Build a game empire from scratch

One hour before Yunmeng's monthly meeting, NetDragon's high-level meeting also started.

The main topic is very clear - the first large-scale DLC "Red Flame" of "Flame 3" will be released soon.

Under the complicated situation that NetDragon is currently facing, this release is very critical!

Yu Gu led the team and was very excited when the DLC development was completed ahead of schedule.

Because they all felt that the scale of the "Red Flame" DLC was completely super-large!

In terms of map design, plot tasks, NPC shaping, combat system expansion, etc., it is almost no less than developing a new game.

When reporting to the company, everyone felt a sense of satisfaction spontaneously, feeling that they had handed over a satisfactory answer sheet.

And for Yu Gu who leads the team, this feeling is especially strong.

God knows that this group of people who are incomplete, pieced together, want to leave, full of resentment, and morale have fallen to the bottom will be reorganized into a team, regardless of past suspicions, sincere cooperation, full use of all talents, all efforts, not only on schedule, How difficult it is to even do this job brilliantly!

And he finally did it all!

His receding hairline, his early white hair, and his deteriorating physical fitness all prove his hard work!

His excitement and excitement are really indescribable, and the whole person is immersed in the excitement of success.

Until——Yunmeng announced the closed beta and release date of "Quick Chase".

Just as the hottest day in midsummer passes, the days will only get cooler; if ripe apples are not picked in time, they will fall and rot;

After that day, Yu Gu's heart began to sink continuously.

Looking at "John Wick" in a blink of an eye, it has attracted the attention of all players and the media. No matter how they promote it, how they release new materials and information, they can't draw the players' attention back.

Obviously, the number of players has skyrocketed several times, but the popularity they gained is far inferior to that of the DLC released in the era of "Raging Flame 2"!

How can this not make Yu Gu feel helpless and discouraged?

Up to now, the only thing that can comfort him is that "Quick Chase" and "Raging Flame 3 Red Flame" have different platforms, and there will be no direct competition.

Even if the popularity is completely suppressed, it is difficult to use the release of DLC to further stimulate the sales of the game itself.

At least the existing player groups will not miss this news, and the possibility of buying is very high.

—— Most of the players who were cheated by the ending still want to continue playing and avenge their revenge, right?

Of course, this also creates a problem:

If the sales of the main game do not increase, the sales of DLC can only rely on players who have already purchased the main game.

And among these players, a very large part of them enjoy the "free DLC" treatment-in order to restore the game's reputation, they had to spend a lot of money to appease the players.

And now is the time to bear the price.

This also means that the sales of DLC will easily hit the ceiling, and it will become very difficult to meet NetDragon's expectations.

As a result, Zhao Yucheng's question about "sales expectations" became very difficult to answer.

In the end, Yu Gu could only say: "You can look forward to the word-of-mouth effect."

Players who are accustomed to using VR devices for games cannot abandon them so quickly. The complete set of equipment worth seventy to eighty thousand yuan is even less likely to be thrown away.

Even if the total number of players has decreased, the basic board is still there.

As long as the basic disk is there, there will definitely be no shortage of players to play DLC.

And Yu Gu is very confident, "As long as players play the DLC "Red Flame", they will definitely feel our sincerity!"

"At that time, not only the rating of DLC, but also the player rating of the game itself will usher in a substantial increase."

——The main body is guarded by Qin Songyun and Fan Rui, except that there is no ending, there are no flaws in other places.

Now the DLC has made up for the flaws and got a reasonable score, which is what it should have been.

"Afterwards, the word-of-mouth of the players will improve, and then we will carry out targeted promotion and marketing to occupy the players' vision. The promotion effect at this time must be better than relying on only one mouthful of publicity now."

"It's very possible to reverse the decline in one fell swoop!"

Zhang Heying nodded again and again, approving very much.

——This was originally a strategy he and Yu Gu had discussed together, and it was an unavoidable solution under the current situation.

Now Yunmeng's "Quick Chase" is gaining momentum, and if he wants to compete for the popularity, he is really powerless.

Especially when Lingxi has blocked NetDragon and cannot directly buy hot searches...

Zhao Yucheng's face turned even darker.

But he also knows that even if this DLC is done very well and the publicity is very smooth, it will not be easy to sell as many as before.

Even if it can be sold, it is only a small continuation of life, and it cannot fundamentally solve the problems NetDragon is facing.

In other words, it cannot solve the common problem faced by NetDragon, Desert Island, and Flying Fox—the general trend of VR equipment falling out of the mainstream of the game industry.

He is very clear about all the problems.

——But it doesn't affect his bad mood now, especially from the beginning of the meeting to the present, there is almost no good news.

Employees continue to leave their jobs. Although there is no such phenomenon of concentrated resignation within a short period of time, there have always been employees who have resigned one after another.

And the personnel department is very weak, the recruitment effect is very poor, and the speed of personnel replenishment can't keep up with the loss.

Net Dragon is tantamount to continuous blood loss.

This is different from NetDragon's initiative to suspend the development of a new generation of VR equipment and streamline its R\u0026D team.

Most of the talents who leave are game development-related talents, who are indispensable talents for NetDragon to compete with Yunmeng in the game field and re-emerge after acquiring virtual reality related technologies.

In addition to personnel issues, the progress of several other games under development is also very unsatisfactory.

A few months ago, because of the need to support the development of the "Blame 3" DLC, other teams more or less lost a few employees, and the progress of the game development has slowed down.

Then I looked at the unstoppable development momentum of virtual reality games, the stagnant sales of my own equipment, and the withdrawal of VR games from the focus of players, and finally added Lin You's thesis that "VR games are destined to become a niche"...

Almost tacitly, all employees unknowingly slack off, and the progress of the project is almost at a standstill.

Zhao Yucheng is very dissatisfied, although there are also reasons for his deliberate indulgence: if he continues to make games based on VR equipment, the cost performance is getting lower and lower, and the investment is likely to be all sunk costs.

But he was also very dissatisfied when he saw that the employees were fishing for fish.

In the end, I could only beat the supervisors present as usual, and ask them to spur the employees under them after the meeting, so that the employees will work hard.

Then he said with a dark face: "The meeting is over! Wu Yong will stay for a while."

...

"Old question, when will the virtual reality technology be cracked?!" Zhao Yucheng's tone was already very blunt.

"Don't tell me you're working hard, and don't play tricks on me, give me a date! I want a schedule!"

Wu Yong swallowed subconsciously, not because he was afraid of Zhao Yucheng, but because he didn't know how to say: "The date is already here."

"Oh!" Zhao Yucheng was finally shaken, "When? How long?"

"It will take another two months, and it is expected to be successfully cracked by the end of December." Wu Yong replied with difficulty.

"It's been so long since the production line has been moved back! Now you tell me, it will take two months?!" Zhao Yucheng's eyes widened, his face was full of surprise and anger, "Do you know what two months means?"

Wu Yong lowered his head silently, precisely because he knew how bad NetDragon's current situation was and how tough the next two months would be, so he found it difficult to answer.

"How to speed up the cracking process?" Zhao Yucheng asked, "Do you need more money? Or more engineers?"

"No need." Wu Yong replied in a low voice.

"The engineering team uses the assembly line to burn the code line by line and crack line by line, and they can't precisely control which line to burn. Each time they must only have one more line than the last time, no more or less."

"This is a process of dripping water and rocks. They have been grouped for 24-hour shift work. In addition to ensuring that the equipment does not fail and regular maintenance is required, the assembly line is non-stop. There is really no way to shorten the time."

Zhao Yucheng then understood that he could only accept this result.

"At the end of the year..." he repeated in a low voice.

When things start to go bad, it's often just a small symptom at first.

But as time goes by, the symptoms will become more and more obvious, and the deterioration of the situation will continue to accelerate, and in the end it often collapses like an avalanche.

Unfortunately, he had already seen the signs.

He didn't know if Flying Fox and Desert Island saw the sign and responded to it.

But for him, cracking Yunmeng's technology and imitating NetDragon's own virtual reality technology is his only lifeline.

But the question now is: Can NetDragon survive until that day?

In order to maintain the momentum of expansion, NetDragon took advantage of the industry leader, but borrowed a lot of debt!

Moreover, even if it survives the end of the year, will the remaining talents and funds by then be able to support NetDragon's comeback?

*

Of course, Flying Fox and Desert Island must also face the difficulties NetDragon faces.

It's just different from Wanglong, there is no direct conflict between them and Yunmeng, and they have not been sniped by Yunmeng before, so they can think of a way more calmly.

And after these months of struggle and discussion, they have already decided on their own survival strategies.

Flying Fox has actually cut itself a hard knife. The research and development of VR equipment has completely stopped, and the factory has almost completely stopped.

The size of the relevant staff has now been reduced to less than one-tenth of what it used to be, and it is only used to guarantee after-sales and solve possible hardware problems of the equipment.

This can no longer be described as a gecko cutting off its tail, it is completely a strong man cutting off his wrist.

Almost completely abandoned the company's future in the field of VR games.

Many players are speculating whether "The Last Moment", which has been bounced many times, will be stillborn.

Even many players are suggesting to the boss of Feihu: "Before the company dies, release the game first! How about earning some pension money!"

As for the deserted island, it performed very well.

They are also the only company so far that the VR equipment development team has not been streamlined at all, and the game development team is even at full capacity.

Many financial media even said that they were crazy.

Of course, in the eyes of many game media and players, this is "persistence" and "courage", which is an admirable character of a game development company, which is quite tragic.

Of course, appreciation is appreciation, whether to buy the game they are making now is another matter...

After all, no matter how good the feelings are, the quality of the game must be excellent!

I really want to see what Zhang Xunfei choked on today.

But post on time today haha.