Chapter 727 Wegame
Hearing Lu Yiming's serious words, Li Quanwang was shocked and said with some fear: "It's a good thing I came to ask you, otherwise I would have been cheated to death without knowing it."
Then, he remembered that Lu Yiming had made a lot of money and could buy a plane worth billions. He began to feel very melancholy and said, "What should I do now? I feel like I'm completely useless now. I have nothing to do after graduation. I just eat, drink and have fun every day. I feel like my life is so boring."
He felt that he had to make money, a lot of money, otherwise he would fall behind if he followed Lu Yiming.
Although he is now worth tens of millions, according to the living standards of ordinary people, he will not be able to spend all this money in a lifetime, but who would complain about having too much money?
Those who always say they are content with what they have are either already financially independent and are brainwashing you so that you don't get involved with them, or they are extremely poor and don't even have a way to make money, so they can only act like an Ah Q.
After selling Tongxin Internet Cafe, he no longer had any business to run, but he had a large sum of money in his hands, but he had no idea how to use it to make more money.
Many of the financial intermediaries outside have contacted him privately, but those people are a mixed bunch and Li Quanwang can't trust them at all. Now he only believes what Lu Yiming says.
"How about I invest my money into your future capital? But this way of making money is too slow."
It is said that it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. Although the return rate of the Future Fund is amazing and it is the best choice for people who do not know how to invest, Li Quanwang made tens of millions from nothing in just a few years. This fund of a few percent could not arouse any interest in him at all.
Lu Yiming was aware of Li Quanwang's concerns, and what was even clearer was that for Li Quanwang, not losing money was making money, so it was unrealistic to let Li Quanwang start a business. Maybe he couldn't even figure out the accounts.
But after all, they are close friends, so how could Lu Yiming not help them?
After a brief thought, Lu Yiming asked, "What are you interested in? As the saying goes, interest is the best teacher. When starting a business, you must first choose something you like. Only in this way will you be motivated and happy when doing it."
Li Quanwang thought about it seriously for a while, then said to Lu Yiming, "Does playing games count? I have a lot of fun playing games."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Of course, of course not. Look at Xiao Qinghe and Lu Yiping. Aren't they setting up a studio to make money by playing games? Don't underestimate playing games. They have made millions from "Legend of Mir 2" in the past few years."
It must be said that the vitality of "Legend of Mir 2" is really tenacious. It has been two or three years since its launch, and the number of players has not decreased. On the contrary, as the Internet fees of Internet cafes have dropped and the number of personal computers has increased, the number of players has increased.
However, Li Quanwang said with a distressed look: "But my parents won't let me."
Li Quanwang's parents were traditional, uneducated farmers who bought vegetables from farmers in the fields early in the morning and sold them at the market to make a profit. They were exhausted, but the money they earned was barely enough to make ends meet.
Now, Li Quanwang has made a lot of money with Lu Yiming, and his family has moved into a villa. The couple no longer continue to sell vegetables, but instead bought a few storefronts in Bi Hai Long Ting and opened a small supermarket. They live a simple and satisfying life.
What they both wish is that Li Quanwang can find a good job, preferably become a civil servant or something like that, and have a stable source of income.
Games are a terrible thing. They all think that Li Quanwang's previous poor academic performance was due to playing games. If he didn't play games, he would definitely be able to get into Peking University or Tsinghua University .
Now that you have finally graduated, instead of finding a decent job in a factory, you play games? That is definitely not doing your job properly.
Lu Yiming said to Li Quanwang, "If you just play, then you are not doing your job properly. But what if you are responsible for operating the game? There will be more and more game players in China. The older generation does not accept new things like electronic games, but when our generation and the next generation grow up and have the right to speak, the market size of games will be unimaginably large."
When Li Quanwang heard this, he immediately became excited and asked Lu Yiming excitedly: "So, the game can be made?"
But then Li Quanwang was in trouble again: "But I just like playing games, I don't know how to make games."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "How can making games be as profitable as building a platform? You can build a game platform, responsible for operation and distribution, and you don't need to make games yourself. As long as you have a good selection and recommendation mechanism, such a game platform will definitely be very popular with players. With enough players, are you still worried about not making money?"
In 2002, the HaoFang battle platform appeared. Although it mainly provides online services, it can also be regarded as a game platform. Players can enjoy many games by logging into one account.
In the same year, the Steam system and CS1.4Beta were released.
What Lu Yiming wanted Li Quanwang to do was to create platforms like Steam and WeGame that are similar to "game warehouse" and "game mall".
In China, due to the problem of piracy, if you run a gaming platform now, you will definitely lose so much money that even your own mother will not recognize you.
But the game platform itself can also act as an agent for the distribution of some overseas games, such as the epitome of online games - "World of Warcraft"!
Lu Yiming did not plan to be the agent for this game himself. After all, Junzi Interactive Entertainment's main business is game development, so he simply partnered with Li Quanwang to set up a new company specializing in overseas game agency.
Lu Yiming asked Li Quanwang: "Have you heard of the company Blizzard?"
“Isn’t this nonsense?”
When talking about his expertise, Li Quanwang's eyebrows immediately danced with joy: "If you don't even know Blizzard, can you still be considered a game player? I really like Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, which was just released in July. It must be said that as a major international game company, Blizzard's products must be high-quality."
This statement was indeed correct before Blizzard was acquired by capital.
Unfortunately, Blizzard later fell into decline. All the core game designers resigned, and the company was controlled by a group of professional managers who had no enthusiasm for games. As a result, they made a lot of weird moves and were finally kicked out of the Xia country market. It can only be said that they brought this upon themselves.
But that was in the future. At this time, Blizzard was still in its heyday, dominating the entire PC gaming market.
Lu Yiming said, "According to my intelligence, Blizzard is developing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game called World of Warcraft. I think and will definitely make a lot of money. You can negotiate with Blizzard about the agency rights now, and it would be best if you can get the agency rights for Xiaguo in advance."
On November 23, 2004, the US server of "World of Warcraft" will be launched, and the attention of players all over the world will be attracted.
And this game will also give players around the world a little Blizzard shock.
So if you want to negotiate terms with Blizzard, you have to do it before this.
Seeing that Lu Yiming spoke so seriously, Li Quanwang nodded seriously: Okay, I understand.
But then he became a little confused: "How do you know this game is revolutionary? World of Warcraft should still be in the development stage, right? And if the quality of the game is really as good as you say, why don't you become the agent yourself?"
Lu Yiming curled his lips and said, "I'm letting you make money, right? If you don't want it, I'll take it away."
Li Quanwang quickly said, "I want it. Hehe, I just said it casually. How can I not want it?"
Lu Yiming said solemnly, "In fact, Junzi Interactive Entertainment is also developing a cross-generation online game for our Xia country. I can tell you the name first. It's called "Xianzong". It's a large-scale online game with an oriental fairy tale background. It uses the latest 3D virtual engine technology, and the gameplay is unique and novel. It will definitely bring players a brand new audio-visual enjoyment."
"Once Upon a Time?"
As a typical post-80s generation, it goes without saying that he is obsessed with martial arts novels and immortality novels. When he heard this name, Li Quanwang's eyes lit up.
"How far have you developed this game? When will it be available online?"
Lu Yiming sighed and said helplessly, "It will take at least until the end of next year. This game has been in development for more than two years and has cost three hundred million yuan."
"Three hundred million has already been spent?"
Li Quanwang couldn't help but be amazed: "I like games only because I like to play them. People like Ma Teng are at most agents for foreign games. But you are just throwing money into research and development from scratch? Is this the happiness of rich people? Love it."
Lu Yiming laughed and scolded, "Love you, go find Blizzard quickly, otherwise it will be too late and there will be many competitors competing with you for it, and then you won't be able to negotiate any good terms."
"Oh, I'll go back and study it. But you have to help me."
Blizzard is one of the world's top gaming companies, and Li Quanwang is just a lousy game player. When he was asked to negotiate for game agency, he was very scared. After all, he was only in his twenties and had never experienced such a big scene.
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Don't worry, I will help you. All I ask of you is to get the Xia country's agency and operating rights for World of Warcraft, and then form a team to develop a gaming platform similar to Steam. You can study Steam and see how they do it, and then copy it directly. For example, call it wegame or something, which literally means our game."
Two days later, Lu Yiming came to Zhonghai, walked into the office of Junzi Interactive Network Technology Co., Ltd., and found Jiang Rongfa.
"Mr. Jiang."
Jiang Rongfa saw Lu Yiming coming and immediately stood up: "Boss Lu, why are you here?"
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Nothing. I was bored at home, so I came to take a look . How is the development of "The Legend of Immortal" going?"
Speaking of the game, Jiang Rongfa said excitedly: "Although we encountered many problems during the development process, we finally solved them all, thanks to your foresight, Mr. Lu."
When Lu Yiming told Jiang Rongfa that he wanted to develop a new game, Jiang Rongfa was a little skeptical. "Legend of Mir 2" was so popular now, he felt that the company could make a lot of money by focusing on operating "Legend of Mir 2", and there was no need to launch a new game now.
However, when Lu Yiming came up with the game plan and announced that he would invest 300 million yuan in research and development, Jiang Rongfa was shocked.
Spending 300 million yuan to develop a new game, and it is a traditional Chinese fairy-tale game, and using the most advanced 3D virtual engine technology, this is really bold.
In other words, the game team has signed a confidentiality agreement, and the outside world has no idea about this. Otherwise, if it were to be leaked, wouldn’t the circle be in an uproar?
In the summer of 2003, the country spent more than 300 million yuan to make a game. No one without a serious mental illness would do such a thing.
But as a game creator, Jiang Rongfa is feeling great now. He has never fought such a prosperous battle before.
During the most difficult times a few years ago, he didn't even have 300,000 yuan in his pocket, let alone 300 million yuan.
Afterwards, Jiang Rongfa felt like he was walking in the night in fine clothes. He felt uncomfortable if he couldn't show off, so he said, "Boss Lu, are you sure we don't want to do any publicity now? I think the 300 million investment and the 3D engine are a very good selling point. If we start the promotion now, we can build our reputation in advance."
Lu Yiming said: "It's too early to promote now. The Internet has no memory. If you promote today, they will forget it tomorrow, unless you bombard them with advertisements every day, but that will not only be costly, but also easily cause users to be disgusted."
For the online game "The Legend of Immortal", Lu Yiming asked Jiang Rongfa to develop it completely according to the future "Against the Current" and "A Chinese Ghost Story", and incorporated a lot of ancient Xia country's fairy-tale elements into its creation.
In terms of gameplay, it's absolutely impeccable.
Of course, Lu Yiming has no intention of creating a world where "even breathing costs money". Like Legend of Mir 2, "The Legend of Immortal" still mainly relies on charging for points cards.
Lu Yiming has high hopes for this masterpiece, which is the super trump card that Junzi Interactive Entertainment uses to compete head-on with Blizzard's "World of Warcraft".
Precisely because it is the trump card, Lu Yiming doesn't want to play it out too quickly.
Jiang Rongfa was happy, but still a little unsure. He said, "Boss Lu, the company is spending 300 million to make a game. Isn't this too risky? If this game loses money, I'm afraid the sky will fall."
Jiang Rongfa's calves began to tremble at the thought of this possibility.
Lu Yiming complained: "I'm the one who paid for it, what's your business? Just focus on making the game and put the effects first, don't worry about the money."
"Legend of Mir 2" helped Lu Yiming make a lot of money. The profit alone was more than enough to develop "The Legend of Oz".
And most importantly, Blizzard's masterpiece "World of Warcraft" is about to come, and at this time in Xia Country, there is no online game that can compete with it.
If you don't occupy the cultural high ground, it will be occupied by others.
What's more, online games are actually very profitable, so instead of letting foreigners make all the money, Lu Yiming feels that he should get a piece of the pie.
Jiang Rongfa felt relieved and said, "Okay, since you said so, Mr. Lu, I will focus on the game first."
Just after finishing talking about work with Jiang Rongfa, Lu Yiming received a call from Jack Ma.
"Hello, Mr. Lu, are you in Zhonghai? I'm here. Let's have dinner together tonight?"
Lu Yiming said without hesitation: "Sure, I will fly to Zhonghai even if you treat me."
In the evening, the two met in a high-end restaurant. Lu Yiming saw Jack Ma with a pair of panda eyes and a haggard face, and was immediately surprised and asked: "What's wrong?"
Jack Ma sighed and said, "Didn't a female employee of Alibaba have a fever? After that, more than 500 employees of the company were immediately announced to be 'home quarantine', and even the normal operation of the company was completely interrupted. How unlucky can you say I am?"
Speaking of this, Ma Jieke was also a little scared at the moment: "Fortunately, it's all over now, and nothing happened. At that time, I was really afraid that the company would be gone. That time was the biggest challenge since I started my business."
Alibaba's development today can be said to have entered the fast lane.
Due to the previous special period, normal business exchanges and exhibition transactions were completely interrupted. Many companies could only rely on the Internet to maintain contact and find business opportunities. Therefore, Alibaba’s traffic increased unexpectedly.
Ma Jieke also took the opportunity to make the Taobao project famous in the e-commerce field.
However, unlike what many people imagined, Majek did not have a great start at this time, but instead had a bad hand.
Because of the current Internet, there are many e-commerce companies. Although most of their peers have been eliminated in the Internet cold wave, none of those who have survived are easy to deal with.
Among them, the overlord of Xiaguo's C2C field is "Ebay", which was developed based on the eBay model.
At this time, eBay was not a simple company. It had already monopolized more than 90% of the market share in the C2C field.
When Eachnet was founded on August 18, 1999, the company had only a two-bedroom residence in Zhonghai. The founders Shao Yibo and Tan Haiyin were the only two employees in the company at that time.
But in May 2000, EachNet successfully acquired 5291 Mobile Phone Direct Sales Network and started online mobile phone sales, making this business one of EachNet's features and gaining 3.5 million registered users.
In March of the previous year, eBay, the world's largest e-commerce website, invested 30 million US dollars and formed a strategic partnership with EachNet. With the massive publicity, more and more Chinese netizens chose online shopping, which is convenient, fast, has more choices and relatively low prices, which has led to great development of EachNet.
In fact, according to the original history, in June 2003, eBay would have acquired full control of Eachnet for US$150 million.
But now it's August and eBay has not taken any action yet.
The reason, of course, was that the acquisition of PayPal was blocked, forcing eBay to focus on the North American market, and its original pace of development was disrupted by Lu Yiming.
Jack Ma sighed and said, "eBay is so powerful now. I am afraid I can't compete."
Lu Yiming comforted him and said, "Actually, you don't have to take eBay to heart."
Jack Ma suddenly raised his head and asked, "Why?"
Could it be that Lu Yiming has a way to defeat eBay?
Lu Yiming said, "Because eBay is coming soon, Eachnet will probably be acquired soon, and then your competitor will be eBay. How about it, are you excited?"
Jack Ma: “???”
