Hollywood Hunter

Although the game business of Daenerys Entertainment has a special quota for Nintendo, it is ultimately not as good as local veterans such as Capcom. In recent years, Nintendo has felt threatened, and it has suppressed the games produced by Daenerys Entertainment either explicitly or implicitly.

Simon is well aware of the future development pattern of the host industry.

The last two years have been the last period of Nintendo consoles. After Sony introduced PS, Nintendo will decline rapidly.

There is also the rise of PC games.

This is what Simon valued most.

PC games, including stand-alone games and online games, have a potential market scale no less than console games, and in this respect, Daenerys Entertainment and the entire Westeros system also have many opportunities.

Taking advantage of the accumulation of Daenerys special effects in 3D technology, EA has released several 3D games in the past two years. Although the 3D effects at this time are still a bit terrible to Simon, it is also beyond the 2D host, which is also a PC A leading point of the platform.

In addition, the real-time strategy stand-alone game based on the "Sand Dunes" series of science fiction novels has also launched an online battle version based on water-based textures. This can be said to be the pioneer of online games, and network interaction is also the advantage of PC games.

In the past, because of historical development, the Western stand-alone game industry has been very prosperous, and to a certain extent, it has curbed the development of online games.In comparison, the Chinese game industry has encountered a ban on game consoles due to its late rise, which has led to a boom in the game industry directly from the age of online games. The stand-alone game industry has basically failed to do much because of lack of copyright protection.

For Simon, the former development direction is not unchangeable.

At this stage, Daenerys Entertainment and Igret have the ability to lead and create a new direction for the development of the American game industry.

The EA headquarters of Redwood City in the north of Palo Alto.

The time is already January 17, 1994, Monday.

After the reorganization is completed, the game business of Daenerys Entertainment is all included in the EA system, including the original relatively independent Blizzard and the recently finalized acquisition of silicon and neural bonds and other studios. In a few days, I personally conceived a cooperation project between EA and the social network of Facebook, which is owned by Eaglet.

happy farm.

This is a web game very familiar in Simon's memory.

The reason for this idea is not Simon's whim, but has other purpose.

With the launch of online video technology at the end of last year, the Igrid Portal officially released two new software, Ygritte and Ygritte, the former is a tool for interactive animation design of web pages. , The latter is an embedded player software for users to play webpage animation and video audio content.

In the original space and time, the prefix of these two softwares was originally Micromedia, and later belonged to Adobe.

It's just that at this stage, Micromedia is completely fanned out by the big butterfly of Igret, Adobe is still focusing on the development of printer peripheral software, and mainly cooperates with Apple's Macintosh computer. Apple is also one of Adobe's major shareholders. Simon also bought some Adobe stock after 87 disasters.

Both companies deviated from the original development track, but the World Wide Web has already emerged in advance, and the development of basic tool software is imperative.

In the past few years, Ygritte has successively launched Ygritte Dreamweaver software for web design and Ygritte Fireworks for web page image processing. With the recent release of Ygritte software for web page interactive animation design, the former web design The "Three Musketeers" were all gathered by the software department of Igret.

Not only that, Igrid quietly put the more mature Photoshop software under its banner last year.

From the earliest web design software Dreamweaver to the video editing software that will be released in the middle of this year, the release of every basic tool software means a substantial increase in the content of the World Wide Web platform.

For example, this time and supporting software.

Igrid Portal has launched its online game business in the past two years, which is mainly a game of chess, chess and board games.

Before the technology is released, if you want to develop an online mini-game with a graphical interface, you need to use a very complex script program, and the display effect is ultimately unsatisfactory.

After launch, it is also a small game, and it may only take an engineer or two skilled in software to develop in a day or two, and both the game display effect and the running smoothness are far more than the same type of small script script language. game.

Happy Farm is just a web game implemented with technology.

Simon came up with the idea of ​​developing a happy farm mini-game, one of the main purposes is to let developers and users see the game of technology, and then promote the rapid popularization of this new technology.On the other hand, if Happy Farm can achieve the same success as the original time and space, it can further promote the level of interaction between the Facebook social network user groups and enhance Facebook's user adhesion.

As for making money, Simon did not consider too much.

The former Happy Farm was developed by a game manufacturer named'Five Minutes Studio'. It was initially released on the school intranet platform and was quickly successful. The peak number of users exceeded 16 million, but the school intranet platform did not bring operators How much income.

Until later, transplanted to the QQ platform to become QQ farm, this small game from the Kaixin network era of 3 million a year of credit, directly soared to the terror of the Tencent era 50 million per month.

Simon has played several versions of "Happy Farm" and was very impressed with the setting of the Goose Factory changing the pattern to sell props.

Because Eastern and Western consumption habits are different, Simon does not expect that North American users will buy the previous prop system. However, relying on Facebook at this stage has almost monopolized the large scale of the North American social user group. As long as the game can be popularized, only rely on sales If you order fertilizer props, I believe you can still get a good income.

After all, the operating cost of this online mini-game is really limited, with a gross profit margin of over 90%.

What's more, Simon's main purpose of developing this small game is not to make a profit. As long as the technology is promoted and Facebook users' adhesion and activity are increased, it doesn't matter if the rest earn more or less, even if they don't make money in the end.

The financial data of the past year is still in the statistics, but it is only a preliminary estimate of the revenue situation. The growth rate of Igreut’s performance in 1993 is still terrifying.

Simon also does not allow Igerett to deviate from his own development direction when he sees what business is beneficial.

The four core businesses of search engine, social network, e-commerce, and cloud computing services have always been the top priorities of Simon’s personal follow-up. Even the portal information business with the largest user group at this stage should be given to the four major businesses in the event of conflict. Core business gives way.

At this stage, with the AOL portal, MSN portal, and other types of websites catching up, the focus of the company's operations is mainly to maintain its own industry advantages at all costs and avoid accidental overtaking by other companies.

"All in all, the basic settings of this small game are very simple. The most important thing is the sustainability and interactive system of the game. You discuss it yourself. The wild boar attack farm setting just proposed by Vick is very interesting, not just pets. When driving wild boars, friends can also help each other to drive off attackers that appear on each other’s farm, which greatly increases the interactive nature of the game. However, you should also note that the game must be simple enough, too complicated system for this kind of leisure The purpose of the game is very dangerous. My requirement is that after entering the game, the player can get started directly through a simple set of guided tasks. So, are there any other questions?"

In a conference room at EA headquarters.

During his busy schedule, Simon personally took an hour and a half to explain the basic design ideas of the game to the technical team selected to develop Happy Farm.For a long time, he also named the group'Fiveminutes (five-minute studio)'.

The "Happy Farm" in memory took only two weeks to develop.

In order to get a work that is as perfect as possible, Simon gave the ten-member team a full month this time.

Simon's voice fell, and all ten people in the meeting room raised their hands and were able to say a few words in front of the BOSS. Such opportunities are rare.Simon smiled and ordered the engineer named Victor Aiken who had just been praised by him.

The young man in his twenties who only worked at EA for three years with dark skin got up and said: "BOSS, can we leave the city and pick a farm to develop this game? You know, this will definitely provide us A lot of inspiration."

Simon looked at the others and everyone smiled, apparently after discussing in advance.

Nodded, Simon said: "Where do you want to go?"

Victor Aiken didn't hide: "My family's farm in Alabama is very good. I talked to them and everyone wants to check it out."

Simon smiled and said: "This is too much, but, well, remember that you only have one month, if you can't come up with a game that satisfies me after a month, then you will stay on the Alabama farm directly. Be a farmer. What's the problem next?"

Everyone raised their hands together again.

Simon looked around for a while and turned a blind eye, "Well, it seems okay. Let's go to the meeting, let's prepare."

This little cold humor made everyone laugh again, unconsciously a little less awe of this legendary young boss, and more close.

The boss said this, and everyone stopped asking, and got up and left the meeting room.

Larry Probst, the new EA CEO who took the time to walk into the meeting room, complained half-truth: "Simon, you are too indulgent."

Simon took a sip of the coffee that Girl A handed over, and did not mean to leave the meeting room in a hurry. He motioned to Larry Probst to sit down and said, "I'm a good policeman. A bad policeman wants you. Come and do it."

I just agreed that the "Happy Farm" development team ran to the Alabama farm to make this game. It was just a small episode that Simon gave EA's game studios these days.

The most relaxed working environment, the greatest degree of game creation independence, for the hand-drawn Probst, it also means that there will be a lot of uncontrollable risks in his next work, if not the EA leader Position and generous salary, Larry Probst is unwilling to take over the job.

Still struggling to spread his hand, Larry Probst said: "The key is, Simon, if my bad policeman wants to control them, the employees are likely to move you good policeman out."

Simon shook his head and said, "Larry, I have never been an unruly boss, and the authority given this time is the core of the game creation. I hope everyone can have a relaxed game development environment. In addition, if any employee has other violations, it is within your management. Frankly speaking, I may be more involved in EA in the past two years, mainly to reinvent the company culture and operating ideas that shaped this company. , Accomplish this, even if you want me to intervene, I’m too lazy to bother."

This guarantee made Larry Probst mixed, but there was no objection. He was not the founder of EA, such as Trip Hawkins, who valued his own power very much. As an excellent professional manager, Larry. Probst is not lacking in his own perseverance, but he is also much better at carrying out the will of the business owner.

Simon fired Tripp Hawkins because of this.

Enterprise founders often have a deep influence on a company, and they inevitably have a strong desire to control themselves.

To transform EA, Simon must fundamentally eliminate the founder's influence on the company.

With some assurance from Simon, understanding the thoughts of his own boss, Larry Probst is not entangled with this problem, and instead talked about the "Happy Farm" just now and some projects that EA is currently developing.

In addition to the "Warcraft" that is being developed by the Silicon and Neural Key Studio in the pocket some time ago, there are many well-known games under the EA's ongoing or development stage, "Dune Castle", "Simulation City", "Need for Speed" ", "Dungeon and Guardian" and so on.

EA's basketball, baseball, rugby and other sports games are even more iconic brands that other manufacturers in the industry cannot match.

In addition, after initially completing the technical accumulation of 3D game development, Simon also selected a 3D first-person shooter game from EA's many incubation projects, which not only provided a lot of design ideas, but also gave the name as usual, "Counter-Strike" "(CS).

Simon privately also drafted an e-sports game plan, planning to select EA's PC games with a relatively high penetration rate to host e-sports games to further promote the EA brand.