Mike was on a plane from San Francisco to the capital, a flight at two o'clock in the afternoon.

After Zhou Fangyuan returned to the capital, he did not rush back to the studio, but after eating casually, he took a taxi to the Beijing airport.

After waiting at the airport for more than half a year, the plane from San Francisco landed steadily, and then at the exit, Zhou Fangyuan finally saw Mike again.

"Wow, boss, you actually took the initiative to pick me up? Actually, you just need to send someone over. ”

As soon as Mike walked out of the station, he came up and gave Zhou Fangyuan a bear hug.

"Don't think about it, I didn't mean to pick you up, I happened to be in the capital today, so I'll pick you up by the way. ”

Zhou Fangyuan pursed his lips and said.

"Haha, I know I know, boss, let's find a place to eat, the food on the plane tastes so bad, I've been hungry. ”

Mike said with a smile.

"Let's go, I'll take you to eat authentic Beijing roast duck. ”

Zhou Fangyuan nodded and led Mike outside.

Outside the airport, they hailed a taxi and walked towards the city in a puff of smoke.

Mike was not idle on the way, he took out a stack of documents from the briefcase he carried with him and began to show them to Zhou Fangyuan. It's a document, but it's actually more like a report, and this report is mainly the sales curve of "Plants vs. Zombies" since its release.

It can be seen that the sales of "Plants" are very strong, the sales data of "Plants" has increased at an explosive rate in the first few days, and it has continued to improve, and it has reached its peak within a month, but after a month, the sales data of "Plants" began to decline rapidly, and in just a few days, it fell to an unbelievable level.

"We analyzed that it should be impossible for the sales data of this game to be re-improved, after all, its previous sales were already very high, and as a small game, it has exceeded many people's imagination to have such sales. Although this game is excellent, in the end, the depth of the game is still too shallow, the playability is limited, and the structure of the game content is not grand enough, so the life of this game should not be too long. ”

Mike deserves to start out as a gamer, and his analysis of this game is on point.

When the last "Plant" was just released, it also caused a wave of waves around the world, bringing a full profit of 200 million yuan to the development company in a short period of time. But it didn't take long for the game's player base to drop dramatically, as it's just a casual little game, and certainly can't compare to the classics.

And the second and third generations are even worse, the sales are far less terrifying than the first generation, and it can be said that the lifespan of this game is only maintained in the first generation. Those months, to be exact.

However, in this life, Zhou Fangyuan has provided a lot of new ways to play this game, and if nothing else, the lifespan of this game will be higher than that of the previous life. But that's all, a mini-game is a mini-game, although the audience is very wide, but limited by the scale and theme of the game, the content of the game will not be too much, and the depth is definitely not enough.

Of course, Zhou Fangyuan was not prepared to rely on this game from the beginning, and his original intention was just to promote his own game company and make a wave of quick money by the way. Now that the goal has been achieved, the mission of this game has been completed, as for the second generation, the third generation or even more generations, it depends on the specific situation, but according to his ideas, he is not ready to produce a second generation. Of course, this is not absolute, and it depends on the specific situation.

After talking about the situation of "Plants", Mike gave a brief explanation of the situation inside Blizzard.

Within Blizzard, the situation of various game project teams is not bad, and the number of sales of Diablo in China has been increasing, and it has become the most popular game in Blizzard at the moment. Second only to Dark, is Blizzard's classic real-time strategy game StarCraft, because there are not too many fast food games on the Internet at this time, and it is not too long for netizens to cancel computer games, so all kinds of games can be liked by players. Among them, StarCraft is definitely a monster, with a very large player base around the world.

"How is Warcraft III being developed now?"

Zhou Fangyuan asked suddenly.

"I was about to say...... The development progress of Warcraft III is very good, boss, the suggestions you provide we have gone through the routine, and we also think that these suggestions can greatly improve the playability of the game, and the main development work has been completed, and now the follow-up production is underway, as well as preliminary testing. ”

Mike said.

"When will that be done, or when will I see the game on the market?"

This is what Zhou Fangyuan is most concerned about.

"At the end of this year at the earliest, or the beginning of next year, boss, it's not that we don't work hard, but the game development is really not that simple, especially since we add a lot of new elements in Warcraft III, these elements have never been done before, and we must take into account any links that may go wrong, so this is already the fastest speed. ”

Mike said.

There was no guilt on his face, but a look of course. He really likes games, he likes to play games, he likes to make games, and he likes to make interesting games for others, so everything else is negotiable, but in terms of making games, this is absolutely non-negotiable, and he must make games at his own pace. Under Zhou Fangyuan's "interference", he has advanced the estimated release time of Warcraft III by half a year, which is already the biggest margin, and let him speed up, not to mention whether he can do it, even if he can do it, he will definitely not agree.

Because acceleration means roughness, it means that the game may have all kinds of bugs, and it means that the game may not be as fun as imagined, which is absolutely unacceptable to Mike.

Zhou Fangyuan could understand Mike's thoughts, he nodded, "You don't need to say it, I understand your thoughts, so I will follow your ideas." But I have to say, set a good time, let's obediently follow the time, but don't jump the ticket casually, when the time comes, I will mobilize other companies to carry out propaganda on the mainland, if you drop the chain for me, you will have to fill this hole, understand?"

"Understand, you can rest assured of this, boss. ”

Mike said to himself.

If only I could rest assured!

Zhou Fangyuan said.

Blizzard's biggest and most well-known two characteristics in the last life, the first is that Blizzard's games are indeed very good, and the phrase "Blizzard must be a high-quality product" is definitely not just talking, look at the games they make. Dark, Interstellar, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, including Hearthstone and Overwatch launched later are also boutiques.

Especially the latter two, they did not become popular, and it can only be said that Blizzard failed to grasp the biggest demand point of players in the later stage. But this can't be said that Hearthstone and Overwatch can't work, in fact, in the mainland, Hearthstone and Overwatch players are really small, but in Europe and the United States, Hearthstone and Overwatch are still very popular.

The second major feature of Blizzard is the widely criticized "bounce ticket" style.

Looking at Blizzard's bounce style, it probably started from Diablo 1 in 96, and then Diablo 2, which was scheduled to be listed in December 99, was delayed to be listed in early 2000, and Diablo 3 announced the project in 08. I vaguely remember that Diablo 3 released in 08 had 4 classes to try out, but it was released in May 12, 4 years later.

In addition, the Warcraft series is also a continuous jump, scheduled for the internal testing of World of Warcraft in South Korea in 03 postponed to 04, the release date of World of Warcraft in North America at the beginning of 04 was postponed to the end of the year, the update time of the new version of World of Warcraft 1.12 in August 06 is expected to be postponed to September, and the test of the burning expedition version of 06 is postponed to 07.

The same is true for Interstellar 2, the trailer was released in 07, but it was delayed until 09 and it was still not released, and it was not released until 10 years.

You can understand that Blizzard wants to make the game as perfect as possible, so it keeps delaying the release time and constantly making changes to the game. But management is also a big problem, for example, there is a question on Quora about the internal work of Blizzard, and the number one answer believes that the chaos of Blizzard's management is the cause of the bounce. The game's code was constantly being rewritten, and as a result, the release date was delayed.

Overall, Blizzard's games are excellent, so players can tolerate them again and again. But times are always changing, with the increasing number of fast food games in the game market, the rapid prevalence of fast food game culture, as soon as a game masterpiece is launched, as long as the sales performance is good, there are countless followers flocking to it, and in just a short period of time, all the potential of a category of games can be released.

Although game companies have made money in this way, it is not a good phenomenon for the game market. And for a company like Blizzard that strives to create high-quality games, it is even more devastating. Because you can't tell how your players' tastes will change in just half a year or a year. It may be possible that the game that was popular half the sky half a year ago will go bankrupt and go bankrupt half a year later.

If Blizzard can press the chips every time, then that's fine, but the problem is that no one can make such a guarantee, as long as one step is wrong, for example, when the League of Legends was on fire in later generations, Blizzard failed to keep up quickly, and as a result, the follow-up Heroes of the Storm has been tepid in China. The work of conscience watched PG, but also failed to become popular in the country because of the unsuitability of the water and soil.

So Zhou Fangyuan told Mike before that his requirements for Blizzard are very simple, it is of course good to make games and be meticulous, but there is one thing, if you promise a good release time, you must keep your promise and don't jump tickets easily. It's best not to change the project from the very beginning. In the previous life, Blizzard was limited by its size and didn't dare to take risks easily, but it doesn't matter in this life, with Zhou Fangyuan here, he will transfuse blood for Blizzard, and he just wants Blizzard to stick to it and bring more good games to players, instead of gradually starting to decline because of the market, itself and other reasons.

chatting all the way, about an hour, the taxi stopped steadily at the door of the hotel, Zhou Fangyuan took Mike into the most famous roast duck restaurant in Beijing, ready to invite him to eat the internationally famous Beijing roast duck.