Video Game Empire

"Mr. Wang, what do you think is the meaning of playing games?" Du Wenqiang asked with a smile.

"Meaning? I think games can change people to bring happiness and make people live a spiritually happy life!" Wang Shi frowned and replied.

If it had been before coming to Hong Kong this time, he would not have felt that this issue was meaningful. One of the most reminiscent words when playing games is playing with things. But now, when he found out that the game industry in Hong Kong is a huge industry that can generate tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars every year, he no longer dared to have any contempt.

"Mr. Wang, you said it very well. In my opinion, games are the same as art carriers such as books, movies, and comics. They can bring players a sensory and spiritual experience.

This kind of experience can be the anxiety when you are stuck in a certain level and cannot be broken through, it can be the joy after successfully clearing the level, it can be the excitement when encountering an evenly matched game opponent, or it can be the frustration when you are defeated!

If books are one-dimensional and movies are two-dimensional, then games are three-dimensional. The language of words is relatively abstract, and we need to develop our own fantasy. Although the movie has a rich story screen, it is already fixed after it is shot.

The biggest difference between games and these art forms is that they can be ⑦▼dǐng⑦▼ǎn⑦▼small ⑦▼ to say, .→.∷o to carry out in-depth interaction, allowing us to have a deeper sense of substitution, so as to obtain greater pleasure ! "Du Wenqiang suddenly stretched the game to the level of high art.

Of course, these nonsense are actually useless. The reason why Dongfang Group attaches great importance to the game industry is that it can bring a steady stream of huge profits. Just like movies are also art, but Li Xuan's Asian Films has always only made commercial films. They will never invest in literary and artistic films that have profound humanistic connotations and can inspire social thought.

Therefore, after Du Wenqiang performed some pretense in a high-profile manner. The core problem is still the promotion of arcade games in the mainland. He was severely reprimanded by Li Xuan before because of his negligence in the mainland market.

"Mr. Du. Can you lower the price of the game motherboard a little further? The price of an arcade board for "The King of Fighters 2" is 8,000 Hong Kong dollars, which is still too high for domestic consumption levels!" Wang Shi also said Prepare to strive for the price as much as possible. Hyundai Scientific Instruments is not going to import the whole machine, but is going to import the main board of the arcade machine to assemble the arcade machine by itself.

"Mr. Wang, this price can't be lowered anymore. We can't break the global price system set by the company because of this part of the domestic market! The arcade machines that appear in China now. Most of them are old-generation arcade machines with 6502 processors as the motherboard.

Because the 6502 processor is only an 8-bit chip, its own computing performance is very limited. Therefore, there is a big performance gap between this first-generation arcade machine and the second- and third-generation arcade machines we are using now with R-series processors as the core!

The three arcade machines "The King of Fighters", "1942" and "Three Kingdoms" that we recommend to your company first are our best-selling products in the Asian market! Although its price is much more expensive than the first-generation arcade, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and the playability of these arcades is also far better than the first-generation arcade!

According to our evaluation forecast, if your company imports the arcade motherboard of "The King of Fighters 2". If it is assembled into a game machine in China, the total cost of the entire arcade should be around 5,000 yuan. And then after one or two levels of distributors, it should finally reach the owner of the game hall at about 7,000 yuan!

In fact, the current situation of the domestic arcade market is very similar to the situation in Hong Kong five or six years ago. If you take the situation at the beginning of the Hong Kong arcade industry as a reference. The time to recover the investment cost of the game arcade is 6 to 8 months, which should be regarded as a very worthwhile business! "Du Wenqiang shook his head and analyzed.

Wang Shi did not expect the other party to give too much concessions, because according to some information he had collected before. Dongyou Company is known as the most terrifying gold swallowing monster in Hong Kong. Its main markets are the United States, Western Europe and Japan, and it has not previously entered the domestic market. The biggest reason is probably that the other party doesn't look down on this small market at all, so Wang Shi doesn't have much bargaining capital.

"Mr. Du. You mentioned the first generation of arcade machines just now, and as far as I know, Dongyou has long discontinued the production of these old products! May I ask if it is possible for you to exclusively authorize the complete production rights including arcade mainboards. Give us!

You just said that the production cost of a second-generation arcade machine is at least 5,000 yuan, but if it is the first-generation arcade machine, we have the ability to control its cost even lower! In the current domestic market, low prices are the way to rapidly expand the market! "Wang Shi suddenly made a new suggestion.

He does not think that the current situation in China is much comparable to the Hong Kong market five or six years ago. You must know that even five or six years ago, the wages of ordinary workers in Hong Kong were generally above 1,000 Hong Kong dollars. So 50 cents per coin is not an expensive pastime for Hong Kong citizens.

But even in the deep-sea special zone with the highest average salary in the country, there are absolutely a handful of people who can earn more than 1,000 yuan a month. Before coming to Hong Kong, Wang Shi deliberately asked the owners of several game arcades in the SAR to understand the situation. They buy a Mario Bros. arcade machine for about 4,000 yuan, and it takes about a year to recover the cost.

In other parts of the country, the monthly salary of ordinary people is less than 200 yuan, and everyone's spending power is naturally lower. This also leads to the game hall having to sell the price of the game currency at a lower price, so the time to recover the cost will naturally be longer. For an arcade machine with a purchase price of 7,000 yuan, it may take two years for the game hall to recover the cost.

In fact, arcades are still a relatively new thing to the Chinese, and even old games are still new to the Chinese market. Therefore, in this case, the price of the arcade has become the most important factor affecting the choice of game hall owners.

The most attractive thing about the first-generation arcade machine is that it can be completely domestically produced with the existing domestic technical conditions. The first modern wafer fab built by the Oriental Research Institute for domestic coordination was completed and put into operation in the deep-sea special zone two or three years ago.

Commencement of Deep Sea Microelectronics. Let China have the ability to produce 8-bit chips on its own, including the 6502 processor used in the first generation of game motherboards. and small-capacity memory. In China in this era, can anything be localized? will have a huge impact on the price.

The shortage of foreign exchange in China has resulted in high exchange costs for most imported products. Moreover, foreign sellers usually adopt high-priced monopoly sales for technologies and products that are not available in China. Once these products and technologies can be self-produced in China, not only the huge foreign exchange costs can be saved, but also because of the lower domestic labor costs and raw material costs, production costs can be greatly reduced, and they can be exported to overseas markets at low prices.

"Do you want the technical authorization of the arcade motherboard?" Du Wenqiang did not answer immediately, but thought for a while.

Dongyou has always been very strict in controlling arcade motherboards, and there has never been a precedent for external authorization. Just these old arcade machines that have been discontinued. There is no need for any continued secrecy of motherboard technology, not to mention that pirated products on the market have already been flooded.

After weighing the pros and cons, Du Wenqiang immediately nodded and said, "Of course, if you intend to build an arcade factory in China, we can also help provide a full set of assembly line equipment, including the motherboard production line!"

"Our Hyundai Instrument Co., Ltd. is engaged in trade, and the industry is not our specialty, so we have no plans to build our own factory for the time being! But we are going to cooperate with other electronics companies in the special zone and ask them to do OEM production for us!" Wang Shi explained.

The state's control over foreign exchange is becoming more and more strict. This makes it more and more difficult to exchange foreign exchange for import trade. Therefore, Wang Shi had already asked Hyundai Instrument Company to seek transformation and give up pure import trade. The first thing Wang Shi aimed at was the camera business, and he was going to cooperate with Beijing-Beijing Radio 13 Factory. Hyundai Scientific Instrument Company is responsible for the import of s (parts), and the Radio Thirteen Factory is responsible for assembling the imported parts.

It's just that Hyundai Instruments is in the s import negotiation with Sony. The price in Japan is too high. So Wang Shi set his sights on the emerging arcade market. In fact, Hyundai Instruments had already started to cooperate with an electronics factory in the special zone.

The pirated arcade motherboard imported from Hong Kong by Hyundai Instruments was imitated and produced by the cooperative electronics factory. There are many products of Dongyou Company, including "Mario Brothers", "Tank Wars", "Pac-Man", "Hong Kong Cube" and so on.

At the same time, according to the original plan of Hyundai Instrument Company, it will form a certain scale in the domestic arcade market. At the same time, the company will further expand its production scale after building a complete nationwide distribution channel. At that time, build a complete arcade factory including motherboards. It is also completely natural.

But Wang Shi met Li Xuan unexpectedly at the China Merchants Bank establishment party not long ago, and he realized the problem of patents and intellectual property rights for the first time. Unlike most early-stage entrepreneurs in China, Wang Shi is a man with lofty aspirations.

This can also be seen from the accounts of Hyundai Science Instruments Company, because he originally planned to let the company carry out shareholding reform, so he specially invited Shekou Accounting Firm to conduct a financial audit of the company. On the other hand, Hyundai Instrument's financial situation is very clean, and there is nothing to hide.

This was especially rare in the 1980s, where the economy lacked restraint and was growing recklessly and wildly. It is his qualities that lead the transformed Vanke to develop into one of the largest real estate companies with the best financial conditions in the country.

You must know that the real estate industry is the hardest hit area for domestic power-money collusion in later generations, and Vanke is definitely one of the cleanest companies. In such a field where the coefficient of fair competition is relatively low, it can still become bigger and stronger, which also reflects the ability of Wang Shi as a leader.

Hyundai Science Instruments previously hired other electronics factories to manufacture a pirated arcade machine for its cost of around 3,000 yuan. But if even the arcade motherboard can be made in China, Wang Shi is confident to reduce the manufacturing cost of the whole machine by another 500 yuan.

Now, Wang Shi decided to simply change the original development plan and use the cost saved by the localization of arcade motherboards as intellectual property fees paid to Dongyou Game Company, so as to obtain the right to produce Dongyou Company's arcade products.

"The production license fee for each arcade machine is 100 US dollars, which is the best price we can give! We can provide you with the greatest technical support in the entire production process of the arcade machine!" This is the last word given by Du Wenqiang condition.

Wang Shi nodded, and finally agreed. As a result, the main content of the cooperation between Shenhai Modern Instrument Company and Dongfang Game Company became Dongyou Company, which authorized Hyundai Instrument Company, including "Hong Kong Cube", "Mario Brothers", "Tank Wars", etc. The first generation of old-fashioned arcade machines, exclusive production rights in the domestic market. Dongyou Company can obtain 450 yuan of technology licensing fee from each arcade machine.

Of course, Hyundai Instruments has also obtained the exclusive domestic agency rights for the latest arcade games such as "The King of Fighters", "1942" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". But compared to the production rights of the first generation of arcade machines, this has become a bonus.

Because Wang Shi believes that after the domestic production line of game motherboards is completed and put into production, the domestic arcade sales will rapidly increase due to the low price, and it is not difficult for the annual sales to exceed 200,000 units. If this figure is calculated, Dongyou Company will be able to reap 80 million yuan in profits every year.

The only thing that makes Du Wenqiang a little regretful is that Wang Shi would rather pay more in RMB than pay the production license fee in US dollars. Therefore, the production authorization fee for each arcade machine was finally set at 450 yuan. You must know that the official exchange rate between the US dollar and the RMB given by the People's Bank of China is only 3.7. Converted at this official exchange rate, 450 yuan is equivalent to 120 US dollars.

The price of foreign exchange that Hyundai Scientific now receives from other companies is usually around 4.1 to 4.3. On the surface, Wang Shi seems to be at a loss, because even if he buys foreign exchange directly from the swap market, 100 US dollars does not need to cost 450 yuan. But in fact, foreign exchange is not something that can be easily obtained anytime, anywhere. Based on the annual sales of 200,000 arcade machines, Hyundai Instruments would pay Dongyou $20 million a year.

Such a huge amount of foreign exchange is definitely not a small burden for Hyundai Instruments. What worries Wang Shi even more is that the renminbi may depreciate at any time in the future. Once the RMB depreciates, if Hyundai Instruments uses a fixed dollar price to pay the licensing fee, it will inevitably cause huge losses. Therefore, he would rather pay an extra price now, but also lock in the risks of the company's operation. This is the genius of Wang Shi!

Of course, the reason why Du Wenqiang agreed to pay in RMB is because Dongfang Game Company finally established a branch in China at the beginning of the year. Therefore, the fees paid by Hyundai Instrument Company can be directly transferred to the account of the newly established Dongfang Game (Deep Sea) Company.

As a foreign-funded enterprise, UU Kanshu www.uukanshu.com has much simpler exchange conditions than domestic enterprises. As long as it is a reasonable and legal income, Dongfang Game Company can use the official exchange rate of 1 to 3.7 to exchange foreign currency. In other words, the actual production license fee obtained by Eastern Games is $120 per unit.

Of course, even if Dongyou Company cannot transfer all the money into foreign exchange, it can also be used directly to pay the operating expenses of the mainland branch. This is much more cost-effective than converting USD to RMB from Hong Kong at a rate of 1 to 3.7.

In fact, Dongyou Company should be regarded as one of the subsidiaries of Dongfang Group that entered the mainland market relatively late. In the current domestic game market, the profits that can be brought to Dongyou Company are not very fast, but it can provide Dongyou Company with many advantages that Hong Kong does not have.

For example, there are eight major art academies in China, which train a large number of talents with professional art skills every year. Hong Kong has a big shortcoming in this regard. The game artist is a very important position in the entire game development team.

Because of the lack of game art talents in Hong Kong, it is necessary to recruit a large number of Japanese comic talents to serve as key positions such as original painters in Dongfang Game Company. However, this situation is changing. In recent years, more and more painters from domestic professional art academies have begun to join the art team of Dongfang Game Company! (To be continued.)