Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 327 Doom and the Open Source Engine

If you asked PC players what game they were most looking forward to in 1993?
Doom is definitely on the list.

This new game, developed by John Carmack, has sparked discussions among countless American game fans before it was even released.

Everyone hopes to see the new game made by Carmack, which will still have the same amazing creativity as Wolfenstein.

Carmack met the players' expectations, and "Doom", released on Christmas Eve, was a huge success and won the support of countless players.

In order to play this game, Xinghai Internet Café has even become as popular as during its opening period.

Because this Doom not only has many innovations within the game, but more importantly, it has LAN online play.

Therefore, many people, even if they have computers, rush to Internet cafes to play with friends.

“I didn’t expect that a PC game could be so popular?”

Rogers first served his president a cup of hot tea, and then looked at the new document sent by the American subsidiary on the table with emotion.

"That's normal. The number of computers in the United States has now exceeded 6000 million. Excluding those owned by companies, the number of computers owned by private households exceeds 1500 million."

"And many of these families like to play games to relax on weekdays."

"If there are more people, the sales will naturally be good."

The United States is the world's largest PC country, more than twice that of Europe and five times that of Japan.

Because of this environment, PC games have exploded here.

"Yes, the more devices there are, the higher the sales will be. The only problem with the PC side is that piracy is too serious. The games we released before had pirated copies appear a few months later."

"I guess the same will be true for Doom Slayer. Hopefully we can sell more in a short period of time."

Masato Takeshita responded: "Yes, it is difficult to solve the problem of piracy in PC games. What we can do is to distribute the products as soon as possible."

"Both Europe and Japan need to speed up and try to complete it by January next year."

In those days, it was not very popular to release games simultaneously around the world. Often, a game would only be sold tentatively in another market after it sold well in one place.

There is no other way. The main medium for PC games nowadays is floppy disks. Not only are they expensive, but they also have very small capacity. Some games even require several floppy disks to store.

However, CD-ROM format computers are becoming more and more popular as they get older, and CD discs will soon become the new medium for games.

By then, the production cost of PC games will be further reduced.

“Hey, definitely on time.”

Rogers is very confident about the efficiency of his colleagues in the company, because no one has a problem with money. In Xinghai Group, every task you complete will be quantified into a bonus.

If it is an urgent task, the bonus will be several times higher. The current principle of youth is that the company allocates about half of its profits to bonuses every year.

Of course, this phenomenon will not last long. In the future, the amount of bonuses issued by the company may remain at 15% of the profit.

The main reason is that the company needs to keep a certain amount of funds for reserve, and invest in scientific research, equipment and other aspects.

Paying out so many bonuses now is a bit like buying bones with a lot of money, but also reflects the confidence that the company's profits will continue to rise and exceed the growth rate of employees every year.

It is easy to understand that spending a fortune on talents means recruiting more talents with high salaries and high bonuses.

As for believing that the company's profits will increase at an accelerated pace, it mainly means that the company will continue to reduce the proportion of bonuses in total profits while stabilizing the number of employee bonuses by relying on higher profits.

For example, if the profit this year is 20 billion, and the bonus is 10 billion, the bonus accounts for 50%.

Next year's profit will grow to 30 billion. Even if more bonuses are given out, the bonus share may still be less than 40%.

When the profit reaches 100 billion or even 200 billion, the share will soon reach the goal that Masato Takeshita wants.

He believed that this day was not far away and Xinghai Group would become a more normal company.

Thinking of the bonus, the young man naturally talked about the bonus distribution.

"Carmack's team, how do you think the bonuses should be distributed?"

"Ordinary employees in the team will be given double half-year bonuses first; key employees will be given triple half-year bonuses; and Carmack will be given quintuple half-year bonuses."

"As for more rewards, we need to see the game sales in half a year."

Rogers handled the situation in a very steady manner, and Masato Takeshita didn't find any problems.

He did not give any more opinions, but smiled and affirmed: "This is a very good way of handling it. In the future, all the games that the company has a tendency to become popular will follow this model."

"Please rest assured, President, we are already doing this."

"Well, that's good. Give me a bonus payment processing report later."

"Hi!"

Although Xinghai Entertainment had already sent out a bonus-related report early on, and its president had even written a praising comment on it, since the president still wanted it, it was natural that it was agreed immediately.

The young man naturally didn't know that Rogers, the president of Xinghai Entertainment and Xinghai Games, whom he had chosen, was secretly criticizing him. He smiled with satisfaction and talked about another thing.

"By the way, when we recruited Carmack, we agreed to his request to open source the game source code. Now I hope to change it to a more reasonable open source approach."

Carmack highly advocates the spirit of open source and directly opens the source code of several games he developed to everyone.

Many shooting games in later generations were created under the guidance of his open source sharing spirit.

For example, the famous Half-Life, and the e-sports game giant CS developed on the basis of Half-Life.

It is his open source and sharing spirit that has promoted the vigorous development of 3D technology.

It can be said that Carmack is not only a master in the gaming field, but also has made outstanding contributions to the entire computer industry.

"A more reasonable way?"

"Yes, I plan to set up an open source engine studio and put the engine developed by Carmack into it."

“任何人都可以选择使用，但游戏销售额超过10万美元不足100万美元部分，需要上交2%的销售额。超过100万美元不足1000万美元部分，需要上交3%的销售额。最后是超过1000万美元部分，需要上交5%的销售额。”

“Oh, by the way, this is annual revenue, not total revenue.”

If it is total revenue, many companies and individuals cannot accept it. If it is changed to annual, there will be no similar problems.

"This will not only promote the orderly development of the game industry, but also allow us to have more funds to develop a new generation of open source game engines."

Open source without sufficient financial support is just a castle in the air.

In his previous life, Carmack's open source engine did benefit many game manufacturers, but it was eventually eliminated by time.

It is far inferior to the Unreal Engine technology developed by Epic, which continues to improve from generation to generation by charging fees.

"I think it should be fine. Carmack would definitely want his engine to last a long time."

"Well, let him work harder and try to develop a more general engine based on the Doom engine to help small game companies develop."

Engine technology is not difficult nowadays, and medium-sized companies can develop it themselves.

Unlike later generations, many large companies began to seek help from Unreal Engine. Even if there are independently developed engines, they will be used in some games.

"Yes!"

After Rogers responded, he said with a little regret: "It's a pity to put such a good strategy on the open source engine."

"If we create a closed-source system and charge for it, we can definitely make a lot of money from it."

Takeshita Masato smiled mysteriously, "There's no rush now, there will be opportunities in the future."

The young man also had a selfish motive in setting up an open source engine studio, which was to reduce the number of competitors in the engine field.

He wanted to implement a series of policies in the Internet era, and eventually attract open source engine users to his own company. After the open source engine plan was finalized, Rogers quickly wrote a plan and sent it to the US branch, asking them to think about whether to implement it.

He actually wanted to give orders directly, but the initiative was in Carmack's hands, so Rogers could only discuss it.

"William, what do you think of this plan from headquarters?"

Carmack was a little hesitant, not knowing whether to change his original idea.

“I think this suggestion is much better than your original idea. If you want more game developers to use better engines, it is better to charge a little money, so that you can recruit people to continuously iterate and develop.”

William is also a staunch supporter of free open source, but he is more rational and believes that open source can last longer.

"Okay, then I'll reply that I agree with this plan."

Hearing his friend say this, Carmack no longer hesitated.

Anyway, there is no charge for annual revenue below $10, and the charge for revenue below $100 million is very low, which also satisfies his open source sharing spirit.

After determining the goal, Carmack began writing code all night long, vowing to write better general code for open source.

As for the 5 times half-year bonus, he didn't care at all.

Carmack, who came from a good family and had never had to worry about food and clothing since childhood, rarely cared about income issues.

If he was really eager to make money, he would not open source it at all, but would charge a high price for the engine.

After all, his 3D technology is superb and can reduce a lot of costs for developers.

In addition to Carmack, the PC department of the American subsidiary was also very busy, busy with advertising across the United States.

This year, the entire PC department has made a great comeback and will no longer be mocked by the console department for relying on the legacy of "Soviet Tribe".

They now have their own ace game IPs and producers, and their performance may not be able to catch up with the console department.

Star Ocean Games' American subsidiary is busy, and so is Star Ocean Games' Japanese headquarters.

Rogers was so overwhelmed that he simply broke into the headquarters and acted like a rogue.

"President, there are too many things to do at Xinghai Entertainment. I can't take care of the development of Xinghai Games. I hope you can help me find a qualified assistant as soon as possible to take over the position of president of Xinghai Games."

"Are you really too busy?"

Rogers quickly said sincerely, "I'm really too busy. Xinghai Entertainment has a lot of things that I need to handle personally every day."

"It's really hard to find qualified helpers in such a short period of time."

Masato Takeshita was very optimistic about Kalinske and thought about poaching him, but he was doing very well at Sega and it was impossible for him to abandon the first party and join a third party.

As for other game business tycoons, he is not familiar with them at all, and he can't just find a layman to lead him.

He is not Microsoft, which wastes a lot of money in the gaming industry every year.

There was actually another very good person, the future head of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata. But Satoru was too deeply involved with Nintendo to be poached.

As for other game business tycoons, either they have not grown up yet or he is not familiar with them at all.

But he thought about it carefully and realized that Rogers was indeed too busy now.

Not only does he have to deal with many things in the company, but he is also busy with mergers and reorganizations in the film, television and animation industries.

Especially in the animation industry, which is made up of small workshop companies, there are many things that need to be rectified by him.

"I'm sorry, you've had a hard time during this period."

Rogers did not respond, not very satisfied with his own president's verbal apology.

Masato Takeshita thought for a moment and said, "Well, go and try to poach talent from gaming companies. As long as you can convince them and prove your abilities are acceptable, the headquarters will agree."

"President, if I could find a suitable person in charge, I would have done it long ago."

Rogers was a little resentful, as he couldn't find a suitable person in charge.

"Uh, okay, I'll try to find a headhunter to help."

"Okay, then it's settled."

After hearing what Masato Takeshita said, Rogers insisted on his decision and quickly left the president's office, fearing that the president would go back on his word.

He is not a power-crazy person, he just wants to reduce the burden, which is too tiring.

"This guy."

Masato Takeshita didn't expect that Rogers, at his old age, still looked so youthful.

But an old saying suddenly flashed through his mind, and he was no longer surprised.

after all,

A man remains a boy until he dies!

"Well, who should I choose?"

The young man came back to his senses and began to think carefully about the right candidate.

"Let's ask President Isao Okawa for help. Sega has been plagued by internal strife, and President Hayao Nakayama also wants to reduce the internal friction of the company."

Isao Okawa is the largest shareholder of Sega, and Hayao Nakayama is the head of Sega.

The roles of the two are somewhat similar to those of the board of directors and the CEO.

Isao Okawa usually doesn't get involved in things, but if he makes a request, Hayao Nakayama's request will basically be met.

After all, it is difficult for company managers to defeat the company's major shareholders, especially in a feudal and conservative environment like Japan.

He did it as soon as he thought of it, and Masato Takeshita quickly called Isao Okawa.

After the two exchanged pleasantries, the young man explained the matter in detail.

"This is what's going on. I hope President Okawa can help."

"I'm sorry, I don't know if I can help."

Isao Okawa first refused apologetically, then continued.

"Well, I'll go ask President Nakayama for you and see what he thinks."

"Yes, okay, thank you President Okawa."

"It's just a small matter. You're welcome."

The two then chatted about gaming for another ten minutes before politely hanging up the phone.

"You're asking us for help, are you testing us?"

After Okawa Isao hung up the phone, he felt a little lost in his thoughts.

If Sega can really poach StarCraft games from Nintendo, it will become more powerful all over the world.

Masato Takeshita never expected that someone would think so much about a simple talent poaching attempt of Isao Okawa.

But it's normal, now is Sega's most glorious period.

Sony PS had not yet been launched and Super Nintendo had poor sales, but Sega was making rapid progress and had already occupied 50% of the single-player game market in the United States, and was also constantly encroaching on Nintendo's territory in Japan.

Sega was naturally in high spirits at this time and firmly believed that its own era was about to come.

(End of this chapter)