November 3rd, Monday, a new week.
Today is Seattle’s 4th birthday.
Seattle and his younger brother Nicholas, who was born three days after him, were registered in Janet's name as twins. Although the family cares less and less about this now, they still celebrate birthdays together, usually choosing one that falls on the weekend.
This time is different. November 3rd is a Monday and November 6th is a Thursday. Neither is a weekend.
However, the two children's uncle and his family came to North America to visit relatives, so they decided to hold a birthday party tonight to make it lively.
The two families deliberately delayed their return to Australia for one day.
Simon still goes to work as usual today.
When he arrived at the company, the first document Simon got was the Halloween box office data for the past weekend in North America.
During the three-day weekend from October 31st to November 2nd, "The Conjuring 3: Blood Moon", which once again aroused widespread discussion due to various breakthrough settings, reached the top of the list without any suspense. In the first weekend, with 3,354 screens, "The Conjuring 3: Blood Moon" With its large-scale opening and high reputation, "The Conjuring 3" grossed US$46.71 million in one fell swoop, which was higher than the US$46.13 million that "The Conjuring 2" earned in the first seven days.
For the Conjuring movie universe series, Simon has been deliberately guiding the establishment of a complete human-ghost confrontation system in order to form a certain pattern process, rather than just relying on accidents or words to defeat evil spirits like many Western horror films.
The results have been remarkable over the years.
"The Conjuring 3" is Simon's bolder attempt, directly adding a large number of new settings. Of course, as a girl easily saw through, most of the settings, such as ghosts beating walls, wishing coins, newborn baby tears, etc., are actually based on various traditional Chinese supernatural legends across the ocean. Adapted and evolved.
You can imagine the risks involved.
If Western audiences don't buy it and think many settings are nonsense, then "The Conjuring 3" may not be a horror film, but a comedy. Fortunately, this situation not only did not happen, but judging from the media and public feedback in recent days, more people believed it to be true, which resulted in all kinds of ridiculous social news.
Simon is even less surprised that "Blair Witch" was once believed to be a real hit.
The American elite is certainly elite, but the middle and lower class... No matter now or in the future, too many facts have proven that these people are really not very smart.
At the same time, various ghost costumes and other props in "The Conjuring 3" have also become popular during Halloween.
Amy Pascal regretfully mentioned in an email to Simon that if she had known this earlier, "The Conjuring 3" should have been released earlier.
In this way, as public opinion ferments on a large scale, related peripherals will sell better.
However, since "The Conjuring 3" opens on Halloween, October 31, many members of the public have purchased their own Halloween-themed props in advance, and it is not easy to replace them temporarily. Although the peripheral products of "The Conjuring 3" series have been distributed in advance, and the sales are not bad, they still lack a bit of the popularity boost brought by the film, otherwise the sales will definitely be better.
Plans never keep up with changes, and there is nothing we can do about it.
After all, if it is released a week in advance, if the review feedback is not so good, you may not be able to get much of the Halloween week slot bonus the next week.
There are always trade-offs.
What's more, the high box office of 46.71 million US dollars in the three days of the first weekend also makes people have no regrets.
"The Conjuring 3", which ranks first on the list, has taken up too much market share, causing the box office of many other old and new films to be severely impacted.
As a result, the second-placed "The Ghost Story" lost the opportunity to hit the 200 million local box office threshold. In the past three days, it fell 35% year-on-year, with revenue of US$7.82 million, and the cumulative box office is US$193.78 million. It is expected that after a full week , there is still at least 4 million US dollars short of the 200 million threshold, and we can only look forward to a breakthrough next week.
However, "The Ghost Story" is pretty good, still ranking second in its sixth week of release, which also shows the box office performance of other recent films.
The third place on the list is the same ghost-themed film "The Possessed", produced by Warner Bros. In order to avoid competing with "The Conjuring 3", it opened a week early. As a result, it suffered a bad reputation and was unable to enjoy the Halloween schedule bonus. typical.
With a combined media score of only 4.7 points and Variety magazine's reputation as "a parody of the Conjuring movie universe," despite inviting Hollywood star Al Pacino to star, it grossed $14.93 million in the first week. After the box office, even with the support of Halloween's popularity, the three-day weekend of the following week still fell 43% year-on-year, with revenue of only 6.03 million US dollars. It was released for ten days, with a budget of US$30 million, and the cumulative box office was only US$20.96 million.
Although it is not a failure, the local revenue is expected to be over 30 million. If it sells more overseas, including peripheral channels, it will definitely be able to recover the cost and achieve profitability, but this is obviously far lower than Warner Brothers' expectations.
You know, during the film promotion stage, Warner ambitiously stated that it hoped to make a trilogy.
I didn’t dare mention the universe.
Now, the total local box office is expected to be less than the revenue of "The Conjuring 3" in the three weekends, so the trilogy will definitely become a joke.
The second and third places on the weekend list both had box office sales of less than 10 million, and the others are just as expected.
Not worth mentioning.
However, Simon did find one of the films quite interesting.
This is a science fiction film that opened last Friday at the same time as "The Conjuring 3". It was produced by Paramount with a budget of 25 million US dollars. It is called "Genetic Code" and stars "Before Dawn" actor Ethan Howe. This time, Ke and Uma Thurman, who was transferred from Poison Ivy by Simon to play Leopard in "Wonder Woman 2", star.
The film's box office revenue in the first three days of the weekend was only 3.17 million US dollars, which was a complete failure. However, the setting of the story is very interesting.
The story tells the story of a future where genes determine one's future. Vincent, played by Ethan Hawke, who can only live until the age of 30 due to a genetic defect, in order to realize his dream of space, has a relationship with another man who has excellent genes but died due to an accident. Jerome, a young man who is paralyzed, conspires to swap identities for a chance to become an astronaut.
The subsequent plot is not significant, just look at this setting, look at this setting... So, this once again proves that Hollywood is a circle.
This is true for people, and so is cinema.
After browsing the box office for the past three days over the past weekend, Simon processed some daily documents. At 10 o'clock, there was a joint meeting between Daenerys, Ygrit, and Tinker Bayer, a combination of on-site participation and video connection. The way. Some of the top executives of the other two companies came from San Francisco in person, while Jeff Bezos of Eaglet and Lady C of Tinkerbeier participated via video communication.
About the game.
To be more precise, a game console.
Simon has been thinking about this for a long time, even for several years.
Should the Westeros system make its own game console
In the early days, I didn’t have enough strength, so I never thought about it too much.
Now, the time, place, and people are favorable, and there is no shortage of anything. Whether to do something or not is just a question of whether to do it or not.
Simon finally decided to do it.
So, here comes the problem.
Why do you want to be a host
First of all, from the user's perspective, one is price and the other is experience.
Whether now or in the future, if you want to support the top games, personal computers need to invest more money to stack top configurations. A customized and optimized game console can not only perfectly support various large-scale games, but the price will be much cheaper. As for the experience, whether it is now or in the future, the display effect of TV sets is much better than that of computer screens.
This is the biggest advantage of game consoles.
Secondly, from the perspective of game manufacturers.
The game console itself is difficult to make a profit. This is proved by Microsoft's huge losses for many years in memory. However, through the console platform, Microsoft has become one of the top game producers and publishers in the world. Later, its game business revenue has firmly ranked among the top five in the world, leaving behind its Western counterparts such as EA and Blizzard. .
It can be said that Microsoft is losing money on hardware, but the entire gaming business is not losing money.
Not only Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, which have their own game platforms, have also long been among the top global game manufacturers in terms of related business revenue. It can be said that three of the top five game manufacturers in the world have console platforms.
This is enough to prove the power of the platform.
Due to the game industry environment he was in, Simon has always been more interested in online games. In the same global ranking, apart from the three console manufacturers, the other two are basically locked by online game manufacturers. Even if it is a stand-alone game, Simon once preferred PC stand-alone games.
However, after learning about it over the years, and based on various information in his memory, he can also judge that console games will always occupy a large part of the global game industry output value of more than 100 billion US dollars in the future.
This is why the Westeros system must be the host.
And now is the right time.
In terms of hardware, it is not a problem whether it is using chips from Intel or AMD, or developing it by itself through the PowerPC architecture that Tinco Bayer mastered after acquiring Apple and has been determined to be marginalized. Regarding the operating system, similarly, Apple's technical foundation and core patents, coupled with the Westeros system's long-term accumulation of Linux systems, can all be solved.
Speaking of which, the first-generation PlayStation launched by Sony three years ago used a Linux system, and it was a Linux version licensed from Yigrit. If the Westeros system wants to develop a game console, not surprisingly, the core of the operating system will also be Linux.
This is conflict.
Since it was absolutely necessary, of course we couldn't care about this.
However, on Sony's side, because it is a permanent license for the relevant version, the Westeros system cannot be taken back. The other party will conduct subsequent update and research and development based on the Linux version it obtained. Apart from the increase in costs, it is not a fatal problem.
Our future is free competition.
When Simon made this decision, Microsoft was more targeted.
In the past few years, in the face of overt or covert suppression by the Westeros system, Microsoft is destined to no longer become the world's largest market capitalization company in history in 2000. Even if the Internet bubble in this time and space has burst, Microsoft is still Competing with Yigrit in the network business, it has no intention of expanding into game consoles.
Simon happened to take advantage of this hole.
In the future, there will still be three pillars. On the American side, the Westeros system has taken up the quota. If Microsoft wants to intervene, it will only be more difficult.
The last thing is content.
Simon's plan was directly taken advantage of by him in advance, and the game console named Xbox was developed by Tinker Bayer. In terms of content, Daenerys and Igrit will be the main ones for the time being, and Tinker Bayer will also participate in the future.
The game is a huge piece of cake that no one of the three families can finish, so they might as well serve it together.
Simon also has the intention of cultivating gu in this regard.
It is better for our own families to compete with each other than for outsiders to share the cake.
In order to more closely integrate the interests of the three parties, a separate subsidiary will be established under Tinco Bayer for the development of this game console. Tinco Bayer will hold 40% of the shares, and the other two will each hold 30%.
Although Tinker Bayer was the main force in research and development, there was no objection from Lady C.
Simon explains this very clearly.
The host business is not only difficult to make money, but it is also likely to require long-term investment and active subsidies to expand market share. This is likely to lead to huge losses. Therefore, this is not the other two taking advantage of Tinker Bayer, but three companies in the future. Bear the losses together.
Of course, while bearing losses together, we can also share the benefits brought by the Xbox platform.
This is also the reason why Simon allows three companies to jointly hold shares.
Human relationships are never more stable than direct interest relationships.
If Daenerys and Ygritte do not hold shares and do not have to bear the losses, even if Simon has been coordinating, in the long run, it will definitely make Tinker Bayer who invested alone dissatisfied.
Why should you let you take advantage of the platform I developed myself
In the final analysis, it is still a kind of sisterly settlement. If you settle your accounts clearly in advance, you won't have too many complications in the future.
After a meeting that lasted two hours and discussed all aspects, the Westeros system research and development project, which was named the Xbox game console by Simon as the 'X Plan', was officially finalized and planned to be officially launched by the end of 1999, before the turn of the millennium. The development cycle is Two years.
This was a deadline that Simon himself set.
Even with the current resources and strength of the Westeros system, it is not a problem to build a console in a year, but considering that the life cycle of each game console will be very long, if it is messed up, it will be updated. It's not that easy. Thinking about the various problems that Microsoft had with the first-generation Xbox due to rushing work, Simon decided to give it a more ample development period.
After the meeting, we made an appointment for lunch with Chen Qing.
Simon left the meeting room and continued to find opportunities to work with Nancy Brill, who had been taking care of the game business by his side, and Larry Probus, who had been promoted from EA and has now become the general head of Daenerys Entertainment's game business. Discuss some specific projects in the gaming department.
In the morning, Simon had already seen the game adaptation plan for "The Conjuring 3: Blood Moon" given by the game department.
The ghost town, the battle between humans and ghosts, and the desperate escape, coupled with various settings in the film that can be developed into game props, it can be said that "The Conjuring 3" is simply tailor-made for game adaptation. Therefore, before the movie was released, a R&D team from Daenerys' game department started preparing plans after watching the samples in advance.
As for whether to invest in development, it still depends on the specific market feedback of the film.
Now, "The Conjuring 3" is more popular than imagined, and the development of the game naturally requires excellence. Simon directly rejected the actually good plan and asked Nancy and Larry to let the development team improve it.
Speaking of which, with the current hardware conditions, the effect of making this kind of 3D stand-alone horror game will definitely not be very good. If it can be placed 10 years later, or even 20 years later, with movie-level picture quality, and the game is released, it will definitely scare people half to death just like the movie.
The problem is that it’s okay to think about it this way, but it’s impossible to actually stop doing it.
Ten or twenty years from now, there are also themes from ten to twenty years later.
What's more, just like movies, successful games also rely on creativity and careful design, not picture quality. Therefore, as long as it is the best under the current hardware conditions, players will buy it.
After chatting for a while about the adaptation of "The Conjuring 3", Simon also talked about an online battle version of "Counter-Strike 3.0" that will be released before Thanksgiving.
It was not until he entered the restaurant building that Simon handed Probst an idea he had casually written on an A4 paper during the meeting, and said: "Actually, there is another one. I recently read a review that compared "The Conjuring 3" with When George Romero defined the zombie movie, he also had the idea of a horror game, this time it was zombies, the mode was an adventure type, you can discuss it yourself, the name is "Resident Evil"."
"Resident Evil" was supposed to be released in 1996, but now it is the end of 1997. It was indeed when I was checking the reviews of "The Conjuring 3" over the weekend that Simon saw Roger Ebert using George Romero to define zombies. The movie analogy was "The Conjuring 3", and I temporarily thought of this game and subsequent movies.
My Name Is Alice!
All right.
For some reason, Simon always felt that this line was too slippery, almost on par with Schwarzenegger's 'I'll Be Back'. I don’t know where Milla Jovovich is now, but she can give this opportunity to other vases around her in the future.
Let’s talk about games.
After thinking about it, Simon checked on the Internet but couldn't find it. He asked Girl A to compile a list of horror games from Capcom and other mainstream Japanese game manufacturers. There were none. Even Shinji Mikami didn't know where they were. , of course no need to be polite anymore.
Simon handed the settings he had written down to Probst. Nancy, who was walking on the other side, subconsciously looked around and found a boss in the middle. She could only give up and asked, "What is it specifically?"
"Zombie games, are you interested?"
Nancy said: "I am interested in every idea you have."
Simon glanced at the small female executive who was still accustomed to wearing very high heels and walked beside him, but still only reached his shoulders. He joked: "Don't tell me, you also thought about opening my brain and looking inside. What is it?"
Nancy made no secret and nodded firmly: "More than once."
Simon said quietly: "Actually, everything started from that night ten years ago..."
Nancy listened, and even Larry Probst visibly perked up his ears.
Then, there was no more.
Larry Probst quickly smiled and looked back at the A4 paper in his hand. Nancy reacted. Ten years ago, in 1987, someone had already become famous. He started by teasing himself and raised his hand. Hit Simon.
Over the years, the small female executive is still single, which has caused some speculation in the circle that she is with a certain big boss. However, the fact is that although there have been some minor ambiguities over the years, the two have never gone further.
Nancy Brill herself wanted to understand that this was because she was not a vase.
A certain guy will always have more patience and respect for a capable woman. What's more, no matter what the rumors are outside, Nancy knows that someone has never been a guy who likes to force himself. Nancy is very satisfied with this, but sometimes she inevitably feels some disappointment that she is not willing to admit.
Can't you use force just once
Arriving at an executive restaurant in the restaurant building, Chen Qing was already waiting here.
Nancy, who originally thought they could chat about more topics while dining together, had no choice but to sit at the table with Larry Probst and explore the "Resident Evil" game plan that Simon had just given.
The setting is not new.
The virus leaked, the city fell, looking for the antidote, escaping from the city... and so on.
Obviously it's still a matter of filling content.
After Nancy and Probst read the general setting, the main discussion was which team should be responsible for this project.
If the ideas given by your boss are done well and you get a lot of credit, they will be directly remembered by the big boss, and your future will be bright. However, it was messed up, just like the upcoming "Counter-Strike 3.0". This was actually an idea given by someone three years ago. However, because the first version of the finished product ended in a very dismal failure, the person in charge simply lost it. Work.
Very serious consequences.
The upcoming "Counter-Strike 3.0" is the result of someone's persistence. After the failure of the first generation, "Counter-Strike 2.0" at the beginning of last year finally achieved a good response, so this time an online battle version was directly produced. Not only is it compatible with the stand-alone mode and LAN gameplay of the first two versions, this time it is also possible to conduct multiplayer battles on the network platform. The new version's picture quality and sound effects have been upgraded again.
In addition, "Counter-Strike 3.0" will still be sold in stand-alone game mode, and Daenerys Entertainment will provide an online server battle platform.
Mainly because of current hardware constraints.
Someone's suggestion of selling skin props and the like is not realistic. After all, with the picture quality, who can tell whether the skin is good or bad? As for the firearm props, at this stage, apart from the sound settings, the shape is also not pleasing to the eye. It is unrealistic for players to spend money to buy them. What's more, it may affect the balance of the game.
So just sell it as a stand-alone game.
As for server costs, they will definitely be taken into consideration during the game pricing process. In addition, if the response to this version of the game is good, maybe next year, or at most the year after, "Counter-Strike 4.0" with more gameplay and better graphics will be released. This is not a free update, you still have to buy it.
Therefore, version 3.0 servers only need to be supported for two years at most, and then they will be marginalized. After all, there is a better version, and players can’t continue with poor quality graphics.
In short, sellers are always smarter than buyers.
…
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PS: I happily finished writing two chapters yesterday, and then I dared to look at the manuscript fee data, and then I was poured cold water on it. As expected. In fact, I started to set a very low expectation in my heart, hinting that it would be about the same. However, compared with the previous total of 240,000 words, the total number of updates in February was only slightly more than the 120,000 words in January. At that time, I laughed bitterly like an idiot for a while, and I also smiled bitterly when I wrote this PS. In fact, I don’t want to mention anti-theft. That is my eternal dark history. The reason is procrastination, not because I want to make more money. As long as I can write it down, I will never be anti-theft. In fact, I just want to say that the subscription ratio of this book is very low. For those of you who are still following it, if you come here occasionally and subscribe to a few chapters, the data will be very good. Please. In addition, PS is added seconds after the update. It should be able to be copied by outsiders, but it will not count.