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Chapter 403, 0393: [Future Era Breaks into Europe's Top Five]

Bian Guanyue successfully passed the re-examination and became a graduate student in the Department of Art Studies at Peking University.

April has arrived in the blink of an eye.

Statistics on the market share of Chinese online game companies (including overseas revenue and game payment channel revenue) for the first quarter of 2009 have been released.

The top-ranked companies are: Shanda, Youke, Tencent, NetEase, Perfect World, and Sohu.

This is what you call a real change of the world.

World of Warcraft, The Emperor's Reign, and Conquer Online are all on a downward trend.

In particular, games like "The Emperor's Reign" and "Conquer Online" quickly rose to prominence and made a fortune by relying on the free-to-play model, which defeated the poorly managed pioneer of free-to-play games, "Hot Blood Jianghu".

However, with free-to-play online games now everywhere, the appeal of these two games has significantly decreased. Furthermore, their heavy pay-to-win elements have deterred many low- to mid-level players, who have flocked to games like *Future Era*, *Perfect World*, *Tian Long Ba Bu*, and *Zhu Xian*.

Shanda is truly amazing. Despite the fact that it seems like all its games are failing, Shanda's revenue from payment channels is simply incredible.

Especially after the internal strife at Junwang, China's largest game distribution channel, many game companies have chosen to sell recharge cards through Shanda's channels.

Shanda's market share in online games has exceeded 20%!

Including overseas revenue, for every 100 yuan earned by Chinese online games, 20 yuan goes into Shanda's pocket.

Of course, Youke also benefited from the Junwang internal strife.

Gamer's revenue from its game distribution channels surged by 50% within a few months. Coupled with the success of "Future Era," Gamer now firmly holds the second position in the industry.

Yes, Youke's overseas revenue is also quite good.

The game "Plants vs. Zombies" didn't make much money in China due to widespread piracy. However, it's been a steady stream of revenue in North America, Europe, and Japan, now earning nearly a million dollars a month.

Youke also sold Ding Guo's mobile games such as "Seven Nights" overseas, and the subsequent revenue was also very considerable.

Almost simultaneously with the announcement of its market share in China, Youke officially reposted and released a report from Europe.

Future Era has climbed to fourth place on the European online game revenue charts!

The top-grossing online games in Europe for the first quarter were: World of Warcraft, StarCraft, EVE Online, Future Era, and Lord of the Rings Online.

They include StarCraft in the category of online games, since it allows for multiplayer battles on an online platform.

Seeing this, the Koreans finally took the initiative to lower the price and restarted negotiations for the distribution of "DNF", confirming its launch in Europe this summer.

This is baffling. They've already learned their lesson in China, yet they're making the same mistake again in Europe. They simply don't learn from their mistakes.

……

Hamburg, Germany.

weekend.

Leon, who was still in middle school, ran excitedly to his classmate's house with a game magazine in hand: "Fei, look at this game, the graphics and characters are so beautiful!"

Felix asked, "What game?"

"Aion, a Korean game, will be released next month," Leon said.

Felix joked, "You think the female characters in the game are sexy, right?"

Leon quickly corrected him: "It's beautiful, not sexy."

Felix said, "Let's play NFA together. I just started playing it yesterday, and it's really fun."

There are very few internet cafes in Germany; most people play games at home, and schools and libraries are also popular internet access locations.

Game promotion is mainly conducted through newspapers and magazines, television commercials, game forums, and offline events.

The European distributor of "Future Era" accepted Chen Guiliang's suggestion and invested heavily in promotion through SNS websites.

The two most popular social networking sites in Germany are Facebook from the United States and StudiVZ, a German website (similar to Renren, popular in German-speaking countries such as Austria and Switzerland).

"I've heard of NFA, it's a Chinese game. Are there any fun games in China? I wonder if the characters in it have braids?" Leon asked curiously.

Felix rolled his eyes. "No braids. And I heard Mia is also in NFA."

"Really? Then I want to play!" Leon immediately showed interest.

Felix said, "Use my parents' computer to play, I'll take you to grind dungeons and level up."

The game downloaded and installed quickly. Leon looked at the game's class descriptions and exclaimed with delight, "These settings are so cool! I love the class stories and lines!"

Felix said, "There's something even cooler."

Once the game character is created, the opening animation of "Future Era" will soon begin.

Although the group of top university graduates at Breakthrough Animation Company made this animation a bit unrealistic, their camera work and expressive techniques are truly amazing.

The same plot, presented through different camera angles, evokes completely different feelings.

The opening and cutscenes of "Future Era" have a very cinematic feel!

Aion felt as if he had watched a top-notch animated short film; he was already excited even before actually entering the game.

A few minutes later.

Middle school students playing games in two separate rooms were shouting and communicating with each other, their doors wide open.

"Why did you die again? I can carry you through this low-level dungeon boss. Just stay in the back!"

"I want to help you, you idiot!"

"Idiot, I don't need your help, stop making things worse!" "Ah, I've used up all the resurrection coins the game gave me."

"What kind of resurrection coins are you using? They're very precious; you have to spend money to buy them, and there's a daily limit on the number of times you can use them. You should save them for the Abyss map!"

What is an abyss map?

"It's a really powerful map. I just started playing it yesterday and haven't tried the Abyss map yet."

"..."

In just one morning, Leon became completely engrossed in it.

As for Aion, which is about to be launched in Germany, he had long forgotten about it.

In the original timeline, due to the Koreans' unreasonable demands for a higher price, *DNF* underwent negotiations for several years before finally launching in Europe this year. Its brand-new side-scrolling fighting gameplay dazzled European players, making it the third most popular online game after *World of Warcraft* and *StarCraft*!
Now, "Future Era" has made a strong entry into Europe, and in less than four months since its launch, its peak concurrent users have already exceeded 20. Currently, only German and English versions are available, while the French version is nearing completion.

Furthermore, the player base is growing at an increasingly rapid pace.

Many players spontaneously promote the game on their social media accounts, bringing in their real-life and online friends.

You might wonder, with so many European countries and a peak of 20 concurrent users, how come the game's revenue ranks fourth?
The online gaming market in Europe and America is currently in a really bad state.

Single-player and console games are the absolute mainstream in Europe and America.

A game that reaches a peak of 10 concurrent online players in Europe is already considered to be in the top tier. Back in the day, the Korean game Silkroad Online only had a peak of around 10 concurrent online players, but it was already considered a huge hit in Europe.

The Lord of the Rings Online consistently maintains a peak concurrent user count of 10, firmly holding its position as a gatekeeper in the top tier of the European online game market.

World of Warcraft is an outlier.

Another outlier emerged last year.

Age of Conan, from Norway, reached a peak of 70 concurrent users in a short period of time after its launch in Europe last year, which is close to the level of World of Warcraft.

However, due to numerous bugs and insufficient updates, Age of Conan has faded like a shooting star, and its peak player count has now dropped to only tens of thousands.

……

China is unaware of the situation in the European market, so Youke can freely express itself in its promotional materials.

Chen Guiliang posted on his personal account: "I'm very happy that 'Future Era' has reached fourth place in the European online game market. I estimate that it will surpass third place 'EVE' next month. Our goal is to challenge 'StarCraft' and ultimately have a showdown with 'World of Warcraft' in Europe!"

Sina Games Channel soon published an article: "Future Era" is about to break into the top three in the European market, aiming to challenge "World of Warcraft"!
Media outlets such as 17173 also followed suit, touting "Future Era" as a source of pride for Chinese games.

None of these online reports received any publicity fees.

Our editors sit in the office every day, racking their brains to figure out how to complete their tasks. Whenever they come across any game news, they rush to write an article about it.

How many editors are keeping an eye on Chen Guiliang's social media accounts?

"Congratulations! This year's Golden Phoenix Award will award a special trophy to 'Future Era'." Director Kou even called to congratulate him.

Because Future Era was the first Chinese game to break into the top five in the European market.

The best result for Perfect World was a top ten finish in Europe.

Chen Guiliang said politely, "Without Director Kou's help, You Ke would not have achieved what he has today. Director Kou deserves at least half the credit for this medal."

"Haha, don't flatter me," Director Kou said happily. "I'll help you apply for other honors. They're quite high-level, the kind I can't decide on my own."

Chen Guiliang said, "Thank you for your care and concern, leaders!"

"Future Era" has already been selected for the China National Online Game Publishing Project, and Youke will most likely be recognized as a "National Key Cultural Export Enterprise" next.

This is not just a simple honorary title; it is jointly recognized by five national ministries and comes with corresponding financial support and policy incentives. It offers tangible benefits.

Director Kou continued, "The higher-ups are very satisfied with the situation this time. Director You, please make preparations; a ministry leader may come to inspect. The specific time is yet to be determined."

"I will definitely do a good job in receiving you," Chen Guiliang quickly assured him.

"Future Era" breaking into the top five in the European market is not the hottest online game news this month.

Shanda is launching a massive advertising campaign for "Aion," with slogans such as "the culmination of Korean online games" and "the strongest competitor to World of Warcraft."

The game was incredibly popular from the moment it launched, and all games, including "Future Era," were affected to some extent.

This South Korean game, distributed by Shanda Games, broke the record for the number of servers opened in the Chinese online game market.

Industry insiders exclaimed that Shanda, the industry leader, has risen again.

The marketing and operations departments of Youke were in a frenzy, frantically promoting and organizing events to counter Aion.

Chen Guiliang's post about Europe also had a target in mind.

Other game companies reacted similarly, doing their best to organize events and absolutely preventing Shanda from releasing another blockbuster game.

As it turns out, the only thing that could defeat Shanda and Aion was themselves!
The practice of charging for game cards plus in-game items, a business model that has been repeatedly proven unsustainable, has surprisingly been adopted by Shanda once again.

Moreover, cheats quickly became rampant in the game.

It's true that everything is flying around; aerial combat is possible in Aion. Players using cheats can fly infinitely, accelerate, and pass through walls, looting all the available resources in the wild.

Players who don't use cheats or buy items simply can't play this game!

The operations and technology departments at Shanda are like they're all eating shit; their reaction speed to cheating software is incredibly slow.

It's hard to imagine that this is the number one game company in China.

(End of this chapter)