Build a game empire from scratch

The day after NetDragon boss Zhao Yucheng was arrested, former chairman Zhao Qingsheng reappeared in the NetDragon headquarters office.

However, he only showed up for a short time that day to calm people's hearts, and then disappeared again, obviously to be busy with his son's affairs.

It's just Zhao Yucheng's problem, there is no room for maneuver at all, let alone even thinking about finding people.

So Zhao Qingsheng returned to NetDragon with a heavy heart, and began to check the current situation and problems of various departments, especially the financial department.

Before the inspection, he had a certain expectation in mind: the situation must be bad.

——Under the pressure of virtual reality games, the entire VR game industry is in a great recession, and it is no wonder that NetDragon is doing well.

Not to mention that between Yunmeng and other VR game companies, there is only commercial competition, but there is still a personal enmity with NetDragon. Whenever there is a chance, Yunmeng will definitely target NetDragon.

This situation is also the reason why he didn't come back before - because he was also powerless.

It's better to continue to focus on the newly opened foreign trade business, at least it is more promising than VR games.

——At the beginning, because the game industry was developing too fast, he realized that his age was no longer suitable for this industry, and he was unwilling to rest on his laurels, so he handed over NetDragon to his son and changed his field to work hard.

However, with the help of Zhao Yucheng's assistant, department heads, and several old subordinates, after sorting out all the difficulties NetDragon faced, Zhao Qingsheng was still a little startled.

The problem is too big!

Even if it shrinks and shrinks, closes factories, closes redundant R\u0026D centers, and stops most game development projects, NetDragon still cannot stop the decline, and its cash flow has almost dried up.

A steady stream of payouts, loans coming due...

Seeing all this, Zhao Qingsheng frowned.

There seems to be only one way to avoid a complete rupture of the capital chain—sell all personal and family assets in your hands and fill them in this bottomless pit.

The current stage of development of the new company is when money is scarce, and it is impossible to have money to fill the hole of NetDragon.

But is it really necessary to do this?

Zhao Qingsheng has deep feelings for NetDragon, after all, he made it with his own hands.

But his rationality told him: This is an extremely irrational behavior.

This is not a crisis that is short of a sum of money and can be overcome by making up for it.

Even if the boat is overwhelmed and the property is sold to fill the hole, it is very likely that it will only prolong the lingering time of the net dragon, and it will still fall short in the end.

He didn't see any hope of turning the tide.

Therefore, the more rational choice is actually——

Declared bankrupt.

No longer consider changing the legal person, but directly apply for bankruptcy to the court, and the bankruptcy liquidation team will intervene to enter the bankruptcy liquidation process.

Anyway, NetDragon is a limited liability company and does not need to bear unlimited joint and several liabilities.

Besides, Zhao Yucheng has already been in prison, and he will stay there for 10 years, so it is impossible for him to have the opportunity to start a business again.

In this case, it doesn't matter if you suffer a little more reputation loss.

Compared with the crime of "endangering national security", this is nothing.

Would a person who was accused of betraying the country still worry about being accused of being old?

"Besides, bankruptcy is not a bad thing, it's a legitimate business rule."

In this way, Zhao Qingsheng completed his psychological construction.

So, in this monthly meeting where almost all the middle and high-level executives of NetDragon were present, Zhao Qingsheng stood in the spacious conference room, pacing slowly while reminiscing about the past.

He recounted all the difficulties and challenges NetDragon experienced from the beginning of its establishment to the appearance of Yunmeng, and the achievements and results achieved, which aroused the memories of many old employees.

But Zhang Heying in the conference room, even though he is also an old man, is not in the mood to look back on the glorious years of the past, but sighs in his heart.

He already had a premonition of what the old chairman was going to say later.

And this premonition came true immediately——

"NetDragon can stand out from the fierce competition and go all the way to the top position in the industry. Everyone has put in a lot of hard work. I must thank you again for your contribution to the company."

"However, the trend is overwhelming, and it is impossible for human beings to fight against it. We have to admit that the era of NetDragon has passed."

"This kind of thing should be familiar to everyone: from the beginning of the game industry to the present, we have heard and seen many similar things. New technologies are constantly emerging, and batches of companies have been established and then collapsed..."

"Now it's just...it's our turn."

Zhao Qingsheng looked around, and inevitably lingered on those familiar old faces for a few seconds, and finally announced with a sigh:

"I'm sorry, but NetDragon, it's over."

"At most one week later, NetDragon will officially declare bankruptcy, everyone..."

"Let's find another job."

...

...

Zhao Qingsheng left.

In the meeting room, everyone did not disperse immediately, but looked at each other and looked at each other.

Zhang Heying had no desire to continue communicating, so he turned around and left directly, returning to his office.

Before he arrived at the office, the news that the company was going bankrupt and disbanded had already spread throughout the company's various group chats.

Along the way, his ears were full of words from the employees:

"Really broke?"

"That can still be false."

"I guessed it a long time ago, have you figured out where to go next?"

"I sent my resume to Yunmeng, but there was no response. Feihu is not recruiting for the time being, but Desert Island is recruiting, but the recruiters are very strange, and I can't go. Worry!"

"I have received an interview notice from Yunmeng! But it may not be too optimistic to say that it is an interview meeting."

"Why don't you find a small studio? The small studio that makes casual games now seems to live a better life than many big companies. My classmate's small studio has a total of 8 people, and the casual computer games produced by Feng Yunmeng. 2.6 million copies sold!"

"It's not a good time! It's December now, where can I find a reliable job?"

...

The tree falls and the hozen scatter.

Zhang Heying sighed in his heart, but then he couldn't help laughing at himself: Isn't it the same for me?

He contacted Yu Gu at the weekend, and Yu Gu also promised to help him with inquiries after he joined the job on Monday.

He is now nervously waiting for news from Yu Gu.

*

But right now, Yu Gu can't take care of his old colleague's request for the time being, he is attending the first meeting after joining Yunmeng.

Whether it is a meeting in the virtual world or the content of the meeting, Yu Gu feels very fresh.

First of all, the number of participants in Yunmeng's conference far exceeds that of NetDragon.

This is not to say that Yunmeng has more mid-level and high-level employees than NetDragon, but that many departments seem to be dispatched collectively, and all of them attended the meeting.

Thanks to the virtual world, there are such spacious and comfortable conditions that can seat so many people.

In addition, the content of the conference is quite different from that of NetDragon.

Zhao Yucheng would not be like Lin You, who enthusiastically discussed the activities in a certain game with his employees.

It is not about the sales, publicity, and reputation that the event can bring, but the specific details of how the event will be done.

As the meeting progressed, Yu Gu soon discovered that Lin You was not like a businessman.

——He is different from all the businessmen Yu Gu has met.

He is different in every way.

For example, the [Virtual Xiajing] project team reported the progress and said that the team has expanded rapidly, and the number has exceeded 60 people.

And because the internal structure of the building needs to be highly restored to reality, more and more manpower is needed, so I plan to continue to recruit up to 100 people.

Lin You agreed without blinking an eye, without even asking if there was a more cost-effective way.

Later, he even said: 5% of the proceeds from [Virtual Xiajing] should be used to set up a special fund for the maintenance of these public buildings and public spaces in reality.

Yu Gu couldn't figure out why such a large department was established just to race against time and build a [Virtual Xia Jing] without any urgency or necessity.

This department was still behind, and the person Yu Gu didn't know reported: "A store came to me and said that they were willing to pay a higher price to buy a copy of [Virtual Xiajing Online Shopping Permission]."

"We didn't say anything, and they took turns to increase the price on their own. Now the price is more than six times higher than our quotation."

"Should we have a bidding auction?"

Just hearing this, Yu Gu thought that Lin You was in a hurry to build the [Virtual Xia Jing] in order to harvest the leeks of the merchants.

As a result, Lin You immediately said, "No need."

"The key is the quality of the product and the reputation of the store among consumers, not the advertising fee. We are not here to do virtual real estate."

Just when Yu Gu thought that he was selfless and didn't love money at all, Lin You said again: "Of course, if the product is good and the money is generous, then it's not impossible to make it convenient..."

...Yu Gu completely gave up thinking.

*

Then came Xiaochun's report.

The first thing Xiaochun said was not the Redstone Challenge, but the problem of the module:

"In Minecraft, there is a module that charges privately. Do we need to intervene?"

"Paid modules?" Lin You was a little surprised, "Ordinary players? Or professional studios?"

"Player." Xiao Chun obviously investigated in detail.

"It is true that many studios are researching module development, and some of them have even completed the development and released it for players to play. But they haven't charged yet, probably because they are afraid that Yunmeng will be held accountable."

As soon as Lin You heard that it was a player, Lin You immediately became interested: "What mod did they make? Since someone is willing to pay for it, it should be very attractive, right?"

"Hmm..." Xiaochun hesitated for a moment, "The number one is [Harem Hunting Battle]. The main gameplay is to capture all kinds of scantily clad female NPCs. If the capture is successful, the opponent will perform a striptease on the spot."

"According to their latest announcement, it seems that 5 female members and 3 gays have been recruited to join the team, and they are developing [Harem Hunting War·Sex Transformation]."

In the virtual office, laughter rang out.

"Ahem!" Lin You coughed in embarrassment, "Anyone more serious?"

"Yes, [My World Survival]."

"They built an urban-style building complex in imitation of the metropolis, and then threw a large number of ferocious zombies to attack the player."

"In order to allow players to fight against so many zombies, a lot of outrageous enchantments have been added, making cold weapons the same as hot weapons."

"These weapons and enchantments are placed in different treasure chests, and the player's experience in fighting monsters and the level of weapons and equipment are set. Basically, the mod is made into a game for upgrading and fighting zombies."

"Because the overall rhythm is well controlled, and the experience of harvesting monsters is also great, it now has a high reputation among players."

"However, this team has no plans to expand its personnel, and the content expansion is relatively slow."

As Xiaochun said, he called up a display window and showed the game screen for Lin You to see. ,

Lin You saw a player on the screen, obviously holding a crossbow in his hand, but just like Gatling, he shot the crossbow arrows with blue light, killing a large number of swarming zombies.

The player next to him opened his backpack, grabbed two ender pearls from a whole bag, and threw them into the zombie crowd like a grenade.

It turned out that this thing really had the same explosive effect as a grenade: sound, flame, light and shadow, killing range, everything is available!

Obviously, the developer not only relied on the basic tools given by Yunmeng to design a special enchantment, but also carefully designed the damage value and modified the expressiveness of the special effect.

"It still looks like it." Lin You nodded.

This is what he wants to see!

Add some plots, replace hot weapons, and improve the levels, this is almost the prototype of "Left 4 Dead"!

Lin You has no objection to collecting money for such a mod.

But you have to ignore it, otherwise the market will be chaotic, scammers will run rampant, and even bad money will drive out good money, which will cause serious damage to the game environment.

"In principle, we allow players to make profits. After all, it is the creative result of hard work, but we must formulate perfect rules to make all this benign development as much as possible."

Lin You said while thinking: "This matter is more complicated. We have to study it carefully later. Let me first talk about my current thinking——"

"First: improve the current module sharing mode, launch a dedicated module game platform, and make everything normalized."

"All payment behaviors must be under supervision, and scammers must not be allowed to live. Corresponding refund, scoring and evaluation mechanisms must be added to protect the rights and interests of players."

"Second: The price ceiling must be set, and developers cannot be allowed to set prices randomly."

"As for the specific restriction method, whether it is based on the scale of development, the particularity of the creativity, or the reputation of the players, I will wait until I look back at the current module environment."

"Third: Give players the opportunity to play for free."

"You can make a free day plan, periodically let players play for free, or make a [limited-time free] recommendation, so that developers are willing to take the initiative to open it to players for free."

"In short, the threshold should be low, the process should be formal, and players should be protected."

"More detailed details, we will improve after the meeting."

In order to correctly guide the direction of module production, Lin You has even decided: "Terraria" is free and open!

Xiaochun nodded, and continued to talk about the next thing - [Redstone Challenge].

Not surprisingly, Lin You nodded in agreement without saying a word.

And he doesn't think it's enough!

In order to allow more players to participate, Lin You suggested that Xiaochun add a [National Construction Competition] in addition to the [Redstone Challenge].

Let players who are not familiar with redstone technology also be able to join in and play together.

Instead of just looking at the works of the big redstone and shouting: "Big brother 666!"

This will not increase the workload. Xiaochun readily agreed to add a paragraph when posting the announcement.

Anyway, the boss is not short of this competition bonus, so...

manage! Everything can be done!

*

Then there is the arrangement of [King of Cards].

The [Quota War] schedule, live broadcast arrangement, reward statistics plug-in... etc. are all ready.

Even the customer service team is ready to help the contestants at any time - this is very important, after all, there are many older contestants in this competition, and some of them are not even able to collect registration information.

In addition, the professional croupiers in Haojingao (Macau) Casino have also made an appointment.

When the [climbing battle] link, they will join in, replace the NPC croupier, and guide the progress of the competition schedule.

Seeing that everything is going smoothly, Lin You nodded in satisfaction, and only said one sentence: "The player's live broadcast income must be paid in time."

The live broadcast platforms are all owned by their own family, so this is naturally not difficult.

So the person in charge simply nodded and said, "Understood."

*

Finally, it was finally the turn of the "Battlefield" project team to report.

But in fact, this project team has nothing to report: Lin You has been paying attention to "Battlefield" recently, and understands everything very clearly.

So Qin Songyun just reported the terrible sales of 43 million in three days, and the highly heated discussions on the global Internet.

Accept the warm applause and congratulations from the audience, and the report will basically be over.

——Lin You has never had the patience to listen to things he already knows.

In the end, Lin You gave some instructions: "Problem repair speed must keep up with", "New weapon production must keep up with", "National war map should be fast", and then came another sentence "You guys work hard", just Going to end the meeting.

But Qin Songyun knew Lin You very well, and when he heard it, he felt that something was wrong: What Lin You said, why did he feel like he was going to be a shopkeeper?

"Boss, do you have anything else to do this week?" Qin Songyun asked decisively.

"That's right." Lin You nodded as a matter of course.

"Then boss, can you tell me what you are busy with?" Qin Songyun didn't quite believe it.

"Riding horses, drinking, and beating people!" Lin You replied bluntly.

Qin Songyun couldn't hold back on the spot: "Are you serious?"

"Of course." Lin You continued to nod, but in the middle of nodding, he suddenly remembered something: "No, there is one more thing..."

"What?" Qin Songyun looked at Lin You expectantly, thinking that this should be a serious matter, right?

Lin You replied solemnly: "Play games!"

"I plan to invite some people to play games live together."

"???" Qin Songyun's face was full of question marks.

Yu Gu, who was in contact with Lin You for the first time, was completely confused.

The chapter division failed, so today is this chapter.