The Goddess Shines on America

It is said that the new official took office three fires. After claiming the title of game planner, Alice, who is about to become the company's major shareholder, immediately assigned a new task for everyone.

"Many games will be produced in the form of series, because this can quickly attract fans of the previous games, and the difficulty of creation is also very low. The company can make such a series of games a signature. So I think, since EA has already In the fourth year of development, with Larry, the vice president of sales, and me joining in, it's time to make a series of games."

All the tables were scattered in the large empty room, and dozens of programmers were standing or sitting, listening to Alice's speech with great interest.

"My first idea was..."

Now that she has become a game planner, Alice has quickly brought herself into the role. This is really a super simple job, but considering the current computer performance, many 3A masterpieces have not yet been released, which is a pity. up.

"..."Sim City", how about it?"

Electronic Arts will launch its own products in 1989, she said with bright eyes.

"... Sim City?"

"Simulation? How to simulate? Modeling? Or an engineering game?"

"Sounds very interesting, the city? It's a big deal, but can the computer be brought?"

Seeing that everyone was discussing endlessly, Vice President Larry coughed hard: "Honestly listen to Alice continue, you guys!"

"Thanks, Larry."

Alice nodded to him with a smile, and then answered a programmer's muttering: "That big brother, it's not an engineering game. Ordinary players come to the game to have fun, so don't forget this."

With a soft laugh, she went on to say: "The main content of "Sim City" is that on a fixed-scale land, the player assumes the position of mayor to meet the daily needs of all citizens in the city. From planning residences, Commercial and industrial land, the construction of roads, MRT, stadiums, seaports, airports, police and fire stations, and even the distribution of taxes and various public facilities are all designed by the players. At the same time, in addition to proper planning of various areas in the game, There are also many human, economic, subsistence and political factors to consider.”

After Alice simply expressed her idea, everyone, including Hawkins, began to think deeply about her idea.

It completely breaks the mode of most current games, that is, those "simulator games" such as Pac-Man and Snake are extremely monotonous. To manage a city, and to be in charge of all aspects of city operations like a mayor, everyone just thinks about it and knows that this must be an unprecedentedly complicated guy!

"How... how to do it?"

Even Hawkins was worried. After a long silence, he could only say: "How should the game levels be set?"

"Planning, construction, expansion, and management are the main cycle modes of this game. Players can freely plan the ideal city in their minds and slowly watch the city develop over time."

Seeing everyone's unsurprisingly frowning faces, and the attitude of not thinking about it until the end of time, Alice certainly knows what they are thinking, and they are nothing more than finding a breakthrough with the idea of ​​making a level-breaking game in the past. This kind of pure programmer style is no problem to study the eighth generation of "Snake" and the ninth generation of "Hit the Bee", but it will definitely not work for the later games.

"This game has no ending, and there is no specific game route to follow. There are only players with unlimited creativity and challenges. Looking at a barren land, it has become a metropolis full of high-rise buildings under my own planning, airports, ports and The MRT and other facilities are all available, and this sense of accomplishment...hehe, is it much higher than simply hunting bees?"

There was a burst of laughter from the crowd, and Hawkins nodded in agreement: "If players can really do this, the sense of accomplishment will indeed be very good. But Alice, when the development of a city is on the right track, it should be easy for players to Bored? After all, you said it yourself, there is no fixed goal in this game."

"Then make trouble for the players."

Alice said relaxedly: "First of all, there are social security issues, such as crime rates such as theft and murder, and then there are environmental pollution and industrial emission rates, as well as the optimization of traffic flow during commuting hours. These are all challenges. Even We can also look for inspiration like "Godzilla", monster invasion, alien invasion, earthquake, volcanic eruption, tsunami flooding the city, if it is compiled, it will make players headaches to death!"

All these ideas, although EA employees originally came up with their own ideas, but which one didn't come out after they had been thinking for a long time? Now, when Alice spits out these settings like beans poured out of a bamboo tube, and is crazily washed away by the huge amount of information, every employee suddenly has two moods.

"It's so cool! I must make this game! Monster attack? Earthquake and tsunami? Wahaha, I can't wait to build Manhattan and let King Kong go to the Empire State Building!"

"Yes, yes, Manhattan, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, players can completely imitate and build these super metropolises. They can even create their own hometowns. Now I feel like I am building an identical Salt Lake City! "

This group was lamenting the game itself, but many more people turned their eyes to Alice as if they had found gold.

"Alice, how long did it take you to come up with this idea? Did anyone else help you? What circumstances did you have the idea for?"

"Alice, hey boss, can you make up another idea for us now? It doesn't need to be complicated, I just want to hear it, you are really good!"

"Games are meant to be played by young people. No wonder Tripp agreed to be acquired so easily. Alice's brains as a screenwriter are extraordinary!"

In this way, Alice's joining, or the first game after the acquisition of Electronic Arts, was put on the production agenda. But these are not directly related to Alice. Although she is a self-proclaimed game planner, she only needs to provide ideas. The current game industry is far from being as clear-cut as it will be in the future. Programmers who are better at mathematics than anyone else can take care of tasks such as testing game balance.

"Seeing that everyone is so happy makes me feel relieved."

Back in his office, this time, Hawkins took the initiative to pour Alice a glass of water: "It is estimated that some people will inevitably think that when the company is acquired, there must be a lot of personnel changes. But since your new boss is just As a nominal planner, I immediately gave everyone such an excellent idea, at least I don’t have to worry about personnel matters.”

"Everything is working just fine."

After talking for a long time, Alice drank all the water in one gulp: "Although I invested a lot of money in the company, I didn't deprive you of your share. Aren't you still the chairman and CEO of the company? I'll do it." Just a shareholder who comes over to hang out from time to time, and you can handle other things by yourself."

Hawkins nodded, and picked up the documents that Lawrence left for him yesterday: "When do you plan to inject a huge sum of five million dollars?"

Yes, although she agreed to be acquired, in terms of legal procedures, the company really belongs to Alice only after the injection of paid-in capital is recorded in the financial records, and the previous stage can be called a "negotiation period". Today, it is only one day since Alice and Hawkins negotiated the acquisition intention, and of course many procedures have not yet been completed.

"Wait a while, maybe a month or two."

Speaking of a time that was completely within the allowable range, Alice smiled and said, "Do you want to ask, why should I give such a time?"

Hawkins chuckled, and put the document back on the coffee table: "Let me guess, right? Well... You gave proof of your assets as the founder of Cisco yesterday, which is amazing. Really amazing, I as Apple A former employee of yours, who knows what you do means, it's really remarkable."

He praised Alice to the sky in three consecutive sentences, and he continued: "However, even if Cisco has developed very fast in the past two years, it is not easy for you to throw out five million dollars in spare cash in one go. Even if you rely on "Ghost Story" "made a lot of money, but the average screenwriter can only get about 5% of the harvest..."

It seems that Hawkins didn't know that he was actually a shareholder of DreamWorks. Alice smiled quietly, but didn't say anything.

This is of course normal, and it's not that a listed company discloses a list of high-level executives. Unless it's people in the industry, who would care so much?

"So you must have a bigger source of wealth, and you can't get it now. In the book industry, I haven't heard that you are going to publish a new book soon, so I'm thinking about it..."

Having said that, Hawkins' eyes have become very strange, and he looked at Alice with a group of quite special eyes: "As early as the end of last year, not long after Microsoft released the news of its cooperation with IBM, it announced that the company would It will be listed in March. Alice, please don't tell me...you have a large stake in it."

Alice stuck out her tongue, good guy, although there was a little gap, Hawkins really guessed it.

But it’s normal. As someone who has worked for Apple for four years and just watched it grow from a small company with 50 employees to a Fortune 500 company with nearly 4,000 employees and annual revenue of 1 billion US dollars, now that he knows his identity as the boss of Cisco, he will It's normal to think in the direction of Microsoft's listing.

Seeing Alice's expression, Hawkins couldn't help being surprised: "No way, did I really guess it? You also invested in Microsoft!?"

Alice snorted, but didn't answer his question directly: "It's listed in early March, hurry up and buy more, I guarantee you will make a lot of money!"