Restart life

Chapter 265 0262 [An Exciting New Game]

What should "My Own Swordsman" look like?
Chen Guiliang was unaware of this.

All he knew was that Chi Yufeng had bought the copyright to "My Own Swordsman" and, within two or three months, took the half-finished product to the ChinaJoy exhibition to advertise and promote it, which unexpectedly led to showgirl Ding Beili becoming famous.

In two or three months, even if it's a semi-finished product, what kind of thing can you make?
Even more absurdly, two or three months later, "Wulin Gaiden" actually launched. Apart from the NPC names and place names, the entire game had nothing to do with "Wulin Gaiden".

Even the NPCs' appearances are quite different from those in the TV series.

To put it bluntly, it's just using a name to make money.

When it was first released, it was met with a barrage of criticism from fans of the TV series. The backlash was so intense that Perfect World Entertainment had to rework the game for three years, only to find that its core gameplay was highly similar to "Perfect World" and "Zhu Xian".

Chen Guiliang didn't know how to play this game, so he handed the task over to Feng Ji.

Feng Ji has now taken on a hot potato and is equally at a loss as to what to do.

So he went back to his rented room and spent entire nights watching TV series, trying to combine the essence of the TV series with the game.

After pondering for several days, Feng Ji approached Chen Guiliang again: "Boss, what's most appealing about 'My Own Swordsman' is its portrayal of ordinary people and everyday life. If we want to make the game of the same name a success, we must grasp these two essential elements."

Chen Guiliang asked, "What are you planning to do?"

Feng Ji explained his thoughts: "First, it absolutely cannot be made into a free game, otherwise a bunch of rich players will spend money, and where will the feeling of being an ordinary person be? Therefore, the traditional time card model should be adopted."

"Secondly, my historical knowledge is currently insufficient. I want to read more history books about the Ming Dynasty, visit more museums and ancient buildings, and learn about the customs, clothing, music, opera, poetry, and so on related to the Ming Dynasty. I want to try to recreate a more authentic Ming Dynasty and expand a complete ancient world from Qixia Town as the starting point."

"Just like entering World of Warcraft is like entering the continent of Azeroth, when players enter Wulin Chronicles, they must feel as if they have returned to the Ming Dynasty!"

If it were any other game company boss, unless they had too much money to burn, they would probably slap Feng Ji for saying that.

I only asked you to make online games, and you expect me to create a work of art? Free-to-play games are all the rage now, but you're saying you want to make games with subscription fees.

Feng Ji is a good match for Chen Tianqiao. Mr. Chen is not short of money now, but urgently needs high-quality works with cultural connotations.

In fact, we can tell what kind of attitude and style Feng Ji has towards making games by looking at "Dou Zhan Shen" which he was the chief planner for in 2008.

Chen Guiliang asked, "How many years would it take you to complete this at this rate?"

Feng Ji was somewhat embarrassed: "I don't know. Maybe two years, maybe three years, maybe four years."

Chen Guiliang then asked, "Do you know that more than 80% of domestically developed games have a development cycle of less than a year?"

"I know." Feng Ji felt there was no chance; he was lucky if he didn't get scolded by the boss.

Chen Guiliang said, "Alright. I won't expand your team for now. You take a few people to do the preliminary work. Come back to me when you feel ready to roll up your sleeves and get started. You can recruit your own team. Besides yourself, you can only recruit a maximum of five people. I'll give you 100 million yuan in funding initially. If you need more money, just ask."

"Huh?" Feng Ji thought there was something wrong with his ears.

The boss is being far too lenient with himself.
Chen Guiliang said, "You can make your request now. What do you need?"

Feng Ji said, "That's enough. There's no rush to recruit a team right now. I'll go to Peking University to audit courses on Ming Dynasty history, philosophy, and literature. I'll also read the boss's book, 'Those Things About the Ming Dynasty,' carefully. At the same time, I need to talk to Ning Caishen to get familiar with his complete ideas about the whole story."

“It will probably take more than six months to do these things. Next year, I will recruit three more members. One who is familiar with history, culture and customs, one who is familiar with traditional opera and music, and one who is familiar with ancient architecture and clothing from the Ming Dynasty.”

"Qixia Town seems to be in Jin Province. I need to take a team of three to Jincheng for on-site research. At the same time, I will design the main map of the game. I need to conduct on-site research for every city in the game."

Chen Guiliang asked, "Are you planning to make it a realistic 3D game?"

Feng Ji shook his head and said, "That would be too expensive. If the boss is willing to spend the money, I would naturally agree wholeheartedly. But there are ways to save money. I said I would go to the site for research and learn all kinds of knowledge in order to capture the essence of the Ming Dynasty's urban life. As long as we capture the essence, we can even make it into a cartoon version."

Chen Guiliang thought to himself: Damn it, why am I so excited for this game?
Chen Guiliang said, "I recommend a website to you called Tianhan.com. They're currently running a Hanfu revival movement there, and based on my suggestion, they're also restoring various ancient customs and games. Recently, it seems they've attracted a bunch of cold weapon and armor enthusiasts to join them."

"There are websites like this?" Feng Ji exclaimed in surprise.

Chen Guiliang nodded and said, "They are all passionate netizens. If you share your game development ideas, they will be very proactive in providing you with selfless help."

Feng Ji said, "Then I'll keep in touch with them more often."

Chen Guiliang warned, "Some netizens on Tianhan.com may have very extreme views. Don't be influenced by them, especially don't let those views be reflected in the game."

"clear."

"Okay, that's it."

"Boss, shall I be going now?"

"Wait a minute. Have the tech department create an official website for 'Legend of Martial Arts' for you. Introduce yourself first, then explain your game concept. Whether you're auditing classes at Peking University, exchanging ideas with Ning Caishen, or traveling to various places for research, take photos and post them on the website so netizens can keep track of your progress." "I understand, this is to build anticipation."

People who give their all and work diligently are often trustworthy.

After Feng Ji said that, Chen Guiliang's expectations were raised to the max.

Who knows what it will turn out like in the end?

Game Science's statistics for last month have been released, showing monthly revenue of over 1800 million, just a hair's breadth away from the target of 2000 million.

The main reason is that during the period of high public attention, hundreds of thousands of new players flooded in.

Moreover, they are all users with their own computers, which is fundamentally different from internet cafe players.

Among them were many middle-aged people with stable finances who learned from newspaper arguments that a game had been featured on CCTV's "News Broadcast" and, out of curiosity, went online to search for information.

Seeing the game introduction on the official website of Three Kingdoms Kill, along with the various skins and cosplay photos, I couldn't resist downloading the game.

Some people were also tricked by Baidu during their searches, inexplicably clicking into other websites because Chen Guiliang did not pay Baidu for ranking.

When you search for "Sanguosha", the official Sanguosha website is ranked fifth, and all the results before it are ads from other companies!
Baidu is still somewhat ethical these days; at least it doesn't put the official website of Three Kingdoms Kill on the second page.

More than ten years later, the results from Baidu are all advertisements.

Newly registered players only receive the standard version of basic generals. Subscribing to a monthly membership grants access to free generals from the Wind and Fire packs, as well as daily random generals from other card packs.

By becoming a member, you also receive bonus items such as general selection cards, general swapping cards, and card swapping cards. The number of generals you can choose from in each game also increases, and you also get bonuses in experience and mission rewards.

Of course, membership only grants free access; the Wind and Fire pack generals won't be unlocked. This might frustrate players with a collecting habit.

You will receive a related achievement and an exclusive Three Kingdoms Show for each card pack you unlock.

The amount of money recharged by new players last month alone was close to three million yuan.

The surge in player numbers has led to increased server and bandwidth costs.

At least *Three Kingdoms Kill* generates revenue, so its operating costs aren't a big deal. Renren and HaiNei are the real money-devourers; websites with tens of millions of users have monthly operating costs of two to three million. The combined monthly costs for those two websites are five to six million!

Advertising revenue from Renren.com and HaiNei.com has been increasing, but it can't keep up with the rising operating costs.

Moreover, employee salary expenses are also increasing.

Another batch of fresh graduates have joined, bringing ByteDance's total number of employees to over 200, and Game Science's total number of employees to over 160.

ByteDance's SP (Service Provider) business unit alone added 20 employees. One-third of them are working on the HaiNei.com WAP website, where mobile microblogging and WAP-related services are experiencing rapid revenue growth. The remaining two-thirds are working on services such as ringback tones.

Instead of waiting idly for the original song competition, they started collecting songs from traditional record companies during the summer vacation.

Even Xu Yuteng's "Wait a Minute" has started collaborating with China Mobile and China Unicom, but its current revenue is only tens of thousands of yuan. It hasn't really taken off yet.

According to Huang Xinyuan, head of ByteDance's SP (Service Provider) business department, he wants to combine domestic and international WAP websites, mobile microblogs, and ringback tones, and integrate various SP resources within the company.

If ByteDance goes public next year, Huang Xinyuan, this "newcomer," will definitely have to be given stock options. This is because the department he leads is generating far more profit than expenditure, and his individual performance is crucial!
In the evening, Chen Guiliang returned to his dormitory and found that his roommates had all arrived at school.

"Huh, why weren't the roommates changed this year?" Chen Guiliang asked curiously.

He thought his roommates would change every academic year.

Jiang Junlai said, "I've inquired. It seems that the Yuanpei Class is applying to establish the Yuanpei College, and the process is currently underway. It's estimated that it will be finalized next year. At that time, the Yuanpei College will have its own dormitory building. The current situation is that we'll avoid any trouble if possible."

"How was your trip to Shandong Province with your girlfriend?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Jiang Junlai took out a bunch of snacks from his suitcase: "I brought you some specialties from Shandong Province. You had a pretty good time, visited Baotu Spring, and also toured several famous mountains in the surrounding area."

Li Heng said, "Sigh, all I can do at home is farm work, and I finished reading two books while I was at it. I'm too lazy to even go to internet cafes; my fans from those prank videos miss me."

Tong Zhihong said, "This year's freshmen are really lucky. There are only 160 students in total, and 15 of them have been selected for the international joint program to study with exchange students from Yale University. I heard that three Yale professors have also come. These 15 freshmen are living in high-end dormitories with Yale students. They have air conditioning and heating!"

Chen Guiliang thought to himself: Damn it, Director Zhu is just messing with me. He even asked me if I wanted to go to the international exchange program, but now they're only selecting from the first-year students in the Yuanpei program.

"Mr. Chen!"

My former roommate, senior Min Wenyu, suddenly walked into the dormitory, grinning, and said, "I've found a few more high-achieving but impoverished children in mountainous areas for you. Sponsor them."

(End of this chapter)