It's the summer of 1999.

After half a year of publicity, "The Sims 2000" was officially released.

There was a long queue in the video game section of the mall, and the data from the sales side showed that "The Sims 2000" sold half a million units on the first day.

500,000 units may seem like a lot, but this is not the actual sales figure of the first day, but the sales volume of all the promotions from the time of the promotion.

Wanhu Interactive Entertainment's employees in charge of the promotion of "The Sims 2000" immediately contacted newspapers and magazines after getting this sales data, and spread the news that "The Sims 2000" sold more than 500,000 units on the first day as quickly as possible.

Human beings always have a herd mentality, and this is especially true of video games, many video games may not sell much, but one right marketing can make the sales of this game explode in an instant.

Takahashi, the highest speaker of Wanhu, is a master of propaganda. And the genes of Wanhu this enterprise also maintain an attitude of paying attention to publicity.

The North American version of Gamer Hearts has a circulation of more than 100,000 copies per issue. Although it is still not as good as the United States, where the video game culture is already very mature, it is also the region with the second most circulation of Gamer Heart.

100,000 copies of "Player's Heart" can not only provide bad funds for Wanhu Interactive Entertainment, but also allow players to buy the games that Wanhu wants them to buy.

It may be too much to say that it is brain control, but the media really has this kind of demagogic power.

It was only after Takahashi went to the United States that he realized that the power of the media was so strong.

In the U.S., almost any consumer-facing industry spends no less on advertising each year.

It's like the North American version of "Player's Heart" has been very restrained from the recharge of game manufacturers, but in fact, before each issue of the magazine is released, the cost has actually been recovered, and most of the time there is even a profit.

Coupled with the income from the magazines purchased by players, it can be said that the profit of the magazine "Gamer's Heart" is not low.

But......

It's not easy to come up with a magazine like "Gamer's Heart" that consistently sells more than 100,000 copies per issue.

Nintendo's free gift of "Nintendo Power" to members has not been in a good situation recently.

As for why it's not good, the problem is multifaceted, the first is that as an advertising brochure, it is not interesting enough.

You know, video games themselves are not a necessity in life, and video game magazines, which are derived from video games, are even less necessary.

If all the articles are written as if they were not fun as the press releases of the manufacturer's propaganda, why should players read them?

And "Player's Heart" is also used as an advertising brochure, which can make players willing to pay to see advertisements. This is because the ads for Gamer Hearts are fun enough.

Each issue not only has a game guide, but also a game story, a game comic, and a variety of secrets in game development.

Each plate corresponds to a different group.

The game guide is for those who like to play games, but sometimes they have a hard time.

Game stories and game comics are used to satisfy readers who like to read stories and comics.

The development of secrets is used to satisfy the voyeuristic desire that most humans have. is not much different from celebrity secrets and celebrity gossip.

However, it is a little more bottom-line than celebrity secrets and gossip.

"The Sims 2000" was not released on all platforms for the first time, and the first release was still on the PC platform.

And Sega's Saturn Sony's PS1, although there are plans to launch it, but it will have to wait for a while.

Because the architecture of these two platforms and personal computers is too different, porting games on them is a time-consuming and laborious thing.

If it's not a popular game, cross-platform porting may be a loss-making thing.

However, because the transplant takes time, the Sims 2000 can basically only be played in North America in the recent period.

For example, if a player wants to play this game, he needs to complete the porting of this game to play.

After all, I prefer to play games on consoles compared to Americans, and they don't have the habit of configuring high-performance PCs.

When it comes to high-performance personal computers, Wanhu can be said to have made a bad start.

Wanhu has launched a variety of graphics cards, and the graphics cards have not only launched two generations, but also divided into multiple models according to the level of performance.

Generally speaking, the mainstream models in the middle of the latest generation of graphics cards can play mainstream games launched in the year.

The performance of the lower-model graphics card is also lower, and it can barely play the mainstream games of the year, as well as the games that have been out for a while relatively smoothly, as well as games like StarCraft that require an Internet connection and do not have particularly high configuration requirements.

The high-performance model is the highest special effect that can open the mainstream games launched that year.

And the thing about the chicken thieves is that regardless of the games launched by other game manufacturers, the games they publish themselves all follow this standard.

Once the graphics card is replaced, the demand for graphics card performance in the games launched that year will also increase immediately.

In this way, not only can we sell graphics cards with one hand and games with the other, but also gradually cultivate a group of hardware fans who don't play games at all, but only compete with computer performance.

Of course, if you want to compete in hardware, do you have to have a standard for competition?

As a result, Wanhu also made some changes to the internal game performance test software and began to sell it to individual users.

Your machine runs a thousand points, but it is not as powerful as my one thousand. Your running score of 2,000 is not as powerful as my running score of 2,002.

Although Wanhu has different special effects requirements to make its own high-performance graphics cards seem to be worth the price.

However, not all manufacturers that launch PC games will act according to this standard.

After all, it costs more money and time to add more special effects, so it is still those low-end graphics cards that really go through.

And those who only use the best configuration to play minesweeper are in the minority.

The game "The Sims 2000", the difference in different configurations, is basically the difference in details.

The grass can be seen on the middle lawn, and the grass can be seen on the high lawn, and the high lawn can be swayed a little. It didn't have much of an impact on gameplay.

And with the continued publicity, the sales of The Sims 2000 continue to increase steadily.

Although many players have high requirements for the quality of the game, fortunately, they have not found the tragedy of sales avalanche because the quality of the game is too low.