Revisiting Future Path

Lot 099

On May 27, 2004, Chunqiu and Tencent's joint venture Chunteng Games rewritten version of the game lobby was officially launched. Due to the drag of the previous reputation, the data from the previous week was not prominent, and the number of new users was very limited. However, looking at the essence through the appearance, the effect of the new version of the board game is very obvious, and the retention rate of new users is much higher than the old version. Users of the old version also praised the new version for a lot of ease of use. Not only the interface is smooth and refreshing, but also the disconnection has become a rare phenomenon.

Chunteng Company is based on technology and upholds Wei Dongsheng's "rapid iterative update" product manager thinking, looking for a point in time with QQ users. Tencent was very excited and persuaded Goldman Sachs Asia to temporarily revise the shareholder recruitment plan and regard Chunteng Games as one of its core selling points.

Tencent is scheduled to go public in Hong Kong on June 16, 2004.

This is a very important event. Chunqiu is Tencent's third-largest shareholder and deserves to be helped. Wei Dongsheng has no intention of trying his best to raise Tencent, and refuses to come out in person on the pretext of his busy supercomputer project. However, Wei Dongsheng did not hide his due obligation. Apart from dispatching Lei Jiafei, Lu Binqi and others to support Tencent's listing, other parties also actively cooperated.

At the end of 2003, after Chunqiu Network finalized the agency rights of "World of Warcraft", it immediately prepared a new online game project. Chunqiu Network and Chunqiu Software routinely determine the needs of players before operating the game. After excluding time-based payment and freemium consumption, the growth point is placed on casual players and female players. At that time, Wei Dongsheng turned his attention to supercomputers. He did not want to waste time developing new games himself. He asked the game development team under Chunqiu Software if they had any good ideas. Unfortunately, he got very disappointed results.

To save time, Wei Dongsheng decided to introduce another game agency operation.

Looking around the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea game markets, Wei Dongsheng Xiangzhong is a casual music game called "o2jam". "O2jam" was developed by South Korea's O2Media and was just in public beta in June 2003, with so-so operating data. However, the agency fees of online games in this era have never been proportional to its operating data in South Korea. As mentioned earlier, "Paradise", which was hit by the Korean fire, hit the streets in China; "Legend", which hit the streets in Korea, reached 70% of the market in China. With "Legend" beads ahead, even if the operation in South Korea is so bad that it is about to close down, the manufacturers dare to shout incredible high prices.

At the time when the Spring and Autumn Network signed the "World of Warcraft" with a lot of noise, O2Media took Chunqiu Network as a triumph, saying that "o2jam" was equivalent to "World of Warcraft", and the Lions opened a big asking price of 830 million yuan in signing agency fees. Chunqiu Network negotiated with O2Media for several rounds. O2Media reduced the contract agency fee to 600 million, and then killed 600 million and never let go.

At the same time, Wei Dongsheng despised the program structure of "02jam" based on the programmer's technical background, and looked down on the gameplay mechanism of "o2jam" based on the product manager's experience, and he was unwilling to use simple mechanical agents. During the negotiation, Chunqiu Network was ordered by Wei Dongsheng to buy out the source code of "o2jam". In the future, Chunqiu Software or Chunqiu Network will be allowed to freely modify or even rewrite the source code of "o2jam". O2Media arrogantly refused, saying that the source code would not be given anyway, and the contract agency fee of RMB 600 million would not work.

The Spring and Autumn Network Negotiation Team was frustrated by South Korea and asked Wei Dongsheng for instructions.

Wei Dongsheng gave a simple two-character instruction: "Return to China."

Wei Dongsheng spent 830 million yuan to sign "World of Warcraft". In addition to "World of Warcraft" itself has a strong profit expectation, it is also a key to sending Chunqiu Network to the United States. As for "o2jam", no matter how profitable it is, it is just a game.

"02jam" is not worth a 600 million yuan bet.

The negotiation of the agency operation of "o2jam" broke down.

When O2Media saw the cooked duck flying, it initially contacted other game operators in China to sell it in angrily. Unexpectedly, the game operators were greeted with speechless eyes: how stupid we are to come up with 600 million yuan Signed an agency for this game.

O2Media turned around and found that it could not sell "o2jam" at a high price, and came back with a shy face to contact Chunqiu Network: "We are willing to reduce the price to 500 million yuan."

Chunqiu Network asked for Wei Dongsheng's opinions, and Wei Dongsheng gave instructions: "Let them roll the calf."

After the failure of the Spring and Autumn Network to negotiate in South Korea, Wei Dongsheng extinguished the idea of ​​cooperating with O2Media. He deliberately spent more than ten days in his spare time as a part-time planner and set up a free-value-added casual music and dance game based on the previous "Audition" model.

After the birth of the computer intelligent life orange algae, it has continuously optimized its own programs and has become more and more powerful. With the assistance of Orange Algae, Wei Dongsheng completed the core main program of the new game in just one month and named it "Dancing in the Forest". "Dancing in the Woods" was left to Chunqiu Software for further refinement, and the internal beta was quickly launched in mid-March 2004.

A word of discord, the introduction of agents becomes independent research and development.

The "o2jam" agency incident completely eliminated the impression that people were stupid by signing "World of Warcraft" at a high price on the Spring and Autumn Internet. Chinese game operators, the Korean game industry, and more companies outside the world have re-recognized the temperament of Chunqiu.com, and realized that signing "World of Warcraft" at a high price is a special event that cannot be replicated. Chunqiu is not really stupid and rich. For this reason, Wei Dongsheng's subsequent acquisition of Foxmail and the purchase of shares in Tencent did not encounter unreasonable asking prices.

The internal test of "Wulin League Master" ended in May 2004. Chunqiu Network survey found that this game may not be suitable for operation by Chunqiu Network.

Why do you say this?

In recent months, the crazy money-making "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn" has been envied and hated by all game operators. Chunqiu Network once replaced Shanda Network and became the object of severe criticism by public opinion. In order to curb peer pressure and restore social credibility, Wei Dongsheng commanded Chunqiu Network to counterattack strongly, offering the "online game anti-addiction system" killer, calling on the state to restrict the time of underage online games.

Wei Dongsheng counts the user group of "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn". Although there are many players under the age of 18, their contribution to paid recharge is less than 5%. In other words, most of the money circled in "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" comes from adult players. If Wei Dongsheng sacrifices the "online game anti-addiction system", the damage to himself will be far less than the loss of other game operators. Therefore, whenever game operators or their partners criticize "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" for inciting players to hate and stimulate consumption, Wei Dongsheng will righteously hold high the banner of "online game anti-addiction system" and fight back.

During the internal beta of "Dancing Cute Lord", based on various investigations and studies, Chunqiu Network found that the user group of "Dancing Cute Lord" tends to be young players, and the proportion of underage players is much higher than that of "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn". Taking into account the discrimination of online games in the general public opinion environment and the uncertainty of "Dancing Cute Lord", if someone deliberately tampered with the facts by spring and autumn techniques, it will transition from the adverse events of a small number of minor players in "Dancing Cute Lord" to Chunqiu Network, and then use Chunqiu Network to transition to "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms", it is very likely to push the reputation of Chunqiu Network and "Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" to the abyss of immortality.

In view of the fact that "Dancing Cute Lord" is not destined to bring far more revenue than "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn", Chunqiu Network decided to abandon the operation of "Dancing Cute Lord" and transfer it to Chunteng Games. The QQ user group is very young and has a high degree of overlap with the target users of "Dance Mengzhu". It should be more suitable for operating this game than Chunqiu Network.

In mid-May 2004, Chunqiu Software and Chunteng Games signed a contract to transfer the operation rights of "Dancing Cute Lord" in inland China under the conditions of 0 copyright tax and 35% sales share. However, Tencent had a misunderstanding and did not believe in the sincere explanation of Chunqiu.com, and secretly suspected that Chunqiu Software and Chunqiu.com were underestimating the economic benefits of "Dancing Cute Lord". However, considering that the agency contract is zero copyright tax, Chunteng Games will at most pay the cost of trial operation, and Tencent also allows Chunqiu Networks this kind of "pass-on risk" measure.

On May 13, 2004, Shanda successfully landed on Nasdaq and raised US$150 million in a public offering. After that, Shanda's stock price rose up and down, and its market value has now risen to more than one billion US dollars. Shanda Shangneng, which has gradually fallen into China's second game operator, has a market value of more than one billion U.S. dollars. Chunqiu Network, which has a more violent money-making stance, will certainly only have a strong potential but not a weak one. Therefore, Tencent paid particular attention to the Chunteng game, a joint venture with Chunqiu Network, and sent positive signals to the market to **** the listing in Hong Kong. In order to avoid the good news of Chunteng game being dragged down by the operational data of "Dancing Moe Lord", Tencent dare not actually operate and test the market acceptance of "Dancing Moe Lord", hoping that the Spring and Autumn Period will postpone the public beta.

Chunqiu Software, Chunteng Games, etc. have actively cooperated to postpone the public beta of "Dance of the Forest" from June 1 to June 23.

However, Tencent's listing road is destined to be full of ups and downs.

Just one day before Tencent went public, on June 15, the Ministry of Information Industry issued the "Notice on Carrying out Self-Inspection and Self-Correction Activities for Mobile SMS Services", which opened the prelude to the rectification of the wireless value-added market. Mobile value-added services are Tencent’s core profits. Tencent’s total revenue in 2003 was 735 million, of which mobile value-added services provided 467 million in revenue, with a dependence rate of 63.5%. The mobile value-added business was frustrated, and Tencent had broken two legs. This notice instantly cast a shadow over Tencent's IPO.

The good news of Chunteng Games' operation of the game lobby's board and card games has also been dissipated by this notice. The capital market collectively looks down on Tencent's future.

On June 16, 2004, Tencent officially went public.

At the beginning of the market, Tencent's share price was fairly good, slowly rushing to a peak of HK$4.85. Unfortunately, after the lunch break, the situation suddenly changed. Tencent's stock price was suppressed by a large-scale sell-off, with a turnover rate of 103%. In other words, the vast majority of investors buying Tencent stocks are short-term speculations to take advantage of the listing dividend. In my heart, they are not optimistic about Tencent's potential.

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