Brother Xiao Ma was left behind by Song Weiyang, and not only that, but Song Weiyang also summoned Ding Sanshi, Zhang Chaoyang and Rebus.

Several people sat in the No. 3 store of Time Cafe, and Song Weiyang went straight to the point and said: "The agency of World of Warcraft must be won, this game is definitely profitable, and it may even be more profitable than "Legend". Moreover, online games in Europe and the United States do not have as many low-level bugs as in South Korea, and they are more smoothly proxied. ”

"Why doesn't Excalibur Network get involved in the proxy battle?" Rebus curious.

Song Weiyang said: "Excalibur Network is developing the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and it is going to fight with "World of Warcraft" in the future, so you can't snatch "Warcraft" over and play left and right, right? ”

Brother Xiao Ma said: "In fact, I am also very optimistic about Warcraft. I also personally attended the World of Warcraft Singapore symposium at the end of February, and successfully passed the inspection of Vivendi, and now there are only five qualified agents left: Nine Cities, Guangtong, Tencent, Ogilvy and Ubisoft (Shenghai). But I'm going to give up the agency competition because the asking price is too high!"

"How tall?" Zhang Chaoyang asked.

Xiao Ma said: "The signing fee will be millions of dollars, and the later copyright fee will be paid quarterly, at least a few million dollars per month." Moreover, I estimate that the development funds of "World of Warcraft" are not enough, and we actually asked our agents to pay a one-time upfront R&D investment and pre-promotion costs, which are at least more than 20 million US dollars. In other words, regardless of the later copyright fees, the money given at the time of signing the contract is almost close to 30 million US dollars, which is more than 200 million yuan when converted into RMB. ”

"It's too expensive, isn't it?" Ding Sanshi exclaimed.

Song Weiyang shook his head and said: "It's definitely not a one-time payment, otherwise which agency in China can afford it?"

In fact, Pony expected it well, and World of Warcraft was indeed tight on development funds.

So as early as September 2001, Blizzard released the news of "World of Warcraft" in advance, and began to look for agents, trying to earn some signing fees to fill the funding gap. Then, at the end of 2002, Blizzard came to China to do publicity, and at that time it attracted hundreds of Chinese companies, many of which were even temporarily registered, without even a specific office location.

THE CHINESE COMPANIES VYING FOR THE RIGHT TO REPRESENT WORLD OF WARCRAFT ARE SO MIXED THAT BLIZZARD HAS TO PUT FORWARD HARD REQUIREMENTS: FIRST, THERE MUST BE AN INDEPENDENT CARRIER-CLASS COMPUTER ROOM WITH DIRECT BACKBONE NETWORK LINES, SECOND, NO SERVERS FOR OTHER GAMES OR SERVICES CAN BE PLACED IN THE COMPUTER ROOM, AND THIRD, EACH GROUP OF SERVERS CONSISTS OF 3 GAME SERVERS AND 1 NA SERVER. In China, 25 sets of servers are planned, each of which supports 6,000 people online, ensuring an average of 70% of the server's online load......

There are a lot of requirements, and even the CPU level of the server is limited, which leads to a large number of competitors automatically quitting.

It's too harsh!

Spending so much money to build such a high-end computer room, what if you can't get the agency? Even if you win the agency, who knows when "World of Warcraft" will be launched? Historically, even Shanda, which has deep pockets, has chosen to withdraw because of these harsh conditions--Of course, the reasons for Shanda's withdrawal are complicated, and it's not just because of this.

By mid-February this year, there were about 10 competitors left, and at the end of February, only 5 remained.

Just a few days ago, the vice president of Blizzard and the manager of Prestige China came to Shenghai to personally screen these five Chinese companies.

Zhang Chaoyang suddenly said: "If "World of Warcraft" can really make a lot of money as the boss said, then Sohu can participate in the competition, and the "Knight OL" that Sohu is now acting for is a bit unsatisfactory. ”

Ding Sanshi shook his head and said: "NetEase has already operated two online games, and is developing a third one, so it doesn't have so much energy and financial resources to act as an agent for new products for the time being." ”

Rebus also said: "Jinshan is working hard to develop "Swordsman Love OL", and there is no extra spare money at all. ”

Zhang Chaoyang said with a smile: "Since this is the case, then Sohu should be the best." ”

Xiao Ma suddenly reminded: "According to my contact with the manager of Weiwangdi China, Weiwangdi plans to extort money, and whoever gets the agency will bleed heavily." ”

"Knocking on bamboo?" Zhang Chaoyang was a little puzzled.

Brother Xiao Ma nodded and said, "It's ripping bamboo." Because Chinese game companies are so enthusiastic about World of Warcraft, nearly 100 companies are vying for it, what would you think if you were a seller?"

"Sit on the ground and start up!" Rebus said.

"It's not just as simple as sitting on the ground and starting the price," Xiao Ma said with a wry smile, "In the process of several negotiations, Wei Wangdi's attitude has changed significantly. At the beginning, he said some substantive content, but then he didn't say anything, didn't mention any requirements, and only said which companies he wanted to continue to investigate. Today's inspection of this and tomorrow's inspection of that one forced us to keep raising prices. At the end of last year, Tencent gave a signing fee of US$1 million and promised to invest US$2 million in pre-development expenses, both of which were listed as key manufacturers. By the beginning of this year, Tencent had to raise the signing fee to $2 million, and other fees were also greatly increased, but Mr. Prestige's attitude became more and more ambiguous. ”

Ding Sanshi said with a smile: "This is to treat Chinese agents as Kaizi." ”

Brother Xiao Ma said: "That's why I said that if I want to win the agency of "Warcraft", aside from the follow-up copyright fees, other funds will cost at least 200 million yuan." And everyone look at it, Weiwangdi will hang our Chinese manufacturers for a few months, not negotiating but only inspecting, forcing Chinese companies to give a sky-high price. ”

And Wei Wangdi's approach is even more shameless than what Brother Xiao Ma said!

The agency fee quoted by Chinese manufacturers is getting higher and higher, and Wei Wangdi still thinks that he can squeeze oil and water again, and he wants to marry one daughter and two sales, and divide China into two major regions, north and south, and hand it over to two different companies to act as agents. After this plan was proposed, it aroused strong opposition from Chinese companies, and none of them were willing to take over.

Wei Wangdi had no choice but to come up with a second set of plans, separating the technical support of the game from the operation of the market. The technical support platform will be handed over to operators who are good at technology, and then the market operation will be handed over to operators who are good at channel promotion, and Weiwangdi will register a joint venture company to connect the two parts of communication technology and market.

It was still sold in two goods, which directly broke the rules of the industry, and Shanda was undecided at that time, and it was because of this that it decided to withdraw.

The gaming industry has been in an uproar, calling this an "unequal treaty", calling willing operators "traitors", and even several major companies threatening to "clean up the portal". And at that time, the agency fee of "Warcraft", because of Wei Wangdi's Gu raising strategy, was too high, almost equivalent to 10% of China's online game market share!

The agency fee for a game actually accounts for 10% of the entire Chinese market share, and it is strange that operators don't jump up and scold their mothers.

Of course, the sky-high asking price and paying back the money on the ground, because Weiwangdi sold two goods, the agency fee finally dropped a lot, and a large part of it belonged to installment payment. In the end, Jiucheng betrayed his teammates and successfully obtained the exclusive agency as a "traitor".

"If you don't want to, forget it. Song Weiyang said.

Zhang Chaoyang said: "Sohu can try." ”

Song Weiyang said: "The Sohu family definitely doesn't have that strength, count Sogou as well, anyway, Ding Ming also wants to make online games." Sohu and Sogou set up a joint venture game company, well, the name is 'Soupai Changyou'. Remember, no matter how outrageous Vivendi's request is, you can choose to follow up, and jump back to reduce the price at a critical time. ”

"Yes. Zhang Chaoyang chose to agree, because Sogou's capital flow is very healthy, and there is more spare money than Sohu, which has been listed.

Song Weiyang's intentions are very sinister, he asked Sohu and Sogou to join forces to bid, which is nothing more than to act as a-stirring stick. With the urine nature of Prestige, as long as there are many competitors, it will keep dragging down, and the price will be higher and higher. At that time, it dragged to the point that Chinese manufacturers mistakenly thought that Vivendi wanted to run the game by themselves, because everyone could not see Vivendi's sincerity, and felt that Vivon Di was playing all companies like monkeys.

Song Weiyang just let Sohu and Sogou end up making trouble, the longer it drags on, the more interesting it is, and it's best to drag it out until "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" is launched in advance.

Anyway, no matter what the result is, Song Weiyang will not suffer.

If Sohu and Sogou win the agency, then "World of Warcraft" will be operated by their own companies, and if they can't get the agency, then the launch date of "World of Warcraft" in China will be delayed until the end of the day. For this reason, he can even falsely report the high price, so that Wei Wangdi thinks it is profitable, and before the official signing, he repents at the price, and waits until Jiucheng and other companies want to take over, and then jumps out and says that they can continue to talk, and the previous regret is just because of internal disagreement.

Prestige can be so disgusting, why can't we fight against disgusting?

Even, Song Weiyang also said to several others: "NetEase, Kingsoft, and Tencent can all participate in it, pull the agency up hard, and make it look like an agent." Several of our companies have joined forces to muddy the waters, so that Wei Wangdi thinks that the agency fee can be talked about hundreds of millions of yuan, and he will drag him for a year and a half. ”

Ding Sanshi was immediately happy: "Old Song, are you buying time for your own "Classic of Mountains and Seas", right?"

"That's what it means," Song Weiyang said with a smile, "All the expenses for the agency of "Warcraft" can be paid by the Excalibur Network, just to accumulate their own negotiation experience." ”

"Old Song, you're too bad!" Rebus squinted and laughed.

Zhang Chaoyang was a little dizzy: "Is it true or false that Sohu and Sogou compete for agency?"

"When it's true, it's true, and when it's true, it's true," Song Weiyang said, "Don't worry, when did I make a mistake in judgment? "World of Warcraft" will definitely make money, and if Sohu and Sogou can fight for it, it's true, and if they can't, it's fake. Even if you can't fight for it, you have to let the company that fights for it bleed!"

In another time and space, according to the listing application submitted by Nine Cities, Nine Cities paid more than $74 million for World of Warcraft in four years. But the upfront cost was just over $10 million, and the rest was all paid in installments, nearly half as cheap as when the agency fee was at its peak — Prestige was insatiable, scared away too many operators, and didn't finalize the agency at the highest point.

If Song Weiyang's network companies join the competition, they may be able to speculate the upfront agency fee to more than 30 million US dollars, which will directly make Wei Wangdi's side lose his mind and let "World of Warcraft" land in China more than half a year later!

In fact, not only in China, but also in the United States, "World of Warcraft" was delayed for several months because of the departure of Blizzard's bidding director and the insatiable greed of Prestige.

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