On March 16, 1978, DreamWorks' first self-operated store in the United States officially opened. There were no firecrackers, Zhang Guifang simply said two words, picked up the scissors and cut, and the ceremony was completed.

Due to the ample warm-up before opening, the 300 arcade machines were full half an hour after the doors opened.

This house is very large, Li Yixuan did not use the first floor as a game hall, he only took out a part, and the rest will be used as an Oranges I outlet store.

This place is still being renovated, Zhang Guifang took a look at the layout inside, it is completely in accordance with the standards of the style of the Apple direct store in later generations, but the logo and some colors have been changed.

Seeing that this place was properly arranged by Li Yixuan, Zhang Guifang instructed Liang Ning a few more words, and flew back to Hong Kong that afternoon.

After returning to Hong Kong, Zhang Guifang spent two days to reverse the jet lag, and the first thing she did when she returned to the company was to call Li Yixuan over.

"How are those game designers doing?" she doesn't care, these designers are the future of DreamWorks. At present, although DreamWorks can rely on games from another time and space to dump into this plane, it can't go on like this forever. Developing your own game producer has to start now.

Li Yixuan sat opposite Zhang Guifang and said: "These rookie designers are not bad, very talented, and know how to draw inferences. They also endure hardships, they study in the morning, practice in the afternoon, and automatically work overtime in the evening, and they are very motivated to learn. ”

After Li Yixuan enlightened them with methodology, the creative inspiration of these young designers spewed out like a fountain, and they all had great ideas that would not be backward even in the future, but they were limited to the current hardware function and could not be realized for the time being.

So Li Yixuan gave them further guidance on this basis, how can we use the current hardware to realize our ideas in a limited way?

This is a big proposition, and after a few days of thinking, someone came up with the concept of ARPG and AAVG. This surprised Li Yixuan.

A is ACT, the meaning of action, and RPG is role-playing, which together is a new game genre, action role-playing.

The concept was proposed by a young man named Wang Shuzheng, a recent high school graduate. When Li Yixuan asked him where this inspiration came from, he replied with some embarrassment that he got the inspiration from "Squirrel Wars".

Hearing this, Li Yixuan was completely relieved, "Squirrel Wars" does have the foundation of ARPG, and it can even be said that "Squirrel Wars" is such a game for the transition from ACT to ARPG. With a slight adaptation and addition of the plot script, it is a proper ARPG game, but there is no line script.

Many people may first think of Diablo when they see this genre, in fact, the founder of this genre is known as one of the three major RPGs of RB, "The Legend of Zelda", and it is also one of the three treasures of Ren Hell, and the designer of this game is also Shigeru Miyamoto, which to a certain extent, has laid down almost all the rules of this type of game.

AAVG is an action-adventure, an excellent action-adventure game, which is not enough to achieve with the current level of technology.

Although many of the ideas they said were novel, it was still unrealistic to complete them under the current conditions, but this also made Li Yixuan extremely satisfied, at least his previous words were not in vain.

The 30-odd young designers in front of him are the seeds, they have accepted their ideas about game design in the future, and as long as they have enough time to hone in the future, they will inevitably become excellent designers and help them design good enough games. This dream factory's most valuable asset.

But Zhang Guifang didn't seem to be very satisfied, "These game designers can really stand alone in the future and become masters like Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinji Mikami, will they stay in the company with peace of mind in the future?"

This question is really difficult to answer, after all, people go to high places, and water flows to low places. If they find a better place to go in the future, Li Yixuan can't keep it if he wants to.

If they want to leave in the future, Li Yixuan did not think to stop them, because Hong Kong's game companies cannot rely on DreamWorks alone, and no matter how good a company is, it will not be able to support Hong Kong's game industry. More people have to join, but Li Yixuan doesn't want Hong Kong's game industry to be like Hong Kong's film industry, where it can become a place for speculators or to become a money launderer for the underworld.

Therefore, in the near future, he will set a barrier to entry for the industry and eliminate those cats and dogs, so that he needs the help of those game producers even more.

Although the idea was good, he didn't know how to explain it to his mother, after all, it was just an immature concept that stopped in his mind, and how to implement it depended on the actual situation in the future.

But his mother's words couldn't help but answer, and after thinking about it, Li Yixuan decided to change his thinking to enlighten his mother, "It's hard to say about this thing, after all, people go to high places, and some people can't stay in DreamWorks forever." But ......" Speaking of this, Li Yixuan accentuated his tone, "How to stay, how much can be retained, it depends on what kind of system we adopt." ”

Li Yixuan paused, looked at Zhang Guifang's face, and saw that she was very interested in what she said, so he continued: "Let's talk about the system of the game company first. There are two models of mature management system for game companies in later generations, one is the production department system model of RB, and the other is the studio system model of Europe and the United States. ”

"Let's talk about the first one, RB's production department system model, which is that the company directly establishes a game production department, the company has direct jurisdiction over the game production department, and the head of the game production department is directly responsible to the company. The development of the game is not up to the game producer, but to the company, and the game producer only has the right to make suggestions.

When the company sets the target list for those games to be produced this year, it hands over the target catalog of those games to the production department to be responsible for the production. This model is like an assembly line factory, and the games produced are all similar, and there will be no particularly outstanding places and no particularly big bugs.

This model is very effective in the early stage of the development of the game industry, and it can focus on cultivating qualified talents. The reason why RB games were able to sweep the world in the eighties and nineties was because of the production department system. But in the later stage, after many talents grew up, the disadvantages of the production department system gradually became apparent.

Because, more and more excellent game talents have been cultivated, and no matter how many game production departments the company has established, it cannot arrange all the outstanding talents. The number of games produced by the company every year is numerous, and it is impossible to have unlimited quantities. In this mode, many gamers propose game creations that are very game, but many times they cannot pass it, not because the game planning is not good, but because the company can only pass so many games.

And there's bound to be fierce competition between the production department and for positions within the department, which is what we often call office politics. Come to think of it, everyone is going to engage in political battles, who has the heart to make games. This is also the reason why RB's game company began to decline significantly after the new century. The internal office politics are just too strong. Even game giants like Shinji Mikami and Keiji Inifune eventually fell victim to the political struggle in the office, and in the end they had no choice but to leave.

If the production department system is like Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers films, then the studio system in Europe and the United States is like Golden Harvest's satellite film system, game studios are all separate individuals, the head office is not responsible for the specific management of the studio, the daily management is the responsibility of the studio itself, and the studio itself has the final say on what games to develop and produce. The head office is more of an investment company and a issuing company here.

A game studio wants to make a game, but it doesn't have enough funds, and we find DreamWorks, and we think it's good, invest in the game, and make money from the game, and we will pay dividends according to the amount of investment. Or the studio is responsible for making the game, and the finished game is entrusted to the head office for distribution. That's what makes game studios special.

Compared with the production department system, the game studio also has an advantage, once the game makes money, it is far more profitable than the production department's dividends.

Because, the bonus dividend of the game production department is linked to whether the game is a big seller, no matter how much the game sells, the bonus dividend will have an upline, so the bonus is in the hands of the game producer.

But the studio system is different, he comes according to the proportion of investment, and its characteristics are risk sharing and benefit sharing. Once the game is a big hit, there is no upper limit on the bonus. This is also why the game studio system has become mainstream later. ”

After listening to Li Yixuan's explanation, Zhang Guifang said: "I understand what you mean. So what are you going to do?"

Li Yixuan said: "Hong Kong's game industry is completely zero, especially in the area of game talent, and it is certainly unrealistic to directly adopt the studio system of Europe and the United States. Therefore, DreamWorks' current mission is to treat itself as a Whampoa Military Academy and use the production department system to complete the early development and talent training of DreamWorks. When this group of talents reaches a certain level, they will definitely not be satisfied with this, and at this time, they can consider a satellite studio system similar to Golden Harvest. ”

"This method ......" Zhang Guifang had an unwilling attitude, feeling that someone had robbed her of her cake.

Li Yixuan retorted directly, he wouldn't get used to her problem, "Unwilling, don't you, I feel like I've raised a pack of white-eyed wolves." Well, you go back and look at Shaw Brothers, what will be the future of him?"

"Golden Harvest didn't fall in the end. Zhang Guifang said unconvinced.

Li Yixuan looked at Zhang Guifen like a fool.

"Why are you looking at me like that, I'm your mother!!"

Li Yixuan didn't speak, stood up and poured himself a glass of water, "Do you know how Jiahe poured it?"