Although Daenerys Entertainment's game business has a preferential quota from Nintendo, it is ultimately not as good as local veterans such as Capcom. In recent years, Nintendo has felt threatened and has either overtly or covertly suppressed games produced by Daenerys Entertainment.
Simon is very clear about the future development pattern of the console industry.
The past two years have been the last period of glory for Nintendo consoles. After Sony launched PS, Nintendo will decline rapidly.
Then there's the rise of PC gaming.
This is what Simon values most.
The potential market size of PC games, including stand-alone games and online games, is no less than that of console games. Moreover, Daenerys Entertainment and even the entire Westeros system still have many advantages in this regard.
Taking advantage of the accumulation of Daenerys special effects in 3D technology, EA has released several 3D games in the past two years. Although the 3D effects at this time are still a bit terrible in Simon's opinion, they are much better than the 2D consoles. This is also the PC A leading edge of the platform.
In addition, the real-time strategy stand-alone game adapted from the "Dune" series of science fiction novels also launched an online battle version on a trial basis. This can be said to be a pioneer of online games, and online interaction is also an advantage of PC games.
In the original time and space, due to historical development, the stand-alone game industry in the West has been very prosperous, and to a certain extent, it has curbed the development of online games. In comparison, China's game industry started late and also encountered a ban on game consoles. As a result, the game industry began to flourish directly from the era of online games. The stand-alone game industry basically did not achieve much due to lack of copyright protection.
For Simon, the direction of development is not unchangeable.
At this stage, Daenerys Entertainment and Ygritte Corporation are fully capable of leading and creating a new development direction for the American game industry.
EA headquarters in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto.
The time is already Monday, January 17, 1994.
The reorganization was completed, and all of Daenerys Entertainment's game businesses were integrated into the EA system, including studios such as Blizzard, which was originally relatively independent, and studios such as Silicon and Synapse, which were recently finalized for acquisition. She personally took the lead in determining the next stage of EA's development plan. At the same time, Simon recently In the past few days, I also personally conceived a cooperation project between EA and the Facebook social network owned by Igret.
happy farm.
This is a browser game that Simon remembers very well.
The reason why this idea came up was not Simon's whim, but it had other more purposes.
With the official launch of online video technology by Ygritte Portal at the end of last year, Ygritte Software Department also quietly released two new software, Ygritte Flash and Ygritte Flash Player. The former is a software for interactive animation design on web pages. tool software, which is an embedded player software for users to play web page animations and video and audio content.
In the original time and space, the prefixes of these two softwares were originally Micromedia, and later belonged to Adobe.
It's just that at this stage, Micromedia has been completely eliminated by the big butterfly of Igret. Adobe is still focusing on the development of printer peripheral software, and mainly cooperates with Apple's Macintosh computer. Apple is still one of Adobe's major shareholders. Simon also bought some Adobe shares after the 1987 stock market crash.
Both companies have deviated from their original development tracks, but the World Wide Web has emerged in advance, and the development of basic tool software is imperative.
In the past few years, Ygritte has successively launched Ygritte Dreamweaver software for web design and Ygritte Fireworks for web image processing. With the recent release of Ygritte Flash software for web interactive animation design, the former web page The design of the 'Three Musketeers' was brought together by the Igret Software Department.
Not only that, Igret also quietly took over the increasingly mature Photoshop software last year. C Girl's Tinker Bayer Company only intercepted some of the most basic functions and launched the free image browsing and processing software iSee. At the same time, with the launch of online video, Ygritte is also quietly developing and improving a video editing software, Ygritte VideoStudio, which is expected to be officially released in the middle of this year.
From the earliest web design software Dreamweaver to the video editing software VideoStudio that will be released in the middle of this year, the release of each basic tool software means a substantial increase in the content richness of the World Wide Web platform.
For example, this time Flash and the supporting Flash Player software.
Igret Portal has launched an online game business two years ago, mainly chess and card board-type educational and casual games.
Before the release of Flash technology, if you wanted to develop an online game with a graphical interface, you would need to use a very complex script program, and the display effect was ultimately unsatisfactory.
After the launch of Flash, it is also a small game. It may only take an engineer who is proficient in using Flash software to develop it in a day or two, and both the game display effect and the smoothness of the game are far better than the original scripting language. type of mini-game.
Happy Farm happens to be a web game implemented using Flash technology.
Simon came up with the idea of developing the Happy Farm game. One of the main purposes is to let developers and users see Flash technology games, thereby promoting the rapid popularization of this new technology. On the other hand, if Happy Farm can achieve the same success as in the original time and space, it can further promote the level of interaction among Facebook social network user groups and enhance Facebook user stickiness.
As for making money, Simon didn't think much about it.
The former Happy Farm was developed by a game manufacturer called "Five Minutes Studio". It was initially released on the Xiaonei.com platform and quickly became a success. At its peak, the number of users exceeded 16 million. However, the Xiaonei.com platform did not bring operators... How much profit will come.
Until later, it was transplanted to the QQ platform and became QQ Farm. This small game's revenue skyrocketed from 3 million yuan a year in the Kaixin era to 50 million yuan in a single month in the Tencent era.
Simon has played several versions of "Happy Farm" and was deeply impressed by the game settings of Goose Factory selling props in various ways.
Because of the different consumption habits between the East and the West, Simon does not expect North American users to buy into the previous item system. However, relying on Facebook's current almost monopoly on the huge size of the North American social user group, as long as this game can be popularized, it will only rely on sales If you click on the fertilizer props, I believe you can still get good profits.
After all, the operating costs of this online Flash game are really limited, with a gross profit margin of over 90%.
What's more, Simon's main purpose of developing this small game is not to make profit. As long as he completes the promotion of Flash technology and increases the stickiness and activity of Facebook users, it doesn't matter whether he makes more or less, even if he doesn't make any money in the end.
The financial data for the past year is still being compiled, but it is only a preliminary estimate of revenue. The growth rate of Yigret's performance in 1993 is still terrifying.
Simon also did not allow Yigrit to deviate from his own development direction when he saw a business that was profitable.
The four core businesses of search engines, social networks, e-commerce and cloud computing services have always been the top priority for Simon to personally follow up. Even the portal information business with the largest user base at this stage must give priority to the four major businesses when encountering conflicts. Core business gives way.
At this stage, with the AOL portal, MSN portal and other types of websites all trying to catch up, the main focus of Igret's business is to defend its industry advantages at all costs and avoid being unexpectedly overtaken by other companies.
"All in all, the basic setting of this mini-game is very simple. The most important thing is the sustainability and interactive system of the game. You can discuss this yourself. The wild boar attack farm setting that Vic just proposed is very interesting. Not only pets can To drive away wild boars, friends can also help each other drive away attackers in each other's farms, which greatly increases the interactivity of the game. However, you should also pay attention to the fact that the game must be simple enough. A system that is too complex is not suitable for this kind of leisure. The game "Purpose" is very dangerous, and my requirement is that players can get started directly after entering the game through a set of simple guided tasks. So, are there any other questions?"
A conference room at EA headquarters.
Simon personally took an hour and a half out of his busy schedule to explain the basic design ideas of the game to the technical team selected to develop "Farm Farm". He also named the group 'Fiveminutes Studio' out of long-standing bad taste.
The memory of "Farm" took only two weeks to develop.
In order to get a work as perfect as possible, Simon gave the ten-person team a full month this time.
After Simon finished speaking, all ten people in the conference room raised their hands. There were not many opportunities to say a few words in front of the BOSS. Simon smiled and nodded at the engineer named Victor Aiken whom he had just praised.
This slightly dark-skinned young man in his twenties who had only worked at EA for three years stood up and said: "BOSS, can we leave the city and choose a farm to develop this game? You know, this will definitely provide us with A lot of inspiration.”
Simon looked at the others, and everyone smiled, obviously it had been discussed in advance.
Nodding, Simon said: "Where do you want to go?"
Victor Aiken did not hide it: "My family's farm in Alabama is very good. I have talked with them and everyone wants to visit it."
Simon smiled and said: "This is too much, but, okay, remember you only have one month. If you can't come up with a game that satisfies me after one month, then you will just stay on the Alabama farm." Become a farmer. Next, any questions?"
Everyone raised their hands together again.
Simon looked around and turned a blind eye, saying, "Well, it seems there's no problem. Let's get ready after the meeting."
This little bit of cold humor made everyone laugh again. Unknowingly, they felt less in awe and more close to this legendary young BOSS.
When the boss said this, everyone stopped asking questions and stood up to leave the conference room.
EA's new CEO Larry Probst, who rushed over time, walked into the conference room and complained half-seriously: "Simon, you are really indulging them."
Simon took a sip of the coffee handed over by Girl A, and showed no intention of leaving the conference room in a hurry. He motioned for Larry Probst to sit down as well, and said: "I became the good policeman, and the bad policeman wants you." Come and do it.”
Having just agreed to let the "Farm Farm" development team go to a farm in Alabama to make the game, it's just a small episode of Simon's "untying" of various game studios under EA these days.
The most relaxed working environment and the greatest degree of independence in game creation, for Larry Probst, also means that there will be a lot of uncontrollable risks in his next work, if he is not the top leader of EA Due to the position and the generous salary, Larry Probst was unwilling to take the job.
Still showing his hands in embarrassment, Larry Probst said: "The key is, Simon, if I, a bad policeman, want to discipline them, the employees will probably move you, a good policeman, out."
Simon shook his head and said: "Larry, I have never been a boss who indulges his employees without restraint. The core of the permissions given this time is the leadership of game creation. I hope everyone can have a relaxed game development environment. In addition, In addition, if any employee commits other violations, they are within the scope of your management. Frankly speaking, I may have been more involved in EA's affairs in the past two years, mainly to reshape the corporate culture and operational thinking of this company. , complete these, even if you want me to intervene, I don't bother."
This guarantee gave Larry Probst mixed feelings, but he had no objection. He was not an EA founder like Tripp Hawkins who was very focused on his own power. As an excellent professional manager, Larry Probst Probst does not lack his own persistence, but he is also better at executing the will of the business owner to a large extent.
Simon fired Tripp Hawkins because of this.
Corporate founders often have a profound influence on a company and inevitably have a strong desire for control.
If he wants to transform EA, Simon must fundamentally eliminate the founder's influence on the company.
After receiving some assurances from Simon and understanding his boss's thoughts, Larry Probst stopped dwelling on this issue and instead talked about the recent "Farm" and some of the projects currently being developed by EA.
In addition to "Warcraft" being developed by Silicon and Synapse Studios that was acquired some time ago, EA has many well-known games that are ongoing or in the development stage, such as "Dune", "SimCity", "Need for Speed" ", "Dungeons and Guardians" and so on.
EA's basketball, baseball, football and other sports games are iconic brands that other manufacturers in the industry cannot match.
In addition, after initially completing the technical accumulation of 3D game development, Simon also selected a 3D first-person shooter game from EA's many incubation projects. Not only did he also provide a lot of design ideas, he also gave the name himself as usual, "Counter-Strike" 》(CS).
Simon also privately drafted an e-sports competition plan, planning to select EA's currently highly popular PC games to hold e-sports competitions to further promote the EA brand.