Game Development Giant

A month flies by.

During this period of time, Jester was almost focused on completing the limitations of the two games he was currently working on.

Oracle also gave Jester a very clear message.

JP Morgan Chase agreed to Jester’s capital injection request, but to get 10% of the shares, the funds required were not a small amount, at least 100 million U.S. dollars was needed as a base. As for the specific interview date, it was also set at A month and a half later, almost after the interview, it was time for Jester to get married.

Jester looked at the schedule posted on one side of the wall.

Only then did he realize that tomorrow was the release date of "Guardian of Rune Stones". He patted his head. He seemed to have remembered that yesterday afternoon, the person from Fengxing Publishing sent him a document saying that It’s about the release plan for the release date of “Runestone Guardian”.

I want to ask myself if there is anything else I want to add.

At that time, I just said something casually after reading it, but at that time I just threw the document aside, and then forgot about it when I started working.

Thinking of this, Jester rummaged through the stacked documents. Because he only got them yesterday, he found them easily. After a cursory look, he found nothing to add. In fact, Jester himself doesn't care at all about the sales of "Runestone Guardian".

This was originally a work of his own interest.

However, the fans who had been in a quarrel because of him don't think so. The fans of Richard Garrett are actually not very accurate to say. To be more precise, the fans of American RPGs share the same hatred and the same hatred. My own dissatisfaction with Jester.

\u003cAmong the game players, the largest number are American RPG players. If they don't support this game, it will be difficult for them to sell it.

Of course, Jester has many fans. Although most of them are fans of consoles, in this era in the United States, although computers have not yet spread to every household, those who like to play games basically have their own computers. , whether it is used to play games or not is a matter of two opinions.

Jester looked at the other news.

Richard Garrett's Ultima 4 will be released the day after tomorrow. In other words, it is one day later than "Guardian of Rune Stones".

Regarding the gambling between "Rune Stone Guardian" and "Genesis 4", not only in this primitive network environment, it was hyped up by supporters of both parties, but in reality, many people couldn't find any good news. The media adds fuel to the fire.

This is one day away from release.

There was a long queue at the launch store of "Runestone Guardian".

Originally, a small production like this, even if produced by Jester, would not be like this. What's more, it's still a PC game, and the audience is already small, but who let the previous gamble go.

Many media also said that this was something Jester deliberately provoked, saying that he wanted to boost sales of his game.

Moreover, "Guardian of Rune Stones" is not sold in advance. Because it was a small production, the number of game floppy disks produced in the first batch was not large, only about 500,000 to 600,000 copies, and another 500,000 or 600,000 copies would be produced in the future. This amount is very high for a PC game.

But considering that this is a Jester game, it is quite rare.

"We expect to sell up to 200,000 floppy disks on the first day!"

Jester consulted an expert on game publishing from Fengxing Publishing, and this expert said this. According to predictions, more than 200,000 copies will be sold on the first day of launch, and this is already a very impressive number, because the sales range of this game is not as wide as "Quake" or "Age of Empires" big.

Therefore, it is impossible for these two games to reach close to one million on the first day.

And the achievement of 200,000 is a sales volume that 99% of PC games cannot reach in terms of cumulative sales.

As for the sales of "Ultima 4", the other party's prediction is that the sales volume in the first month will not be less than 800,000. You must know that the sales volume of the "Ultima" series has a record of over one million for a single game. Now And because of the gambling incident, "Genesis" and American RPG players share the same hatred.

Therefore, in this case, even if the quality of "Genesis 4" is average, the sales volume will not be small, after all, it is sentimental.

What's more, according to the news I received from friends, although "Ultima 4" is not a masterpiece, it is still a very good American RPG. It is well-made and has no special highlights, but it also has no shortcomings.

Jester thought to himself.

He also felt that "Guardian of Rune Stones" might not have an absolute chance of winning, so he simply picked up the phone again and prepared to release a piece of news in advance that he planned to release later.

This time, the boxes of Runestone Guardians will come with an independent account and an independent password. This thing is used for network verification after setting up Battle.net in the future. Jester is preparing to promote it. The news that went out is this.

The current construction of Battle.net is still in progress, and it will take another three months at the earliest. With debugging and testing, it may not be truly open to the public until the end of this year.

However, in fact, during testing, a small number of players can also be invited to participate.

Jester picked up the phone and called the people at Fengxing Publisher. They were responsible for the distribution of "Runestone Guardian".

"Immediately you send a message to the outside world, saying that among the "Runestone Guardians" sold in the first three days, the game account card inside is the Battle.net verification certificate we prepared and built. Purchased in the first three days Yes, you will have the opportunity to obtain the first batch of test qualifications for our battle network. This qualification is extremely precious and will probably not exceed 3,000. Moreover, this battle network is not only prepared for "Runestone Guardian", But "Quake", "Age of Empires" and all PC games developed by Mars Entertainment in the future will be on this platform..."

Although there is only one day left before the release.

But for Jester, the speed at which new news that suddenly broke out before its release was spread is still very astonishing.

In this era, the spread of the Internet is far less rapid than that of later generations.

As for temporarily broadcasting advertisements on TV, one is not worth it, and the second is that the TV is not turned on by your family. You can put it on if you want, except for people to post these on some Jester or Mars Entertainment fan forums. After the news, it is mainly direct notification from the point of sale or flagship store.

Relying on this word-of-mouth method, the number of people queuing up to wait for the release of "Runestone Guardian" has tripled!

You know, Jester made it very clear in his previous words.

"After that, all games developed by Mars Entertainment on PC will be added to Battle.net. Online battles are something I have always advocated and worked hard to let all players experience, because I think whether a game is fun or not, at least Half of it is online."

"Those console players have a unique advantage, because they can naturally play games with their friends, and gain far more gaming fun than One Plus One, but PC players, I'm sorry, in "Quake" "Before, I'm afraid I haven't seen you have such an opportunity to share the fun of the game with your friends."

“In my opinion, there is nothing more important than sharing the fun of gaming, so after careful consideration, although the current technology may still be a bit immature, I am still trying to build a platform, which is based on the Internet. Yes, I call it Battle.net."

"The meaning is very simple, it means being able to fight together on the same network."

"Of course, this road is a brand-new attempt. No one has ever done this before. It is very difficult, but we are also trying our best to solve it. After the Battle.net is completed, we will invite a small number of players to participate in this test. , and part of the selection of the first batch of testers was from the first three days of the release of "Runestone Guardian", the card in the game floppy disk package was our only selection criterion."

Although Jester's words about the selection method were unclear in this announcement, it shouldn't be too difficult to make a guess.

Just from Jester's description.

Battle Network?

Is it that you can play "Quake" or "Age of Empires" with players across North America?

This is impossible?

Although many people did not believe what Jester said, this did not prevent them from spreading the news. Then more and more players who had no interest in "Runestone Guardian" began to gather. Although they are not interested in "Runestone Guardian", they are interested in the test qualifications of Battle.net.

The release time of "Runestone Guardian" is not the early morning of the next day.

Instead, it goes on sale at 24 o'clock in the morning.

This is also an attempt by Jester. He wants to see if selling at midnight can solve many problems caused by only selling during the day.

Among them is the fact that many players were dissatisfied because they could not buy the game on the first day.

When it was almost twenty-four o'clock, Jester was still busy in the office. Originally, Fengxing Distribution wanted Jester to go to the Mars Entertainment flagship store in Los Angeles to make an appearance, and finally give a passionate speech. , This will definitely arouse more enthusiasm for buying.

But Jester still refused.

He felt that it was the best choice for him to be here and quietly wait for the results of the sale. (To be continued...)