Time has unconsciously entered the autumn of two thousand years.

In the 2,000th year, the video game industry is still evolving, but in a slightly different direction.

Many stand-alone game manufacturers have gradually begun to explore the networking of stand-alone games.

However, the path of exploration has not been smooth, and the vast majority of manufacturers have failed in the rugged expedition.

In response to the rising cost of game development, they moved on to a different route, the DLC expansion.

In a sense, DLC expansions are similar to players making mods, using the same engine and the same set of materials to provide more game content.

The more DLC is launched, the more the development cost can be evenly spread, the lower the development cost, and the higher the revenue.

In this way, the high cost of development can be solved to a certain extent.

The 2,000-year-old game manufacturer really solves the problem in this way. After the base game was released, they started selling expansion packs a few months later.

The content of the ontology is already very rich, and the expansion pack is basically an expansion outside the main story.

This kind of behavior of standing and earning money can be called conscience.

It's just that......

They soon discovered that the speed of recovering costs was a bit too slow.

As a result, some manufacturers began to try to directly divide the game itself into several small parts.

Since the price of the game is unacceptable to players, it is better to sell one as many copies.

For example, in a real-time strategy game, there are dozens of countries, and after the player buys it, he finds that there are ten countries that can be used.

What about the remaining dozens of countries that want to use it?

The answer is simple, it is to buy.

It's good to buy a country expansion pack.

Rest assured, the country expansion package is very conscientious.

It is divided into European expansion package, Asian expansion package, and African expansion package, and you can't buy a loss, and you can't be fooled.

Only then did the players realize that what they had spent on was not a game, but a ticket that needed to be paid for continuously.

Although players are very disgusted with this kind of desperate money-seeking behavior, all game manufacturers are doing so much.

If you don't buy one game, can you not buy all the games?

In such a big wave of fees, Wanhu Interactive Entertainment's first pure online game was launched.

This game cancels local battles and LAN battles, which means that players can only start the game if they are connected to the Internet and enter the Wanhu Battle platform.

The practice of Wanhu Interactive Entertainment has caused an uproar, and the vast majority of American players do not recognize and do not agree with the practice of Wanhu Interactive Entertainment.

Because, this violates their freedom to have a game!

Do they spend money on games to play when they have internet?

This......

What the hell do you want to do?

Almost instantly, there was a flood of bad reviews.

However, the way Wanhu Interactive Entertainment responds is also very subtle.

They announced that the game is free forever!

That's right, it's free forever!

It's free forever like free security software!

As soon as this news came out, the players were silent, and those peers began to wonder what Wanhu wanted to do!

How is it possible to be free forever?

If it's free forever, who will pay for the development of the game and the money for the operation of the game?

We're all commercial companies, and we all know that we can't do charity with each other, and if any of them announces that they're going to make their games free forever, it's basically sure they've found a new way to pay for them.

They weren't stupid, and they soon knew what the toll road was that Wanhu had only gone to through Wanhu's previous actions.

The game is free!

Props are charged!

Make a profit with all kinds of weird, colorful stickers, spray paints, and more.

It's just that......

Is it possible to make money in this way?

You know, while the model trading system used in StarCraft is successful, StarCraft itself is a paid game.

Don't......

Could it be that Wanhu made a lot of money with this model system on StarCraft?

Other game makers have also begun to quickly demonstrate the feasibility of doing so.

They know very well that once free games appear, it will be a huge blow to the paid games that are now absolutely mainstream, a kind of dimensionality reduction blow.

It's not like a game, but they can't afford to spend a few dozen dollars on a game all at once.

That's why game makers always fail to try to raise prices.

Because once the price is raised, most people can't afford it, and most people can't afford it, then the number of sales of this game will go down.

The decline in the number of sales has led to a decline in the overall sales figure.

The advantage of free games is the advantage of downloads, if you want to play, you have a computer at home, you can download and play.

A game that may pay to sell a million units can be downloaded for free.

If one in five of these 10 million players would choose to pay for items, then two million would be more, far more than one million people.

But......

For these players who buy games because they don't have to pay the cost, many game manufacturers have a question.

The content of their question is very simple, that is, as non-paying players, they didn't spend money to get this game, will they really spend money later?

Although economics always says that people are rational people, which person is rational?

Whether it's a car, a house, or a lipstick, who hasn't spent impulsively?

It is precisely because of this uncertainty that people do not know what kind of choice they will make.

Await.

Let's wait.

Timid game companies, began to wait.

Bold game companies immediately began to plan their own free-to-play games.

And the most direct competition with Wanhu's free game is "Counter-Strike" of the Villefort Valve Factory, and even the name of Wanhu's free online game is very provocative.

Counter-Strike, a new game based on Half-Life, doesn't cost much, less than $20, only $19.99. Even if you go to the supermarket to buy it, the supermarket will really look for a penny.

It is a traditional single-player game, which can be connected to the local area network, can be connected locally, only need to pay once, and do not have to spend money again.

And "Anti-Terrorist Operation" can't be connected locally, can't be connected to the local area network, can only be played online, there is no charge at the beginning, if you want to spend no money, you can also spend no money all the time.

Although the two games are the same genre, they are very different from each other on the inside.