Game Development Giant

To be precise, it is not Jester who owns 70% of the shares of Mars Entertainment, but Jester Holdings, a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands that Jester fully controls. This is why Jester Mars Entertainment was not officially established until three days after returning to Costa Mesa. He needed to spend time finding a professional agency to help him apply for a business in the Cayman Islands.

As for the reason, everyone knows that it is tax-free.

In this way, Mars Entertainment becomes a company located in the Cayman Islands - a subsidiary of Jester Holdings. In this way, the federal government has no right to collect corporate taxes from Jester Holdings because Jester Holdings It is not an American company, but can only collect business tax and sales tax from Mars Entertainment, a subsidiary of Jester Holdings, and can even avoid a considerable part of other exorbitant taxes.

Later organizations made statistics. Around 2014, according to regulations, the original federal tax rate for a company was about 35%. However, after the vast majority of companies used various tax avoidance methods, the federal government The tax that can be collected is only 12.5%.

Not to mention, high-tech companies in California can also receive tax cuts from the government, with the lowest being less than 10%.

Jester has no idea of ​​tax evasion, because tax evasion in the United States is no different from committing suicide.

There is a famous saying in the United States that only two things in the world are inevitable, death and taxes. But tax avoidance, Jester feels, is something that a qualified capitalist must learn.

Mars Entertainment's first board meeting since its founding was held at Jester's home—the living room served as the conference room.

This is understandable. After all, there are only four shareholders of Mars Entertainment, and three of them, the Jester family, control 95% of the shares.

Essentially, Jester doesn't even need to convene a board of directors to make any decisions because it owns an absolute majority of the company, but to show respect for Mark Saini and to show that Mars Entertainment is a real company A company, not a casual workshop-style studio, so he decided to hold this board meeting.

Jester, Mark Saney, and Jester's parents sat together and talked casually about some topics, without any sense of seriousness that they were holding a conference to share tens of millions of dollars in stolen goods.

Yes, the board meeting proposed by Jester is to discuss how to distribute the tens of millions of profits brought by the company's huge sales in the previous month. In fact, this is the company's sales in one month. Somewhat unreasonable, this is just an advance payment from those sales agents. In order to complete these production tasks, Jester estimates that it will take until the end of August based on the current production capacity.

So, essentially, that should be about two and a half to three months' worth of sales.

But after all, it is a huge sum of nearly 100 million U.S. dollars. After deducting taxes, previous recruitment, necessary expenses for company establishment, funds paid to foundry factories, and leaving the necessary funds for the company's subsequent operations, there is still 7,000 U.S. dollars. A huge amount of tens of thousands of dollars.

According to regulations, all this money can be used for dividends.

Of course, it is impossible for Jester to withdraw all the funds. There is no doubt that the development of Mars Entertainment requires a large amount of funds to fill it.

It's just that the two hardware development groups he set up are two bottomless pits that eat money. Fortunately, the products developed are all technologies that are mature in the market. When the development of products that are not yet on the market begins, for example, 16 When it comes to things like 16-bit arcade baseboards, 16-bit home machine circuit architecture, and 8-bit handheld consoles, the funds required will be extremely huge. For example, Capcom spent a total of 50 million US dollars to develop cps1.

"Put out 50 million for dividends, and the remaining 20 million will be used as funds for the company's operations." Jester simply stated his opinion.

In fact, he himself did not want to allocate so much money at once, but the problem is that he needs money in too many places recently, including acquiring Illusion Studio, establishing a display chip research and development company, and investing in projects that are still struggling in a Texas warehouse. Michael Dell went to China to invest and build factories, set up a distribution company, etc.

Yes, Jester doesn't intend to count the publishing company on Mars Entertainment. In his mind, the technical industry has specialization, the game company only needs to concentrate on making games, and the publishing company only needs to sell the games.

In the future, his publishing company will not only publish games from Mars Entertainment, but also a large number of games for third-party platforms. Jester knows that the cake in the game market is too big, and even Nintendo back then could not eat it in one bite. It is absolutely impossible for me.

The prospects for third-party games are extremely broad, otherwise it would be impossible to give birth to third-party publishing giants such as EA, Ubisoft, and Activision.

Including the game CG company he will establish in the future, the production company of game peripheral toys, etc., will be regarded as an independent individual and will not belong to Mars Entertainment. All these companies are dependent on Mars Entertainment, which is an incubator. Egg makers, and these businesses are the catalysts to earn the highest profits for Jester.

In order to fully control these newly established companies, it is impossible for Jester to directly use the money of Mars Entertainment. If he does this, then the ownership of the newly established companies belongs to Mars Entertainment, not himself - the equity Clarity was something he had to make clear from the beginning. It didn't mean that he couldn't trust his parents, but that the future of Mars Entertainment could not only consist of the four shareholders.

In the future, each of their shares will be diluted to capture the best producers.

Jester, who understands the history of later generations, knows that these best producers are unlikely to be willing to work for a certain game company for a long time. As long as they make a successful and sensational work, they will find ways to do it. Leave the game company to build your own studio and leave your best work here.

After all, making money for yourself is the most motivating thing.

Therefore, Sony's global studio plan to create classics in later generations and establish or acquire studios around the world is Jester's best choice.

This plan is completely different from EA's plan to acquire any studio they see is popular.

Sony is not doing this just to make money like EA, but for share and reputation, as well as a deeper meaning. As long as its enemies don't get it, it will make money.

The biggest difference between Sony and EA, apart from the fact that Sony owns its own console and is a so-called first-party game publisher, is that Sony owns the shares of this studio, but only takes part of the profits, and they will never interfere with them What games does its game studio want to make?

For the vast majority of outstanding filmmakers, their ideas are similar to those of Hollywood film directors. They all think that they are dream builders. They are creating a new world and telling a new story. What I hate is the gesticulation of a layman.

What EA likes to do most is to do whatever I ask you to do, until all the remaining value of the studio is squeezed out, and then thrown away like a worn-out shoe - such as the famous Westwood Studio, and the dissolution of another Reorganized Need for Speed ​​design team.

Sony is different. They will not interfere with what games their own studios want to make or how they operate them. What they want is for you to make a good game for my platform.

Although there are differences in the business philosophy between the two parties, the most important thing is that first-party games are not allowed to have bad reputation.

First-party games are allowed to have low sales, but they must not be criticized, because this is the biggest tool used by a console manufacturer to seize market share, and there is no room for failure.

Why should players buy your console instead of another one? It doesn’t rely on third-party games, because third parties are all-platform, and they rely on your exclusive appeal!

The biggest difference between Jester and Sony Games is that Sony Games itself is the publisher, and the game studio is controlled by the publisher. However, the company Jester wants to form not only wants to be a first-party publisher , also hopes to be a third-party publisher.

Mars Entertainment is the first party, and other game companies are third parties.

The publishing company he wants to establish will not only publish his own games, but also publish other people's games, even if it is not his own.

Jester makes exclusive games because he is the boss of a game company and he has to do it. He is responsible for his company, but his idea about games is that all players should enjoy every game. The fun of the game means that it essentially supports all platforms.

That’s why he came up with this plan. Those who make games only make games, and those who make publishers only make releases. The two form a symbiosis of interests, and the owner is still himself.

According to the shares, Jester, to be precise, Jester Holdings, which is fully controlled by Jester, will get 70% of the 50 million US dollars, a total of 35 million US dollars, and because of the dividends The subject is an enterprise, and Jester doesn’t even need to pay the huge amount of personal income tax.

No one objected to Jester's proposal, not least his parents, and the 2.5 million US dollars that Mark Saney received for his 5% share was a lot of money after deducting taxes. Naturally there is no reason to object.

In fact, Jester has not heard of a board member who would object to a dividend.

The next proposal is to shake up the foundation of Mars Entertainment, but now the board of directors is basically Jester’s decision. Even if Mark Saini objects, it will not have the slightest impact on Jester. If Mars Entertainment becomes bigger in the future, shareholders There are more and more interests, and it will be very difficult to do it again. After all, this is a naked flesh and blood cut from Mars Entertainment.

Even if he can force his way through, it will alienate everyone.

What is the most important thing about a game company?

Anyone who knows anything about the gaming industry will tell you straightforwardly, publishing rights.

What Jester wants this time is the distribution rights of Mars Entertainment.

"My second proposal is that I want to sell the distribution rights of Mars Entertainment to Jester Holdings for a price of one million US dollars." Just after Jester finished speaking, Mark Saini's face changed, but he did not No matter what objections he has, after all, he has just received a dividend of 2.5 million. To him, this is basically equivalent to the joining fee Jester gave him. This also makes him feel that Jester is not only designing games but In addition to admiration, it also produced a kind of kindness.

Before Jester, even he didn't think he was worth millions of dollars.

Therefore, he unconditionally supported all Jester's proposals.

Jester's parents are not stupid. After handing over the publishing rights of a game company, the company will completely become a vassal of Jester Holdings, but what does it matter?

After all, Jester Holdings is a company owned entirely by his son.

Naturally, they raised their hands in agreement.

As for some other minor issues, the four Jesters also discussed it, but Jester's father was not very interested in how to manage the company. He was only interested in developing a certain product, and in 8-digit arcade motherboards Now that the project is coming to an end, the research and development of 16-bit baseboards has also begun to be officially approved. The entire arcade base version R\u0026D team has no experience in the development of 16-bit baseboards, so his current job is very heavy and there is nothing important to do. After discussing it, he directly proposed to return to the company.

Before his father left, Jester specifically told his father that he would continue to recruit more outstanding hardware designers and start pre-research and development of a new product.

When Jester's father asked Jester what product it was.

Jester took out a game-watch that he had prepared long ago and handed it to his father.

"Handheld!" The moment he saw the game-watch, Jester's father exclaimed in surprise. He understood what the new product Jester was referring to.

Game-Watch is the world's first handheld console, and it is also a cross-era work that established Gunpei Yokoi as the God of Hardware. Its idea came from Yokoi Gunpei's comments about office workers he saw while riding the Shinkansen. I came up with the idea of ​​playing with an electronic calculator when I was bored while riding in a car. Their names come from the video game and the digital quartz watch respectively.

The situation of Nintendo was very bad at that time, because Nintendo had invested heavily in various places before, which caused them serious losses, especially the home machine called tv-game6, which was developed with Mitsubishi Corporation and was a copycat of the Atari 2600. Although this machine was Dali's much cheaper knock-off sold 350,000 units in its first launch, but the problem was that it was a console sold at a loss to gain market share. The original plan was to earn back the price difference with the games it produced, but I didn't expect it. Several early copycat Atari products were sold out.

This resulted in a phenomenon, that is, the more game consoles were purchased, the more the Nintendo suffered. When Gunpei Yokoi’s game-watch plan was submitted to Hiroshi Yamauchi, the Nintendo had already been dragged down by the tvgame6. He was dying, almost on the verge of collapse.

After that, Yamauchi Hiroshi put the final weight on Gunpei Yokoi's game-watch, and Renhe won the last battle and came back to life.

And Gunpei Yokoi has also established his position in Nintendo. Before he left Nintendo due to the failure of vb in the 1990s, Gunpei Yokoi was undoubtedly the leader in Nintendo, including Hiroshi Yamauchi. Even Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario and the head of Nintendo's Information Development Headquarters, would bow down respectfully at 90 degrees and call Yokoi Gunpei "Master" when he saw him.

Because Shigeru Miyamoto had the opportunity to switch from an artist to producing the legendary game "Donkey Kong", and it was also thanks to Gunpei Yokoi's recommendation to Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Regarding the lesson that Nintendo was almost brought down by tvgame6, Hiroshi Yamauchi set a rule in Nintendo that could never be broken. This rule was also hated by subsequent players, but Jester was very concerned about this rule. Totally agree - this is the biggest lesson learned by a person who has stood on the edge of a cliff.

"Every piece of hardware that goes on sale must also be profitable!" This is why in later generations, Sony, Sega, Sony and Microsoft continued to lower the price of consoles in order to compete for platform share, and would rather sell them at a loss, while Nintendo, regardless of its own share No matter how low it is, there is no reason to buy hardware at a loss.

They've played this trick decades ago.

This is also the belief that Jester has always followed. He has always believed that although the platform share of game consoles is related to price, the most important thing is the quality of exclusive games on this platform.

Every piece of hardware sold is profitable, which is a responsibility to the company and also a respect for the hardware R\u0026D team.

No one wants the product they have worked hard to develop for years to become an appendage of something else.

Even if it’s for the greater good.

Nintendo was able to maintain a share that was not too ugly by relying on hardware levels that were two eras behind Sony and Microsoft. It even took the lead in making innovations in motion sensing on the Wii, thereby establishing itself in the early days of the console era. , the sales volume exceeded that of PS3 and Xbox 360 combined. Although it was weak in the later period, in the statistics of console sales in the previous era after the release of PS4 and Xbox, Wii still surpassed PS3 and ranked first.

It is worth mentioning that the best-selling single-platform game in history is Wii Sports, with a total of 80 million units shipped. Of course, this was sold bundled with Wii.

Another point worth mentioning is that the most important and greatest design in game-watch is the cross key.

This design spans almost the entire history of games and has influenced almost all manufacturers and players. From the moment it was born, it established the rules for the design of the direction keys, making people feel that this is how the direction keys should be designed, and it can It is foreseeable that before the so-called virtual helmets in novels appear, the design of the cross key is still unique and irreplaceable.

And not only that, Gunpei Yokoi is not only the god of hardware, but also an excellent game designer. When he designed Game-Watch, he also made a game specifically for his hard work, this is "Firefighting" was later selected by igm as one of the 100 greatest works in the history of video games of the last century.

The gameplay is that two firefighters carry a rope net to continuously catch the residents jumping from the burning building. The jumping residents are of different heights and speeds, which requires the player's reflex nerves to be highly concentrated.

Although the graphics of "Fire Team" are simply unsightly from today's perspective, it already contains all the basic elements of a modern action game. It has become Nintendo's consistent practice to maximize the fun through subtle adjustments to the operating system. game production concept.

In the decades-long history of the video game industry, there is only one person like Gunpei Yokoi who has made huge contributions to both software and hardware.

The game-watch was released in the 1980s. It has a simple game built into it. It is as small as the palm of your hand. You can hold it in your hand like a book and play it. Because of its small size, light weight and adaptability to the customer base, it was once popular. At that time, it was well received by office workers and children. After being introduced to the United States, it triggered a sales frenzy.

However, the shortcomings of game-watch are also very big, that is, because the technology was immature at the time, its games were installed in handheld consoles, so you could only play one game if you bought a handheld console, and it would cost more to play other games. A sum of money buys a new one, so the popularity of game-watch only lasts in the early stages of its release.

But this prototype of a modern handheld console still has a large number of fans. Jester remembers that when he watched the video of James the God of Fire in his last life, James had high praise for the GW handheld console, saying that when he was a child, GW was almost One per person.

"It's not just a simple copycat version of Game-Watch." Jester told his father about his idea, "I have my own ideas about handheld consoles. The name of the handheld console I think is already obvious. It embodies the characteristics of this game console, which is to hold it in your hand and play.”

Hearing Jester's words, his father couldn't help but nod.

"So, there are four conditions that must be met for this type of game console." Jester spoke eloquently, directly saying what Gunpei Yokoi said in a later interview about the design of handheld consoles. It meets the four basic characteristics, "That is, the handheld console we design must be as short as possible, as small as possible, as light as possible, and as thin as possible."

Short, small, light, and thin. This is the design experience that Yokoi Gunpei has accumulated over more than 20 years in the industry. Maybe it seems to be a matter of course to people in the future, but in this era, there is still nothing about handheld consoles. Those hardware engineers who know that these four words are classic creations with great guiding significance. These four words condense countless mistakes and hard work of Gunpei Yokoi in his more than 20 years of R\u0026D career. .

Jester's father still nodded repeatedly.

"Moreover, we must use mature technology as much as possible. No matter how good the immature technology is, it is still immature. Immaturity means it is expensive, and our handheld console must take the cheap route. If a handheld console It costs the same as a home computer, so why should others buy a handheld console? Moreover, immature technology is unsafe and untrustworthy."

“Technical innovation is never as important as design innovation.”

Jester continued, using his own understanding of Gunpei Yokoi's guiding ideology for hardware research and development, "We must use mature technology to think in parallel." And Gunpei Yokoi's design philosophy, It has influenced many designers and countless hardware manufacturers, the most famous of which is Steve Jobs and his Apple.

This is also the hardware R\u0026D philosophy that Jester most agrees with.

"Use mature technology to think in parallel!" When Jester's father heard this sentence for the first time, his eyes suddenly lit up. For ordinary people, this may be just a very common sentence, but to an extremely powerful person, In the eyes of an outstanding hardware engineer, it's more than just that - it's like the piece of paper in front of him that blocks his sight and prevents him from seeing the scene outside the window has been suddenly pierced.

Jester's father looked at Jester excitedly, his face full of excitement, and he even danced a little: "What you said is very reasonable. I didn't know how to design a lot in the past. Where there are trade-offs, everyone seems to know the problem... use mature technology to think in parallel... OK, OK!"

Jester just smiled and said nothing. He was far behind his father in hardware research and development. What he said was just a summary of the life experiences of the senior masters of hardware design that he had seen. He did not have any idea about this. The feeling of pride or excitement was the same as the feeling he had when he talked about the theory of game design in front of his own employees, even Mark Saini. These things were not his.

Why would he be excited if it wasn't his thing?

"Father, I basically need the newly established handheld R\u0026D team of your hardware R\u0026D department to develop two handheld consoles for me. One is an 8-bit handheld console with a black and white LCD screen and interchangeable cassettes. The collective parameters are as follows: I will give it to you in a while. The development of this kind of handheld console may be difficult, and I am not in a hurry, so I have plenty of time."

"But for the second type, my request is as soon as possible. The development of this one should be regarded as accumulating experience for the first type of handheld console. You can design a handheld console as small as possible with reference to Game-Watch. It is best to design it to be as small as possible. It’s less than half the size of GW and doesn’t require interchangeable cassettes. During this time, I had an interesting idea about handheld games.”

Before his father left, Jester made his last request.

The idea of ​​Tamagotchi has actually been hidden in Jester's mind for a long time. Jester clearly knows how lethal this game will be to today's child players, and the technical content Tamagotchi requires It’s not high either, just the hardware conditions of gw are enough.

Game consoles are essentially toys. The main buyers of them now are different from those in later generations. The main buyers of them are still children.

Moreover, Jester doesn’t just want to copy a Tamagotchi. What’s so worth copying about a simple pet machine?

What he was thinking of was another handheld masterpiece. In his previous life, he felt that Tamagotchi was a perfect match for this game.

This game is the legendary PM-Pocket Monsters.

Think about it, who doesn’t want a Poke Ball that can be carried around with an elf that he cultivates?

Jester thought this way, naturally it is not the time to launch PM yet, but changing the palm toy machine that was originally a simple pet machine like Tamagotchi into a Pokemon cultivation machine will allow current players to start raising them. into this kind of nurturing fun.

Even when PM is released, every player who owns a Pokemon training machine can import the Pokemon they have cultivated for several years into the game as a player's starting monster!

Just thinking about this setting makes me happy.

So when you launch a real PM handheld console, will it be more popular than in the previous life?

Not sure?

Since you can’t tell for sure, why not give it a try?

Jester thought while showing a confident smile.

As a die-hard pm fan, he knows the psychological needs of those pm players very well. Such a setting is simply irresistible to them!

ps: Please vote for recommendation! ! !