You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 463 Social Games
Speaking of web games, everyone should be familiar with them, and various images will flash through their minds.

However, web games are not all the common legendary games such as "Tanwan Blue Moon" and "I am Zha Zha Hui, brothers come and kill me".

The prototype of web games appeared very early, even before the millennium.

The earliest web game in the gaming industry was Earth: 1996, developed by Mehul Patel in 2025.

However, due to technical reasons at the time, the functions that this type of web game could achieve were very limited, and all game content could only be presented in simple text, which could be said to be very simple.

In 1999, some online communities allowed virtual fishing, flower planting, etc., but these only had a static picture and simple text.

These web games appeared very early and were relatively niche, so they were quickly drowned out by the tide of the Internet.

Then the online game "Legend" became popular all over the country, and then various online games emerged one after another, and the gameplay and graphics were constantly iterating and evolving, especially the large-scale 3D client games, which were incomparable to the simple web games.

In addition, the Internet was not yet popular in China, and due to the limitations of the technology at the time, it was impossible to provide players with more immersive games. Flash technology was still out of reach, and web games had no special features, so naturally no one played them.

However, in foreign countries, web games have gained a certain market.

A strategy game called Ogame was launched in Germany in 2002. It has the trading system and resource system required for basic strategy games.

Create units, dozens of buildings and technology upgrade research, and even a colonization system and combat simulation system. Special affairs officers can be regarded as a hero system.

Although the picture is still and the battle is very simple, and some designs are referenced from the PC game, it has to be said that this game does have its own unique design.

At that time, ogame had millions of players worldwide, and even had a national server, which lasted until it was closed in 2009.

It was not until 2006 that a German web game called Travian was officially launched and entered the Chinese market in 2007.

It is also the prototype of most SLG web games. In an era without publicity and web game platforms, it could still generate more than 20 yuan in revenue per month on the domestic server.

This web game can be regarded as the beginning of the web game era in China.

Then in 2008, a group of companies in the industry including 91wan and 4399 started to jointly operate "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms".

It created a record of more than 60 online users and tens of millions of monthly revenue, and then opened an era of web game arena with many heroes competing for supremacy and many demons dancing wildly.

At that time in 2006, web games were a completely unfamiliar niche concept. Not only ordinary people, but even people in the gaming industry didn’t know much about it.

When Qin Shaoyan brought up the term "web game", Zhang Pingyi was completely confused.

"What are web games? Small games played on the web?"

"It should be said that it is an online game played on the web." Qin Shaoyan then briefly explained the concept of web games to help Zhang Pingyi better understand it.

Zhang Pingyi was very surprised. "This kind of game based on Flash is very different from the PC game in terms of both the game graphics and the gameplay. Will anyone play this kind of game?"

"Of course there will be." Qin Shaoyan smiled, "The biggest advantage of web games is that they are web games."

"Web game?" Zhang Pingyi was stunned. After thinking for a while, he realized, "A game that runs on a web page. You mean it has a low entry barrier."

"It should be said that the cost of trial and error and the threshold for getting started are very low." Qin Shaoyan opened his laptop. "If I want to play an online game, I have to download a client first, then register and log in, and enter the game to experience it before I can know whether the game is good or not."

"Downloading a client takes a lot of time, but web games can be played by opening a web page, and you can quickly determine whether the content is what you want."

"Another major feature of web games is that they are hidden."

"Hide?" Zhang Pingyi was stunned. "Do I need to hide when playing games?"

"Of course, you can't open the game client to play while you're at work, that way you'll be discovered easily." Qin Shaoyan said with a smile, "But web games are different, you can just switch to another web page or close it to destroy the traces, which is very helpful for slacking off at work."

Slacking off at work is a very common phenomenon. It is impossible for workers to work intensively all the time during working hours, so being lazy and relaxing is a basic need.

"Are you going to create a game that can be played secretly behind the boss's back?" Zhang Pingyi was surprised.

"It can also be a game played secretly when the wife is not at home." Qin Shaoyan replied, "What we want is a sneaky excitement."

"Hiss~" Zhang Pingyi took a breath of cold air. Mr. Qin's idea was very perverted.

"Of course, the main purpose is to target these white-collar workers who use computers at work." Qin Shaoyan said seriously, "The next major strategic goal of the campus network is to break the existing social networking site structure that is mainly based on students and expand the user base of the campus network."

"What do you think of the web game as an entry point?"

The development of campus networks on university campuses is now unstoppable. From Peking University and Tsinghua University to private colleges and universities, the number of users is always growing.

However, Qin Shaoyan and Zhang Pingyi said that the user group of the campus network is too homogeneous.

Campus networks can start on university campuses, but they must not rely solely on university campuses, as this will not allow them to go far.

No matter how many college students there are, there is an upper limit. If we want to expand, it will not work to follow Facebook's idea of ​​moving to campuses below high school, after all, the national conditions are different.

Therefore, Qin Shaoyan identified the new target group as former college graduates and white-collar workers who frequently use computers in work and life.

Zhang Pingyi thought about it and said, "The goal is correct, but isn't it a little thought-provoking to use a web game? The percentage of people who like to play games is too small."

"That depends on what type of game it is." Qin Shaoyan had a confident expression, "There are more people who play games for leisure than for competitive PK."

"The movie we made called Plants vs. Zombies had a lot of housewives and senior citizens."

"Casual games?" Zhang Pingyi fell into deep thought. "What new ideas do you have?"

"I want to create a social game that focuses on leisure and entertainment." Qin Shaoyan replied, "Some systems in online games have social attributes. Take World of Warcraft as an example. Its user stickiness is not only based on the playability of the game itself, but also on the social interaction with game friends."

"After all, no matter how large-scale an online game is, there is only so much playability, and it is not unlimited. After you have experienced all the game content, it loses its novelty, and the rest is filled by socializing with each other."

"Socializing is also an emotional necessity. After all, humans are social animals."

“I want to create a game with social interaction as its main purpose, and attract more people to join in through social interaction.”

Zhang Pingyi was a little puzzled, "Will this work?" "It should be no problem." Qin Shaoyan explained, "In foreign countries, social games are a special type called social games."

“The core of the game is social interaction, so connections in the game become the most important resource, or the most important way to obtain resources.”

"If a user is addicted to social games, he will work hard to expand his network resources, and even try every means to attract more people to join his network."

"These include family, friends, and colleagues, and then new people will do the same thing and bring in more people."

Zhang Pingyi frowned. "I don't think your description is right. It sounds like a pyramid scheme."

"Can that be the same?"

"Anyway, they all start with the people they know."

"..." Qin Shaoyan emphasized, "We are making a serious game, don't talk about other things."

"Yeah, right, right." Zhang Pingyi nodded in agreement, "This is also your specialty."

Qin Shaoyan was too lazy to pay attention to Zhang Tianshi's sarcasm. "Our next goal is to break through through social games, so that more people can bring their connections here and expand the user data of the campus network first."

"What happens next?" Zhang Pingyi asked.

"After that, our stock price went up." Qin Shaoyan replied as a matter of course, "With a user base, we can do other things."

"Then when will we launch the Weibo post?" Zhang Pingyi asked.

"Of course it will be next year. There's no rush this year. Let's get the data ready first so that the year-end financial report will look better." Qin Shaoyan replied, "We need to provide more emotional value to investors."

"Stop providing emotional value. Xiong Xiaoge can no longer take your emotional value." Zhang Pingyi joked, "What he needs is stock value. Didn't you say before that you wanted to promote Weibo and raise the stock price?"

"We need to provide both material and spiritual support, and both must be strong." Qin Shaoyan said confidently, "When they went public, they already made a lot of money from the stock market, so they don't need us to provide any material support."

"I think you should eat your meal one bite at a time. If you take too big a step, you might end up hurting your balls."

"We don't have enough user base right now. If we forcefully promote Weibo, we'll just end up doing the wrong thing. Let's develop social games first."

Zhang Pingyi nodded. "Then tell me what to do. I'll listen to you."

"Then let's start with the vegetable growing game." Qin Shaoyan took out the PPT.

"Growing vegetables?" Zhang Pingyi was very surprised. "What kind of social game is this?"

"Of course this is a social game. You have to know that the Chinese nation is an agricultural nation, and farming is part of our culture." Qin Shaoyan showed a PPT presentation. "Growing vegetables can easily evoke resonance in everyone's blood culture. People living in cities can't grow vegetables in real life, so we fill this spiritual gap for them in the virtual world, which can also satisfy the emotional value of users."

Zhang Pingyi was born in the countryside. Before going to college, he worked on the farm every day. He couldn't understand why some people liked to grow vegetables.

But since Mr. Qin said so, let’s do it.

"Every user will get a farm after entering the game, and the main gameplay is to manage this virtual farm." Qin Shaoyan demonstrated the PPT while explaining the gameplay to Zhang Pingyi, "The initial level of the farm is 1, and you can only reclaim one piece of farmland. The higher the farm level, the more farmland you can reclaim. In addition to farmland, there will be buildings such as warehouses, and later there will be fish ponds and breeding farms, etc."

"Farmland also needs to be upgraded. Different levels of crops can be planted differently. Different crops can gain different experience points, and their selling values ​​are also different."

"You need gold coins to upgrade your farm, add buildings, reclaim farmland, buy seeds, fertilizers, farm tools, etc."

Qin Shaoyan described in detail how to reclaim farmland, how to sow, fertilize, catch insects, weed, harvest, how to upgrade farmland and a series of other gameplay.

"This is a cultivation game." Zhang Pingyi quickly understood that the game itself was not difficult to make. "It all depends on who manages the farm better, and then show off and compare with other friends."

"No, its core gameplay is stealing vegetables." Qin Shaoyan corrected, "It's better to steal than to grow well. This is the essence of farm game interaction."

"Stealing vegetables?" Zhang Pingyi began to think, "If there is stealing vegetables, then there must be counter-stealing."

"That's right." Qin Shaoyan gave Zhang Pingyi an appreciative look, "This is a game process."

"Game...interaction." Zhang Pingyi thought for a moment and said, "It's a good idea."

"Of course there is a way." Qin Shaoyan said proudly, "If there is no way, I wouldn't tell you this. It's a waste of your talent to let a programmer worth over 1 billion do such a small job."

Zhang Pingyi rolled his eyes, but he still agreed readily, "Okay, I'll do this project myself."

"But if this thing becomes popular, you have to be careful about being copied by others. It's not that difficult."

"Indeed, although it looks simple, it is actually not difficult at all." Qin Shaoyan nodded, "It is certain that it will be plagiarized."

"When others copy you, they are just stealing your traffic. Other social networking companies, especially QQ, are also following suit. What will you do?" Zhang Pingyi asked worriedly.

"What should we do?" Qin Shaoyan smiled, looking very relaxed, "The life cycle of this thing is not long, so let's just copy it."

Zhang Pingyi was very surprised, "This is not like you, when did you become so generous?"

"What else can I do?" Qin Shaoyan spread his hands. "If I encounter plagiarism, on the one hand, I need to quickly update and iterate, and launch new gameplay, so that the other party can't keep up with the pace."

"On the other hand, we need to promote it aggressively, and first instill in everyone the idea that the campus network's stealing vegetables is the authentic one."

"After the farm game becomes extremely popular, it always takes some time for them to react. This period is our golden time, and we can eat as much as we can."

"If plagiarists appear, we must mobilize public opinion immediately to criticize them."

Zhang Pingyi frowned, "What's the point of criticizing you? Players don't care about you."

Qin Shaoyan smiled slightly, "If public criticism doesn't work, then we can still use legal weapons to defend our rights."

"No, are you serious?" Zhang Pingyi thought Qin Shaoyan's statement was incredible. "It can't be considered plagiarism if the gameplay is the same. You can't win the lawsuit."

"Fighting a lawsuit also requires skills." Qin Shaoyan showed a mysterious smile, "I have already thought of a countermeasure, and I am just waiting for the other party to plagiarize."

(End of this chapter)