After hearing that the dark entertainment venue was a game machine hall, the leaders of the relevant departments who accompanied the inspection were no less surprised than Gu Biao.

"Game machine hall, the first game machine hall in Qiantang, is actually in the community next to the Red Bull factory, in such a remote place in the east of the city?"

"You can't open a game arcade in the city center, but there is one here, is it that the workers and office workers of Red Bull have high enough income to go to this kind of place? How much is it here?"

Lu Ju and Director Jiang and other more public leaders asked.

Naturally, a secretary explained on the side: "I heard that it seems to be five dimes at a time, which is precious." ”

In 1985, playing arcade machines for two dimes at a time was an absolute loss, because electronic products were the most expensive when they were first listed, and they gradually became cheaper with the advancement of science and technology.

Therefore, the price of this thing cannot be speculated based on "how much money was worth and how cheap the price was, so the cost of playing game consoles should also be cheaper".

Just as in 1996, when the first Internet café was opened in Hujiang and Beijing in China, the charge reached 20 yuan an hour, and at that time, going to the Internet café was a more fashionable high-end hipster lifestyle than going to KFC and cafes, and even men and women went to the Internet café on a blind date.

(It's not just that you can play on the computer, but you can actually access the Internet.) If it was a pure "computer room", it would appear earlier and would not be so expensive. ）

Around 98, the Internet café fell to 10 yuan an hour, and then quickly fell to about 5 yuan in 2000. After that, there are 3 yuan, 2 yuan, how much to charge and send as many membership cards as you want, about 05~10 years, it is the hottest and cheapest year for Internet cafes.

And the same is true of the price of the arcade machine.

In the original history, the appearance of arcade halls in China will only be later, about the end of the 80s, and the fee is 3~4 coins per dollar. Before the advent of Internet cafes in the mid-90s, it fell to 7~8 coins per dollar.

At that time, there were even some arcade hall owners, realizing that no one was willing to pay to play the arcade in 95, and it was too backward, so they began to introduce Sony's original PS game console in the arcade hall, charging a few dollars for an hour's regular rent.

When Gu Biao was in the fourth grade of primary school in his previous life, he couldn't afford to buy a PS game console with pocket money, so he went to the game hall to play PS for 3 yuan an hour. After spending a total of more than 100 yuan, I cleared the PS version of the glorious company's "Three Kingdoms V" and Konami's "Castlevania: Nocturne Under the Moon".

It's a little farther, and here it is nothing more than saying that with the high price of the arcade machine in 85, how can the owner of the arcade hall in the mainland have to sell 5 dimes a coin to make a more decent profit.

Because at the same time, the price of arcade machines in the United States was 50 yen and 25 cents a coin respectively (the U.S. dollar has a quarter coin of 25 cents, and public telephone booths in the United States also accept this coin as the base price). ）

50 yen and 25 cents are converted, which is equivalent to 1 yuan 2 to 1 yuan 5 yuan, and the mainland game hall charges 5 jiao, which is already taking into account the extremely low cost of rent, labor and viewing in the mainland, and also reduces the profit margin.

In the era when the average salary of workers in provincial cities was seventy or eighty yuan, no one could afford 5 dimes at a time, and it is no wonder that it was only available in the "rich area".

"That Red Bull has really driven the workers to common prosperity, which is not easy. Qiu Qing finally seized the opportunity from a high vantage point and said a good word for the management fairly.

Lu Ju and Director Jiang also had to admit that it was just that Lu Ju's neck was the hardest, and he still couldn't completely let go of his suspicions about Gu Biao, and said: "Why didn't there be these prosperous scenes in the CD factory community of Kun Music that day. ”

This time, Qiu Qing replied beautifully: "Red Bull is Red Bull, Tian Kun is Tian Kun, how can it be mixed up, Red Bull is opened by patriotic overseas Chinese capitalists in Nanyang."

What's more, Tiankun Music's CD factory has only been in operation for a few months? Red Bull has been in production for more than two years. You let Tiankun also drive the local villagers for two years, and they may be so prosperous-

Lao Lu, there are some things that can't be patted on the head, so you have to go down and walk in person, seek truth from facts, and conduct in-depth investigations to see if the farmers who have been expropriated by Tiankun and Red Bull like the new life. We sit in the office and think that we want to detach ourselves from the masses of the people, but we can't make the mistake of paying attention to dogma!"

These words are true and solemn, and they cannot be refuted, and everyone else is silent, which can be regarded as admitting.

……

While Qiu Qing and other people from other relevant departments are still focusing on issues such as "the living standard of Red Bull employees in the community, and the first rich to drive the later to get rich", Gu Biao's focus is completely different.

He quietly took a bodyguard and entered the venue directly, and paid a private visit.

As far as Gu Biao knows, there is currently no legal import of Tiankun's game consoles in China, whether it is an arcade machine or a home machine.

Moreover, Tian Kun's arcade business was actually completely sold to Sega last year, in exchange for Sega completely giving up the home machine and transferring the home machine porting rights of all Sega arcade games to Tian Kun. At present, Tiankun's factory in the Special Economic Zone does not produce a single arcade machine.

All the Tiankun game consoles that have entered the mainland before were either sold through gray channels before, or they were brought in at a high price after Gu Biao was still in a few months under the Ministry of Electronics Industry last year, taking advantage of some duty-free island policies in the south and legally making up the bonded difference.

And the legal bonded gap making up channel was also cut off again after Gu Biao officially left the system, so that channel only existed for a few months.

Therefore, the supply of domestic arcade halls is worth paying attention to.

It was useless to ask, Gu Biao chose to see it with his own eyes.

"These are indeed produced by Tian Kun 83 years ago, so old, the game is still Pac-Man and Bomberman, Tank Battle - well, even the subtitles are in Japanese, obviously this is the Japanese version of the flow. Is it a refurbished machine that has been repaired after the elimination of the original one?"

"At first glance, these Earth Defenders are American versions of refurbished machines, and all the text is in English. ”

After a superficial inspection, Gu Biao first saw a considerable number of Tiankun out-of-gas refurbished machines, and at the same time figured out the reason why the domestic arcade industry is so cheap and profitable - people buy second-hand mobile phones, maybe the purchase price is super cheap, so a single coin is cheaper than the United States and the United States.

However, after looking closer, Gu Biao noticed something different.

He saw some home machines, which were also placed there, and they manually collected money according to the number of plates, not only Tiankun's, but also Nintendo's.

And those Nintendo machines, almost all of them are very bloody games that rely on scale to win.

Although the level of science and technology in 85 years can't make a lot of gorgeous pictures, the so-called gore is a ketchup-style bleeding picture is a little extravagant, and the bloody shot is split into a few more frames.

However, even to this extent, it was a very visual enjoyment for consumers at that time.

Gu Biao realized that this was all because in today's world, Nintendo couldn't take the Tiankun-style "third-party supplier censorship" route, and had to take the opposite content route to Tiankun, so it became more and more biased and won sales with vigor.

In addition to Nintendo, Gu further discovered some game consoles that did not seem to belong to Nintendo, but were plausible to Tiankun.

He was about to continue to find out what was going on, but his group of people who only watched and didn't play made the arcade owner a little alarmed.

"Hey, don't you play, what are you looking at? Don't mess around if you don't play! Delay people's business. "A few people from other places who went south couldn't help but prepare to protect the Lord.

Obviously, it is because Gu Biao often wears sunglasses when he goes out, so these people don't know each other.

Gu Biao didn't bother to conflict with them, after all, he was making an unannounced visit, and there was no conclusion on whether the business of arcade halls was legal at the moment. According to the law, if there is no explicit provision, it can be done, and people are not considered bad people.

The bodyguard next to him took out a 100 yuan foreign exchange coupon and asked him to exchange it for coins, and the people watching the scene immediately had nothing to say.

Gu Xiao gave a look, and the white bodyguard next to him asked along the way - of course, speaking blunt Chinese, Gu Xiao's American bodyguard has followed his new employer for several years and has learned a lot of Chinese.

"I'm in the United States, and I play a lot of arcade machines, and our boss doesn't play miscellaneous cards - your arcade machine here seems to be not only Tiankun and Nintendo, but what else? What kind of miscellaneous cards are this?"

Because the light in the arcade hall was dim, the spectators didn't notice that the macho man in the suit next to Gu Biao was a white man at first. At this moment, I listened to the foreign tone that all the words were the first sound, and I realized that it was an old beauty, so my attitude immediately softened, and even the arcade owner was alarmed.

"We are all the latest game consoles here, this brand is Wanwan famous brand, Shengtian game machine!" The owner of the arcade hall walked over quickly, handing cigarettes to foreigners who were holding 100 yuan foreign exchange coupons to buy game coins, while explaining.

Gu Biao next to him heard this, but couldn't help but want to laugh.

Shengtian game machine?

For this miscellaneous brand, Gu Biao also knows, because about 93 years ago, many consumers in the mainland bought game consoles that can run eight-bit cassettes are all Nintendo red and white machines of Wanwan Shengtian Cottage.

When Gu Biao was in the first grade of primary school in his previous life, his family also bought him a Shengtian, because it was much cheaper than Nintendo, about 92 years, and even the N-in-1 cassette only cost more than 500 yuan.

The brand Shengtian has also been in the mainland for two years, and it was only around 94 that it was defeated by the mainland's second-level cottage "Xiaobawang Learning Machine" at a cheaper price.

Unexpectedly, in this life, because of the butterfly effect, the decision of Wanwan copycat merchant Pang Famous Brand has also changed from Nintendo FC to the home machine of Pang Tian Kun.

I was actually pirated by Wanwan e-commerce!

"This is a counterfeit of the pirated American famous brand Tiankun! What a Wanwan brand!" he sneered calmly, not in a loud voice, but very firmly.

But I can't hear the anger.

He knew that the arcade owner didn't know what piracy was.

It has only been one year since the domestic patent law was officially implemented, and the trademark law and copyright law have only been implemented for two or three years respectively.

Gu Biao knew that it was impossible to punish mainland operators who had already bought goods. The key now is to start with the import channel.

He has always felt that game consoles are a gray area without laws in China, and the original Chinese people were poor and could not afford to play, so Gu Biao has never hit the domestic market. His machines are sold in the United States, in Japan, and in other second-world countries.

Unexpectedly, developed countries are invincible all over the world, but their nests are made up by cheap stealers.