Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 508 Virtual Game Outbreak
In a cheap small office building in Shanghai, a group of young people were waiting seriously and nervously around more than a dozen virtual machines in front of them.

A young man is performing various actions on the Yun VW virtual machine, and you can tell at a glance that he is in a virtual world.

"I don't know what the test results will be this time. It's not easy to conduct large-scale testing. The rental of these virtual machines costs tens of thousands a day. It's too expensive to conduct more large-scale tests!"

About half an hour later, a tester took off the virtual machine helmet and walked down.

At this time, the young man in the lead said to the other person, "Xiao Zhao, it's your turn. Remember, your task is to focus on testing the sound effects. Test all kinds of sound effects for me. If you find any problems, write them down first. Our virtual machine time is precious, so hurry up!"

After that, after Xiao Zhao went up to test, the young man said to the tester who had just come down: "Xiao Lin, how was the test? Was the air wall bug in the map that we found last time eliminated? How was the novice map?"

Xiao Lin said: "Boss Fang, the bug of the air wall has been eliminated. I also found a few other minor problems, but they don't have a big impact. I think our novice map should be fine as a whole!"

Mr. Fang nodded slightly: "Well, you have worked hard. Write down the problems you found, and then have a good rest. I will need you to test the main city map again later!"

After Mr. Fang gave the instructions, he looked at the tests of several virtual machines in front of him and couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

This virtual testing is not cheap, so you’d better hurry up. Of course, more importantly, you should pray that no major bugs will appear again.

His small game company was already very short of funds. Although the company had a small hit mobile game, the recharge flow of the game seemed to be considerable, at several million every month. However, as a mobile game without much core appeal, it needed to get enough exposure if it wanted to stand out.

Therefore, a considerable portion of the game recharge flow is contributed to major channel dealers. In addition, a large amount of money is spent on advertising and purchasing traffic every month.

The actual profit is not much!

This money is needed to support more than a hundred people in the company, and also to squeeze out money to develop virtual games. It can be said that the capital chain is very tight.

Funds are even so tight that we can’t even afford the Yun VW virtual machines for testing virtual games. We can only rent Yun VW virtual machines for various daily tests... A Yun VW virtual machine costs 800,000 yuan, and this is the cheapest one.

If he wants to test it, he needs to get at least one set of the entry-level version, high-end version, and flagship version. That would cost several million dollars, which his small company cannot afford.

Even if they can afford it, they won't be able to get the goods in a short period of time. After all, their company is not a well-known Internet giant in the industry that can get priority supply from Zhiyun Group.

I heard that Yihai Technology has hundreds of Yun VWs, which can be used by its R&D personnel.

Not to mention Yihai Technology, a relatively special company, even several other large-scale Internet companies in China are said to have obtained priority supply from Zhiyun Group at the first opportunity. In December, they had already obtained test virtual machines for developing various virtual software equipment.

But a small startup company like them doesn't have such status and has to queue up even to purchase virtual machines.

However, even if you can't afford a virtual machine, you must not use it!

After all, we are developing a virtual game, so it is impossible without a virtual machine!
At this time, many people who had access to virtual machines began to do business with these game companies...

You can’t buy a virtual machine even if you have money, but I can!
You don’t have money to buy a virtual machine, but I do!
You can rent my virtual machine for development, just like renting a computing server or computing resources!
It is worth mentioning that in the contemporary GPU computing power market, because APO graphics cards are expensive, the Zhiyun GT series computing power servers equipped with APO graphics cards often cost one or two million yuan. Even if you buy APO graphics cards and assemble a server yourself, the price is not cheap.

Many small businesses or small research institutions cannot afford, or have no need to purchase computing servers directly. They prefer to rent computing servers when needed.

As a result, a large number of companies specializing in renting computing servers or providing computing resources have emerged on the market to meet these market demands.

Today, the same is true in the field of virtual machines!

Virtual machines are expensive, and many companies cannot afford a complete set. And you cannot just test one model. Three models cost five or six million... and they are not available.

This has led to the emergence of some companies on the market that specialize in virtual machine rental services... The bosses of these companies use their own unique skills to obtain virtual machines from different channels and then rent them out at high prices. If you pay enough, they can even sell them to you directly.

However, the price of the virtual machine in this case is very shocking.

In the Huaqiangbei market, second-hand dealers can offer up to 1.2 to 1.3 million yuan for an entry-level virtual machine device.

Some people are even thinking of adding an APO4600 graphics card and a ZY34 chip to entry-level models and selling them as high-end machines... However, although the APO4600 graphics card is out of stock, card dealers can still buy some.

However, the entry-level model does not have a location for installing a graphics card or a corresponding data interface...you cannot install a graphics card even if you have one.

In addition, another core chip in the virtual machine, the ZY34 chip, is not easy to deal with!
This chip is not for sale to the public. If anyone wants to obtain it, they can only remove it from a virtual machine or robot. The problem is that each device and ZY chip are encrypted one-to-one, so you can't use the ZY34 chip you removed on other devices.

Zhiyun Group's virtual machine and robot business R&D departments are also on guard. Many core components are one-to-one encrypted... Outsiders cannot reuse the dismantled ZY34 chips or other special chips.

Of course, Zhiyun Group also provides low-cost recycling services for these high-value old or even damaged equipment. After recycling, high-value intact parts, such as ZY34 chips, will be disassembled from them. After testing and cleaning and refurbishment, they will be used to assemble some special-priced official refurbished machines and then sold to some companies specializing in the second-hand market.

Of course, users are not stupid. If the virtual machine breaks down, they will most likely remove the APO graphics card and sell the rest to Zhiyun Group for second-hand recycling.

After all, APO graphics cards are not encrypted and can be removed and used in other places.

Today's APO4600 graphics cards are very valuable, and are Huaqiangnan's hard currency. An 80GB APO4600 graphics card can still be sold for around RMB in the second-hand market. And there's no trouble selling it. As long as you have the stock, a bunch of card dealers will come to you to buy it.

For an entry-level virtual machine, two APO4600 graphics cards are worth three hundred thousand.

As long as you remove these two graphics cards, an entry-level virtual machine can recover nearly half of its value.

If it is the flagship version, the recovery will be even greater... The flagship version uses the higher-level and more expensive APO5000 graphics card, which is currently rare in the market. The limited production capacity has been complained by those strategic-level big customers. Small and medium-sized enterprises cannot purchase it, let alone retail channels.

In Huaqiangnan, many card dealers have raised the purchase price of APO5000 graphics cards to or yuan, while the selling price is around or yuan, or even around yuan... Zhiyun supplies major companies with a new card for only yuan!
If the Ultimate Edition virtual machine is dismantled, the four APO5000 graphics cards alone can earn you over a million dollars!

Whether it's APO graphics cards or virtual machines, these things are in short supply now and are difficult to get.

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However, virtual game development always requires the use of virtual machines, so many small and medium-sized enterprises choose to rent virtual machines, which are very expensive, even more expensive than the virtual machines in virtual machine experience centers on the market.

After all, companies rent virtual machines for development, and they deliver the machines to your door for installation. They also cooperate with you to install various testing software and perform debugging. There are also various tax costs, transportation costs, idle costs, etc. The price is naturally more expensive than a virtual experience center.

Of course, you can also choose to go to the virtual machine rental company for testing. They can also provide venues and virtual machines on the spot, but it is not that convenient after all!

In summary, in this era of virtual world expansion, in the development of virtual games or other virtual software, the cost of purchasing or testing virtual machines is one of the more important costs, especially for small and medium-sized Internet companies.

It is worth mentioning that these Internet enterprise customers are also one of the main early corporate customers of Zhiyun Group’s virtual machine project.

In the early stage, there are roughly three main customers for Zhiyun Group's virtual machines. One is individual consumers. Needless to say, although the proportion of rich people is very low, if we expand it to a global scale, there are still quite a lot of individual consumers who can afford virtual machines.

The second type is investors or corporate clients who open virtual experience centers.

The third type is various Internet companies or virtual machine leasing companies. They purchase virtual machines mainly for various development purposes. The initial orders from Yihai Technology alone have reached thousands of units. Yihai Technology has many virtual software development projects and requires a lot of virtual machine testing equipment.

The virtual era has already begun, and major Internet companies are very enthusiastic about the virtual era. Both domestic and foreign companies have announced their entry into the virtual industry and developed various virtual software or games.

Of course, the third type of customers may seem okay only when the shipment volume is small in the early stage, but they will probably be insignificant in the future.

In the next few years, the sales volume of virtual machines will still depend mainly on virtual experience centers... At present, when virtual machines are expensive and in the next few years, virtual experience centers will be the mainstream way for people to experience the virtual world.

In the longer term future, as the price of virtual devices gradually decreases, individual consumers will be the core main force...but Xu Shenxue feels that it will take several years to achieve this.

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During the large-scale internal testing that lasted for several days, the more than 100 people in Mr. Fang's small company, even those from other mobile game project teams, came to help and were busy. The main testers and developers of the virtual project lived and ate in the company, testing and modifying at the same time.

"This is just a simple cartoon-style game. The current development progress is much slower than expected, and the R&D expenditure has also exceeded expectations. We must speed up and try to finish it this month and release it to the market!"

At the R&D meeting, Mr. Fang said with a pair of panda eyes: "Time waits for no one, and the company's capital chain waits for no one either!"

The cost of renting these virtual devices alone is more than 20,000 yuan a day, and this time their company plans to rent them for half a month.

After half a month, the rent alone was more than 300,000 yuan.

This is just the rental cost of the virtual machine, and it does not include the salary costs of other personnel.

In the past six months, the revenue of their company's original mobile game business has gradually decreased, while advertising and marketing costs have continued to rise, and the company's profitability has become worse and worse.

The company is under great cash flow pressure nowadays.

Mr. Fang was also quite anxious.

However, the virtual game developed by their company is just a cartoon-style virtual game. It is relatively easy to develop overall. It only requires simple development on the free Zhiyun Simulation Engine provided by Zhiyun Group.

Unlike the large-scale virtual games developed by large Internet companies, which focus on real physical effects, ultra-high-definition picture quality and modeling that simulates reality, etc., each one is more troublesome and more expensive to develop.

According to industry gossip, the top project within Yihai Technology is reportedly a fantasy fantasy game, with more than 6,000 developers of various types, far exceeding the scale of conventional computer games with several hundred to one or two thousand people.

In addition, Enterprise Games is also creating top-level virtual games. It has also formed a very large project team and invested a lot of money.

Several large foreign Internet companies, such as Google and Facebook, have also invested heavily in the research and development of virtual games.

Why are these large Internet companies spending so much money? At the same time, there are also a large number of small and medium-sized Internet companies that are trying every means to develop virtual games.

Because the current virtual games’ ability to make money is too exaggerated.

Free-to-play fighting games like Doomsday Wars are relatively good, but the revenue earned from decorative props is just average.

But the development-type role-playing game Kingdom Come is very scary.

After May, the number of simultaneous online players at Kingdom Peak had reached 20,000. According to a report released by Zhiyun Group, its monthly turnover had exceeded 300 million yuan, and on average each simultaneous online player could contribute 15,000 yuan in turnover... Note that this was only for one month.

The spending power of these virtual game players is enough to make people drool!
What’s more important is that with the continuous increase in virtual devices, the number of people online at the same time in this virtual game continues to grow rapidly... What is limiting the number of people online in Kingdom of the Peak now is not whether the game itself is good, but that there are not enough virtual devices!
Many people imagine that if this continues, by the end of the year, the number of simultaneous online users of the virtual game Kingdom of the Peak will reach more than 100,000, and the monthly revenue will reach more than 1 billion.

That’s more than 10 billion a year.

Then, although the game Kingdom Come is amazing to most people, this is more of a filter... It’s my first time playing a virtual game, and I don’t have anything to compare it with, so I can’t tell whether it’s good or bad. I can only simply marvel at the immersiveness of the virtual game.

But in the eyes of many industry insiders who have a deep understanding of and have developed virtual games, this thing is just a very rudimentary semi-finished product!
I heard that Yihai Technology only took half a year to develop the game, and then rushed it to the market... When it was first launched, the game only had three large maps and a few small dungeon maps, and the highest character level was only 30... because that was the only content that was developed at the beginning!
Such a hastily developed, half-finished and crude game can actually achieve an annual turnover of more than 10 billion... This makes countless people in the gaming industry envious and jealous!

With the Zhiyun Simulation Engine and various development kits provided by Zhiyun Group, I can also develop a virtual game of this level... and even do better.

On the contrary, games like Armageddon that simulate reality are more complicated and more difficult to play... Yihai Technology has been developing the virtual game Armageddon for several years, and it has long existed as a supporting development and testing project for virtual equipment.

There are various highly realistic physical effects in it, and the pictures simulate the real world as much as possible.

So although this game is too hardcore, many players just give it a try and rarely play it afterwards...To play this game, you have to perform various actions yourself, which is very tiring, and you always miss the enemy.

This kind of simulated virtual game doesn't have any automatic aiming. If you don't aim well, you won't hit the target... You also have to consider various factors such as wind speed, air resistance, fiber optic refraction, etc.

Although Doomsday War is called a game, it is actually more like a virtual testing software. It was not intended for ordinary people to play from the beginning, but it is used for testers of virtual project teams to conduct various simulation tests... Although some gameplay elements were added later, they are inherently insufficient.

So after this Doomsday War game was released along with the virtual machine, although it received a lot of praise, it was not a box office hit!

The main reason is that it is too hardcore, too tiring to play, and it can’t retain players.

When many people first came into contact with the virtual world, they were shocked by the various realistic scenes in Doomsday Battle. However, after being shocked, they turned around and played Kingdom Come...

It's not as comfortable to play games while walking as it is to play games on a flying carpet!

This also teaches many game companies a lesson, that is, virtual games are not about how real they are... but about making them fun, and most importantly, they should be easy and effortless to play...

As a result, the virtual games developed by major Internet companies now all have a variety of means of transportation.

For example, some characters can fly directly, some fly with the help of tools, some fly by cars or something else.

To put it bluntly, try to make players walk less!

The virtual games developed by Mr. Fang’s game company also belong to this category, the kind that don’t require much walking to play.

In order to save R&D costs, they also specially developed a game scene similar to a horizontal level-passing game, so that they can make fewer scenes, props, and characters and reuse them.

After the large-scale test was completed and many bugs were fixed, the game was basically done. Mr. Fang was busy with various preparations before the launch, including contacting Zhiyun to put the game on the shelves and applying for a game version number.

As for game licenses, there is still considerable support for virtual businesses now, and they can be approved after a few minor modifications.

If the game is launched on the market, Zhiyun Group's software and virtual mall business department under the Internet division can also provide a series of services such as server rental.

Developers only need to upload the game and deploy it to the server. Later, according to the contract signed by both parties, Zhiyun will also carry out certain traffic resource promotion in the channel, such as advertising the new game in the virtual space.

Of course, more game promotion and marketing still needs to be done by the game companies themselves.

After more than a week of hard work, when the preparations for the game's launch were completed, Mr. Fang and his team's first virtual game was finally officially launched.

At nine o'clock that morning, Mr. Fang and many members of the project team were nervously looking at the statistical data on the screen.

“The game is now officially online!”

"Zhiyun's support ads in the virtual space have been launched. The first batch of traffic support has a total of thirteen ad slots and will last for six hours!"

"Someone's coming, our first player has appeared!"

“Now there are ten players!”

“The number of players entering the game is increasing!”

"A player has recharged, recharged!"

"Three minutes. In just three minutes, a player already recharged!"

"The users of this virtual game are really big spenders. They've already topped up their accounts before the game even starts!"

(End of this chapter)