After Blue Hole Game Company was acquired by Zhonghe Group, some of its employees entered China, and together with Chinese employees poached from game companies such as Penguin and NetEase, they jointly established PUBG Studio.
In addition to continuing to operate domestic and overseas mobile games and client games of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, it also undertakes the task of continuing to develop FPS and TPS games.
The employees who stayed in South Korea continued to use the name of Bluehole and named it Bluehole Studio. The research direction is MM games. In China, it is called "massively multiplayer online role-playing game", which is like League of Legends. There are many game professions.
Players can choose any one.
The first core employees of Blue Hole Studio are all from NCSoft, the largest game company in South Korea, the same company that has produced large-scale MM online games such as "Lineage" and "Blade and Soul".
And before PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, we also developed a game called "Oracle of War", and we still have deep research and development accumulation in the field of MM.
After the successful launch of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, they were not idle and devoted their main energy to the research and development of a game called "A:IR".
In fact, the project of this game is still ahead of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but the development difficulty is really not small, and Zhang Yida wants them to allocate their main energy to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
So the project has been delayed, hurrying and rushing, and finally started testing this month.
The background of the game is based on the steampunk worldview, where mechanical civilization and magic coexist. Wars mainly occur in the sky of a broken planet and in empty cities suspended in the sky.
There are five professions: gunner, warrior, witch, assassin, and elementalist. Since most of the battles take place in the sky, it makes sense to call it an aerial combat game.
As the owner of a game company, it doesn’t make sense that I don’t experience the game myself.
Zhang Yida chose a gunner character, piloted a spaceship, controlled a machine gun, and experienced ground and air attacks.
The graphics of the game are still very exquisite. When the cannonballs were fired, they landed on the ground and in the air and splashed out clouds of explosive flames. Zhang Yida said that he was very satisfied.
After playing for five or six hours in the office, Zhang Yida stopped playing the game with enough content to upgrade the game character to level 30.
I made a call to Jin Changhan, the head of Blue Hole Studio, and praised: "The game is doing well. I have played it for a few hours and it seems to be quite fun. How long will it take for it to be officially launched?"
Jin Changhan was very happy to receive personal praise from Zhang Yida.
After Blue Hole Company merged into Zhonghe Games, he only served as the general manager of Blue Hole Studio, which has been greatly weakened. He also served as the vice president of Zhonghe Games, which was considered a virtual position.
In the transaction of selling the Blue Hole for US$250 million, he also received US$50 million, which was regarded as financial freedom.
He also thought about leaving his job and starting a new business, but after thinking about it carefully, he gave up the idea.
When people reach middle age, they have a family and a family, and they no longer have the impulsiveness they had when they were young.
Blue Hole had gone bankrupt once before, and he didn't want to go through it a second time.
In addition, Zhang Yida also thinks highly of him. Not only did he allocate part of the operating profits of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds to him to develop "A:IR", he also received options from Zhonghe Group, and his annual salary is not low.
I have concerns about starting a business after leaving my job, and finding a job might not be as good as it is now.
Zhang Yida is far away in China and rarely gets involved in game research and development. With the support of Zhonghe Group, a powerful parent group, there is no shortage of research and development funds. He feels quite comfortable.
He doesn't have many ideas now, he just wants to continue the miracle of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and build Blue Hole into a world-renowned game studio.
When Zhang Yida asked about the launch time of the game, Jin Changhan smiled bitterly and said, "Only 70% of the research and development work has been completed. The server will be tested later. The official launch will be at least by the end of 2018."
There was still more than half a year until the end of the year. Zhang Yida frowned slightly and soon relaxed again.
"Okay, don't be in a hurry. I'd rather go online later than do something shoddy and ruin the company's reputation and reputation."
Jin Changhan nodded in agreement and said he would do his best to complete this work.
There is only one hit game in the gaming field, which is considered a huge instability factor in the capital market.
Making a good game may be because you are lucky, but it does not mean you are necessarily strong.
Moreover, after PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ceased to be popular, there was a lack of a game to support performance, which was quite detrimental to the valuation.
Zhang Yida didn't push the employees in the game sector too much. After all, it's hard to come up with hit products, so you can't just say you have them.
He established multiple game studios and recruited a large number of industry elites, just to lay the foundation for the small workshop Blue Hole.
The stronger the company's foundation, the greater the probability of producing a hit work.
Zhang Yida called Zhang Lan to the office and asked about the development progress of the Ohayoo platform.
Zhang Lan said: "The research and development work has basically been completed. It's just that in the early stage, because we were not well-known in the field of game publishing, we couldn't attract enough game developers.
What I mean is to represent a few casual and entertainment games first, and then wait for the market reputation to build up, and then launch our Ohayoo casual and entertainment game distribution platform."
That’s right, Zhang Yida plans to grab 4399’s business and make platforms such as DouShi, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and Rocket Video become promotion sites for casual games.
With the help of algorithm mechanism, Zhonghe can easily find game enthusiasts and push small games to them.
After each game is launched, Zhonghe will take a share of the revenue, which can be regarded as a kind of traffic monetization.
Three and a half Internet business monetization models, except for the Internet finance half, other advertising, e-commerce, and games have all been monetized on the short video platform.
After the merger of Ruixiang and Zhonghe, the data of both parties will be connected, and the half of Internet finance can basically be implemented.
"Okay, just do what you want!"
Zhang Yida smiled and said, "I don't know which small game companies can be the lucky ones, but don't choke them."
Zhang Lan doesn't think this is an exaggeration. Based on the number of players of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, we can calculate the proportion of gamers in Zhonghe Group's user base.
Even if only one out of ten can be transformed, that's still tens of millions of gamers.
This achievement can definitely make small game companies leap over the dragon's gate and turn ugly ducklings into swans.
"Mr. Zhang, in terms of traffic, it may be necessary to mobilize all the resources of the group to promote the first batch of cooperative games, and there may be some waste in the process."
Zhang Yida waved his hand, "What a waste? It's not a waste. We must set a few examples.
In this way, when the developers in the game industry see the first person who tries to take advantage of the situation and joins the Zhonghe Group, they all switch their guns to others, and their mouths are full of food. Only then can a herd effect be created."
Zhang Lan nodded. The truth was very simple and straightforward, and she understood it as soon as she heard it.
"By the way, that foreign game called "Fortnite" has eroded a lot of our market. We have to take some countermeasures quickly, otherwise all the players will disappear."
Zhang Yida knew about this game. The game screen is in the style of American comics. It is similar to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and also has a battle royale mode.
But this game is a little more interesting. You can use the collected materials to build walls, stairs, etc., transform the terrain, form a defensive front, or achieve more tactical goals.
The style may not be liked by most domestic players, but there are still quite a few people who like it abroad.
Fortunately, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds doesn't have as many cheats as it did in the previous life, and it wasn't directly destroyed by Fortnite.
The two sides are evenly matched, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds even has a slight upper hand.
"So what do you think we should do?"
Zhang Lan thought for a moment and replied: "It is unrealistic to make a follow-up game. Let's not say whether it will be popular or not. There will be no time.
I think we still have to focus on PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, build this game well, try to keep players active, and extend the life of the game.
In terms of competitions, it would be great if we could set up a league like football, divided into China, South Korea, Asia, Europe, America and other competition regions.
Then bring the top players from each division together to play a Champions League game."
Zhang Yida rubbed his forehead. This matter seemed quite big, but it was actually not difficult. The key was money.
As long as the prize money is enough, it will naturally attract enough e-sports clubs to join and turn this event into a long-term league.
"There is no problem with the funds. You can contact various well-known e-sports clubs at home and abroad to discuss it with them and come up with a charter."
Zhang Lan smiled and said, "Mr. Zhang, don't worry. Your lavish spending last time won praises from all the e-sports clubs. They are also looking forward to the next round of competitions launched by Zhonghe Games."
Zhang Yida nodded, remembered something, and added: "Let the strategic investment department select 2-3 relatively outstanding VR companies for investment. VR games are very interesting and are likely to usher in big development in the future."
Zhang Lan nodded. Although VR games are not mainstream at present, as long as the technology develops greatly and the hardware cost drops, there is still a chance to become a mainstream game.
Companies such as Google, Samsung, and Sony have all entered this field one after another and launched their own wearable devices such as virtual reality glasses and helmets.
But there are still many problems, such as: you will get dizzy after playing for a long time, there is still a lot of room for improvement in screen pixels and image refresh rate, etc.
The most important thing is for game developers to produce high-quality games that are also compatible with virtual reality devices.
She is also looking forward to the emergence of epoch-making black technology, where players can wear virtual reality devices and feel as if they are in a different dimension.
When that time comes, video games that originally existed in two-dimensional space will be completely abandoned.
Game modes that rely solely on keyboard or controller operation will become a thing of the past forever, replaced by a comprehensive gaming experience that can mobilize the five senses.
Three-dimensional games will become mainstream, and the entire game industry will be completely reshuffled.
That’s why gaming giants like Sony are vying to establish themselves in this industry because they don’t want to be abandoned by the times.
As a person who loves to play games, even if she is a woman, she couldn't help but ask: "Mr. Zhang, after the merger with Ruixiang is completed, can we also set up a VR laboratory? Let's research VR-related games.
."
Zhang Yida nodded, "Yes, but this is definitely an arduous task that requires long-term investment and will not be rewarded in a short period of time."
Zhang Lan smiled and said, "Be prepared for a rainy day. Penguin has "Shadow Hunt" and NetEase has "Homeland". We also need products that play cards."
Zhang Yida has learned about these two games and has to go to an offline VR experience store to play them.
Users just get a taste of it, and generally only enthusiasts are willing to buy these flashy products.
For most people, just go to an offline VR experience center to play.
As for NetEase and Penguin, they are losing money and making money, but they are still exploring the future and technological progress.