Game Development Giant

Although Ubisoft was a little unwilling to become a permanent member of the board of directors, it still applied for the status of an ordinary member. 》,

However, the difference between ordinary members and permanent directors is not only reflected in the royalties of a platform. In fact, if you think about it, you will know that the World Electronic Games Association, on the surface, seems to be an organization for the entire electronic game industry. An organization that advocates for fair competition in the industry.

But in fact, this is a disguised monopoly organization.

Jester made such a decision after fully absorbing his memories of Nintendo going from peak to failure.

In fact, when he made this decision, even within Mars Entertainment, many people expressed their incomprehension. They felt that as a company that already occupied 80% of the market in the United States, 6% of the entire world Companies with more than ten companies are already close to monopolies and can directly formulate industry rules.

Why do we still need to give up this power?

If you let those third-party game development companies make a choice, most of them will regard the Dreambox series as their platform. Regardless of their attitudes towards other platforms, the largest market share is the largest say.

But Jester knows that if it is too strong, it will break easily.

If you do what Nintendo did back then, it's hard to judge what will happen in the future, but I think it will end up being similar to Nintendo's, with everyone betraying their relatives.

But what if I turn this monopoly into a coalition of forces?

Instead of yourself?

So, there is the World Electronic Games Association.

In this association, the three founding members of Mars Entertainment, Sony and Sega, which own the game platform, must have the greatest rights, followed by the first batch of invited permanent council members. In fact, this association. It is also a privileged organization of these companies that occupy almost the entire world video game industry, 90% of the market and players.

Ubisoft, a company that thought it could definitely become a permanent director before, but ended up not becoming one and just becoming an ordinary member, will naturally be very dissatisfied, but there is nothing to do if it is dissatisfied. This is not the decision of Mars Entertainment as a company. Rather, it is a decision that represents almost the entire world's video game industry.

If you like it, do it, don't do it, that's the truth.

Unwilling to give up, Ubisoft immediately thought of its Mars Entertainment branch in Europe.

They want to use Mars Entertainment's status in the World Electronic Games Association. Do things that they wouldn't be able to do under normal circumstances.

Of course, a certain price needs to be paid.

Therefore, there is this negotiation. Because of this, the leading party in such negotiations is the European branch of Mars Entertainment. When to negotiate, where to negotiate, and how to negotiate. In other words, Mars Entertainment has the final say.

When you talk to Ubisoft, you might as well tell them that if they are willing, our hair channels in France or even Western Europe can be merged with their channels.

When Jester thought about what Claudia said about negotiating with Ubisoft, he soon thought of another thing.

In the future, Ubisoft will be the largest game publishing company in Europe. In terms of distribution channels in Europe, not even EA can compare with them, and. For Jester, regarding matters such as distribution channels, although having his own distribution channels has great advantages.

However, for a game company to maintain a huge distribution channel, the financial pressure it needs to bear is very high.

For example, Jester's distribution channels in North America are actually undertaken by Fengxing Publishing and Mars Entertainment. Although these two companies are Jester's own companies, there is no affiliation between the two companies. , in this way, the financial pressure is shared between the two companies.

The same is true for Japanese distribution channels.

The only distribution channel in Europe was that when Jester and Claudia established the European branch, it was entirely handled by Claudia, the European branch of Mars Entertainment, and Fengxing Distribution was not responsible. Responsible.

However, having said that, in this way, although Claudia has monopoly power, the annual profit of the European branch is relatively the least impressive among the three branches of Mars Entertainment. This is because of the distribution of the entire Europe. The European branch needs to be fully responsible for the channels.

Of course, the South American branch and the Australian branch have just been established this year. Judging from the current scale of these two markets, the annual report of the European branch should not be the ugliest.

Now for Claudia, her control over the European branch has been deeply ingrained, and her idea of ​​completely controlling the distribution channels when she founded the Mars Entertainment European branch is no longer needed. , allocate part of the financial pressure from the distribution channel, and as long as the control is still in your own hands, there is no big problem.

And if we merge the distribution channels with Ubisoft, then it will be the best result.

As long as the two companies jointly establish a specialized issuance company, each uses part of its own issuance channels as capital to invest in the company, and then let the new company become a new issuance company, this will be a good thing for both companies.

But then again.

For Ubisoft, although it has someone to help share the financial pressure to maintain distribution channels, if its own shares account for less than 50%, this is inevitable. They still do not have the ability to follow up. Mars Entertainment Europe branch.

Then the distribution channels cannot be decided by oneself.

Although to a certain extent, this has shared the financial pressure, but without the right to speak, even if the financial pressure is reduced, what is the point?

You know, the importance of distribution rights to a game company is almost irreplaceable.

The reason why the World Electronic Games Association has no objection to Mars Entertainment, Sega and Sony being the most privileged founding members is because these three companies control the most important platform distribution rights for game companies in this era.

In other words, as long as you get the permission of these three companies, your game will be allowed to be sold on the platforms of these three companies.

Is this for large third-party game companies like Ubisoft? What about small game companies that are studio-based? They are not even qualified to apply to join the World Electronic Games Association - that is to say, the games they produce do not even have the right to apply for distribution on the platforms of Mars Entertainment, Sony, and Sega.

This is the largest monopoly established in electronic games in the world. Only by joining this association can you obtain the right to publish on the platforms of these three companies, but not just any game company like Cats and Dogs is eligible to apply.

Under such circumstances, if these small game studios want to develop games on the three major platforms, then what they must do is to contract for a company that is qualified to develop games on the three major platforms.

This shows that the original Naughty Dog in history could only be sold on Sega's MD through EA's OEM production.

That's the publishing rights of companies like Ubisoft.

However, because Ubisoft has not obtained the qualifications of a permanent director, the royalties they need to pay on the three major platforms, as well as the game cartridges they are allowed to burn each year, are also subject to strict regulations. For example, Naughty Dog, whom I mentioned before, in Jester’s memory, when they were still called Jam Electronics, they manufactured games for EA. At that time, EA was allowed to burn 100,000 game cartridges a year for a certain type. Zhang, and in order to ensure its own profits, ea would not continue to burn even if the sales of Jam Electronics' game were very good at that time.

Because, when publishing Jam Electronic games, EA needs to give them a share.

Under such circumstances, when those weak studios choose their distribution channels, they will naturally not choose companies like Ubisoft that do not have permanent director qualifications.

Because a publishing company that is allowed to burn one million game cartridges a year is not comparable to a publishing company that is allowed to burn 100,000 game cartridges a year. The situation we are facing now in Europe is that, in addition to Apart from the European branch of Mars Entertainment, there is no second game company in Europe that has the qualification of a permanent director of the World Electronic Games Association.

Of course, the World Electronic Games Association has already made rumors before, because when the association was established, only North American and Japanese game companies were discussed. Due to the rush of time, European companies were not considered. Therefore, they planned to At the next plenary meeting, three more permanent directors will be elected. These three places all belong to Europe.

Ubisoft is indeed the second largest game company in Europe now, but a publishing company without its own platform is not worth mentioning in this era.

This is who can get that quota. It does not just depend on a big company and a big business. To put it bluntly, even if half of the game companies obtain such qualifications, then this company can still be in extreme situations. Within a period of time, he used the special rights granted to him by the World Electronic Games Association to develop and grow.

It is the power of an organization that is far beyond what one can achieve alone.

The reason why Ubisoft plans to negotiate with Claudia this time is that they are extremely eager to obtain the qualifications of a permanent director of the World Electronic Games Association. (To be continued...)