As Hollywood's most high-profile rising star, Daenerys Entertainment's attempt to enter the video game scene has been the focus of much media attention from the beginning, and Blizzard Studios was specifically listed in Forbes magazine's September list of America's 400 richest people's list of Simon's personal assets. Shushu.com is the fastest updated

Blizzard Studios' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a pilot project that has been a rapid hit since its inception in 1984, has been named one of the most anticipated video games of the year by some magazines after announcing the game in February.

However, Blizzard Studios took eight months to develop an ARPG (Action Role Playing) version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, far exceeding the average of three to five months for video game development in this era.

When the outside world had all but forgotten about it, Nancy finally officially launched the promotion of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game in October.

Because of the miracles created in recent years, Daenerys Entertainment's projects almost naturally have an aura attribute that can attract the attention of the media and the public, which has created great convenience for the promotion of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.

With a large number of spontaneous media coverage, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game only relied on a comprehensive publicity budget of $1 million to create an effect that other game companies may not achieve with $5 million.

As of November 3rd, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is almost universally known in the gamer circle of the two major video game markets in Japan and the United States.

The New York Times commented that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were like 'Atari's Alien ET' to Blizzard Studios before the game hit the shelves.

The poor quality of "Alien ET" caused the famous 'Atari Collapse', but it still sold 1.5 million boxes of the best-selling level that year, which is due to the super popularity of the "Alien ET" movie that was a global hit.

As for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The New York Times concluded that the game, relying on the attention brought by Daenerys Entertainment's own fame, had little chance of failing commercially, and that the result was just a matter of making more money and making less money. However, if Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesn't get the approval of players, or even suffers from bad reviews like Alien ET, it will be very difficult for Daenerys Entertainment to gain a foothold in the video game space after this game.

Simon and Nancy actually understood the truth of The New York Times, or Blizzard Studios' first game wouldn't have been so demanding that it took eight months to polish.

Among the concerns of all parties, the ARPG version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game went on sale in both the United States and Japan on November 3.

The first batch of 100,000 cassettes will be sold for $60 in the U.S. and 7,000 yen in Japan. In order to achieve the maximum momentum, under Simon's roundabout contact through the Australian side, the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" game also landed on the cover of Nintendo's official game magazine "Nintendo Power".

In the next few days, along with the media discussion of Simon Westeros' Boeing 767 private car, game reviews of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles also came out.

"Nintendo Power" directly gave "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" a good score of 8 points on a 10-point scale, which of course has the public relations effect of Daenerys Entertainment, but Nintendo's official positive attitude towards this game is beyond doubt.

The ratings given by other professional gaming magazines are also basically excellent.

Of course, criticism is certainly indispensable.

The Japanese game magazine "Famitsu" accused "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" of imitating Nintendo's "Legend of Sedar 2" and Konami's "Legend of the Moon Wind Demon in many details".

"The Legend of Saidar 2" and "Legend of the Moon Wind Demon" are both side-scrolling ARPG games produced in previous years, and the first "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" also belongs to the side-scrolling ARPG.

In fact, after writing out the rough game plan based on the Konami version from memory, Simon did have the game design team try out several famous side-scrolling ARPGs such as "The Legend of Saidar 2" and "Legend of the Moonwind", but it was basically limited to references.

Even if the team at Blizzard Studios wanted to plagiarize directly, it was impossible for Nancy, who had been eyeing the project, to allow it. In addition, side-scrolling games have been flooded in recent years, and phenomenal games such as "Contra" and "Super Mario" are also side-scrolling, and the accusations of "Famitsu" are insignificant.

Game sales statistics are not as timely as movie box office, especially when the United States and Japan are released at the same time.

However, in the week from November 3 to November 9, the original first batch of 100,000 boxes of game cartridges was quickly sold out, and Daenerys Entertainment urgently increased the order for 200,000 boxes of cartridges to Nintendo.

On November 13, the sales of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" in the first week of release were officially released, with a total of 263,000 boxes sold in North America and Japan, with sales of $15.7 million.

Compared to the box office, the sales curve of video games is more like a music record, which has a strong vitality.

The 263,000 boxes sold in the first week of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, although it failed to break the record of sales of many games in the industry in the first four and half a million boxes, but it also stunned a large number of people. Because the games with the highest sales records in the past were basically the second and third generation sequels, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is the original work.

With 263,000 boxes in the first week, considering the excellent quality and reputation of this game, there is no problem with overall sales of four or five million in the next year. The total sales of the game is expected to be 5 million boxes, although it does not reach the tens of millions of Super Mario series, but it is definitely a phenomenon.

Game sales actually mean market recognition, and Daenerys Entertainment immediately invested in the second wave of large-scale promotion, and the attention was further increased, which inevitably drove the sales of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" game again.

Best-selling phenomenal video games usually have a long life cycle.

Therefore, the success of the game "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" alone will allow Blizzard Studios to eat for at least five years through the development of the next sequel, which undoubtedly means that Daenerys Entertainment has gained a firm foothold in the field of video games in one fell swoop.

Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters.

It's Wednesday, November 15th.

Inside the conference room.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game was a success, and Nancy began to think about Blizzard's next expansion plans.

"The $60 game cartridge is 50% more profitable than Capcom's own cassette makers with premium discounts, and our studio's gross profit margin is just over 30%. However, just this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, the first week of sales of 263,000 boxes has already allowed us to recoup all of Blizzard's investment in the past six months and achieve a net profit of $2 million, and the game is expected to have a net profit of $100 million in the next year. My next step is to expand into the PC gaming space. It's too slow to start from scratch, and now that I know something about the game industry, I want to be able to expand directly through acquisitions. ”

Before Simon could speak, Amy, who had done a lot of work recently, asked, "Nintendo's exclusivity is very strong, Nancy, how do you solve this problem?"

Nintendo can now almost be said to have unified the console game market, with more than 90% of the two major markets in Japan and the United States, and the company is therefore in its strongest period, even the six major manufacturers with the closest relationship with it have banned it, not to mention the second- and third-tier game production companies.

Nancy apparently thought about it as well, saying, "We can keep the PC games division running separately and not intersect with Blizzard studios. Moreover, we will not cooperate with Nintendo's competitors such as Sega and Atari, and after acquiring PC game manufacturers, we can also choose some excellent PC games to be ported to Nintendo's console platform, which can minimize Nintendo's hostility. ”

Amy apparently didn't think so, and turned to look at Simon.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were selling so well that she didn't feel the need to expand into PC games. The size of the PC game market in this era is still far from being comparable to that of console games, and if the expansion into the PC field angers Nintendo and causes Blizzard Studios to be targeted, it will be more than worth the loss.

Simon also doesn't think that the tyrannical Nintendo will let Daenerys Entertainment 'half-heartedly', but he also doesn't plan to tie Blizzard Studios to Nintendo's big ship, which has become a big ship that has fallen into decline, so he asks, "Do you have the right target?"

Nancy nodded, handed the two documents to Simon and Amy, and said, "Electronic Arts, a San Francisco-based video game company, was founded in 1982 to develop games for the Atari console. After the decline of Atari, EA began to focus on PC game development, and over the years it has accumulated a number of very best-selling sports game brands. ”

Simon looked at the information in his hand and had to admire the vision of his little child executive again.

Ahh

Despite its notoriety as a 'studio terminator,' EA is undoubtedly one of the largest game publishers in Simon's memory, with a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion at its peak.

Nancy noticed a flash of strangeness in Simon's expression, but just continued: "EA just had an IPO a month ago, and then it suffered the stock market crash on October 13th, and the company is currently only worth $170 million, which is 13 times the price-to-earnings ratio. If we had made a good faith offer and received a response, the performance in recent years has been very good, and it makes perfect sense to buy at a price-to-earnings ratio of less than 25 times. ”

Simon asked, "What if the offer for a good takeover doesn't get a response, or if another competitor suddenly appears?"

Nancy said: "That way, we can raise our chips by another $50 million." ”

"That's it, give you a budget of $350 million and take this company," Simon didn't drag his feet, looked at Amy again, and said, "You can discuss this matter yourself, and you can also find Jim to cooperate." Jenny and I are going to Europe over the weekend, and we will try to let go of the company as much as possible for a long time to come, so don't let me down. ”

Both Amy and Nancy already knew about Simon's plans, and they almost unanimously agreed that their boss couldn't afford to ignore the company's affairs for long.

It's hard to change your nature.

Therefore, there was no objection to Simon's plan to 'take a long vacation'.

After the meeting, Amy and Nancy went to get busy, and Simon also rushed to audition for the actor in "Ten Days of Danger".

The original "Ten Days of Danger" led James Kane and Kathy Bates respectively, and Kathy Bates also won the Oscar for Best Actress for this role.

However, Simon does not plan to use the original team this time.

Simon has seen the original film, and Casey Bates's performance is indeed not bad, but Simon thinks that the reason why the other party was able to get the actress is more because of the role and public relations.

It is well known that Oscar favored various psychopaths.

Because too many psychotic, homicidal, manic, and other 'patients' got the little golden man, Oscar was once ridiculed as a mental hospital.

At the same time, Casey Bates is also an artist under CAA, without Simon's appearance, CAA is definitely the strongest talent agency in Hollywood in recent years, which can be seen from the fact that CAA still won the second golden man for Dustin Hoffman under the sniping of Daenerys Entertainment at the beginning of this year.

It's just that, compared to the original version of Casey Bates's Annie Wilkes, who simply made the audience feel nervous and manic, Simon also hopes that the new version of the heroine can give the audience a strong sense of danger in taking on the role of an abused writer.

Obviously, this needs to be considered for appearance.

Based on his appearance, acting skills, and some unavoidable human considerations, Simon finally chose Susan Sarandon.

Susan Sarandon is 43 years old, the same age as Casey Bates, and also fits the general setting of the heroine of Stephen King's original book.

Moreover, Susan Sarandon was nominated for the first Oscar for Best Actress in 1981, and her acting skills are undoubted.

Although she is over 40 years old, Susan Sarandon is very well maintained, and in the "East Town Witch" two years ago, the actress's style is no less than Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher, and last year she co-starred with Kevin Costner in a very good box office sports-themed romance "Million Arm". Susan Sarandon is ten years older than Costner, but the two seem to be very compatible in the film, and there is no sense of age difference.

Speaking of which, Simon was deeply impressed by Susan Sarandon's participation in "The Legend of Yanwa".

Most people will only think that Brooke Roses is the core of "The Legend of the Baby", but Simon has no feeling for Brooke Shields's flat body in the film, but Susan Sarandon who plays Brooke Shields's mother is naked on the sofa and the scene is like a beautiful classical oil painting, which is endlessly evocative.

After receiving Simon's invitation, Susan Sarandon was a little hesitant to play a manic and perverted extreme book fan, but after thinking about it, she quickly agreed to play the role. The actress can also clearly see the breakthrough that this role may bring her.

As for the actor, Simon's requirements for this role are not too high, so it is inevitable that there will be a lot of favorites.