OBS Chapter 1208: The Shore of the Land
Chapter 1208: The Shore of the Land
After seeing the lawyer's letter, Zhou Haikuo and Ma Siyi were both very worried.
Qin Hao smiled.
"Don't worry about it. Shengqu doesn't have the copyright to Legend at all. They won't win even if they file a lawsuit."
The copyright of Legend is very confusing, otherwise there wouldn't be so many private servers existing all year round. The reason is that the original copyright of Legend is in the hands of the Korean game company Joymade, and later Joymade authorized it to Shanda through Asiasoft.
Later, because Legend was too popular in China, Wemade became jealous and wanted to increase its share of Legend. In a rage, Chen Tianqiao made a reverse acquisition and acquired 29% of Atos' shares, becoming the largest shareholder.
This also led to a lawsuit between Joymade and Shanda that lasted for more than ten years, and the copyright of Legend became a bad debt. Joymade continued to own the copyright of Legend internationally, and Shanda not only continued to operate Legend in China, but also developed the Legend world based on it.
"Post this lawyer's letter on the forum and ask the Internet trolls to stir up the hype."
Ma Siyi and Zhou Haikuo were completely confused by Qin Hao's actions. According to normal operations, shouldn't being accused of infringement be handled in a low-key manner?
"Why should we keep a low profile? Don't you think that Shengqu's lawyer's letter is actually helping us with publicity?"
Zhou Haikuo opened his mouth and finally gave a thumbs up. He could only describe Qin Hao's business acumen as admiration.
Ma Siyi also didn't say anything, but just raised his chin and looked up at Qin Hao.
Just as Qin Hao expected, when Shanda's lawyer's letter appeared on major game forums, it immediately attracted the attention of many Legend players. After some understanding, they discovered that there was a web game that did not require downloading a client, could be played offline, and had more gorgeous graphics and skills than the original Legend.
rush rush! ! !
After experiencing it, many old Legend players gave up private servers and resolutely devoted themselves to the embrace of "AFK Legend". Some even directly gave up their official Legend World accounts.
On the one hand, "AFK Legend" is not only convenient, but also suitable for the work and rest time of office workers. On the other hand, the official Shanda is not a human being. Legend World has become a meaningless game of krypton gold and stacking numbers.
On the contrary, although "AFK Legend" is also a free game and has many in-game currency points, the official will give out a lot of recharge items, which can allow zero-paying and micro-paying players to keep up with the progress, which makes many old Legend players feel very familiar.
There are even many old Legend players who are spontaneously promoting "AFK Legend" on the game forums, saying that "AFK Legend" makes them find the flavor of the "old Legend" back then.
Qin Hao's actions really pissed off Shanda. At a high-level meeting, the head of the legal department slammed the table and shouted, "Haoyi Games must pay the price! This is a naked provocation!"
Soon, Shengqu officially filed a lawsuit in court, accusing Haoyi Games of infringing on Legend's copyright, demanding huge compensation and removing the game from the shelves.
However, Qin Hao was well prepared. The lawyer team he hired seized the core loophole of the confusion in the ownership of Legend's copyright, submitted the evidence of the licensing dispute between Joymade and Asiasoft in the first instance, and emphasized that Shengqu was not the only holder of Legend's copyright.
The court ultimately ruled that since the copyright dispute had not yet reached a clear conclusion, Haoyi Games did not constitute infringement for the time being and rejected Shanda’s application for an injunction.
This result caught Shengqu off guard, and Qin Hao took advantage of the situation to announce on social media: "Idle Legend will continue to provide players with a pure and exciting experience!"
Public opinion exploded. Old Legend players were already dissatisfied with Shengqu's krypton gold strategy, and now seeing Haoyi Games "hard fight" Shengqu, they flocked to "Idle Legend" to see what kind of game made Shengqu lose.
For a time, the number of game registrations skyrocketed during the lawsuit, and the server even crashed due to traffic overload.
Qin Hao held a meeting overnight and asked the customer service staff to appease the players.
At ten o'clock that evening, the official apology statement of "AFK Legend" was released.
"Thank you brothers for your trust! We have urgently expanded the capacity and all players will be compensated with 1,000 bound gold coins."
According to the recharge ratio of "AFK Legend", one thousand bound gold coins are equivalent to one hundred RMB. Although for rich players, these one thousand gold coins are not worth mentioning at all, but for many zero-氪 or micro-氪 players, it is simply a fortune. It also quickly calmed the anger of players who were originally very unhappy about the server downtime.
In February 2009, the number of registered players of "Idle Legend" exceeded 2 million, and the monthly turnover soared to 500 million yuan.
The media rushed to report on this "hot product created by the lawsuit", and one analyst even said: "Haoyi Games turned legal risks into marketing dividends, a textbook example of crisis public relations."
The sudden popularity of "Idle Legend" also made the previously unknown "Haoyi Game" gain a lot of capital favor. Every day, many investment institutions called Qin Hao.
In response to this, Qin Hao gave an equal reply: "Haoyi Games" currently has no financing needs, and will contact you as soon as possible when there is a need.
Zhou Haikuo looked at the emails sent by major investment institutions in disbelief: "Haozi, I remember that this company was established less than a year ago? Now the valuation is 1 billion RMB?"
Qin Hao smiled and said, "For a game company with a monthly turnover of more than 100 million RMB, a valuation of 1 billion is simply a joke."
Zhou Haikuo felt like his worldview had been overturned. That was 10 billion RMB. He couldn't even dream of how much money that was.
Ma Siyi suddenly smiled, and Qin Hao and Zhou Haikuo looked at her in confusion.
"It suddenly occurred to me that if Xie Wanghe knew about this, I'd guess how many zeros would be left behind the billions he has."
The three of them smiled knowingly, and the scenes in the courtyard on Huajie Street emerged in their minds one after another.
"By the way, Haozi, you don't have time to go home for the New Year this year, so Aunt Liang asked me to bring you something."
Qin Hao took the snakeskin bag. It was filled with all kinds of food and clothes. They were worried that he would have nothing to eat or drink here.
After calling Liang Guixiang to report that she was safe, Qin Hao called all employees to a meeting in the conference room.
Since it is a start-up company, there are not many managers and they are basically just doing the work. The tasks of each department are directly assigned by Qin Hao.
"The next focus of the Human Resources Department is recruitment. On the premise that the current 'Idle Legend' project team has sufficient follow-up development capabilities, we will recruit another game development team..."
When they heard that a new game development team was being recruited, everyone in the conference room looked happy, as this meant that the company's performance was good and it was about to expand.
As the first batch of employees in the company, they have a greater chance of getting promoted and getting a salary increase.
"Manager Zhou, you will lead the new team. Luo Ji will be the leader of the 'Idle Legend' project team and continue to lead the subsequent development."
Hearing this, everyone couldn't help but cast envious glances at Zhou Haikuo, but even Zhou Haikuo's two classmates did not feel jealous. After all, the entire company knew that Qin Hao and Zhou Haikuo had been childhood friends, and he was the boss's confidant, so they didn't have time to curry favor with him.
After the meeting, Zhou Haikuo followed Qin Hao back to the office.
"Haozi, do you have any idea about the new game project? Can you tell me what kind of game it is? Is it a PC game or a web game?"
Qin Hao patted his shoulder and said soothingly, "Don't be anxious. I know you want to make a PC game, but with our current technical capabilities and the market, the success rate of making a PC game is still too low."
“Although Idle Legend is popular, no one knows how long it will last. This second game is very important to the company, so it is better to be more stable.”
After hearing what Qin Hao said, Zhou Haikuo couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.
There is also a chain of contempt in the gaming circle. PC games are technically difficult and have good presentation effects, so those who make PC games generally look down on those who make web games. As a technology geek, Zhou Haikuo naturally wants to prove his strength.
"Don't worry, we will make the PC game sooner or later, but not now." Qin Hao comforted.
Zhou Haikuo nodded: "Haozi, I understand what you mean."
The two smiled at each other. They had a tacit understanding that they had grown up with, and they didn't need too many words; just a glance was enough to understand.
"I plan to make a Three Kingdoms-style SLG web game."
Strategy Game means a strategy game. The reason why the Three Kingdoms was chosen as the background is, on the one hand, due to the existence of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Three Kingdoms theme has a very high recognition among the domestic player group, and it is also very consistent with the strategy game type.
Zhou Haikuo frowned: "Strategy game? Will this theme be..."
"You mean it's hard to be popular?"
Qin Hao smiled playfully. Before this, there were quite a few hit single-player strategy games, but among the online games, there was only one Romance of the Three Kingdoms OL that performed well, but it did not become a huge hit.
Perhaps even Zhou Haikuo himself did not realize that the success of "Idle Legend" has raised his requirements for the game's commercial performance by several dimensions.
“Just because there wasn’t one before doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future. The market demand for strategy games has always been there, but there hasn’t been a good enough game to unleash its potential. What we need to do now is to make a game that will make all the players who like strategy games scream.”
Zhou Haikuo's eyes lit up when he heard that. Yes, if we are going to do it, we should make a groundbreaking game. That would be challenging.
Strike while the iron is hot. Qin Hao tapped the table with his fingers: "What we are going to do is a real sandbox war - players are born on a huge map, and every state, city, and level can be contested. There is no fixed plot line, and all developments depend on the players' decisions."
"Ah?" Zhou Haikuo's eyes widened. "Doesn't that mean we need to synchronize the large map in real time? Can the server handle it?"
"Divided into servers and lines, using dynamic loading technology." Qin Hao said seriously, "Each server is limited to 3000 people, and the map is divided into 'Thirteen States'. Players start from a small piece of land, pave the way and expand the territory, and even the land must be conquered inch by inch."
Zhou Haikuo seemed to be thinking: "It sounds like playing chess... But the most feared thing about strategy games is 'crushing by big guys'. How can ordinary players survive?"
"Seasonal system." Qin Hao held up three fingers. "The map will be reset every three months, and all players will be back to the same starting line. No matter how strong the local tyrants were last season, they have to start from scratch in the new season. And -" he deliberately dragged out his tone, "we will add an alliance mechanism, so small players can also overthrow the big guys by banding together."
"Alliance? Isn't it just a guild in a new skin?" Zhou Haikuo curled his lips.
"No, it's decentralization." Qin Hao took out a sketch. "The alliance can establish a country, grant official positions, and even issue currency! The leader can command the entire alliance to attack the checkpoint at night, but members can also vote to impeach him. We want players to feel that they are not playing a game, but participating in history."
Zhou Haikuo suddenly sat up straight: "Wait, you just said 'night attack'? Are you going to have a 24-hour online confrontation?"
"Real-time marching." Qin Hao's eyes were burning. "It takes two hours to send troops to attack the next city. Players can log off and wait for the result, but the enemy may also intercept during this period. We also need to design a beacon tower system. Allies that are attacked in the middle of the night will receive text message alerts - this is called war immersion!"
Zhou Haikuo gasped: "Isn't this gameplay too hardcore? What about casual players?"
"So we need an internal affairs system." Qin Hao flipped to another page of the plan. "Farmers can specialize in storing food and forging equipment, and sell them to players who are fighting. We can even set up a 'Three Kingdoms Black Market' so that merchants who resell resources can also influence the war situation."
Seeing Zhou Haikuo still hesitating, Qin Hao finally threw out a trump card: "Remember the bound gold in 'Idle Legend'? All paid props in the new game can be obtained by playing for a long time. The rich can only buy skins and speed-up coupons - but there is a limit to speed-up. No matter how much money you spend, you can't catch up with the accumulation of ordinary people in three months."
"This will certainly help retain a lot of zero-paying and low-paying players, but won't the wealthy players feel less pleasure?"
"Strategy games are all about the thrill of planning and strategizing. It's not like ZT, where one person takes on the entire server. What's the point? We can design some benefits for the rich players that don't affect the balance of the game. For example, when the rich players spend money, allied players can grab red envelopes. A red envelope will randomly contain a certain amount of gold. In this way, ordinary players will naturally want to cling to the rich players."
Zhou Haikuo slapped his thigh excitedly and looked at Qin Hao with emotion. He had a perfect grasp of the players' psychology.
Busy times always pass quickly. Half a year passed in the blink of an eye. According to the design concept proposed by Qin Hao, this strategy web game successfully passed the internal test and received unanimous praise internally.
"Haozi, this game hasn't been named yet." Zhou Haikuo reminded.
"Let's call it Rate of Land."
"This is a good name. All land under heaven belongs to the king. All the people in the world are the king's subjects. It sounds very meaningful."
Half a month later, Rate of War officially started its internal testing. What Zhou Haikuo didn't expect was that the internal testing activation code alone was sold for 500 RMB by players, and it was still hard to get one.
After a one-month internal test, the official forum of RateTaiZhiBin became extremely lively.
Countless investment institutions are also keeping a close eye on this game. After all, the explosion of one game can be considered a coincidence, but the fact that two games in a row can become popular is enough to show the strength of this game company. Conversely, it will naturally affect the valuation of "Haoyi Games". (End of this chapter)