Game Development Giant

In fact, Jester himself knows it better than anyone else.

How did the game Hearthstone succeed? In his previous life, he discussed this matter with many senior players and some game planners on a forum.

After a long discussion, we basically have an accurate and clear judgment on this.

Basically, it can be said that the success of Hearthstone is a success of a standard blue ocean strategy. Generally speaking, blue ocean strategies are not replicable. To understand what blue ocean strategy is, you must first understand What is the Red Ocean Strategy?

Because the two are relative.

The so-called red ocean strategy refers to competition in the existing market space, which is to compete in price or sales promotion. The purpose is to strive for efficiency, but it increases sales costs or reduces profits, while blue ocean strategy On the contrary, blue ocean strategy is to create a market space that no one is competing for, transcend the ideological scope of competition, create new market demands, create new market space, and obtain new space through value innovation.

The more detailed it is, the easier it will be. This is what the so-called blue ocean strategy is.

Enterprises can create industries that do not exist today and open up an unknown market space. This market space or industry that needs to be developed urgently is the blue ocean, which represents the need for innovation and represents the opportunity for high-profit growth. In the blue ocean strategy, the company has no competitors and creates value for customers, so the company can obtain high returns.

Secondly, the founders of blue ocean do not use competitors as benchmarks, but adopt a completely different set of strategic logic. This is value innovation. Value innovation is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategy. Under the guidance of the logic of blue ocean strategy, companies do not focus on defeating competitors, but on creating a leap in value for buyers and the company itself, thereby creating a new, uncompetitive market space and completely leaving behind Get rid of competition.

at last. The value innovation of blue ocean strategy attaches equal importance to value and innovation. It can be said to be a trap system to coordinate corporate activities based on value innovation.

Although after the great success of Hearthstone, it seems that this is a very successful blue ocean strategy, but at the beginning, many people did not think so. People think why it is called the Red Ocean Strategy.

In fact, in Jester's view, so many of the games he produced before were actually using blue ocean strategy to open up new markets. Discover new users and create new game types to gain the largest share of profits. Therefore, in essence, he also belongs to the beneficiary group of the blue ocean strategy.

In fact, it is very simple. Red represents blood and fighting, which means making profits in a mature market. It requires an extremely bloody fight to obtain it.

But blue ocean is different.

Just like a few decades later, the domestic navy said it was going to dark blue. What do you mean by dark blue? It is the deep sea, and the color blue is derived from this. The so-called blue ocean, also known as the deep sea, represents the mystery of the deep sea. In fact, this strategic system named after colors comes from economics.

In addition, there is another term. It's called the Black Sea Strategy.

And what is the Black Sea Strategy?

For example, the Red Sea represents bloody and brutal fighting, while the Blue Sea represents the mystery and unknown in the infinite blue. The profits in the red ocean are obvious, and the treasures in the blue ocean are extremely beautiful. But for the vast majority of companies, they are just living in the Black Sea.

The Black Sea strategy is simply two words: survival.

In the Black Sea, there is no direction, no strategy, no sunshine, only meteors passing by, only fleeting shadows, true and false, it is difficult to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy. The rules of the game in the Black Sea are that there are no rules. In such a world, we can only absorb strength in silence and look forward to a turnaround in inaction.

Many people are in such a stage in the early stages of starting a business, and those who can survive from this stage can be said to be very rare.

Jester was quite lucky. It could almost be said that he did not have to endure this test of survival in the beginning.

After surviving, you enter the battlefield of the brave: the Red Sea.

The Red Sea is bloody, and the rule of the game in the Red Sea is that the weak eat the strong, and the emphasis is on sealing the throat with a sword. If in the Black Sea you don't even have a chance to show your sword, in the Red Sea you not only have to show your sword, but you also have to build the sharpest sword. Having more swords may not be a good thing. Even if you have throwing knives all over your body, if you don’t have the sharpest one, you will still be eliminated by stronger opponents.

In the Red Sea, the most important strategy is specialization, which means that your flying knife or sword must be extremely sharp and indestructible.

People who come from the Black Sea can easily make a mistake: pursuing bigness and perfection, pursuing perfection. Because in the Black Sea, all dangers are possible, and all defenses are not superfluous. Just like a small company, it may dare to do any business because the company wants to survive; just like a job seeker, it wants to get any certificate because it does not know Which certificate is most useful.

In a red ocean, this kind of thinking can drive you into trouble. The correct way is: seek breakthroughs in the professional field. The company should establish the advantages of its main business, and individuals should give full play to their skills and expertise. The organization is a programmed machine, with stability first and innovation second. In each position, the strongest people are required to be competent. For an individual, it is better to concentrate on building the most powerful knife when you are surrounded by knives.

Because in the Red Sea, survival is no longer the only goal, the more important goal is: defeat the opponent.

It doesn't matter if your body bones are not big, but you must not let your opponent grow up. Just like a small fish, it is not big, but its teeth must be sharp. In the Red Sea, every day is full of battles, and every day you survive is one step closer to success. In the Red Sea, even sleep is uneasy because your enemies will attack you when you are at your weakest.

You can choose to be friendly, but your opponent won't. We know that there is a broken window theory - in a well-ordered environment, if a few people break the order and gain benefits, others will be unable to sit still. The power of the example of such rebels who benefit from it is infinite.

Therefore, society must impose strict penalties on the Red Sea rules and impose severe penalties on violators. If there are no such rules, this society will not be a Red Sea, but a Black Sea.

In fact, in the first twenty years after China was reformed, basically the entire domestic market grew in this extremely disordered situation. It can be said to be full of weeds and loopholes. Of course, some people have risen to the top. After entering the Tao, some people fall into the abyss.

Therefore, the strongest people in the Red Sea are those who know how to use the rules and even formulate them. As a company grows bigger, if it wants to find ways to become an industry leader, it must set industry standards. When a person reaches a certain level, the whole society will follow him as a role model. Finance is as smooth as water, and people are straight as balance. The power of social standards is infinite.

This is what Jester was doing before. He had experienced fighting in the Red Sea. When he reached the highest throne, he naturally set rules and asked those who wanted to continue fighting to act according to his rules. As for those who don’t want to abide by the rules, then I’m sorry, I can only deprive you of your right to live.

Therefore, although the Red Sea fights and kills, it does not kill everyone on sight. From no rules to rules, there is a huge progress from the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

The so-called blue ocean strategy means that companies break through the brutal competition in the red ocean. They do not focus on defeating competitors, but focus on creating a leap in value for buyers and the company itself, and thus create a new uncompetitive world. Market space, completely get rid of competition, and create a blue ocean of your own.

The competition-based Red Ocean strategy assumes that the structural conditions of the industry are given and unchanged, and companies are forced to compete with each other. The basis of this assumption is what academic circles call structuralism (inism).

On the contrary, value innovation is based on the view that market boundaries and industrial structures are not given and unchanging, but can be rebuilt by the actions and beliefs of individual enterprises. We call this view reconstructionism.

Blue ocean means untapped market space, demand creation and opportunities for rapid profit growth. In a blue ocean, competition does not exist because the rules of the game have not yet been established.

Value innovation is the basis of blue ocean strategy. Value innovation strives to make a leap in the value of both customers and enterprises, thus opening up a new, non-competitive market space.

Blue ocean strategists believe that market boundaries do not exist, so their thinking is not restricted by existing market structures. They believe that there must be untapped needs in the market, and the question is how to discover these needs. Therefore, the focus should shift from supply to demand, and from competition to value creation by discovering new needs.

Competition-oriented strategic thinking allows companies in the red ocean to first classify industries into attractive and unattractive categories, and then decide whether to enter the industry. In the view of blue ocean explorers, the market is essentially neither attractive nor unattractive, because these can be changed through the efforts and reinvention of the enterprise itself.

Just like the game Hearthstone.

At the beginning, many people thought that this game was unattractive, but in fact, in the eyes of those who implemented the blue ocean strategy, the market for online card games was blank. If they enter this market, they will have no competitors. (To be continued...)