Rebirth of the Wild Age

Brother Xiao Ma was kept by Song Weiyang, not only that, Song Weiyang also summoned Ding Sanshi, Zhang Chaoyang and Rebus.

A few people were sitting in Time Cafe No. 3, and Song Weiyang went straight to the point: "The agency rights of World of Warcraft must be won. This game will definitely make money, and it may even be more profitable than "Legend". Moreover, European and American online games have no There are so many low-level bugs in South Korea, and the agency is smoother."

"Why doesn't Excalibur Network participate in the proxy fight?" Rebus asked curiously.

Song Weiyang said: "Excalibur Network is developing "Shan Hai Jing". In the future, it will compete with "World of Warcraft". You can't take "Warcraft" to play left and right? It will distract your energy. What about the two games? Neither good."

Brother Xiao Ma said: "Actually, I am also very optimistic about Warcraft. I also personally participated in the "World of Warcraft" symposium in Singapore at the end of February, and passed the inspection by Vivendi. Now the only qualified agents are Ninetowns, Guangtong, Tencent, Ogilvy and Ubisoft (Shenghai). But I plan to give up the agency competition, because Vivendi's asking price is too high!"

"How tall?" Zhang Chaoyang asked.

Brother Xiao Ma said: "The signing fee is several million dollars, and the later copyright fee is paid on a quarterly basis, which is at least several million dollars per month. Moreover, I guess the development funds for "World of Warcraft" are not enough, so we actually let us The agent pays the initial R\u0026D investment and promotional expenses in one lump sum, and these costs are at least 20 million U.S. dollars. In other words, regardless of the later copyright fees, the money given at the time of signing the contract is almost 30 million U.S. dollars, which is 20 million U.S. dollars when converted into RMB. billions of dollars."

"Isn't it too expensive?" Ding Sanshi exclaimed.

Song Weiyang shook his head and said, "It's definitely not a one-time payment, otherwise which agency company in China can afford it?"

In fact, Brother Xiao Ma predicted well, "World of Warcraft" is indeed short of development funds.

So as early as September 2001, Blizzard released the news of "World of Warcraft" in advance, and began to look for agents, trying to earn some signing fees to fill the funding gap. Then at the end of 2002, Blizzard came to China for publicity. At that time, it attracted hundreds of Chinese companies. Many game companies even registered temporarily, without even a specific office location.

The Chinese companies vying for the agency rights of "World of Warcraft" are really mixed up, and Blizzard has to put forward rigid requirements: first, there must be an independent telecom-grade computer room, with direct lines for the backbone network; second, no other games or services are allowed in the computer room The server used; Third, each group of servers consists of 3 game servers and 1 na server. China plans to build 25 groups of servers, each group of servers supports 6,000 people online, ensuring an average 70% of the server's online load...

There are many related requirements, and even the cpu level of the server is limited, which causes a large number of competitors to withdraw automatically.

Too harsh!

So much money is spent to build such a high-end computer room, what if the agency cannot be obtained? Even if the agency rights are won, who knows when "World of Warcraft" will be launched? Historically, even Shanda with deep pockets chose to withdraw because of these harsh conditions—of course, the reason for Shanda’s withdrawal is very complicated, not just because of this.

By mid-February this year, there were about 10 competitors left, and by the end of February, there were only 5 left.

Just a few days ago, the vice president of Blizzard and the manager of Vivendi China came to Shenghai to personally screen the five Chinese companies.

Zhang Chaoyang suddenly said: "If "World of Warcraft" can make a lot of money as the boss said, then Sohu can participate in the competition. The "Knight ol" that Sohu currently represents is a bit unsatisfactory."

Ding Sanshi shook his head and said, "NetEase has already operated two online games, and is developing a third one. For the time being, we don't have so much energy and financial resources to represent new products."

Rebs also said: "Kingsoft is doing its best to develop "Swordsman Love OL", and there is no extra spare money at all."

Zhang Chaoyang said with a smile: "Since this is the case, then Sohu will do its part."

Brother Xiao Ma suddenly reminded: "According to my contact with the manager of Vivendi China, Vivendi plans to rip off money, and no matter who gets the agency rights, it will bleed."

"Excuse me?" Zhang Chaoyang didn't understand.

Brother Xiao Ma nodded and said, "It's just a scam. Because Chinese game companies are too enthusiastic about "World of Warcraft", nearly a hundred companies are vying for it. What would you think if you were the seller?"

"Stop the price!" Rebs said.

"It's not just as simple as sitting on the ground and raising the price," Xiao Ma said with a wry smile. "During the process of several negotiations, Vivendi's attitude has changed significantly. At the beginning, he said some substantive content, but later he didn't say anything. We didn’t mention any requirements, but only said which companies we would continue to investigate. We inspected this one today and that one tomorrow, forcing us to keep raising prices. At the end of last year, Tencent gave a signing fee of 1 million U.S. dollars and agreed to invest 2 million U.S. dollars. Early development costs were listed as key vendors to be investigated. At the beginning of this year, Tencent had to increase the signing fee to US$2 million, and other costs also increased significantly, but Vivendi’s attitude became more and more ambiguous.”

Ding Sanshi smiled and said, "This is to treat the Chinese agent as a winner."

Brother Xiao Ma said: "That's why I said that if you want to win the agency rights of "Warcraft", aside from the subsequent copyright fees, other funds will cost at least 200 million yuan. And let's see, Vivendi will still let us For several months, Chinese manufacturers have not negotiated but inspected, forcing Chinese companies to offer a sky-high price."

And Vivendi's actions are even more shameless than what Xiao Ma said!

The agency fee quotations given by Chinese manufacturers are getting higher and higher. Vivendi still thinks that it can squeeze out more oil and water. It actually wants to have one daughter and two marriages, one product and two sales. Different companies operate as agents. After this plan was put forward, it aroused strong opposition from Chinese companies, and no one was willing to take over.

Vivendi had no choice but to come up with a second plan to separate the technical support of the game from the marketing operation. Hand over the technical support platform to an operator who is good at technology; then hand over the market operation to an operator who is good at channel promotion; and Vivendi will register a joint venture company to connect communication technology and the market.

It was still selling two products for one product, which directly broke the industry rules. At that time, Shanda was hesitant, and it was because of this that Shanda decided to withdraw.

The game industry was in an uproar, calling this an "unequal treaty", calling operators who were willing to cooperate "traitors", and even several major companies threatened to "clean up the door". And at that time, the agency fee of "Warcraft" was too high because of Vivendi's Gu breeding strategy, which was almost equivalent to 10% of the Chinese online game market share!

The agency fee of a game actually accounts for 10% of the entire Chinese market share, so it's no wonder the operators don't jump up and scold their mothers.

Of course, asking for a lot of money and paying back the money after landing, because Vivendi sells one product and two products, the agency fee has finally dropped a lot, and a large part of it is paid in installments. In the end, Jiuchenghe betrayed his teammates again, and successfully obtained the exclusive agency right as a "traitor".

"Since you don't want to, forget it." Song Weiyang said.

Zhang Chaoyang said, "Sohu can give it a try."

Song Weiyang said: "The Sohu family definitely doesn't have that strength, let's count Sogou, anyway, Ding Ming also wants to make online games. Sohu and Sogou jointly established a game company, um, the name is 'Soupai Changyou'. Remember, No matter how outrageous Vivendi’s request is, you can choose to follow up, and it’s a counter-price when it’s critical.”

"Yes." Zhang Chaoyang agreed, because Sogou's capital flow is very healthy, and it has more spare money than Sohu, which is already listed.

Song Weiyang's intentions were very sinister. He asked Sohu and Sogou to jointly bid for nothing more than to act as a shit-stirring stick. With Vivendi's urgency, as long as there are many competitors, it will keep dragging down, and the price will be higher and higher. At that time, Chinese manufacturers mistakenly thought that Vivendi wanted to operate its own games, because everyone could not see Vivendi’s sincerity, and felt that Vivendi was treating all companies like monkeys.

Song Weiyang just wanted Sohu and Sogou to make trouble, and the longer the delay, the more interesting it would be. It would be best to wait until the "Shan Hai Jing" is launched in advance.

Anyway, no matter what the result is, Song Weiyang will not suffer.

If Sohu and Sogou win the agency rights, then "World of Warcraft" will be operated by their own companies; if they can't win the agency rights, then the launch date of "World of Warcraft" in China will be delayed until the end of time. For this reason, they can even falsely report a high price, making Vivendi think it is profitable, and then lower the price before formally signing the contract. When Ninetowns and other companies want to take over the offer, they jump out and say that they can continue the negotiation. The previous regret was only because of internal opinions. Unite.

Vivendi can make it so disgusting, why can't we make it disgusting?

Song Weiyang even said to the others: "Netease, Jinshan, and Tencent can all get involved and push up the agency fees vigorously, making it look like they must be agents. Our companies have joined forces to muddy the water, Let Vivendi think that the agency fee can reach hundreds of millions of yuan, and delay him for a year or so."

Ding Sanshi was immediately happy: "Old Song, are you buying time for your own "Shan Hai Jing"?"

"That's what it means," Song Weiyang said with a smile, "All the fees for your competition for the agency rights of "Warcraft" can be paid by Excalibur Network, and it should be regarded as accumulating your own negotiation experience."

"Old Song, you are too bad!" Rebus smiled with narrowed eyes.

Zhang Chaoyang was a little dizzy: "Then Sohu and Sogou are competing for agency rights, is it true or not?"

"When it is fake, it is true, and when it is fake, it is also true," Song Weiyang said, "Don't worry, when did I make a mistake in my judgment? "World of Warcraft" will definitely make money, and if Sohu and Sogou can compete, it is true." , If you can’t compete, it’s a fake. Even if you can’t compete, the company you win will bleed!”

In another time and space, according to the listing application submitted by Ninetowns, Ninetowns paid more than 74 million US dollars for "World of Warcraft" in four years. But the upfront fee only cost more than 10 million US dollars, and everything else was paid in installments, which was nearly half cheaper than when the agency fee was the highest. Vivendi was greedy and scared away too many operators, and it was not at the highest point. Finalize the agency.

If Song Weiyang's Internet companies all joined the competition, they might be able to raise the initial agency fee to more than 30 million US dollars, which would directly make Vivendi lose its mind and make "World of Warcraft" land in China half a year later!

In fact, not only in China, but also in the United States, "World of Warcraft" has been postponed for several months because of the resignation of the person in charge of Blizzard's bidding and Vivendi's greedy face.

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