses to users.”

As a senior finance professional, Huang Wenrong is highly skilled at analyzing markets and corporate structures.

"They're charging for email?" Cheng Yi was taken aback again.

This is outrageous! Isn't this just a ridiculous door opening for someone else?
This is also why he didn't buy stocks of those leading companies from his previous life after his rebirth. The risk was too high. As a reborn person, he was like a moth stirring up a tsunami, and he might accidentally wipe out those leading companies one day.

"We can't let this online entertainment business go under," Cheng Yi said, frowning. "We have to find a way to help them."

Huang Wenrong was stunned by Cheng Yi's selfless spirit. He couldn't help but say, "President Cheng, NetEase is currently joining forces with Shengda to fight against us."

“It’s only right that they oppose us,” Cheng Yi said. “Our series of actions have caused them so much damage. If they don’t band together for mutual support, they will definitely be wiped out by us.”

Huang Wenrong asked, "President Cheng, you don't want them to be eliminated by us?"

"I'm really torn right now," Cheng Yi said. "We hold so many shares in NetEase now. If NetEase goes under, won't we lose 200 million?"

Huang Wenrong really wanted to say, "Then hurry up and sell! If so many shares are sold off, NetEase's stock price will definitely fall back to $0.4, and it might even go bankrupt."

Cheng Yi said, "Let me talk to Ding Sanshi first. If he's stubborn, then I'll get serious."

This was the first time Huang Wenrong had ever seen Cheng Yi so soft-hearted. It felt as if Ding Sanshi could bring Cheng Yi hundreds of billions in revenue.

Otherwise, Cheng Yi wouldn't have been so soft-hearted. Based on Huang Wenrong's understanding of Cheng Yi, this guy is only soft-hearted when it comes to money.

In fact, Cheng Yi also knew Ding Sanshi's predicament. Ding Sanshi was now essentially trapped by email. If he joined the Momo group, Microsoft would probably target his email business.

Unlike Sinlang and Sohu, which only have one portal website.

Cheng Yi was determined to acquire Fantasy Westward Journey. Even if NetEase Entertainment failed, he would still acquire NetEase Entertainment to ensure the project could continue.

Things that have been tested by the market in a previous life need no hesitation.

Now that Fantasy Westward Journey is more than halfway developed, it's unrealistic to poach the development team from NetEase Games.

Games are different from other things; going too fast or too slow is a big problem.

Take Ubisoft's EverQuest for example. This game is almost identical to World of Warcraft in terms of gameplay and classes, so why did EverQuest fail so miserably? It's because it was released at the wrong time.

At this stage, players' minds are not yet fully developed for online games. Everything needs to progress from simple to complex. If it is too complicated from the beginning, it will discourage them.

The biggest flaw of Endless Quest is that you have to search for your own corpse after you die.

Their method of finding corpses is different from that in World of Warcraft. In World of Warcraft, you use your invincible soul to find your own corpse, but in EverQuest, your equipment will drop next to your corpse after you die.

If the body cannot be found, they will lose everything.

And the worst part is that they have to use their physical bodies to find corpses, which makes the process of finding their own bodies extremely difficult. Since they have no equipment, monsters on the road can kill them at will, and they often die while searching. Looking around, all they see are the corpses of XXX.

In addition, the starting village is located in the sky, and a mysterious passage is needed to get from the sky to the land. You need to find this passage to leave the starting village.

This led many players to believe there was no way down, so they chose to jump from the sky and die, then find their bodies to revive.

The scene was truly horrific; corpses littered the area near the starting village, resembling a living hell.

The various complex settings also led to the complete failure of the Endless Mission.

The failure of Endless Quest further caused Vivendi, the parent company of Ubisoft and Blizzard, to almost lose confidence in online games.

It's fair to say that if EverQuest had been released two years later, with its 3D graphics comparable to World of Warcraft and diverse gameplay, it might not have failed.

This is what they mean by "circumstances create heroes".

He had to ensure that Fantasy Westward Journey would be launched at the same time as in his previous life in order to minimize the risks.

Cheng Yi chatted with Huang Wenrong for a while, then made a phone call to Du Yusheng.

Huang Wenrong came over, and Du Yusheng was bound to step in. Du Yusheng's appearance roused the leaders of Dongcang County as well.

Left with no other choice, Cheng Yi hosted a banquet at the Dongcang Hotel and invited all the leaders from Dongcang County to attend.

This time, Gu Yushan personally accompanied him, and all the leaders of the main departments of Dongcang County were present.

At the banquet, Gu Yushan kept drinking cup after cup, toasting and praising Cheng Yi as he went, making Cheng Yi a little embarrassed.

Upon seeing that Gu Yushan had drunk a couple of jin of baijiu, Cheng Yi couldn't sit still any longer. Under Gu Yushan's pleading gaze, Cheng Yi finally instructed Du Yusheng to agree to move the M-Zone call center to Dongcang County.

Currently, the M-Zone call center has integrated with Starcom and ZTE PHS phones, and has nearly seven million users in Handong Province. The call center alone has more than 1900 employees.

Although this project is not very prominent in Jingzhou City, it is quite successful in Dongcang County, a small county.

Upon hearing that Du Yusheng had agreed to move the call center to Dongcang County, Gu Yushan picked up a half-bottle of baijiu (Chinese liquor) and was about to offer one to Du Yusheng and Cheng Yixuan.

Fortunately, Cheng Yi reacted quickly and blocked the bottle of liquor from Gu Yushan's hand.

If this big shot gets seriously ill from drinking, none of the people present will escape unscathed.

(End of this chapter)