Chapter 425
Qin Shaoyan was full of confidence, and Fan Xiaoqian didn't say anything. She subconsciously grabbed the bamboo board in her hand and fell into thinking.
"Warring States OL" has been tested for a week. Although there are many bugs, they are all minor problems. This is the first time that the server is down like today.
"I will observe it for another half a month before giving you an answer." Fan Xiaoqian replied cautiously, "If two more serious server downtime bugs are found, I think there is no need for us to discuss March. It’s still a question of April.”
Qin Shaoyan nodded, agreeing with Teacher Fan’s statement.
If we do this once a week on average, the "Warring States OL" project will have to consider whether it is necessary to exist.
Fan Xiaoqian held the bamboo board and returned to her seat. The whiteboard behind her seat that read "Day 6 without major server failure" had been obliterated.
Qin Shaoyan smiled and said nothing, turned around and found Zhang Pingyi.
"Zhang Tianshi, I see that Teacher Fan is a bit stressed. He lost his temper several times today." Qin Shaoyan said, "Please help me persuade him, he is so nervous."
"He is the main engineer and the person in charge of the entire project. Can he not be under a lot of pressure?" Zhang Pingyi sighed, "I feel a lot of pressure myself."
"You are so stressed out. You are already a billionaire. How can you be stressed?" Qin Shaoyan said angrily.
“You can’t say that.” Zhang Pingyi retorted, “The campus network is our hard work. It was built by the two of us from an Internet cafe.”
“Watch it step by step. It’s a sense of accomplishment to grow bigger and then be listed on Nasdaq!”
"What is Maslow's hierarchy of needs?"
"You know a lot." Qin Shaoyan teased, "You are the vice president of the campus network, don't always work on luck. Wei is doing some research on the backstage, so if you don’t have anything to do, hang around in front of everyone and cheer them up.”
"With you as the boss here, what am I doing?" Zhang Pingyi waved his hand impatiently, "I'm busy, don't bother me."
"I still have to go for an interview. " Qin Shaoyan said seriously, "Teacher Fan has already deducted all their year-end bonuses, you. If you don't show up, the employees will have to take out loans to go to work tomorrow."
Zhang Pingyi was shocked, "Good guy, Teacher Fan can be ruthless sometimes."
"I'll leave it to you. "Qin Shaoyan smiled and patted Zhang Minyi on the shoulder, turned around and left.
At this time, a group of reporters headed by Sohu and Sina were already waiting in the conference room.
As soon as Qin Shaoyan entered the conference room, the reporter who couldn't help but shouted at him with a microphone in his face. He almost turned around and ran away in panic.
But fortunately, he reacted quickly and protected the art director Hong Fei in front of him.
Hong Fei has also seen big events. He and Mr. Qin attended the first ChinaJoy and E3 exhibitions.
I have seen many scenes of huge crowds of people, and I have already had experience in dealing with them. Before the reporter could rush forward, two strong men from the original animator on the left and right rushed out to stop the crowd.
“Quiet, quiet, please keep order!”
The chaos in the conference room finally returned to calm, making way for Qin Shaoyan.
Qin Shaoyan sat back on the chair and asked a Sohu editor to ask a question with a professionally dangerous look on his face.
"Mr. Qin, "Warring States OL", as an epoch-making free online game, has been launched for testing, which has aroused enthusiastic response from the market and attracted great attention from the game industry." Sohu editor asked with a smile, "Can you Can’t you give us a brief introduction to the testing situation of “Warring States OL”?”
Qin Shaoyan followed the prepared words. , replied happily: ""Warring States OL" has attracted the attention of a large number of players as soon as it was exposed, and the number of registered players has exceeded 200,000."
"On the day of the internal beta, nearly three players poured into the server. Thousands of players came to experience the game, and these players were very enthusiastic. Many of them had not been offline for a whole week.”
"So far we have issued 35,000 invitation codes, all of which have been activated, and the character creation rate has reached 100%."
"The retention rate of "Warring States Online" the next day reached 99.8 %, and the seven-day retention rate reached 95.7% , it can be said that the test results far exceeded our expectations.”
“In the next step, we will continue to optimize the gameplay design and improve the engine efficiency to make the game more enjoyable and convenient for players, and feel smoother.”
Sohu editor continued to ask : "We still have many questions to ask about this closed beta. What are the reasons for "Warring States Online" to suddenly skip the closed beta stage and directly announce the closed beta?"
Qin Shaoyan said slowly: ""Warring States OL" was established as early as 2004. Item, the R&D personnel involved in this project are all the backbones who have participated in "Plants vs. Zombies", "Counter Terrorism: Modern Warfare", "Sword and Demon" and "Sword World". They have rich R&D experience and world-class technology. Level.”
"With the cooperation of such a high-level, world-class R&D team, the R&D cycle has been greatly shortened. We have also introduced advanced test management processes, which can quickly detect technical bugs and solve them quickly."
"After an overall evaluation , we unanimously believe that "Warring States OL" has met the requirements of the closed beta, so we skipped the closed beta stage."
"Next, we will adjust the follow-up based on the test data. According to the plan, if everything goes well, we will officially launch the public beta in March 2006."
The Sohu editor asked curiously: "Mr. Qin, as far as I know, the development of an online game is at least It takes two to three years, and the development time of "Warring States OL" is less than two years. Is there any secret?"
Qin Shaoyan smiled slightly, "The accurate statement is 17 months."< br>
"First of all, we have a highly efficient R&D team. For example, the art director of "Warring States Online" is Mr. Hong Fei, the lead artist of "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Counter Terrorism: Modern Warfare."
"Secondly, we There is a complete set of scientific and advanced R&D project management processes, which greatly improves R&D efficiency. . ”
“Of course the most important thing is that the framework design of the entire online game is built by me. As early as the beginning of the project, I have already considered the underlying logic of the entire game, and all gameplay designs are based on This underlying logic design reduces R&D costs.”
"The biggest problem in games is the design choices, modifications, and trade-offs. Many producers do not clearly consider the positioning and target users of their games when setting up the project. It is inevitable to be greedy for big things while seeking perfection when designing, which leads to the game being damaged. The gameplay is neither fish nor fowl, and it is difficult to understand what users really want during the subsequent development process. Likes and needs are contrary to the direction of the market.”
“So, an excellent producer should have first-class qualities, have clear and rigorous logic, have a complete plan and understanding of the game framework, and at the same time have a clear understanding of the game framework. Quick response and keen awareness of the market and users. ”
"As we all know, it is very difficult to successfully develop a game project. About 70% of projects die in the development stage. Having an excellent producer and an efficient and high-level R&D team is the key to the success or failure of the project."
< br>The Sohu editor was a little speechless, thinking that Mr. Qin was a bit too boastful.
But thinking about her interview tasks today and the transportation and writing expenses, she could only show a professional smile and echoed: "I heard that Mr. Qin is recognized by the international game industry as China's number one game producer. I believe that in the future Mr. Qin’s design capabilities for “Warring States OL” will bring everyone a better and higher-quality gaming experience. "Mr. Qin, I have another question. You just mentioned two unfamiliar terms, next-day retention and seven-day retention. What do they mean?"
Qin Shaoyan said slowly. Xu said: "This is a data survey method I adopted based on changes in the online game market."
"In the past, we often saw an important data to measure online games, which is the number of people online. The revenue of this game is judged by the number of online players."
"Because online players have to pay to continue playing, but it is free The situation in online games is different.”
“Of course we can’t judge by the number of people online, because not every online player will pay.”
"It is difficult to estimate the proportion of paying players in the entire player base, but it is foreseeable that the more online players there are, the larger the base of paying players will be."
"The more players join us The more beneficial the game is to us, the easier it will be for free games to attract players, but there is also a problem that is easily overlooked, which is that players in free online games are more likely to lose than those in paid online games.”
"Of course players in paid online games also lose, but the proportion is quite small in a certain period. After all, players have already paid. The more costs paid in the game, the less likely they will be lost."
"And free online games are less likely to lose players." It’s different. Players don’t have to pay, and the investment cost is very small, so they can come and go freely. And with more and more online games appearing on the market, players have more options to choose from.”
“We have observed that players can come and go as they please. The more time he puts into the game, the faster he The chance of churn is smaller. So we set a time point, such as seven days. Players who log in to the game for more than seven days will become loyal users of the game.”
“We can judge the overall quality of the game by retaining data. Whether there is a problem with the design, the higher the retention ratio, the more successful the design is. On the contrary, it means there is a problem with the game design and it needs to be remade.”
“How to retain players has become our biggest concern. .”
"I have thought about this matter for a long time. The best way to retain players is to make the game more fun. This concept is relatively broad, so I will not discuss it in detail."
"Here I call on my colleagues in the game industry to pay more attention to the game design itself and how to better retain players, so as to increase the ARPU value of the game."
The Sohu editor looked puzzled, "The ARPU value is again. What is it? "
" The ARPU value is the average revenue per user, which is a value calculated by dividing the total revenue by the number of users. "Qin Shaoyan said casually, "The paying players of free online games are only part of the entire player base. We must not only consider the overall revenue of online games, but also the overall revenue of online games. We should consider how to improve players’ paid consumption experience. The higher the value, the more successful the game will be.”
“After all, the design ideas and logic of free online games and time-based paid online games are different.”
"The operation of time-based paid online games only needs to consider how to retain players, while the operation of free online games has much more to consider."
The editor from Sina next to me couldn't hold it anymore and directly interjected and asked: " Mr. Qin, I have a question."
Qin Shaoyan glanced at her and nodded slightly, "Please tell me."
"You just mentioned that you started the "Warring States OL" project. Already thought about it "You know the game design, so you have determined that this online game is a free online game in 2004?" The Sina editor continued, "As we all know, time-based online games are still the mainstream in the market, such as NetEase's "Fantasy Westward Journey" , Shanda's "Legend of Blood" has firmly occupied a huge share of the entire online game market."
"How did you come up with the idea of making a free online game?"
Qin Shaoyan replied unhurriedly, "The game market is like this. One genre cannot dominate the world. Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend."
"Since there are time-based online games, they naturally need to be free. Online games, I just want to fill this gap in the market."
"Do you think "Warring States OL" will be successful?" the Sina editor continued to ask.
"Of course." Qin Shaoyan replied firmly.
The Sina editor asked reluctantly: "How do you determine that you will succeed?"
"Because this is a game I designed." Qin Shaoyan replied confidently.
The Sina editor was speechless for a moment and asked: "What if it fails?"
"Then the free online game market must be dead." Qin Shaoyan said expressionlessly.
......
Qin Shaoyan's interview soon appeared on the news on the portal website, and colleagues in the entire domestic gaming industry saw reports about him that day.
Regarding Qin Shaoyan's self-promotion, everyone was speechless and had complicated emotions.
After all, this guy’s record is too dazzling. In this industry, data speaks for itself. If you succeed, whatever you say is right.
And Qin Shaoyan does have something, everyone is an expert and will understand it at a glance.
ARPU value is easy to understand and indeed worth thinking about, but the issue of retention rate is a bit confusing.
In fact, next-day retention and seven-day retention are popular in the era of web games. You can play when you open the web page, but you will lose it when you close the web page, which tests the retention rate of the game.
In this era, players rely on network speeds of more than 100 KB to work hard for a long time to download a client, which in itself is a considerable investment cost.
Being able to actively download game clients to play online games is a screening threshold in itself. As long as the games are not too bad, the loss of players will not be serious.
While others were still pondering the issue of retention rate, Shi Yuzhu was the first to understand.
Why Qin Shaoyan pays attention to the retention rate, of course, it has a lot to do with his own promotion.
The local promotion of the campus network has allowed Internet cafes in the sinking market to install the "Warring States OL" client in advance. Players in the Internet cafes can directly click on the client to register an account as long as they want to play.
This makes it easier to attract new users, which naturally reduces user investment costs and increases the chance of player churn.
If "Zhengtu" also wants to follow the same Internet cafe route as "Warring States Online", this issue should also be considered.
Of course, what makes Shi Yuzhu even more nervous is that "Warring States OL" will be directly put into public beta in March, another step ahead of them.
(End of this chapter)