Top of the big era

In this game, Manchester United defeated their city rivals with a score of 4:2 and entered the League Cup final.

The opponent is the weak team Fulham.

There is almost no suspense about winning the championship.

Zhou Buqi was very happy. After the game, he heard another piece of better news.

As expected, news came out from Yahoo that it hired former PayPal president Scott Thompson as its new CEO and joined the board of directors as a director.

However, Yang Zhiyuan did not quit.

Zhou Buqi called Boss Ma and asked about the matter.

Boss Ma smiled and said: "Don't worry, everything is going according to plan. This Thompson is the person selected by Yang Zhiyuan. It will take some time for him to be willing to quit the board of directors, right? Don't worry! Just wait!" "

Zhou Buqi didn't say much more.

When he came to the UK this time, in addition to watching football for fun and giving his father a private island as a New Year's gift, he also had two other serious things to do.

One, is Spotify’s new round of financing.

This is very simple.

The two parties have a tacit understanding and have the same goals.

Spotify currently has a competitor in the market called Pandora, which has transformed from an FM radio station into a music streaming media and has been around for many years.

However, due to copyright restrictions, Pandora's development speed is far slower than Spotify. Last year, Pandora went public on Nasdaq. Just like the overall technology situation, it started out pretty well, but then it quickly broke down.

At its peak, the market value reached US$3 billion, but its current market value is only US$1.8 billion.

Spotify is different. It is growing faster, has greater potential, holds more music copyrights, has extensive work on mobile devices, and is more popular among young people.

In terms of paying users alone, Spotify already has 40% more users than Pandora.

In the last round of financing, Spotify was valued at US$1.4 billion. This time the valuation may exceed US$5 billion, and it is seeking to raise US$400 million. Although the general environment has not improved yet, as long as Ziweixing International takes the lead, capital institutions will follow suit.

Another thing is related to Changyou.

Zhou Buqi met Christensen, the UK president of Changyou. She was a woman and had only been in office for three months. She was an investment manager poached from Barclays by Don Mattrick.

The reason for poaching her is that she can help Changyou truly open up the core market of the UK.

By buying buy buying.

The first one to target is Codemasters, a well-known British game company.

This is a company that specializes in racing games. It has well-known racing games such as "Dirt", "Speed ​​Touring Car Race", and "Flashpoint Action".

And the most well-known "F1 Racing" with official brand authorization.

This is very embarrassing.

As early as two years ago, when Changyou was still in charge of Lao Zhang, Zhou Buqi suggested to Lao Zhang that he wanted him to buy the game company.

The mobile version of the racing game will definitely shine, so hurry up and plan it!

Lao Zhang did do it.

As a result, after many talks, both parties failed to agree on many terms. The main issue is the price. The other party quoted a price of 420 million pounds, but Lao Zhang felt that it was worth 220 million pounds at most.

After more than two years of grinding and grinding, we still have not been able to reach unification.

Regarding the British market, Lao Zhang only made small investments in the past few years. He bought a total of 4 very small game studios for less than 30 million pounds.

After Zhou Buqi came to power instead, he had to quickly finalize the matter.

Games owned by Codemasters are not very well-known in China.

It is very popular in European and American markets.

This has to do with local culture.

For example, football culture is very prosperous, so EA's "FIFA Football" series and Konami's "Pro Evolution Soccer" series are considered the pinnacle of this type of large-scale computer games.

For example, gun culture is booming, and there is a huge market for shooting games.

Another example is the popular car culture in Europe and the United States.

This has resulted in too many racing games on the market, and many well-known game companies are famous for their racing games. For example, EA's "Need for Speed" series, take-two's "Grand Theft Auto" series, etc. are all masterpieces of their respective game companies.

Another very important point is that racing games can easily get sponsorship from car manufacturers.

If elements of Manchester United are to be used in "FIFA Soccer", EA needs to pay copyright fees to Manchester United. For racing games, if you want to use a certain brand of car in the game, the car manufacturer needs to pay a promotion fee to the game manufacturer.

In this way, the development cost of car games is greatly reduced.

Therefore, there are too many racing games on the market, and they are also a very popular game type among players.

Codemasters is one of the top five game companies in the UK. If Changyou wants to quickly establish scale in the UK market, it really needs to obtain the local resources of such a large company.

This acquisition is inevitable.

After Don Mattrick took office, he immediately started to deal with this matter.

Previously, Zhou Buqi received an email from Mattrick. This guy has a very high emotional intelligence. He knew that although the big boss had taken away the power of the second boss, the two had a good relationship, so he said something nice.

It can be said that Charles Zhang really has a long-term vision and takes precautions. He did the right thing in choosing the Codemasters case!

They should be dragged along!

If it had been bought two years ago, it would have cost at least 300 million pounds instead of 400 million pounds.

Things are different now. The game industry is in a sluggish state, especially traditional game manufacturers. Life is very difficult. With some shuffling, it's really possible to get a deal done for around £200 million.

Zhou Buqi met Ms. Christensen, a blond-haired eldest sister who was in her early forties. She was ugly and had a chubby mouth.

After the meeting, Christensen was helpless, "There is good news and there is bad news."

Zhou Buqi walked around Changyou's branch office here and felt that he should find a better place to be worthy of Changyou's status. He smiled and said: "Okay, let's hear the good news first. I heard that Codemasters Is there any progress on the acquisition?”

Christensen nodded lightly, "Well, a preliminary agreement has been reached."

"Oh?" Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows, "The price?"

Christensen said: "£185 million."

"real?"

Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide and looked at her in disbelief.

Got it for £185 million?

You know, two years ago, Lao Zhang once offered 280 million pounds, but the other party refused to negotiate at all and refused to let go of the offer of 420 million pounds.

This Christensen is really awesome.

The transaction was completed directly for 185 million pounds.

He is indeed an expert.

It's an achievement as soon as you take action.

Of course, this is also related to the huge reputation Changyou has accumulated in the global game industry in the past year, and it is also related to Zhou Buqi's influence.

In the past, it was Lao Zhang who came forward... This was very embarrassing, and people ignored him.

Christensen sighed, "But there is still bad news. It drowns out all the good moods."

"What is it?"

"EA also made a quotation?"

"What?" Zhou Buqi was amused, "EA?"

Christensen nodded, "Well, I just got the news this morning. EA has quoted 270 million pounds, and it has been approved by Codemasters' board of directors. Either we will continue to raise the price, or they will sign with EA."

"EA..."

Although Zhou Buqi didn't understand the inside story yet, he basically made a close guess.

Depend on!

EA was angry because of the setback of a friend's studio and Ziweixing International's subsequent cash-out of EA's high position, and wanted to take revenge on Changyou.

They want to stop it halfway!