Chapter 447
Qin Shaoyan believes that the main contradiction in the current Internet market is the contradiction between the growing demand for high-quality games among the player base and the low production capabilities of the majority of game manufacturers.
The low production capabilities of the majority of game manufacturers are caused by many reasons. The first reason is that they started late. The domestic market lacks a large market for electronic games and has not cultivated a professional game production team.
The early online game production teams were basically from stand-alone game developers and lacked sufficient experience in online games from design to technology, which led to frequent problems with early online games.
In addition, some people directly attribute my country's weak stand-alone production capabilities to the "game console ban", which is a completely wrong understanding.
Not only did he not understand the economic and social conditions of our country at that time, but he also took it for granted based on wishful thinking.
The high level of game production in Europe, America and Japan is indeed due to the market cultivated by game consoles. Only when there is a market can game manufacturers invest more resources and money in developing games.
The foreign game console market mainly benefits from the popularity of televisions, which has given rise to the market for game consoles as an accessory consumer product.
In our country, televisions were still a rarity in the 1980s. It was only in the 1990s that urban households became widely popularized. Some rural areas did not have televisions until the 21st century.
In this situation of insufficient economic development, game consoles are completely a luxury product, let alone game cartridges and discs that cost several hundred yuan.
In the late 1990s, the emergence of computers and the Internet directly gave domestic families better electronic consumer products.
Regardless of functionality, practicality, entertainment or cost-effectiveness, computers are more cost-effective than game consoles. The emergence of online games has allowed Internet cafes to directly replace game arcades and become the mainstream entertainment tool for teenagers.
This also removes the only soil for game consoles. In the final analysis, game consoles lack an ecological niche in the Chinese game market.
In China, stand-alone games are strictly restricted, and online games are criticized from time to time, let alone game consoles.
After entering the 21st century, the explosive growth of the Internet and the rapid increase in the number of online game players have turned the online game market into a huge blue ocean.
Faced with the vast market gap and the huge revenue stimulation brought by phenomenal online games such as "Legend" and "Fantasy Westward Journey", Internet companies have devoted themselves to it and spent a lot of money to form R&D teams and launch projects.
Then there was a very embarrassing situation. There were not enough game R&D personnel in the original industry.
Online game research and development is a project that requires the cooperation of a large team, but at this time, the single-player research and development project team is small but sophisticated.
A large number of game practitioners engaged in stand-alone R&D have been sucked into online game R&D. However, this is far from enough to fill the huge manpower vacancy, and a large number of new people have to be attracted.
There is no special place in China where you can learn game development, and there are even very few reference books, so people in the game industry are all self-taught.
Programmers can be recruited from computer and programming majors, and fine arts can also be recruited from art colleges. However, planning sources come from a variety of sources.
There are courses in mathematics, finance and accounting, clinical pharmacy, biology and physics, ranging from Tsinghua and Peking University to ordinary universities.
Qin Shaoyan has also seen people who studied nuclear physics at Tsinghua University switch to the gaming industry.
There are many sources of planning, so how to ensure the level?
The answer is that it all depends on personal talent and understanding. When recruiting, the project team is like throwing dice, relying entirely on luck.
The resume is beautiful, and the interview is eloquent. After joining the project team, I don’t know when I will give you a big deal.
In work that cannot be quantified, if a group of people with no guaranteed upper and lower limits are grouped together, the quality of the research and development projects cannot be guaranteed.
Therefore, many people rely on metaphysics to succeed in game development. There is indeed some truth to this.
During the years when the online game market developed rapidly, a large number of new people poured into the game industry, and then they learned how to develop and design games on their own, which sounds very inspiring.
What’s even more inspiring is that as the market expands, the demand for R&D personnel is also increasing. Countless game projects are being approved and more personnel are needed to fill them.
This has led to the emergence of too many quick-forming personnel in the game industry, such as the "three to five talents" that Qin Shaoyan and He Jinrui mentioned before.
In the first year, I worked as an executive planner, that is, as an apprentice doing chores and filling out forms. In the second year, I was promoted to system planner, and became a key member of the project team, responsible for writing system plans, designing system frameworks, and assisting the chief planner.
In the third year, he took the lead position and was responsible for the overall design and progress of the game.
After two years in the chief planning position, he was promoted to the producer level.
No matter how much the producer understands the game itself, he can work independently and lead dozens of people to start working on the project.
What should we do if the producers are mixed, and are not strong enough to serve as producers?
It's very simple, just copy the popular game types on the market. You can copy them one to one, or you can add your own understanding and changes to pay tribute.
What to do if the project is not successful, then you need to be good at using the blame-shifting methodology.
The program level is not good and there are too many bugs causing the game to die.
The planning ability is not good, the producer's design concept is not fully understood, and the things he makes are not interesting.
The art is not good, the style is too bad, and players cannot accept it.
The operation is not good, the operation level is low, and the strength of the game itself is not used.
The boss is incompetent and the layman guides the expert, resulting in a good game being ruined. Come on!
Then the producer can use his failed projects as a resume to find another employer, and then find another project to work on.
If the project is successful, then this qualification can be regarded as a golden rice bowl, and you can basically have it for ten years.
The majority of people in an industry are mediocre people, and the same applies to the group of producers.
There are many people with outstanding talent, strength and ability, and they will produce excellent works despite the waves.
But they can't guarantee that every game will be a success, because there are too many uncertain factors.
The quality of the game is obviously excellent, but the operation level is so bad that it is killed, or the players just don't buy it.
And these top producers also know how much money they can make from games alone. After the success of their first project, they began to prepare to take another path.
That is to play the game of cutting leeks on the market with the boss's investors. The investors rely on the producer's ability and reputation to create a game with good revenue and launch it immediately.
After that, the producer became a shareholder of the company, cashed out his wealth, and was free.
Therefore, there is an embarrassing situation in the game industry, where it is difficult to find excellent talents.
The talents discovered are too ambitious. If they cannot control it, they will quickly change jobs and become wedding dresses for others.
Especially those wealthy bosses who directly use equity and large sums of money to lure them, it is difficult for anyone to resist.
Qin Shaoyan can give money, and he is not a stingy person. But he can't give you things like equity. What others do is to go public, cut leeks, and then cash out their wealth freely.
Qin Shaoyan felt that he did not have that much ability and background to play with this set of things, so he would not be able to provide this golden avenue of wealth and freedom.
What Qin Shaoyan can do now is to explore and cultivate mature R&D teams as much as possible, and rely on the team's ability to make up for the shortcomings caused by the lack of talented producers.
As for game design and so on, Qin Shaoyan only said one word, copy!
Penguin relies on copying current opponents, while Qin Shaoyan relies on copying future opponents.
Different paths lead to the same destination.
He doesn’t need the producer to have great design skills, he just needs to be able to understand his own concept and copy the thing.
Or start in advance and recruit outstanding talents. No matter where they go in the future, they can produce good works here first.
Rely on high-quality online games to provide a large amount of cash flow, and then invest the earned money in other projects to quickly complete the industry ecological layout and make yourself one of the giants of the Internet.
The reason why Qin Shaoyan is so eager for quick success and quick profit, desperately squeezing the lifespan and potential of the game, is that he is overdrafting revenue. He needs money to complete the subsequent layout.
……
6◇9◇Book◇Bar
Under Qin Shaoyan's vigorous pressure, the outstanding performance of "Warring States OL" shocked all peers in the game industry.
Not only Sohu came to ask about the game engine, but NetEase was also actively contacting him, wanting to try out the game engine called "system" owned by Qin Shaoyan.
Ren Yuxin, who is responsible for Penguin's game business, also came to the door, hoping to talk to Mr. Qin.
He originally came here to inspect an online game project customized for Tencent. After two days of inspection, he heard that other game companies were coming to Qin Shaoyan for game engines, and he became interested.
After all, Penguin doesn’t make money entirely by introducing online games produced by others.
It still relies on copying!
Copying also requires a good game engine. If you want to do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools.
Qin Shaoyan received Ren Yuxin warmly, "Mr. Ren, how is the quality of our online game?"
"The picture performance is indeed good, but..." Ren Yuxin hesitated, "Aren't the mainstream games now all 3D games? Why are you still working on this kind of 2D project, which is still a horizontal fighting game?"
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"Don't worry about 3D or 2D, just tell me whether this game works." Qin Shaoyan asked directly.
"Well, it looks interesting." Ren Yuxin's vision is still very good, and there is no need to do anything to belittle Qin Shaoyan and lower the price. "The picture is very impactful, the impact is very good, the operation is also very comfortable, and the gameplay Well, will this PVE painting method be a bit monotonous? ”
"We will develop more gameplay in the future. Currently, we mainly focus on PVE map brushing and PVP arena fighting." Qin Shaoyan said casually, "Our game is mainly to fill the gap in the market that lacks fighting games."
The types of online games during this period can be said to be in full bloom. Various game manufacturers have made various attempts to stitch together different gameplays and created many interesting online games.
But it is a pity that most of these online games are short-lived and then quickly fail and disappear.
Later, although the online game market continued to expand and the number of players increased, the types of online games became fewer and fewer, and the gameplay became more and more similar.
In the end, you copied me and I copied you, and they all looked like the same mold, and players also suffered from aesthetic fatigue.
Ren Yuxin felt that there was nothing wrong with what Qin Shaoyan said. The quality of this game was excellent, so he could give it a try. "Then you can take this "Sword Hero" and test it first to see how the market reacts."
Qin Shaoyan laughed and said, "Mr. Ren, do you think this game will work?"
"There are no games produced by you, Director Qin, that are not good." Ren Yuxin flattered him, "This game is also promising."
With Qin Shaoyan's reputation, Ren Yuxin felt that even if this game didn't become a big hit, it would definitely not lose money.
"I believe in Mr. Ren's vision." Qin Shaoyan slapped the table, "Then this online game and the FPS "Counter-Terrorism OL" will be handed over to you Penguin."
Ren Yuxin beamed with joy and immediately thanked him, "Thank you, Mr. Qin. I wish our two families a smooth and prosperous cooperation!"
He came here for the FPS online game, but the other party didn't show him any FPS items when he first came here. He insisted on showing him some side-scrolling fighting.
Ren Yuxin wondered at that time whether Qin Shaoyan's store was cheating customers and selling items with another piece of garbage.
However, before he came, Brother Ma had already warned him that he must win the agency rights for "Counter-Terrorism OL".
Ren Yuxin could only bite the bullet and watch the side-scrolling fighting game. After watching it, he was shocked. In terms of quality alone, this game was S-level.
The dazzling special effects of professions and various skills, the smooth fighting combos and the full-hitting feel all look very eye-catching.
And arcades haven’t disappeared for long, so this game can easily arouse players’ emotions.
Ren Yuxin's vision is indeed good, and Qin Shaoyan didn't just talk about it in business.
In another time and space, Ren Yuxin was responsible for the decision to introduce the "Cross Fire" project.
According to the most widely circulated theory, CF is a very bad FPS game and was forced onto Penguin by the makers of "Lord of the Battlefield".
Originally, Penguin didn't want it, and then it took someone's vigorous modifications to make CF a great success.
It is unknown whether this statement is the true story of the incident, but since this statement was made by the person involved himself, it is questionable.
Qin Shaoyan saw a screenshot of Penguin's internal work email in February 2007. The content was that it was strongly recommended to be an agent for the online game CF.
From this point of view, the argument that CF is too rubbish and not wanted by Penguins is simply untenable.
Seeing that Ren Yuxin was very happy, Qin Shaoyan struck while the iron was hot and said, "Mr. Ren, this FPS game is our hard work. We also specially made a stand-alone game for this online game and spent a lot of money."
When Ren Yuxin heard this, he became alert. There was something in Qin Shaoyan's words, and he was about to start negotiating terms.
"What are you talking about, Mr. Qin?" Ren Yuxin said with a smile, "You are recognized as the number one game producer in China. Every game you make is both popular and well-received. You can make a profit without losing money."
"You can't say that. Although strength is important in the gaming industry, luck is even more important." Qin Shaoyan waved his hand and sighed, "It's not certain whether this stand-alone game can be successful. I'm afraid it will affect the promotion and marketing of online games."
"How about this? After the single machine is launched, we can discuss it based on the sales volume?"
Ren Yuxin frowned, "This is not good, Mr. Qin."
(End of chapter)