You call this entrepreneurship?

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 community and the low production capabilities of the majority of game manufacturers.

The low production capabilities of most game manufacturers are caused by many factors. The first reason is that they started late. The domestic market lacks a large market for electronic games and has not cultivated professional game production teams.

Early online game production teams were basically from stand-alone game developers, and they lacked sufficient experience in online game design and technology, which led to frequent problems in early online games.

By the way, some people directly attribute my country's weak stand-alone game production capabilities to the "game console ban", which is a completely wrong understanding.

Not only did they lack understanding of my country's economic and social conditions at the time, but they were also wishful thinking.

The high level of game production in Europe, the United States and Japan is indeed due to the market cultivated by game consoles. Only with a market can game manufacturers invest more resources and money in game research and development.

The overseas game console market mainly benefits from the popularity of televisions, which has given rise to the game console market as a subsidiary consumer product.

In my country, televisions were still a rarity in the 21s. It was not until the s that they became widely available in urban households, and some rural areas did not have televisions until the st century.

Under such circumstances of insufficient economic development, game consoles are completely a luxury, not to mention game cartridges and discs that cost hundreds of dollars.

In the late 1990s, the emergence of computers and the Internet directly provided domestic families with better electronic consumer products.

Whether in terms 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 halls and become the mainstream entertainment tool for teenagers.

This also removes the only soil for game consoles. Ultimately, game consoles lack an ecological niche in the Chinese game market.

in the country, stand-alone games are strictly restricted, and online games are criticized from time to time, not to mention 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 made the online game market a huge blue ocean.

Faced with the huge market gap and the huge revenue stimulation brought by phenomenal online games such as "Legend" and "Fantasy Westward Journey", Internet companies have plunged into it, spending a lot of money to set up R&D teams and launch projects.

Then there was a very embarrassing situation: there were not enough game development personnel in the industry.

Online game development is a project that requires the collaboration of a large team, while the stand-alone development project team at this time is small and efficient.

A large number of game practitioners engaged in stand-alone game development were attracted to online game development. However, this was far from enough to fill the huge manpower gap, so a large number of newcomers were forced to join.

There are no special places in China where you can study game development, and there are even few reference books, so people in the game industry are all self-taught.

Programmers can be found from computer or programming majors, artists can also be recruited from art schools, but the sources of planners are varied.

There are majors in mathematics, finance and accounting, clinical pharmacy, biology and physics, from Tsinghua University and Peking University to ordinary universities.

Qin Shaoyan has also seen people who studied nuclear physics at Tsinghua University and switched to the gaming industry.

There are many sources of planning, so how can we ensure the quality?
The answer is that it all depends on personal talent and understanding. When recruiting, the project team is just like rolling dice, relying entirely on luck.

You have a nice resume and speak very well during the interview, but once you join the project team, you never know when you will make a big mistake.

In a job that cannot be quantified, when a group of people with no upper and lower limits are put together, the quality of the research and development projects cannot be guaranteed.

Therefore, many people rely on metaphysics to determine whether a game development will be successful, and there is some truth to this.

During the years when the online game market was growing rapidly, a large number of newcomers poured into the game industry, and then learned how to develop and design games little by little on their own, which sounds very inspiring.

What is even more inspiring is that as the market expands, the demand for R&D personnel is increasing, and countless game projects are being launched, requiring more people to fill the gaps.

This has led to the emergence of too many quick-learning professionals in the gaming industry, such as the “three or five talents” that Qin Shaoyan and He Jinrui had mentioned before.

In the first year, I worked as an executive planner, which meant I was an apprentice doing odd jobs and filling out forms. In the second year, I was promoted to system planner, and became a backbone member of the project team. I was responsible for writing system plans, designing system frameworks, and assisting the main planner in his work.

In the third year, he took the position of chief planner, responsible for the overall design and progress of the game.

After working as the chief planner for two years, you will be promoted to the producer level.

No matter how much the producer understands the game itself, he can start a project independently and lead dozens of people to start the project.

What if the producers are of varying quality and some are not capable enough to be producers?

It's very simple. Just copy the popular game types on the market. You can copy it one to one, or you can add your own understanding and changes to pay tribute to it.

What if the project has not been successful? You need to be good at using the blame-shifting methodology.

The programming level is not good, and there are too many bugs that caused the game to crash.

The planning ability is poor, the understanding of the producer's design concept is not complete, and the things produced 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 brought into play.

The boss is not good enough. He is an amateur guiding the professionals, which results in a good game being ruined. What a shame!

Then the producer can use his failed project as a resume to find the next company and find a new project to work on.

If the project is successful, this qualification can be regarded as a golden rice bowl, which can basically provide you with a living for ten years.

Ordinary people who are mediocre make up the majority of an industry, and the same goes for producers.

There are many people with outstanding talent, strength and ability, and excellent works will be produced after the test of time.

But they can't guarantee that every game will be a huge success because there are too many uncertain factors.

The game is obviously of high quality, but the operation level is too poor, so it was killed, or the players just don't buy it.

These top producers also know how much money they can make from games alone, so after the success of their first project, they begin to prepare to take another path.

That is to play the game of reaping the benefits of a listing together with the boss and investors. The investors rely on the ability and fame of the producer to mainly produce a game with good revenue and immediately list it on the market.

After that, the producer became a shareholder of the company, cashed out and left with financial freedom.

So there is an embarrassing situation in the gaming industry: outstanding talents are difficult to discover.

The talents we discover are too ambitious. If you cannot control them, they will quickly jump ship and become a scapegoat for others.

Especially those wealthy bosses, who directly use equity and huge sums of money to tempt people, it is hard for anyone to resist.

Qin Shaoyan can give money, he is not a stingy person. But he can't give equity, people are playing the game of listing to cut leeks, and then cash in the wealth and freedom.

Qin Shaoyan felt that he did not have the ability and background to handle this kind of thing, and therefore could not provide this golden road to wealth and freedom.

What Qin Shaoyan can do now is to discover and cultivate as many mature R&D teams as possible, and rely on the team's capabilities to make up for the shortcomings caused by the lack of talented producers.

As for game design and the like, Qin Shaoyan has only one word to say: copy!

Penguin relies on copying its current opponents, while Qin Shaoyan relies on copying its 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 ideas and replicate things.

Or you can take action in advance and recruit outstanding talents. No matter where they go in the future, they must produce good works here first.

Relying on high-quality online games to provide a large amount of cash flow, and then investing the money earned into other projects, quickly completing the industry ecological layout, making itself one of the Internet giants.

The reason why Qin Shaoyan is so eager for quick success and is desperately squeezing the life and potential of the game is that he is overdrawing revenue. He needs money to complete the subsequent layout.

……

Under Qin Shaoyan's strong pressure, the outstanding performance of "Warring States OL" shocked all peers in the gaming industry.

Not only Sohu came to ask about the game engine, but NetEase was also actively contacting, wanting to try out the game engine called "system" in Qin Shaoyan's hands.

Ren Yuxin, who is in charge of the gaming business at Penguin, also came and hoped to have a talk with Mr. Qin.

He originally came here to inspect the online game project customized for Tencent. After two days of inspection, he heard that other game companies came to Qin Shaoyan to ask for game engines, and he also became interested.

After all, Penguin doesn't make money entirely by introducing online games made by others.

It still depends on copying!

Copying also requires a good game engine. If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools.

Qin Shaoyan warmly received Ren Yuxin, "Mr. Ren, how is the quality of our online game?"

"The graphics are indeed good, but..." Ren Yuxin hesitated, "Aren't 3D games the mainstream now? Why are you still working on a 2D project, and a horizontal fighting game at that?"

"Don't worry about whether it's 3D or 2D, just tell me if this game is okay." Qin Shaoyan asked directly.

"Well, it looks interesting." Ren Yuxin's vision is still very good. There is no need to belittle Qin Shaoyan. "The graphics are very impactful, the sense of attack is very good, and the operation is also very comfortable. As for the gameplay, isn't this PVE map-clearing method a bit monotonous?"

"We will develop more gameplay in the future. Currently, we mainly focus on PVE map clearing and PVP arena fighting." Qin Shaoyan said casually, "Our game is mainly to fill the gap of the lack of fighting games in the market."

The types of online games during this period can be said to be flourishing. Various game manufacturers made various attempts to stitch different gameplay together and created many interesting online games.

But unfortunately, 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 player group 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 we all looked like cut from the same mold, and players began to suffer 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 we can take this "Sword Heroes" and test it first to see the market reaction."

Qin Shaoyan laughed, "Mr. Ren, do you think this game will work?"

"How can a game produced by Director Qin be bad?" Ren Yuxin flattered him, "I'm optimistic about this game, too."

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 slammed the table, "Then I'll hand over this online game and the FPS "Counter-Strike OL" to you, Penguin."

Ren Yuxin smiled happily and immediately thanked him, "Thank you, Mr. Qin. I wish our cooperation will be smooth and prosperous!"

He came here just to play FPS online games, but when he first arrived, the other party didn't show him the FPS project, but insisted on showing him some horizontal fighting game.

At that time, Ren Yuxin wondered if Qin Shaoyan was bullying customers because his store was too big and he had to pair the things he sold with another piece of junk.

However, before he came, Brother Xiao Ma had already reminded him that he must obtain the agency rights for "Counter-Terrorism OL".

Ren Yuxin had no choice but to bite the bullet and watch the horizontal fighting game. After watching it, he was shocked. In terms of quality alone, this game was S-level.

The dazzling array of professions and various skill effects, the smooth fighting combos and the strong sense of striking look very eye-catching.

Moreover, arcade games haven’t disappeared for long, so this game can easily evoke players’ nostalgia.

Ren Yuxin's vision is indeed good, and Qin Shaoyan is not just saying this for commercial purposes.

In another time and space, Ren Yuxin was responsible for making the decision to introduce the "Cross Fire" project.

According to the most widely circulated rumor, the CF FPS game is very bad and was forced upon Penguin by the makers of "Battlefield King".

Penguin didn't want it originally, but it was someone's intensive revisions that made CF a huge success.

It is not known whether this statement is the original account of the incident, but since it was made by the person involved himself, it is questionable.

Qin Shaoyan had seen a screenshot of an internal work email from Penguin in February 2007, which strongly recommended the agency of the online game CF.

From this point of view, the claim that CF is too rubbish and Penguin doesn't want it is completely untenable.

Seeing Ren Yuxin was very happy, Qin Shaoyan struck while the iron was hot, "Mr. Ren, this FPS game of mine is our painstaking work. For this online game, we even specially made a stand-alone game, which cost a lot of money."

When Ren Yuxin heard this, he became alert. Qin Shaoyan's words hinted at something else, and he was going to start negotiating terms.

"Boss Qin, what are you talking about?" Ren Yuxin said with a smile, "You are recognized as the number one game producer in China. All the games you make are well received and popular. You can make money by making games."

"You can't say that. Although strength is important in the gaming industry, luck is more important." Qin Shaoyan waved his hand and sighed, "It's not certain whether this stand-alone game can succeed. I'm afraid it will affect the promotion and marketing of the online game."

"How about this, after the standalone machine is launched, we can talk about it based on the sales volume?"

Ren Yuxin frowned, "This is not good, Mr. Qin."

(End of this chapter)