The Industrial Giant Reborn

"The King of Fighters?" Lei Shengli heard the name and asked, "Is it about fighting?"

Since Li Xiaolong detonated martial arts movies in the 1970s, the entire Chinese world has been obsessed with this atmosphere. Although Lei Shengli is not involved in entertainment, as an ordinary person, he naturally knows that many people like martial arts action plots. Even So does he. After Li Xiaolong's death, many film companies wanted to imitate it, but basically none of them succeeded. It was just martial arts stars with other styles who appeared.

If a game is based on fighting, it is very attractive, even in Europe and the United States. Most men like to watch or play this kind of plot. Even if they don’t like Li Xiaolong very much, they probably won’t refuse exciting fights. plot.

"Yes." Chen Zhiwen changed the topic again and asked: "How are the arcade machines in the European and American markets now?"

"Arcade machine? At present, it is no longer available. However, Japan has developed an arcade game hall, which is filled with various arcade games for students or people who do not have game consoles at home to play for a while. Business It's not bad, but the scale is not as big as before when we sold to almost every bar in the United States." Lei Shengli replied.

Arcade machines were once Midea's flagship product. It was thanks to arcade machines that Midea became one of the most well-known electronics companies in the world, and also made Midea the most dazzling new star under Chen Zhiwen. Midea's home appliance business in the early days, and even the entire The early development of many other companies within the group also relied on profits from arcade machines. Without the profit transfer from arcade machines, these businesses would be much worse off now.

However, with Moore's Law in the chip industry, the performance of the chip can be doubled in almost 18 months. In a few years, the chip can achieve a qualitative leap, thus giving rise to home game consoles, and Atari in the United States. Launched the 2600 model early and started to occupy the market at the earliest.

Under this situation, Midea also had to enter this field. It also used the profits from arcade machines to develop its own red and white consoles. However, it was able to occupy the market and become the king and beat Atari by relying on itself. Several popular software that started in the arcade era.

Since it is the same software, if you spend a few hundred dollars at a time to buy a Midea game console, and then buy a game card for tens of dollars, you can play countless times at home. This is compared to 25-25 to play once in a bar. At 50 cents, it's a great deal. Those who like to play games regularly will naturally buy it themselves. Although there are still some people who don't know how to buy game consoles at home, they can still go to friends' houses to play. Even if they still go to bars, the number of times will be very few. Even if the price of the arcade itself has dropped a lot over time, for bar owners It's no longer cost-effective. Even if you don't lose money, you can't make much money.

As a result, the arcade industry, which relied on bars as its main market, has basically declined in Europe and the United States. It is not completely dead, but sales are much worse than before. Against the background of the huge sales of Midea's home game consoles and handheld consoles, arcade machines It also became a small business. Midea also predicted this a long time ago. There are two groups of customers for arcades, one is the bar owner and the other is the bar customer. It would be strange if both of them fail.

Only in Japan, there is no bar culture and the population density is very high. A new business model has emerged, which is a store that purchases a large number of different arcade machines and then attracts people to come in and play. Compared with the American bar model, There are many types of games, with strong selectivity and high playability, which are very attractive to some young people and students. However, after all, the Japanese market is much smaller, and it still cannot bring arcade machines back to their former high position.

"The decline of arcades is essentially due to the replacement of home game consoles. This is inevitable." Chen Zhiwen took a sip of coffee and said: "But have you ever thought about a problem? It's all about drinking. Americans can do it. If you drink at home, you can watch various sports games or sports competitions at home, but why do they go to the bar? The bar still costs money, which is more expensive than the wine at home? "

"Maybe it's also because I want to get to know the opposite sex?" Lei Shengli said.

"This is one aspect, but not everyone goes to the bar for this purpose. Many couples, or male and female friends go together, so it's not the same purpose, right?" Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"That may also be a cultural thing. We don't understand it, but Americans may tend to like to interact and make friends in bars." Lei Shengli said.

"Yes, so if our arcade machines want to enter the bar again, then if we develop in this direction, we may be able to save a little bit." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"So this King of Fighters game is a game that allows people to interact?" Lei Shengli asked.

"Yes, this game is not about breaking through levels or beating bosses, but also about fighting each other, different characters, and different skills. This kind of game will definitely be liked by many male customers." Chen Zhiwen smiled, Then after signaling, an assistant handed Lei Shengli a folder.

Chen Zhiwen added: "These are some rough settings I wrote. They are very simple. There are only a few pages. The biggest difficulty here is to design different characters and different tricks. This requires planning from your game department. That’s solved.”

Chen Zhiwen remembers many games, but he only knows a general idea, such as the most popular "Super Mario" before. He knows the general appearance of the characters, the settings of different bricks, and the settings of the sewers, but what exactly does it look like? He didn't know how to control the difficulty and so on. He could only put forward his own ideas, and then Midea's internal engineers would add details based on this framework.

The same is true for The King of Fighters. He knows that the two sides choose different characters for the fight, but he no longer remembers any of the characters or their unique moves. He has forgotten them all. Now he can only draw up his own requirements and then let his subordinates design them. As for the design, it depends on the ability of the subordinates.

There are not many descriptions of the game "The King of Fighters". Lei Shengli spent a few minutes reading it and then said: "Chen Sheng, I understand the meaning of this game. If the various fights are really designed to be exciting, That would definitely be very attractive, and the arcade market could really be revitalized."

The main customers of arcade machines are men themselves, and men basically like to fight. However, modern laws do not agree, and they are also easily injured. Therefore, there are very few opportunities to do it. But if there is a game that can allow both parties to Venting one's emotions freely will definitely be very attractive to young men.

"Yes, the attraction is definitely there, but this creates another problem." Chen Zhiwen added: "We can make such a game, but after it is made, other people can too, as long as it matches our character design or special skills The design is different. Our patent can only cover some practical things, not this type of game. Therefore, in terms of quality, we must do a good job and try to design a variety of characters and backgrounds in the shortest possible time. Attract all types of players within a certain period of time, otherwise others may still catch up later.”

Midea’s previous games, such as Snake, Magic Cube, Mario, Pac-Man, etc., once they were designed by themselves, others could not imitate them because the relevant patents locked others up, even if they could barely circumvent them. Without a patent, the products produced are mediocre and cannot take advantage of the popularity and traffic of the original game.

But fighting games are different. This thing is just a game category. You design it this way and others design it that way. It is completely irrelevant. And latecomers can also create very exciting content. This can be seen in future generations. I don’t know how many different types of two-player fighting games there are, and practitioners probably can’t count them either.

Of course, no matter how you prepare, in the long run, it is impossible to prevent others from entering. However, as long as you are fully prepared and the quality is good, you will have the opportunity to make a name for yourself first, and then continue to update and optimize in the future. It is enough to capture a large part of this market.

"Okay, I understand that you have to prepare enough character maps before they can be released. With Midea's current strength, it's actually not a big problem. Other game companies can't match us in terms of number of people and games." Lei Shengli said with a smile.

Although there are many companies in the electronics industry that are larger than Midea, their main business is not games, they are only slightly involved in it. Their investment in this market is far inferior to Midea's, not to mention that the arcade market has declined, and it is estimated that there will be no One would have thought that Midea would come back again.

"Well, the entire research and development process also needs to be kept confidential, and patent registration must be done diligently. Now many international companies are staring at us. It is best not to be discovered in advance when developing new games." Chen Zhiwen added that the game market is really It is so lucrative, even more profitable than the core industries of some chip companies. Even IBM may be jealous. In the past few years, most electronic companies have entered the gaming market, but they have not done well, but they have not given up. These companies have It's about looking at beauty.

"Okay, now Hong Kong also has certain research and development capabilities and experience. I will arrange for closed research and development of this game in Hong Kong. Even if there are technical problems, I will just take it out and let the United States do it separately. They will not know what it is. Lei Shengli nodded and said.

Over the years, Midea has indeed produced most of its major games and related hardware in the United States. However, in each of these processes, they have also arranged for many Hong Kong people to learn and participate. Over the past few years, they have also cultivated skills for Hong Kong. With thousands of technical talents, I dare not say that I can do it alone, but I can develop many of them myself, especially the recent games, which were all developed in Hong Kong.

"Well, okay, you can discuss this matter internally and then tell me the whole plan." Chen Zhiwen said: "In addition, the King of Fighters game is indeed suitable for arcades, but it does not mean that it is not suitable for home game consoles. In this regard, you also You need to be prepared in advance, neither of these markets will give up, and because of their social nature, the conflict between these two markets may not be too great.”

If you have a Mario game console at home and then spend money to play in a bar, you would be an idiot. But King of Fighters is different. There are so many people in the bar, and it is still very atmospheric. This is just like the Internet cafe industry has shrunk on a large scale after the popularity of home computers in later generations. But there are still many people who persist. The most fundamental reason is that a group of people play games in bars, which is very exciting. It can even be said that once a computer online game becomes popular, it can bring great popularity to Internet cafes across the country. business.

Of course, no matter how you say it, it will still be far worse than before. The decline of arcade machines is inevitable, just like home game consoles will be the same after the new century. Just seize the opportunity at every point in time.

"Okay, I will also arrange for people to develop family game cards at the same time." Lei Shengli said. (End of chapter)