Chapter 480: Internal and external troubles! Give it a try [Dream VI]!
"…I can understand, I can understand, but the shareholders won't listen to our explanation! Do you understand?!"
Western Hemisphere.
United States.
Dream Engine Technology R&D Company.
CEO Carter Walker was ranting in frustration:
"If this is the result now, then I will not agree to their aggressive price adjustment plan!"
Walker was going crazy.
You know, when Cordick approached him on behalf of Vivendi, both sides had beautiful visions!
Yunwei was able to use its own strength to launch the most well-known blockade against Golden Wind, putting them in a difficult situation where they had no support.
They can also use Vivendi's financial resources and influence to further expand their market in the gaming industry.
At that time, their Dream Engine had a market share of about 45% in the gaming market.
Although it cannot be considered a monopoly, to some extent, it is only one step away from a monopoly.
If you take the Vivendi express train.
With over half of the global market share within reach, it is easy to achieve.
However!
What no one expected was!
The desperate predicament unexpectedly stimulated the development potential of the Golden Wind!
After experiencing the low point of having no engine available for one of their works, they immediately launched a project to develop their own engine!
Oh no!
No no no!
That game, which required no engine and had to be played by hand, was not the low point of Golden Wind!
But it’s their highlight!
According to the summary statistics from a while ago, the global sales of "Minecraft" have now exceeded 30 million copies!
One of the top 3 best-selling motion sensing cabin games in the world!
What is the concept?
A game that has only been on sale for less than a year!
Surprisingly, relying on its own gameplay and huge, even gigantic, creative workshop module library, it has successfully ranked among the top three sales of body-sensing cabin games in the past ten years!
And this terrifying sales volume is still expanding with the increase in market share of the two major somatosensory cabins, Yiyou and Polar Bear!
"Shiyiyou (the world's number one game)" is just around the corner!
Stuck the throat of the Golden Wind?
ridiculous!
Whenever Walker thought of Cotick's smug tone, he couldn't help but sneer secretly!
You're the one stuck, you idiot!
Of course!
For his fantasy, it doesn’t really matter what the sales volume of any game is.
No matter how amazing the sales of "Minecraft" are, let alone 30 million, even 300 million will have little impact on it.
After all, this thing was made purely by GW and didn't use any engine at all. Its sales have no impact on Huanmeng's market share.
but!
"Battlefield: Rise", which was released right after "Minecraft", is really deadly!
After just half a year of "no engine dilemma", Golden Wind spent more than 120 million US dollars, led a team of more than 2,500 people in China, and actually developed an engine by themselves!
Before this, the battle royale game "Conflict Land", which had always been highly anticipated by Vivendi and built with the Dreamweaver 5 engine and produced by Konami Group, was actually not able to fight back at all against "Battlefield"!
Pure one-sided crushing!
Walker doesn't care if Konami dies or not.
But this is a heavy blow to the Dream Engine!
It was also from that time that the market share of their Dream Engine began to plummet!
Not to mention that the market share that we once felt confident about and thought was within our grasp has now exceeded half!
now!
Among the two main engines under Huanmeng, the market share of "Huanmen 5" has shrunk to 33%, a drop of 12% in less than a year!
Another game that focuses on the mid-range market and serves small and medium-sized games, "Fantasy 3", is even worse!
As the technical barriers in the mid-range market are weaker, market competition is more intense!
Their "Fantasy 3" market share was halved from 38% to 18%!
Now, if it is not absolutely necessary, Walker doesn't even dare to take a second look at his own market share statistics!
I’m afraid I’ll explode if I look at it any longer!
After all, such a "diving"-like halving of market share will result in immeasurable losses in market value!
The dream of occupying half of the global engine industry and commanding the crowd.
Now it has become the target of constant encroachment by competitors.
There are powerful enemies surrounding us externally and investment is shaken internally.
Faced with internal and external troubles, Walker was overwhelmed.
Today, he no longer cares about his dream of dominating the world.
Now he just wanted to stop this horrible nightmare of losses as soon as possible.
The most direct method is to break up the industrial alliance of the "Golden Engine".
As the CEO of Engine Technology Company, Walker knows very well what the "Golden Engine" is!
That's not a fucking engine! It's a platform!
If their industrial alliance is not dismantled in time, it will become like a black hole, sucking in all kinds of cutting-edge engine technologies!
In the end, I couldn’t run away!
What?
You asked me why I didn’t cancel the original price adjustment policy and reopen the supply to the Chinese game industry?
I would like to, but I can't.
Once the arrow is shot, there is no turning back.
Although this price adjustment policy is the culprit for the current sharp drop in market share, from another perspective, it has indeed increased the revenue of the Dream Engine series.
And it has improved a lot.
To the extent that, today, the reason why Huanmeng can still maintain its revenue despite the sharp drop in the basic market is all due to this price adjustment policy.
Just like a patient who relies on Maffei for pain relief to maintain vital signs, I certainly know that this thing is highly addictive and is a poison.
But removing it would cause the entire company to collapse instantly and be irreparable.
"so……"
After taking a deep breath, Walker managed to calm himself down and asked:
"Have you found out the capital flow of Golden Wind? Is there anything fishy going on?"
Golden Wind’s financial situation.
Walker has always had the strongest doubts about the financial situation of Golden Wind.
Where does this damn company get so much money? ? ?
If we look at the current situation, we should start counting from the time when Huanmeng announced the price adjustment policy and the blocking ban.
Golden Wind has developed an engine, released four games, invested in a movie, acquired part of the equity of an engine company, and cooperated with a self-developed engine game company to upgrade its technology.
This is all money!
The Golden Engine cost $120 million; Minecraft cost $50 million; Payday cost about $70 million; Battlefield cost $235 million, and Dark Souls cost $220 million; the movie John Wick cost $40 million; the acquisition of Phoenix shares cost $1.8 billion; and the joint engine upgrade with Aurora Games cost $50 million.
Even if we don't count their expenses for publicity, daily expenses, maintenance of old projects, expansion pack updates, etc.
All added up, this amounts to a total of 2.6 billion dollars!
In less than a year!
Spend 2.6 billion dollars!
Indeed!
Whether it is games or movies, or old projects like "APEX" and "Overwatch", they are all providing Golden Wind with a steady stream of revenue.
But such a huge amount of capital flow in such a short period of time does not seem to be something that a game company with a scale of less than 10 billion US dollars can just pay, right?
Where the hell does this money come from?
Walker couldn't figure it out.
So they sent someone specifically to look for clues to Golden Wind’s financial problems.
But unfortunately——
"Nothing can be found."
The vice president shook his head:
"It is completely impossible to find out."
What kind of company is Golden Wind?
A family-owned, non-listed, benchmark private technology company in China.
Translation: Iron wall and steel turtle.
Not to mention that the company is not listed at all, so it never publishes financial reports, and they cannot obtain the income and expenditure information of Golden Wind through formal channels!
Even if they take unconventional approaches and want to investigate using unconventional means, they will have no way to find out!
Forget about their fantasy - an American technology company!
Even if the FBI wants to investigate, they have to consider whether they have the ability to do so!
The leader of the gaming technology industry, which has been mentioned in the China Daily four times and has been named by the upper echelons, is the company that has turned the tide and reversed its investment problems in China with a "golden engine"!
Can they allow us to check their accounts at will?
Even if Golden Wind asked you to investigate, would you dare?
What kind of rotten fish and shrimp are we? How much do we weigh? Can you just check this randomly?
If you don’t play well, something bad will happen!
"Let's just skip this idea,"
The vice president waved his hands, looking embarrassed, indicating that Walker should not do some death, otherwise it would be easy to destroy himself:
"While there is no big move in the current golden period, we should hurry up to promote our Fantasy Dream 6 and seize the market opportunity."
“At the same time, we officially announced the strategic cooperation with Yunwei and the first demonstration experience, in preparation for the subsequent official release!”
The vice president was still sober after all.
He also knew that Huanmeng was facing internal and external troubles and the situation was serious.
However, no matter how anxious they are, they cannot go so far as to use overly shady and despicable means against the leaders who are tacitly approved by China's upper echelons.
Moreover, if you want to fundamentally reverse the situation, smearing is only a temporary solution and does not address the root cause.
If you want to stabilize the situation and regain your lost market share, you have to rely on real things.
For example, they are about to launch the [Dream 6 Engine] which is "dedicated to creating the world's most advanced next-generation somatosensory game" - a gamble for Dream in the face of internal and external troubles!
"President Walker,"
At this point, the vice president took a deep breath, his eyes filled with determination and passion:
"I firmly believe, and I have always believed,"
"Our Dream Engine has always been at the forefront of engine technology innovation,"
"It was so in the past, it is so now, and it will be so in the future,"
"We have the strongest R&D team, the most expensive R&D funds, and the most profound R&D accumulation,"
"In the DreamWorks 5 era, we dominated the commercial engine industry with our unquestionable technical strength,"
"Now, the next generation of Fantasy Dream 6 has arrived. We not only inherit the cutting-edge compatible technology of Fantasy Dream 5, but more importantly,"
"Our latest, most powerful, most innovative, and most advanced sensory system—"
…
【New virtual sensory presentation technology】
【Unprecedented immersive gaming experience】
[The mountain you have seen is not the real mountain]
[The river you have experienced is not the real river]
Mountains, flying birds, and rushing torrents.
Starry sky, spaceships, and rolling lava.
The actors in the video are constantly shuttling back and forth in a colorful virtual world.
Either shuttle through rapids, or fly a spaceship across the vast galaxy.
All the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are elevated to the peak. Players who are completely immersed in the virtual world seem to be endowed with senses far more acute than in reality.
【feeling, touch, emotion, feeling】
[Unprecedented extraordinary experience]
[Unparalleled technological pinnacle]
【……】
"What IQ tax advertisement are you watching?"
In the evening, Gu Sheng had just finished washing up and returned to the bedroom when he heard the phone in Little Nezha's hand making a pretentious and grandiose advertising sound similar to the tone of 8848:
"Another members-only ad?"
Little Nezha has been obsessed with TV dramas recently.
Gu Sheng thought she was being persecuted by a certain video platform again - she had subscribed to VIP but was still forced to watch the damn "VIP-only ads".
However.
Little Nezha paused the "advertisement" in his hand, looked thoughtful, and turned to look at Gu Sheng:
"This thing...isn't it probably just a tax on my IQ?"
Talking.
Shen Miaomiao stood up, crawled two steps from the bed, and handed the phone to Gu Sheng.
After pressing the play button, Gu Sheng curiously looked at the advertisement.
In the advertising video, accompanied by a magnificent symphony, the actors continued to travel through the virtual world.
Sometimes I walk through the icy and snowy polar regions where the wind is biting and I am shivering in the cold current.
Sometimes we passed through the hot and steaming desert and gasped for breath in the hot wind.
When I turned on the flashlight, the dust floating in the air carried the dusty smell of the ancient tomb.
As you push open the door, the passionate samba dance brings with it a hot and exotic flavor.
And just when this passionate immersive experience reaches its peak!
Everything became quiet again.
laugh--
As the somatosensory cabin door slowly opened.
A brilliant red LOGO then emerged——
【Dream Engine Technology Company】
Augmented Reality Technology
【Dream VI Engine】
[“New Body Sensation” Era]
[Coming Soon]
hiss--!!!
This ends the ad video.
But Gu Sheng froze in place and couldn't help but take a breath!
Little Nezha said it well.
This is really not an IQ tax advertisement.
This is actually...
The first trailer for the sixth-generation Dream Engine - [Dream VI]!
That’s right!
Just when Golden Wind was developing the engine, Huanmeng's latest generation engine was also completed!
In fact, the appearance of Huanmeng 6 was not a surprise to Gu Sheng.
After all, Fantasy 5 has been around for many years.
I still remember that when Golden Wind was just established, Xun Teng's 3S-level somatosensory masterpiece used the Dream Engine 5.
Now four years have passed. According to the current speed of development of the somatosensory cabin, the quality of the engine will surely improve rapidly with the development of the times.
The emergence of the sixth generation of Huanmeng is not surprising.
What really surprised him, and even made his heart skip a beat, was the innovative technology that was featured as the main feature of the Dream Engine with the release of the sixth-generation Dream Engine. This was also the focus that they specially marked at the end of the promotional video:
Augmented Reality Technology
This technology "enhances the delicate feedback of somatosensory games, further strengthens players' sense of immersion, and gives players perception beyond reality in some game scenes"!
He specifically mentioned it during the company meeting this morning!
It is one of the three missing modules among the seven modules of their golden engine!
Gu Sheng's expression became subtle, and the villain's words emerged in his mind -
Things seem to be getting interesting...
