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"EA's mobile game?" Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "They moved very quickly. Are they launching a mobile game now?"

Mattrick smiled and said: "No, but the plan has been released, saying that it wants to develop mobile game versions of "The Sims" and "EA Football"."

"Ah?" Zhou Buqi was a little confused, "Is this the news made public?"

This kind of action is usually carried out secretly.

If it's made public, doesn't this notify competitors and give them an opportunity to take action first?

For example, this time, Don Mattrick traveled from New York to Los Angeles to investigate a mobile game developed by several college students at the University of Southern California.

The most important reason is that this mobile game is highly similar to EA's well-known game "The Sims".

This is the opportunity.

Changyou can obtain the copyright of Yan Xinlei's game and then publish it. Before EA's mobile version of "The Sims" is launched, it can quickly open up the market and build user stickiness.

By the time EA's mobile game "The Sims" was launched, most of the players in this direction had already joined the Changyou camp.

This is simply a leak.

There's enough chaos inside EA.

Mattrick said with a smile: "Isn't mobile gaming a big trend now? This is the most popular game direction in the capital market. EA has not taken any action yet, and the board of directors is very anxious and needs to come up with a mobile game masterpiece as soon as possible. To boost the stock price. Now that the game has not been launched, releasing the news first can also give some confidence to the capital market."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "This is really being implicated by capital."

Listed companies have such disadvantages.

Always consider the stock price.

There are also significant weaknesses in confidentiality.

Zhou Buqi asked: "So you went to USC this time for a walk. How was it? Is my college classmate still reliable? Can his game be used?"

"Okay, it works." Mattrick glanced at him, "I heard that he used to be an employee of Changyou?"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, he seems to be a team leader in the game design department. He is quite talented in games. I suggested that he come to study at the University of Southern California and receive training from the world's top game center. He and I I'm a college classmate. When I was in school, I didn't study hard and just played games every day."

Mattrick nodded, "It's just that the directions of learning are different. Feeling some of the game's skills while playing the game is also a kind of learning. Everyone has their own unique talent, it depends on whether they can accurately Found it. I think he can do it. I have seen more than a dozen imitation games of The Sims, and this one he designed is the most eye-catching."

Zhou Buqi was not being modest at all, "This is why I insisted on letting him study in the United States, so that he can help you by your side in the future. When it comes to game innovation, American game designers must be better." ; But if there is a finished game template and we can imitate it and develop a similar game, then our domestic game designers will be the best in the world."

This is not a self-deprecating derogatory term.

Being able to imitate is originally the most important quality in the business market.

The importance index is even higher than innovation.

Innovation is too difficult and can only be encountered but not sought.

Can't force it.

Imitation is the basic skill that every company should have.

You can force it.

Whether it’s Google, Microsoft, Disney, Coca-Cola, especially big companies. After many companies become big, they lose their ability to innovate. The reason for its long-lasting prosperity is that it relies on imitation to survive.

Many times, it violates business ethics and is a sidestep of the law.

Jobs focused on Xerox, plagiarized and imitated it, and developed Apple's operating system; Bill Gates focused on Apple, plagiarized and imitated it, and developed the famous Windows system.

Another example is Jeffrey Katzenberg, the current chief creative officer of Ziweixing Global and chairman of DreamWorks Animation. He also committed a scandal.

In the 1990s, Katzenberg was Disney's chief operating officer and chairman of the film division.

At that time, he took the lead in promoting the cooperation between Pixar and Disney to develop 3D animated films.

In this process, there will be many ideological collisions between the two parties.

Because Katzenberg represents Disney, Pixar needs to report to him clearly the plot, creativity, ideas, expression value, etc. of the next film project.

It didn't take long before Katzenberg lost the internal power struggle at Disney and left Disney to found DreamWorks.

Then, he led DreamWorks Animation to copy Pixar's ideas and develop a cartoon called "Ants", which was released before Pixar's "A Bug's Life."

Famous overnight.

This is the first film of DreamWorks Animation and the first 3D animated film independently produced by Katzenberg. It is a good start.

At that time, Jobs was extremely angry. He scolded Katzenberg like he was calling Bill Gates a thief.

But then he turned around and stole the tablet idea from Bill Gates.

Had it not been for the failure of the mobile phone project cooperation between Apple and Motorola, which made Steve Jobs very angry and believed that Motorola had ruined Apple's brand and had to stop the development of the iPad project and end the project early to make the smartphone iPhone, the iPad might have been released as early as The iPhone was launched on the market before.

At that time, Apple was Apple Computer Company, and making computers was their main business.

However, when it comes to imitation ability, it is definitely the strongest in the country.

This can be seen from the example of Yan Xinlei.

EA's well-known masterpiece "The Sims" is there, so just copy it... There is no mobile version of "The Sims" now, which leaves a blank demand in the market, so let's do it !

Even if the designs of mobile games and PC games are very similar, they belong to different categories. Not only are the "processes" different, but also the "results" are different, making it even more difficult to identify plagiarism of intellectual property rights.

Mattrick nodded, "In the current mobile game market, there are more and more homogeneous games."

Zhou Buqi said: "This is the general trend. Mobile games are not games and cannot be viewed according to traditional game ideas; mobile games should be Internet products."

Mattrick asked: "Like a web version of social gaming?"

Zhou Buqi nodded and said: "Yes, this is an Internet product. You have to look at it according to the ideas and logic of the Internet. Especially now that the performance of smartphones is not enough, mobile games are just lightweight games. In the past, computer games , console games, the development cost is too high, which means that the threshold is too high, and the competition will not be too fierce. Mobile games are different. The development is simple, the cost is low, and the threshold is low, which inevitably means that there are a large number of competitors."

"It really is."

"Do you know what the core idea of ​​Internet products is?"

"Yes..." Don Mattrick is not an Internet person, so he is relatively lacking in this aspect. He asked tentatively, "Is it traffic?"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, it's traffic. Once you have traffic, you have everything. Don't be afraid if you don't make money in a short period of time. First build up the traffic and form a stable and huge traffic pool, and then start from this traffic." Look for monetization opportunities in the pool.”

Mattrick smiled and said: "Yes, don't you have a book, "From Traffic to Traffic Pool". I purchased 200 copies a year ago and sent them to every middle-level and senior management in the company, asking them to They go and learn. We need to use Internet ideas to make mobile games."

Zhou Buqi didn't answer the question, "What about football? EA still wants to develop a mobile version of the football game?"

"right."

"When will the mobile version of our "FIFA2K13 Live Football" be launched?"

"Maybe we have to wait a little longer." Mattrick paused, "I am not responsible for this matter, it seems to be jointly produced by the Chinese and Korean game teams. This needs to be started from scratch. It is best not to be too hasty and to We must make our products mature and not destroy our brand.”

Changyou’s co-CEO Ren Yuxin is in charge of the mobile game version.

The PC and console versions of "FIFA 2K13 Live Football" are relatively easy to develop because they have the foundation of the past "Pro Evolution Football". They were officially launched in January this year.

The mobile version is different.

"Pro Evolution Soccer" does not have a mobile version, which requires Ren Yuxin to organize a development team to design, develop, and produce such a large-scale mobile game from scratch.

This can't be too hasty.

If the product is too bad, it will be miserable if it encounters a door-to-door killing.

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Well, don't rush. It's best to wait until the second half of the year to launch it. By then, new smartphones will be launched one after another, and the performance of the terminal equipment can also be better."