Restart life

Chapter 429 0419 [Match-3 and Fruit Ninja]

During the last two days of the CJ Electronics Show, Chen Guiliang was also very busy, participating in the "Mobile Entertainment Development Forum" and the "Web Game Development Forum".

He just kept bragging.

I should also check out the "China Game Developers Conference".

This event started two years ago, was suspended last year, and resumed this year. It's an affiliated event of the ChinaJoy expo.

The developer conference is divided into many sub-segments, such as a "Single-player/Platform Games and Game Outsourcing Special Session," which is self-explanatory.

The participants in this session were mostly small companies and studios. While they were exchanging ideas and discussing, larger companies could take the opportunity to scout for talent, games, and outsourcing teams.

Chen Guiliang took a stroll around the event and surprisingly found a studio he was familiar with – Coconut Island Games.

But he didn't want to invest in the studio; we were on different paths.

There are many who smear modern and contemporary China, but very few who smear Yue Fei. Coconut Island Games is one of them. In their otherwise excellent game "Jiangnan Landscape Scroll," they actually depicted Yue Fei "naked and leading a sheep."

That evening, Feng Ji, who had just returned from a special event, excitedly ran to Chen Guiliang and said, "Boss, how about the company building its own motion capture studio? I just talked to producers from other companies, and NetEase, Perfect World, and Kingsoft all have their own motion capture studios now."

"Does 'My Own Swordsman' require motion capture?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Feng Ji said, "Yes, there is light-footed skill in 'Wulin Gaiden', which allows players to fly over rooftops and walk on walls. But even a small jumping action is difficult to execute well in 'World of Warcraft,' and it is very difficult for programmers to perfectly present the action."

Chen Guiliang asked, "How much does it cost to build our own fishing shed? Or should we hire an outsourcing team?"

Feng Ji said:

"I've inquired about it. Building your own motion capture studio will cost less than 800 million yuan for hardware. The renovation and upgrading of the site will cost around 100 million yuan, plus rent. The software system will cost around 100 million yuan. The total annual salary for motion capture technicians and animators will be around 100 million yuan."

“If you hire an outsourced team, they usually charge by the day, and the daily cost can be tens of thousands, or even more than one hundred thousand yuan.”

"If our Youke builds its own motion capture studio, not only can it be used in 'Wulin Gaiden,' but other games can also use it. In the long run, it's worthwhile; we can recoup our investment in just a few years. Kingsoft's 'JX3' uses a self-built motion capture studio."

Chen Guiliang nodded and said, "It's approved. I'll have General Manager Qu implement it."

"Huh? It's approved already?" Feng Ji had prepared a speech, but before he could even finish it, his boss actually agreed.

If He Zhichuan were here at this moment, he would probably want to cry if he heard their conversation.

He offered reasonable suggestions to Baidu Games, but Shi Youcai, like a tyrant, wouldn't listen. Meanwhile, Feng Ji only said a few words, and Chen Guiliang agreed to invest tens of millions of yuan.

Chen Guiliang said, "Motion capture is a necessity for creating AAA games. Instead of constantly outsourcing, we should start doing it now, accumulate more relevant experience, and then continuously iterate and improve it."

Feng Ji racked his brains for a long time to come up with an excuse, and finally blurted out a few words: "Boss is awesome!"

Chen Guiliang smiled and said, "You guys have really gained a lot from attending this game developer conference."

Feng Ji said, "It was indeed fruitful. If I hadn't come here today to exchange ideas with everyone, I wouldn't have known that our domestic counterparts had already started working on motion capture. In return, I also shared my development experience with them. They..."

"What did they say?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Feng Ji said, "They were very envious. Some even joked that they wanted to switch jobs and work for President Chen. Mainly, when I talked about my experience developing 'Wulin Gaiden,' they were all dumbfounded. They didn't believe that President Chen would allow a game to take five years to develop. When they were making games, their superiors were always pushing them, or they had their budgets cut, so many things couldn't meet their expectations."

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Next time someone says that, just invite them over and tell them that I'm opening my doors to recruit talented people."

After Feng Ji shared his experience at the Game Developers Conference, word of Game Science's work environment quickly spread, and it really did become the first choice for some game developers looking to switch jobs.

I'd even be willing to take a little less salary!
There's also a mobile game-themed event tomorrow, and Chen Guiliang has already signed up and applied for a HarmonyOS-themed event.

This led to the mobile game special event starting an hour earlier: from 10:00 AM to 9:00 AM.

On the day.

Mobile game development teams from all over the country arrived at the meeting completely bewildered, having no idea what Chen Guiliang was up to.

This includes Coconut Island Games Studio, which Chen Guiliang was unwilling to contact.

This studio released an iOS game specifically developed for Apple phones, priced at $0.99. Due to poor sales, they simply made it free, and within a year, downloads skyrocketed to 1000 million copies.

When mobile game developers arrived at the venue and saw the words "HarmonyOS Phone Special" on the promotional board, they immediately started discussing it:

"Are you suggesting we develop mobile games for HarmonyOS?"

"Isn't this a bit difficult? Everyone's making Symbian games now. HarmonyOS phones haven't even been released yet, who knows how many people will use them? Who will we sell our mobile game to?"

"Actually, Apple games are pretty good, so we started making them, mainly selling them to the US market."

"Mr. Tang, You Ke is a major shareholder of Dingguo Technology. Didn't Mr. Chen let you know beforehand?"

"..."

Tang Kai from Dingguo Technology is also here today.

After a year of improvements, the Dingguo handheld console is now perfect, with no quality issues and runs exceptionally smoothly.

However, handheld console sales were only so-so, unable to compete with the PS3 and Xbox. Those who bought the Dingguo handheld were all die-hard fans of Dingguo Games.

Tang Kai could only continue developing mobile games to attract more fans, and then port the new mobile games to his own handheld console.

Director Kou and several other leaders also arrived.

Chen Guiliang also invited some bosses from major game companies, including Chen Tianqiao, Ding Sanshi, and Pony Ma. As for whether they would actually come, Chen Guiliang didn't have high hopes.

And then, they all came!
These people wanted to see what Chen Guiliang was up to this time.

Director Kou and other leaders arrived and sat down for a few minutes, but Chen Guiliang still hadn't appeared.

Suddenly the scene went dark, and all the lights were turned off.

Immediately afterwards, a beam of light shone on the stage, causing Chen Guiliang to raise his hand to shield his face.

"Hahaha!"

The whole audience burst into laughter.

Chen Guiliang took out his phone and started playing with it, saying as he did so, "Sorry, I've never done this before, and I'm a little unaccustomed to such strong light. Please look at the large screen projection. Lighting technician, could you please move the lights back a bit so as not to affect the projection light?"

Everyone's attention quickly turned to the projection screen.

"What you are seeing now is the phone screen being transmitted via Wi-Fi. ByteDance has developed a PC-side receiving software and then created a screen mirroring service at the phone's system level. The transmitted screen may stutter, which is not a problem with the HarmonyOS phone, but rather with the unstable Wi-Fi router and network environment."

"Even Apple doesn't dare to do this at its iPhone launch events, because they're afraid of unforeseen circumstances. They use pre-recorded footage, and only a few operations use wired connections; they wouldn't dare to use wireless transmission at all."

"Our focus today is authenticity. Yes, authenticity is key."

The seasoned lechers in the audience were already laughing; the phrase "its authenticity" hit the funny bone. Those who know, know.

Little Ma's expression turned unusually serious!

Tencent's mobile phone is under development, and they've already unveiled the HarmonyOS phone?

Moreover, the direct wireless transmission of the screen demonstrates HarmonyOS's deep control over communication protocols and the underlying system. Chen Guiliang began operating the phone and turned to look at the projected screen: "This is making a call, this is sending a text message... We won't show these in detail today. We'll mainly be showcasing mobile games. The HarmonyOS phone's engineering prototype has already undergone its third iteration. We've also verified and improved some vulnerabilities, and it will be ready for mass production soon."

"Actually, by the second iteration, we were already capable of developing mobile games based on the HarmonyOS system. But the second round of engineering prototypes were just put on a shell and had a very rough appearance. I was afraid that this would make you lose even more confidence in HarmonyOS. So, I asked Youke to develop two mobile games first."

"The first game is called Happy Match, let me demonstrate it for you."

Chen Guiliang started playing the game seriously.

The cheerful game sound effects were transmitted through the microphone to the entire venue, and people stared intently at the big screen.

When I got to the third level, I cleared too many items at once, and the screen suddenly started lagging.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "It seems that the network today is a bit too excited, just like me. But true smoothness is something you experience. Let's invite Director Kou to play around with it, and also invite a mobile game developer and a media reporter to be Director Kou's advisors."

"I!"

"I'll come, I'll come!"

Chen Guiliang randomly picked two people and said with a smile, "These two aren't planted; I don't even know them."

Director Kou accepted the HarmonyOS phone, with two lucky audience members standing on either side of him.

After getting a little familiar with the match-3 game, the strategists began to give instructions.

"Over there, swap the third and fourth cells on the left in the second row..."

"Oh dear, Director Kou, don't just randomly eliminate it. It would be better to eliminate this one."

"How about I do it?"

"..."

The two strategists quickly wanted to seize power, as they thought Director Kou's skills at playing Candy Crush were terrible.

Director Kou chuckled and said, "What's the rush? I've already passed the test, haven't I?"

Chen Guiliang asked Brother Ma in the audience, "Mr. Ma, would you like to come up and give it a try?"

Mobile QQ is currently the most important application software on smartphones. Without a doubt!

We must convince Pony Ma to create a custom QQ app for HarmonyOS phones.

Pony Ma also wants to try out the HarmonyOS phone so he can compare it with the phone his company is currently developing.

He strode onto the stage and stood next to Director Kou, waiting with Chen Guiliang.

Chen Guiliang said, "The video transmission is lagging again. Let's just do what Apple does and use a wired data connection."

Reminded by these words, Director Kou immediately handed his phone to Chen Guiliang and left the two strategists behind, returning to his seat.

After connecting the data cable to the computer, the demo screen indeed became smoother.

Chen Guiliang taught Ma Ge how to operate the game and guided him to open "Fruit Ninja": "This is the second mobile game 'Fruit Ninja' developed by Youke based on HarmonyOS phones. Mr. Ma, you can just swipe the screen with your finger. It's as easy as chopping vegetables!"

Little Ma immediately started cutting fruit. The touch screen felt incredibly smooth, and the smoothness of the screen was unbelievable to him.

So awesome?
Fruit Ninja showcases mobile phone performance far better than Candy Crush.

With the switch to wired data connection, everyone was stunned, staring at the big screen.

Wow, cell phones can be used like this!

Wow, mobile games can be like this!

Pony Ma was somewhat bewildered at this point. Could his own Tencent phone produce such an effect?

He returned the HarmonyOS phone to Chen Guiliang, offering a polite compliment: "A great phone."

"Thank you for the compliment."

Chen Guiliang casually handed his phone to his two advisors: "The HarmonyOS system is about to be open source, and we welcome mobile game companies and studios to work on its development. Of course, we also welcome developers of other types of applications to join the HarmonyOS family. Including Tencent, I hope that one day we will see a HarmonyOS version of QQ for mobile phones."

“We have prepared a ‘developer kit,’ a ‘software development kit,’ and a ‘PC-based mobile emulator.’ As for the developer community, it went live two days ago…”

"I know that most of you are developing Symbian games, a few are developing Apple games, and some are even planning to develop Meizu games. But what I want to say is that none of these mobile operating systems have prepared as thoroughly as I have for you..."

"The HarmonyOS developer community even has dedicated tutorials that guide you step-by-step on how to become familiar with, use, and develop HarmonyOS-related applications. All sorts of software and hardware developer tools are provided for you..."

"If you develop a mobile game, you can sell it on the HarmonyOS app store. Currently, mainstream mobile operating system app platforms take a commission of up to 30%. HarmonyOS's platform commission will be set at 15% for the next three years, and we promise it will always be below 30%. Develop early and enjoy the benefits; the earlier you develop, the fewer competitors you'll face, and you won't need to spend any effort on promotion..."

Chen Guiliang talked a lot, but the two strategists were still playing games, happily cutting fruit.

The mobile game developers from all over the country in the audience were whispering and discussing amongst themselves.

Their main concern is how many HarmonyOS phones they can sell. If total sales are only tens of thousands of units, how will they make money developing games?

However, the live demonstration of the HarmonyOS phone was truly impressive, and it should become a hit. If development begins now, one can reap the benefits of being a first mover; even a mediocre mobile game could easily be seen by users.

If we wait and see before developing, it will become more troublesome when there are more competitors.

Chen Guiliang said, "Those interested in developing mobile games using HarmonyOS, please visit HarmonyOS Technology Company for details. We will give away a set of HarmonyOS system development learning CDs on-site. If your mobile games enter the testing phase, we will provide HarmonyOS phones for testing free of charge..."

This is truly nanny-level service.

While Meizu does have a developer community and encourages users to develop Meizu apps, it doesn't provide developer kits, software development kits, PC-based phone emulators, etc.

Chen Guiliang was afraid that everyone wouldn't know how to do it, and that everyone would find it troublesome, so he considered every detail for the developers.

Full of sincerity!

Another issue is cost-effectiveness.

Currently, Nokia (Symbian system) holds a 75% market share in the Chinese smartphone market.

For mobile game companies or studios, developing Symbian mobile games presents a huge challenge, despite numerous competitors. The sheer size of the user base means that if they create a blockbuster game, they can reap enormous profits.

Developing mobile games for the HarmonyOS system requires being prepared not to make much money for the next year or two – even if HarmonyOS phones sell like hotcakes, the user base will be only a tiny fraction of what Nokia phones offer.

The developers at the scene were conflicted; very few dared to immediately make the decision to gamble on HarmonyOS.

The reporters on the scene didn't care about all that; all they needed to do was report how amazing the HarmonyOS phone was.

After the event, Chen Guiliang said to Brother Ma, "Mr. Ma, let's have a chat."

"What are you going to talk about?" Little Ma asked, knowing the answer already.

Chen Guiliang smiled and said, "How about Tencent launches a mobile QQ for HarmonyOS phones?"

Little Ma gave an ambiguous answer: "I'll go back and discuss it in a meeting."

(End of this chapter)