Cao Yang’s idea is simple and rough-

Since the Aier game platform is called a game platform, it is impossible to have only chess and card games and some small surfing games, it must carry more.

Since the beginning of design, Cao Yang wanted to build it into a gaming platform that is even wider than Steam.

Players can not only download their own games on it, but also upload their own games through the game platform, and then divide the game platform with the producer.

Now that the bandwidth restrictions are limited, it is not realistic to allow players to download digital games directly through the Internet, but users will be bound to the platform through "Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne" in advance. After that, all updates to war3 can be carried out through the Internet, which should be feasible.

Now it can be said that it is Bomi's best opportunity.

The game platform is equivalent to a very useful channel. It does something similar to QQ. It also develops this place into a game enthusiast base by constantly attracting users, and then sells various games on it. In the future, the platform will become a platform for supply and demand between players and producers. The traffic at that time is even more terrifying.

As long as there are users and channels, this thing can generate huge value.

What's more, Bomi now has subsidiaries from China, Dongdao and the United States, and can fully promote this platform to the whole world.

Cao Yang has great ambitions, and it is inevitable that he can't just be a little scope of the Chinese market.

A gaming platform with the largest user base in the world is one of them and an extremely important part.

...

In my previous life, as the world's largest gaming platform, Steam first appeared in an ordinary and even had a history of premature death.

On September 12, 2003, Steam met with users for the first time.

There are not many games, no social networking, ugly interface, many bugs, and the Internet loading time is also very long.

The only advantage may be that it is "frequent updates".

Unstable, semi-finished product?! Players' impression of Steam is definitely negative, and in one word, that is "resentful"! If Steam was placed in 2020, it would be useless.

By 2004, Steam was on the verge of bankruptcy because there were too many things worth complaining about in this game.

At this time, a game changed the fate of Steam. The name of that game was called "Half-Life 2".

Half-Life 1 has a large fan base around the world. By the time Half-Life 2, players have a high sense of expectation for this game.

But the only disadvantage is-

Half Life 2 is bound to steam, and is exclusive to steam.

"Half-Life 2" was released in 2004 and can only be played on Steam.

At that time, as long as you have Steam, you could download the game for free, and you really spared no effort to promote it.

After the release of "Half-Life 2", history was repeated again - Valve took several days to make Steam surging players, although they were not good at making a move, they finally got the players in. It was difficult to get out again after entering the door. Due to the solid experience, Steam has the strength to challenge the high-ranking physical retailers after just one year, and his domineeringness has begun to appear.

This is the value of God's work.

This kind of change is like e-commerce for physical stores, eliminating backward business models through technology. The life of physical retail is a matter of time sooner or later. Not to mention the inefficiency of the latter, only large manufacturers can afford it, which seriously limits the diversity of games. With the power of the Internet, improving the efficiency of game distribution and reducing the threshold, Valve did a smooth job at the right time.

Everyone basically knows what happened later. Steam has become Alibaba in the game industry. V Club has signed agreements with almost all major manufacturers. You can see PC masterpieces on the market, which can basically be found on Steam, and paid/free downloads.

Players can also create and upload their own games to the steam platform. As long as they sign an agreement and pass the review, they can get players.

...

Now is the beginning stage of steam, and a war3 is enough to overturn the steam.

Next year's Steam will have half-life 2, while the AIR gaming platform will have war3.

This is a gamble, a great war, and Cao Yang does not want to fail.

...

The main reasons why steam can be done are several advantages:

First, Steam has a magical work, and it can only be played through Steam. All Half-Life 2 updates can only be performed through Steam. Players can basically not play Half-Life 2 if they leave Steam.

This is called brand value.

Now Bomi has a similar ace in his hand, which is called "Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne"

Second, Steam also provides functions similar to "virtual optical drive".

Many players born in the 1990s may not understand it, because in this era of 2003, genuine games required CDs every time they ran.

With the virtual optical drive, the game is permanently added to the game library of the current account after it is installed through the CD, and the disk can fly.

After entering the game, you don’t need to insert the CD to play the game again.

Therefore, this function must be inherited.

In another two years, when the network environment changes and the network speed increases to the point where the CD is no longer needed, the game can be released directly through the AIR game platform.

...

War3 game now has several modes:

First, in single player mode, players can make their computer the host through single player mode, and then fight the computer in single player mode.

Second, in the LAN mode, this mode does not require Bomi to provide an official server. Players can create a room to become a host in the LAN mode. That is to say, the computer of the player who created the room will become a server of the LAN, and then other players enter the room to fight, which is equivalent to connecting to the host.

Just need the player's host configuration to be high enough and the local network is in good condition to play.

Nowadays, many college students fight through this kind of local area network online.

Third, the function of Battle Net is to provide the server officially, and then all players are connected to the server to fight.

Compared with the LAN mode, the Battle Network function allows players thousands of miles apart to enter the same game, which is similar to Three Kingdoms Online. As long as you enter the same server, you can fight here. However, due to network conditions, there may be certain problems in the connection speed.

Cao Yang’s idea now is to retain all the original functions of war3, and then bind the Battle.net and the game platform together, and buy servers around the world for players to experience in Battle.net games.

Also, once the CD of "Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne" is released, all game updates can only be performed through the AIR game platform.

At the same time, when players purchase CDs for installation, they will bind and install the AIR platform together.

If players do not update in time, their version will be inconsistent with the server version, and they will not be able to fight with other players whose versions are inconsistent.

With these items, most war3 players can be bound to the AIR game platform.

This group of players will gradually add other exclusive games to the game platform in the future:

For example, the "Shan Hai Jing" and "Honor of Kings" series...

Naturally, there will be more players.

...

Cao Yang finished his needs, and Liu Guangran wanted to die.

"This is a big project. We also have to study the technology of virtual optical drives. Fortunately, this thing is not very difficult. It should be given time to handle it.

Online updates are not very difficult. After all, we have developed so many online games, whether it is Three Kingdoms Online or Jin Dance Troupe, every time we release a new version, it is done through online updates, so it is not a big problem to update war3 through the game platform.

However, it is more troublesome to bind the game platform in war3, and some underlying protocols need to be modified."

Liu Guangran did not reject Cao Yang's idea because it was too incredible. Instead, he threw out all the difficulties through his own technical analysis.

This is also the advantage of being a boss of the program. Cao Yang likes Liu Guangran's thinking about feasibility in advance.

Only by being willing to think can one implement it and one day realize it.

"Then, we have to consider the expansion of the platform, because if we want to add other games, such as "Shan Hai Jing" and "Honor of Kings" series to the top for updates in the future, then the game platform has to strengthen the expansion of the game."

After hearing this, what Liu Guangran said was still within the scope of Cao Yang's acceptance.

Fortunately, Cao Yang hasn't told him that he would make all the games in the future in a form that can be downloaded directly without CD-ROM, otherwise Liu Guangran would really be crazy.

After more than an hour, the two of them analyzed and everyone knew it.

"Well..." Cao Yang nodded, "It is obviously unrealistic to complete this job in such a short time."

He was indeed a little too impatient. Originally, Cao Yang thought he would be able to take the Ice Throne this year.

It's probably going to be ruined now.

But if you miss the vote, you'll get it. Anyway, I haven't promised anything to the player before, and now the promotion of the Frozen Throne has not been released.

Even if it is released-

Isn’t it Bomi’s old tradition to delay tickets?

Cao Yang was not worried about this at all.

He thought for a while and said, "It's time to postpone it for half a year. I'll give you half a year, it should be almost the same."

"Um."

Liu Guangran nodded, with a gratified smile on his face.

The big stone in my heart finally fell to the ground, otherwise Boss Cao would really have to ask that this function be implemented by the end of the year, which would be a life-threatening death.

Boss Cao is worthy of knowing games and technology. It may be almost the same in half a year.

This network protocol has to change the original underlying code of war3 and also connect with the Aier game platform.

There are many details that need to be processed, such as if the Internet needs to be connected, how to deal with data interaction and how to deal with cross-regional areas.

However, the benefits are also obvious. As Cao Yang said, this thing is to globalize the game.

In the future, players who play war3 can go to foreign servers to fight with foreigners as long as the network speed allows.
To be continued...