2001 Media Godfather

Chapter 88 Making Money Like Crazy
Instead of going home late at night, he's playing games at the company.
Mr. Xiang didn't quite understand.

I went over to take a look and saw that the test group consisted of Naga Siren, Drow Ranger, Sven, and Phantom Assassin.

The opposing team's planning team consists of Lion, Lina, Shadow Shaman, Nyx Assassin, and Treant Protector.

The two sides were fighting fiercely!
The test team cheered loudly, but they suffered a crushing defeat. In a team fight, they were completely controlled by the enemy and couldn't move at all.

Xiang Lintao leaned closer and asked, "Is this interesting?"

The engineering student in the test group didn't even look up; while the Phantom Assassin he chose was still on the countdown, he opened the fountain shop and was crafting a Blood Staff.

Electrocute those bastards!

When Xiang Lintao asked, he gave a perfunctory answer: "Yes!"

Xiang Lintao: "."

Suddenly I realized something was wrong!
The people in the company aren't serious gamers; they're game developers, and their evaluations of new games are extremely harsh.

They said it was fun.
Okay! Need I say more? Dozens of people are staying up all night playing Dota, that speaks volumes.

I simply found a computer, forcibly persuaded a female graphic designer to go home, and took over her team-up slot.

结果
Xiang got yelled at by his teammates. "You can't even last-hit properly. What kind of Dota are you playing?"
Despite the criticism, once Xiang Lintao got the hang of it, he finally discovered that this game was damn fun!
Before they knew it, it was past midnight, and Mr. Xiang even had a late-night snack.

Under the guise of having a late-night snack, these henchmen finally found their place and began to treat Xiang Lintao as their boss.

They all fawned over him, "President Xiang!! This RPG map idea is absolutely brilliant! I have a feeling that as long as our 'Race Wars' adds this map, it will definitely beat 'StarCraft'!"

Xiang Lintao, “.”

Suddenly, I felt completely awful. This game isn't ours!

Teacher Chu, they were just using it for testing!
The next morning, before dawn.

Chu An was fast asleep on the bed, sprawled out, when his phone started ringing incessantly.

Chu An looked at it groggily, "Xiang Lintao?"

He hung up immediately and shut down his phone in one smooth motion. He thought to himself, "So, now you know to call Teacher Chu?"
Let it dry!

I slept until after nine o'clock, got up to brush my teeth, wash my face, eat breakfast, and then went online to play games with Xu Shu.

Xu Shu's film crew won't start work until after the 15th of the month, and she'll be in Shengjing.

As soon as Chu An logged on, Xu Shu's private messages started flashing: "How do I turn off my phone?"

Chu An gave a perfunctory reply, "No electricity."

"Oh!" Xu Shuzhen believed her. "Come on, let me help you level up!"

She had just spent RMB two days ago to buy a top-tier hidden weapon from the Tang Clan—the "Golden Peacock Feather"—and the novelty hadn't worn off yet.

Chu An was furious when he heard this. When the weapon was dropped by a player, Chu An was trying to fool Xiang Lintao. By the time he got the news, Xu Shu had already asked Zhang Yuan to buy it for her.

Sigh...!

This guy is both afraid of his brother suffering and even more afraid of his brother driving a Land Rover!
Jealousy completely changed Chu An, and he suddenly felt that this game was no longer fun.

While teaming up with Xu Shu, he mischievously said, "This game is getting more and more boring. I'll take you to a fun game another day, one I made!"

Xu Shu didn't give her any face at all, "No!! I like playing this!"

Chu An, "."

Not wanting to dwell on the topic of games, he suddenly suggested, "Come over to my place for dumplings tonight?"

Xu Shu, "With green bean filling?"

Chu An was exasperated. "Where am I supposed to get you some green bean filling this season?"

She had eaten Chu An's filling once at Chu An's house—a filling of pork and green beans from Northeast China—and never forgot it.

Chu An: "Chives and eggs, take it or leave it."

Xu Shu: "Okay then, let's wrap them together this afternoon."

That's more like it. The two happily leveled up by grinding monsters, enjoying the last bit of leisure before the Spring Festival.

Around noon, Xiang Lintao came to the door.

As soon as he entered, he was very polite, rubbing his hands together and leaning forward, "Teacher Chu, are you busy? I'm so sorry to bother you again."

Chu An, however, adopted a businesslike attitude, saying, "Get to the point."

"Well," Xiang Lintao pulled up a chair and sat down behind Chu An, "we had a serious discussion about it after we got back!"

Chu An: "What are we discussing?"

Xiang Lintao: "Didn't Teacher Chu want to endorse 'Racial War'?"

"At the time, in order to protect the interests of the shareholders, I didn't dare to agree to Professor Chu's request, but I held a meeting with them as soon as I got back!"

Xiang Lintao vividly described, "I told them that Teacher Chu has made a huge contribution to Green Field, and that Teacher Chu's public image and influence are so great that endorsing 'Race War' would be a condescension for him!"

Chu An was amused by this and echoed Xiang Lintao's words, "President Xiang is still a man of honor."

Xiang Lintao: "Absolutely!"

"In short, no matter what, the board of directors unanimously agreed to have Teacher Chu as the spokesperson!"

Chu An pouted, "Forget about the endorsement! I was just joking."

He glanced back at Xiang Lintao, grinned, and said, "Actually, I wanted to give the game endorsement opportunity to Dota, since it's my own game after all!"

The word "oneself" was emphasized so heavily that Xiang Lintao's heart clenched.

But on the surface, she had to pretend to be nonchalant, saying, "Speaking of that game, I was just about to talk to Teacher Chu about it. Why did you insist on making it yourself?"

"The game industry is so competitive these days, most games are losing money. If Teacher Chu is willing to play games, why not merge Dota into 'Race Wars'? We'll cover the production costs!"

"Consider this a thank you to our spokesperson!"

Chu An, "."

He stopped staring at the computer and turned to look silently at Xiang Lintao.

After staring at it for a while, Mr. Xiang got annoyed.

His momentum crumbled, and he said, "Forget it."

He was clinging to a sliver of hope, figuring he could fool them if he could, thinking that Chu An's already immense fame wouldn't be so bad after just one more game.

结果
Sigh, some money just can't be saved.

"Teacher Chu, name your price."

Chu An rolled her eyes at him, thinking to herself, "That's more like it!"

He actually thinks he can get ten yuan from Chu for free? President Xiang is clearly overthinking it.

Without further ado, he said, "The endorsement fee is 800 million, that was agreed upon on that day."

Xiang Lintao: "Okay!"

Chu An: "Dota 200 million, plus Race Wars, including 10% of the game revenue from the sequel."

Upon hearing this, Xiang Lintao suddenly looked up and stared at Chu An with a look of surprise.

Chu An laughed, "What? You don't want enough? Then I'll ask for more?"

Xiang Lintao: "."

To be honest, he thought Chu An would ask for an exorbitant price. Such a good game, and it doesn't require Green Field to invest too much in development costs. Two million plus 10% of the game's revenue—that price is really not high!
She grabbed Chu An's hand immediately, "I won't say anything more! Teacher Chu is a benefactor to Green Field!"

This statement contained a degree of flattery, but it was not without sincerity.

But Chu An didn't think so.

His asking price is actually not low at all. Firstly, Green Field Company is not a large and powerful game company. The previous sponsorship of 1000 million yuan for "You Are My Glory" was a huge gamble that emptied the company's cash flow.

Although they received another round of financing before the Lunar New Year and have money in their accounts, it's already their limit to come up with another ten million for endorsement fees and game copyrights.

Secondly, Chu An values ​​long-term benefits more.

He and Lu Mingze had already received 15% of the revenue from "Race Wars," and with the current 10%, they would have 25%.

This is already very high. Among all the shareholders of Green Field, apart from Xiang Lintao himself, probably no one has received more than Chu An and Lu Mingze.

In Xiang Lintao's view, this revenue is both future-oriented, requires no cost, and is controllable.

Like other real-time strategy games of the time, Race Wars profited by selling one-time buyout rights.

This era didn't have as many pay-to-win gimmicks as later generations, so giving Chu An 25% of the revenue from TV dramas and endorsements was perfectly acceptable compared to the revenue brought to the game.

But Chu An didn't think that way at all; he wasn't even interested in "Racial Wars".

He's aiming to create sequels, sell skins, and organize competitions.

That's the real source of profit, an astronomical figure that even Xiang Lintao couldn't imagine.

"Is this settled?"

Xiang Lintao: "It's settled! I'm in charge!"

Chu An typed in the game, "Okay then!" and told Xu Shu to play by herself for a while.

Xu Shu simply logged off, leaving behind the message, "See you later."

Turning to Xiang Lintao, he said, "Mr. Xiang, I have a suggestion for you."

Xiang Lintao, "What suggestion?"

Chu An, “Switch the positions of the StarCraft-like games ‘Race Wars’ and ‘DOTA’!”

Xiang Lintao paused, not understanding for a moment what Chu An was trying to express.
Chu An explained, "If you log in to the race war, then you will always be a follower of StarCraft, copying someone else's game mode."

"But if it's DOTA that's going to be released, then StarCraft's game mode is just a branch of DOTA!"

"You should understand what this means. In terms of publicity, you've gone from being inferior to being superior!"

Xiang Lintao, “.”

Although it's hard to accept at first, it actually seems to make a lot of sense!

Chu An hadn't finished speaking yet!
"Secondly!! You still have a year. Before the game goes live, you must create a battle platform!"

Xiang Lintao had been completely following Chu An's line of thinking. When he heard Chu An's suggestion to create a battle platform, he immediately shook his head. "It's not that we haven't thought about the battle platform, to make it easier for players to find game partners online."

"From a research and development perspective, it's not really a difficult problem. In fact, the research and development department has even built a network platform into the game before."

"But the problem is that the domestic network bandwidth is not yet sufficient for the demands of the game."

Real-time strategy games like this are very sensitive to network latency. If the data is out of sync or there's constant lag, how can you play the game?
"Therefore, the time is not yet ripe to build a platform."

Chu An smiled slightly at this, "You're short-sighted."

Xiang Lintao, "What do you mean?"

Chu An said, "First, just because the network doesn't meet the requirements this year doesn't mean it won't next year. You know better than I how fast the Chinese internet is developing. Only by staying ahead of the network speed can you gain the upper hand when the time is right for online battles."

"Secondly, if the domestic internet speed isn't fast enough, what about overseas? If you have a platform with complete battle features, have you thought about how much that would help you capture the overseas market?"

Xiang Lintao, "!!!"

“Third!” Chu An held up three fingers. “Let’s take StarCraft as an example. The StarCraft league in South Korea is already quite mature, and there are more and more esports competitions in Europe and America every year!”

"Haven't you noticed? Both Dota and Race Wars are games that emphasize competition. Traditional advertising is far less effective at driving traffic than the esports market!"

"Therefore, we must build a platform! Only in this way can you quickly establish a tiered selection system for ordinary players, expert gamers, and even professional players in a new game!"

"At that time, we'll set up a world championship with an astronomical prize pool to quickly expand the game's reach beyond its core audience. It will be hard for you not to succeed!"

Xiang Lintao was convinced and looked at Chu An seriously, "I, Xiang Lintao, consider myself an expert in the gaming industry."

"After listening to Teacher Chu's words today, I realized that I still have a long way to go!"

This is not flattery, but sincerity.

Chu An modestly replied, "It's all nonsense."

"After all, a quarter of what you earn is mine!"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't waste this money. It's not just Dota, there's also Auto Chess and Legion Wars coming up, I guarantee they'll all be blockbusters."

Chu An had to make empty promises to President Xiang, but he also had to be wary of him being taken advantage of.

Damn, one million in sales revenue and 90 in marketing expenses—this is common practice in the entertainment industry, but these capitalists are even more ruthless than the entertainment industry itself!

These words, however, reminded Xiang Lintao.
Teacher Chu is only taking the profits, but this is a talented person!

Suddenly, he said, "Teacher Chu, why don't you invest in Green Field?"

Chu An raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself, "That's a good idea."

But he said, "I can't afford it, I don't have the money!"

Xiang Lintao: "You don't need to spend any money, I'll figure something out!"

It's true that capitalists exploit people, but Xiang Lintao felt more at ease keeping a talented person firmly on his side.

If he could invest in Green Field without spending any money, Chu An would be very willing.

As a time traveler, and in two similar worlds twenty years ago, what he lacked most was a way to monetize his wealth.

Any idea, if used properly, can be valuable in this time and space.

After seeing Xiang Lintao off, Chu An didn't think much of it and went into the kitchen to get busy.

Not long after, Xu Shu arrived.

He came in, rolled up his sleeves, and washed his hands, acting like a complete celebrity. "Let me help you."

Chu An asked her to pick chives while he kneaded the dough.

Suddenly, the scene felt quite heartwarming, reminding me that no matter how high one's achievements are, one must ultimately return to the realities of life.

While chatting casually with Xu Shu, I asked, "How much longer will this filming take?"

Xu Shu sat on a small stool, holding a handful of chives. "It'll be done soon, we should be able to finish filming by mid-March."

Chu An, "What about the next film?"

Xu Shu: "The next project is still a long way off. The company has agreed to let me take the college entrance exam, so once this project is finished, I'll go back to school!"

It's true that Xu Shu is busy filming, but she is still a student in name only, she's just on long-term leave.

As for the college entrance examination, as long as Xu Shu herself is willing, no matter how inhumane Tiandu is, they won't dare to stop her.

The National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) is politically correct in China. How dare they force Xu Shu to give up the Gaokao? Then Tian Du will not only face the anger of fans, but also the official authorities.

Tian Du wasn't stupid, so when Xu Shu expressed her desire to go to university, he only offered token advice. Seeing her determination, he went along with it.

Chu An nodded. Xu Shu's situation was similar to his when she applied to art colleges; neither of them had it too difficult.

"Oh, by the way, if you have the chance, could you pass on some information to Zhang Yuan for me?"

Xu Shu, "What news?"

Chu An said, "I sell scripts. If they want to buy them, they can come to me."

President Chu continues to work himself to the bone to make money.
.

(End of this chapter)