The King of Soft Rice in Chinese Entertainment

Chapter 366 Preparations
Xu Jiuyang's initial plan was this: after Aurogon acquired the rights to World of Warcraft, Shenlei would acquire the rights to Audition Online and Dungeon Fighter Online, while also developing its own online games based on the Legend of Sword and Fairy IP or some other IP.

Even if Zhulong becomes the dominant player, Shenlei can still maintain a certain market share, allowing him to comfortably collect money.

Based on information gleaned from memory, distributing World of Warcraft is no easy task. Aside from revenue sharing, the licensing fees alone amount to tens of millions of dollars. Perhaps it would be more suitable for Aurogon to handle the distribution.

However, as the investigation delved deeper into the memories, the balance began to tilt, reaching its peak after the Shenlei marketing department released its revenue estimate for this year.

He clearly remembered that there were reports at the time that Mr. Zhu commented on his acquisition of World of Warcraft as a desperate gamble.

So here's the question: if "MU Online" can generate over 5 million in revenue in this lifetime, there's no reason why it couldn't have done better in the previous lifetime, right?

However, considering Mr. Zhu's baffling actions, even though he made a fortune from World of Warcraft, he was still behind Shanda and NetEase. So, he went and bought a football team to play. It's almost understandable that he went bankrupt.

As far as I can recall, after Nine City lost its agency rights, some professionals commented that Mr. Zhu's actions proved the limits of the agency model: success can be replicated, but it is not sustainable.

Xu Jiuyang was initially confused, but after reviewing a lot of information, he realized that most of The9's profits came from World of Warcraft. Underneath this facade, either The9's other licensed and self-developed games were losing money, or The9 was not ambitious, or both.

This explains why, despite the good performance of "MU Online", The9 still had to go all out to win the agency rights for "World of Warcraft". It was simply because the rampant cheating was uncontrollable, the Korean company was unable to proactively optimize the gameplay, and various services were also inadequate.

In the past few years of his previous life, he had played a lot of online games and was very clear about the actual situation on the front line. Therefore, as long as Shenlei Technology is cautious and does what it can do well, even if the momentum declines, it will not be a precipitous drop.

Besides, he knew the future game model better than anyone else. At worst, he could wait for Giant Interactive to come up with a free-to-play model with in-game items, and once he became the first to do so, Shenlei Technology could follow suit.

As long as she maintains a certain level of profit, getting the distribution rights for World of Warcraft through Angela shouldn't be a problem. With Li Yunxin as a precedent, she probably doesn't want to lose to her.

In this way, the desired two-strong situation is achieved without anyone noticing anything amiss—DNF is also produced by NEXON, and they have cooperated extensively with Aurogon Technology, yet they entrusted their flagship product to Shenlei Technology for distribution, which seems suspicious no matter how you look at it.

"Then it's decided, that's a pleasant decision." Xu Jiuyang breathed a sigh of relief after closing the documents.

"Boss, I've put the documents on the table." Liu Tao's voice came from behind me.

“Okay.” Xu Jiuyang replied casually, put the documents in the bookshelf, turned around and looked at them, raising an eyebrow.

Ms. Bai was organizing something at her desk at the moment, which caused her lower body to lean back, her body-hugging skirt taut, making her figure look quite perfect.

So impatient? Xu Jiuyang thought for a moment, then immediately walked over, covered her mouth from behind, and pressed her against the desk.

As expected, she took the little pill that Sister Xiaoli had beforehand, giving him a good time.

The effect was a bit too good. Xu Jiuyang had recovered, but Teacher Bai was still lying limply on the sofa, unable to move.

Although the two tried their best not to make too much noise throughout the process, the office was still left in a terrible mess, and he had to call Dong Qing in to clean it up.

"Alright, call Zhou Tao tonight, and have her come along." Facing the other's resentful little eyes, Xu Jiuyang said with a smile, then turned to look at Liu Tao, who had recovered and sat up, but was still looking down shyly.

"Is everything alright, Professor Bai?" he asked.

"Huh?" Liu Tao took a few seconds to react before looking up, then looked at him blankly for a moment before answering somewhat flusteredly, "No...no problem..."

Surprisingly, he didn't ask why she was called Teacher Bai, which showed he was prepared. Xu Jiuyang chuckled and said to Dong Qing, who was tidying up, "I'm going back first. Tell Zhou Tao to find a better office building after the second quarter's revenue is released. I don't care about anything else, but my office must have a small bedroom."

“No problem, boss.” Dong Qing agreed immediately. This was not a spur-of-the-moment decision; after deciding to acquire the agency rights for World of Warcraft, he was already considering having Shenlei Technology relocate.

After all, to operate World of Warcraft, you must build your own data center and servers, as well as set up a player service center and a localized team.

Xu Jiuyang vaguely remembered that at the time, some media reported that Nine City seemed to have assembled a team of several hundred people.

Even with Angela's support, these expenses are still unavoidable. She can provide some conveniences, but she can't make Blizzard follow her lead completely.

Even if Li Yunxin bought several Korean game companies, it only reduced the agency fees by a few percentage points and prevented them from using information asymmetry to deceive Zhulong and Shenlei.

Since we've anticipated what might happen, we definitely need to prepare in advance—it's just preparation, not immediate action—for example, by renting a more spacious office space.

So, in the meantime, it shouldn't be a problem to set up a small bedroom in my office where I can rest and wash up, right?

Leaving that aside, Xu Jiuyang called his assistant to leave as he came out of the office.

When Zhang Yan arrived, she first frowned in confusion, then sniffed, her lips pursed, and her expression showed some disgust, but more so, helplessness.

Xu Jiuyang walked forward without caring, and after exiting the door and arriving at the elevator, he saw that no one was around, and then said to her again, "Don't come out of your room tonight."

"Again..." Zhang Yan immediately made a face. "Boss, my room... doesn't have a private bathroom."

“It’s just to the left when you go out, what are you worried about?” Xu Jiuyang raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t want to go out,” Zhang Yan said bluntly. “Last time I went out… that sound… I couldn’t sleep at all in the middle of the night.”

"Why?" Xu Jiuyang asked, knowing the answer already.

Zhang Yan's lips drooped down, she was a little angry and anxious, but in the end it turned into grievance.

"Alright, alright," Xu Jiuyang laughed and entered the elevator, no longer teasing her. "I'll just play in the bedroom tonight, is that alright now?"

The assistant breathed a sigh of relief, but then became somewhat apprehensive.

Xu Jiuyang simply instructed, "If you have time these next few days, gather information on some villas that are for sale. Let's tentatively set the price at 2000 to 3000 million."

As mentioned before, it's almost certain that Shenlei Technology will receive over ten million in dividends in the second quarter. With other income, buying a decent villa will be no problem at all.

Even if he doesn't have enough cash, those shares can be used as collateral. With financial statements in hand, these shares are high-quality assets in any bank, not to mention that he can also use them as collateral for Li Yunxin and Angela.

There's no other way; this money needs to be put to work. There aren't any suitable investment projects for the time being. As far as I remember, investing a hundred thousand or so in stocks is fine, but investing several million would really have a butterfly effect, so I can't afford to squander it.

But it's not easy to give to his family—considering his father's face, he only dares to send 50 yuan home every year, so it's better to buy a villa and get a Beijing hukou (household registration).

Because of this, there's another matter that needs to be put on the agenda.

(End of this chapter)