Rebirth 08: Can a mobile game company also build a tech empire?

"Hey Hao, what's new in the game update? Let me see!"

Wang Xuan squeezed next to Qiu Zihao.

The remaining two had been waiting for a long time, their eyes filled with anticipation.

"It seems they've updated the friend system."

Qiu Zihao scratched his head, not understanding for a moment.

"A friend system? Where in China can you find someone who plays Fruit Swordsman? I don't think you can find another one in the entire Guangzhou University."

Lu Bowen asked in confusion.

Indeed, it's extremely difficult to play Fruit Swordsman in the country right now.

The very first step—owning an iPhone—is enough to deter the vast majority of people.

The iPhone is not sold in the country, and it costs as much as 5,000 yuan!

Although electronic products are not cheap these days, only someone as foolish and rich as Qiu Zihao would spend 5,000 yuan to buy a smartphone that is not very practical in China.

Then, after opening the App Store, I saw that the game required payment to download.

This directly touched a nerve with people in China.

You have to pay to play a game? I play for free, okay?

At the same time, buying games requires a bank card that supports international payments.

This has stumped a large number of people.

Qiu Zihao is able to keep up with the trend only because he has family members abroad.

He entered the friend system and found it wasn't empty as he had imagined.

Instead, there was already a long list of friends, and upon closer inspection, all of them had English names.

"Huh? Where did you get so many friends?"

Tan Ming saw Qiu Zihao's list of friends in the game and asked curiously.

"This is... my Facebook friend!"

Qiu Zihao was somewhat surprised after seeing the name clearly.

So the authorization I just granted was used here.

"Isn't this just like Tencent Games?" Lü Bowen realized. "So foreign games also learn from our games!"

He doesn't realize yet that this isn't about foreign countries learning from China, but rather about domestic countries "borrowing" from each other.

At this point, a prompt box appears on the game interface:

Your friend "Angel" has issued a challenge to you. Do you accept?

"Hmm? Who's Angie? It sounds like a girl's name."

Sure enough, men's focus is sometimes so unified, especially among a group of college students experiencing the stirrings of youth.

"This... I added them as friends on Facebook to learn foreign languages."

"Oh~ learning a foreign language~ learning a foreign language is good."

Tan Ming had a look of sudden realization.

"Wow, they really studied foreign languages!"

Qiu Zihao's explanation seemed so weak at this moment.

"Where did you add this from? Do you have a photo? Are you good-looking? I've heard that foreigners like to use photos as their profile pictures, is that true?"

Wang Xuan asked a series of questions, leaving Qiu Zihao at a loss for words.

This is not only a concern for all men, but also involves curiosity about foreign countries.

After all, although China has integrated with foreign countries a lot since joining the WTO and hosting the Olympics, foreign countries are still quite unfamiliar to most people.

"Never mind all that, just agree already!"

Lu Bowen, this gaming fanatic, has a different focus than others.

His eyes are only on the game; women will only slow him down!

"Okay, I understand."

Qiu Zihao realized what was happening and agreed to accept the challenge.

From the very beginning, the game interface definitely gave off a two-player battle vibe.

Qiu Zihao was assigned to the Red Team, and his avatar was surrounded by a red frame.

A banana is tossed up from the bottom, and the group has played this game countless times, almost to the point of muscle memory.

All four people's fingers tapped the screen at the same time.

In other words, the iPhone 3G does not support multi-touch technology, otherwise this poor banana would have been cut into several pieces.

"Hey, hey, hey! Stop messing around!"

Qiu Zihao was getting anxious. He could manage at other times, but now that the two of them were fighting, he couldn't afford to lose.

"I'm trying to help you!"

"Yeah, how could we lose to a foreign girl!"

It's unclear whether the three people genuinely came to help or were deliberately causing trouble.

In any case, none of the three people's fingers left the screen.

But you know what? As the game progressed, more and more fruit were thrown up, and the team worked together so well that they didn't miss a single piece.

Soon, Angela on the other side couldn't hold on and lost the battle.

Of course, Angie had no idea how many animals were playing games with her behind the phone.

"Ha! We won!"

"Great! We won!"

The group cheered.

"Ding-dong!"

A notification sounded, and I received a text message from Facebook.

"Open it and take a look!"

Tan Ming urged.

Seeing that their chat could no longer be kept secret, Qiu Zihao decided to go all out and open the messages in front of them.

It was a sentence sent in English:

"You're really good at games, teach me how you do it."

After all, they were students from Yangcheng University, so they could understand simple English. The group chattered amongst themselves, each saying their own thing.

"Send a message quickly and teach her!"

"Idiot! He's not interested in the game, he just wants to chat with Hao-ge!"

"Hmm, now that you mention it, you do have a point."

Three cunning advisors surrounded Qiu Zihao, offering him terrible ideas.

Qiu Zihao, undeterred, waved his hand and shooed the group away like flies.

"Go away! You guys are looking at private chats too! Go play somewhere else!"

"Oh, it's a private chat! You were just saying you were learning a foreign language."

The three of them spoke in a sarcastic tone.

After shooing away his roommates who were watching, Qiu Zihao sat alone, chatting on his phone.

The remaining three were bored and started chatting casually.

"Why do you think this foreign company is so amazing? They made Angry Birds and Fruit Swordsman."

Lü Bowen started it.

"Hey, you know what, foreign games are just different. I can't even get into Penguin games anymore."

Tan Ming picked up a novel and chatted while reading it.

"It's true, playing penguin games doesn't feel as fun as it used to be. Why is that?"

Wang Xuan scratched his head and asked in confusion.

"Perhaps it's a lack of creativity."

Lu Bowen succinctly revealed the secret.

"Yes! It just lacks creativity!"

Penguin Games seems to be using the same few game formats over and over again.

If you just focused on making a good game, that would be fine, but the game is full of pay-to-win elements.

Unlike Fruit Swordsman, which you can play as much as you want after buying it out, and now they've even updated the friend system.

Tan Ming shook his head, looking disappointed.

"Would you buy it?"

Lu Bowen countered with a question.

"Sigh, it's too expensive. Maybe $5.99 is cheap abroad, but it's almost 42 yuan in China!"

Tan Ming sighed, lamenting his lack of financial resources.

"But their game is really good! When I first saw Fruit Swordsman, I thought it was made by a domestic company!"

Wang Xuan took over the conversation.

"Yes! I really didn't expect that a foreign company could understand martial arts to this extent. I love it so much."

Tan Ming, a fan of martial arts novels, said excitedly.

"Yeah, combining martial arts and fruit-cutting is such a perfect fit for the gameplay. How did they come up with that?"

Wang Xuan nodded in agreement.

"The graphics and background music in this game perfectly match my imagination of martial arts games!"

The only drawback is that the opening animation only introduced the boy's apprenticeship, and the game did not give the boy a result later on;

Honestly, this game would be perfect if it had a complete storyline.

Tan Ming excitedly said a lot.

"There's nothing we can do about it. The game was made by a foreign company, so it's good enough to have an opening sequence."

Wang Xuan shook his head, disagreeing with Tan Ming's idea.

"No way! I absolutely have to join this company someday. If they won't do it, I will!"

Tan Ming has already made plans for the future.

But they didn't even check online; ZhengTu Technology is entirely a Chinese company.