In just a few days, the influence of "What is a Game" has spread all over the country, and as Zhang Lexing expected, it not only affected a small number of people in the game circle, but also relied on the image of the central authoritative newspaper in people's hearts, expanding the coverage to the outside of the game circle from the leadership of the government to the common people, and for a while, "games" and "video games" have become hot topics again, but this time they are no longer as one-sided as before.

"Lexing, your idea is really good, I heard that many places have postponed the pledge meeting to say goodbye to video games, and many local newspapers are no longer focusing on negative news about video games." Zhao Haiguang said excitedly on the phone.

"Brother Zhao, now is not the time to be happy, in fact, we have only reached the current situation with the help of the influence of the central authoritative newspaper, it is only a temporary situation, if we don't continue to follow up, once this trend passes, maybe everything will return to the original point, so we have to continue." Zhang Lexing has seen a lot of bad reality, but he will not be so blindly optimistic.

"Lexing, what do you think needs to be done?" Zhao Haiguang asked on the phone.

"You can't stop writing about games in the newspaper, but you can publish them a little less frequently, and it doesn't have to be up to us to prepare the content, so you can attract some readers to write or something, as long as you maintain a certain amount of heat. The next step is to make a TV promo, which can be in a more flexible format, and the content is still the popularization of video games, after all, there are many more people who watch TV than newspapers. In addition, there is not a lot of negative news about street game halls now, and I plan to invest in building a relatively large video game city, so that those who think that street game halls can only hide dirt and dirt can see what a regular arcade hall looks like. Brother Zhao, I am also helping you to establish an image project, you can help more. ”

"Okay, no problem, as long as I can help, I will definitely help."

"Well, it's mainly the government department, I want to ask Brother Zhao to help me handle the procedures and licenses, as for the location of the game city, I plan to find someone to investigate it first."

"Lexing, there are also a few companies under our association that make this street game machine, do you need my help to contact us."

"Brother Zhao, thank you for your concern, the game console is not in a hurry, I'll talk about it when the place is decided."

……

In the days that followed, Zhao Haiguang continued to push the discussion about "games" and "video games", and Zhang Lexing really arranged for Oriental Holdings to find a suitable location for the construction of a game city in the Beijing urban area.

The time slowly came to the beginning of May, the work of improving the public opinion environment is still imperceptibly, Zhang Lexing also chose a target from several alternative game city construction sites, a six-storey podium attached to a commercial building with convenient transportation, directly purchased, planned to build a video game city, and plans to introduce catering, cinemas, Internet cafes, fitness, etc., to develop into an electronic entertainment city.

But these are all things for the future, and now Zhang Lexing is going to the United States again, because the first E3 exhibition is about to open. The full name of E3 is TheElectronicEntertainmentExpo, which means electronic entertainment exhibition, and it is an exhibition exclusively for game manufacturers. Before that, game manufacturers could only participate in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) twice a year, and although the number of game manufacturers participating in the exhibition hall increased year by year, the booths occupied in the exhibition hall have been in a very inconspicuous corner and have not been taken seriously at all. In response to this situation, Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), an organization that combines anti-piracy, protection of the rights of the game industry, game classification, etc., decided to organize a special international electronic entertainment exhibition, and E3 was born.

This time to the United States, Zhang Lexing did not plan to go to see the excitement alone, but mobilized a lot of people to go together, not only the game production companies under Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd. almost all went, Activision in the United States and Eidos in the United Kingdom also went with the works of their companies, in addition to Xishanju, the leadership of the China Game Industry Association (Zhao Haiguang trio), and several companies willing to go abroad to see the world (leading software, Hongda software, Zhiqun Software, etc.) also organized a 20-person E3 delegation.

On May 10th, Zhang Lexing and the participants of the Creative Workshop flew directly from Beijing to Los Angeles, accompanied by the 20-person E3 visiting group, and the exhibitors of Tianzhiyuan departed from Shanghai. When the plane landed in Los Angeles, the staff sent by Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd. had already arranged the vehicle to pick up the plane, and after getting into the car, it was directly pulled to the hotel not far from the Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Center. Due to the large number of visitors, Dongfang Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd. directly chartered rooms on three floors of the hotel for its game production company, Activision and Eidos exhibitors, and the E3 group also enjoyed free accommodation and board.

On May 11th, the E3 exhibition officially opened at the Los Angeles Convention Center. With a construction area of 67,000 square meters, the convention center has five exhibition halls: Kentia Hall, Petree Hall, South Hall, Concourse Hall and West Hall.

The fan-shaped south hall covers an area of 32,227 square meters, which is the largest building and exhibition hall in the convention and exhibition center, most of which are the booths of European and American game development companies, and the booths of EA company and KF-Panda related to Zhang Lexing are also located here, in addition to the booths of several companies such as Activision, Eidos and Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd. Bullfrog, Blizzard, Blue Dragon and other companies are also located here.

The rectangular West Hall is the second largest exhibition hall with an area of 19,573 square meters, and the main exhibitors are almost all from Asia, such as the booths of Nintendo, Sega and Sony, as well as the booths of Capcom, Konami and Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd.'s Creative Workshop, Tianzhien and Maxis.

The former gaming giant Atari had a booth in the smallest Petri Room in the convention center, and they tried to relive the glory of yesteryear with the 64-bit game console Jaguar. The second smallest room in the convention center, Kentia Hall, is located at the bottom of the south hall, which is mainly occupied by some small game development companies, and the layout and layout of the booth are naturally not too good, and it looks like a smoky bazaar.

Zhang Lexing led the members of the E3 delegation into the exhibition hall, first came to the corridor to receive the guide book and today's exhibition magazine, and then walked to the south hall while flipping through the magazines. The most conspicuous in the south hall is the booths of EA, KF-Panda, Activision, Virgin, Lucas Art and other companies, displaying a large number of Genesis (American version of Sega MD) console games, as well as many computer games, among which KF-Panda as one of the first companies to support Sony, the booth has more than a dozen PS games in development or about to be launched. At this time, the share of computer games in the overall game industry is still very small, and the corresponding video game companies will naturally have a much larger booth size, but there are also very bright stars in computer game companies, such as Westwood (Westwood) and Blizzard (Blizzard), at this show like a needle to the wheat, respectively launched "Command and Conquer" and "Warcraft II: Kuroshio", the development of real-time strategy games has been taken a big step forward.

The two games also aroused a lot of interest from some members of the E3 visiting group, and they even took the time to queue up and plan to try them out for themselves. Zhang Lexing had no choice but to make an appointment with them to wait for the meeting place, leave another interpreter, and then take the rest of the people to continue the tour. When passing by the bullfrog's booth, the "Magic Flying Carpet 2" on display attracted a few more people with its gorgeous magic and powerful 3D effects, and so on, and it didn't take long for Zhang Lexing to be left with only the association trio led by Zhao Haiguang, and even the people in Xishanju were lost in the bizarre game world.

Zhang Lexing doesn't mind this, anyway, one of the purposes of this trip is to let domestic game companies see the world, broaden their horizons, not just nest in China behind closed doors, but keep up with the pace of development of foreign companies, and can't be thrown farther and farther away, but he doesn't know anything, but is complacent about the little achievements in front of him. Now that they are willing to take the initiative to understand, of course Zhang Lexing will not object.

With Zhao Haiguang and others, Zhang Lexing accelerated his trip, and the goal of attention was no longer limited to the games on each booth, but on higher-level aspects such as booth layout and exhibition organization. Because Zhang Lexing also has a dream, hoping to hold a game exhibition equivalent to the E3 exhibition in China, and this time Zhao Haiguang and others came for this purpose.

Yan Xiaowei pointed to the racing game screen on the projection cloth not far away, and sighed: "Wow, this game is so realistic!" ”

Zhao Haiguang patted his head angrily: "Don't keep staring at the game, carefully observe how others organize this kind of exhibition, if we have the opportunity, we will also hold one, and we won't have to go all the way to the United States in the future." ”

Yan Xiaowei begged for mercy again and again: "Yes, yes, boss, don't hit me on the head, I'll beat stupid." ”

The two were making trouble, and the burly Wang Bo seemed to have discovered some new continent, and greeted him repeatedly: "Boss, look over there, what do you say those women do, wearing so few clothes?" ”

Yan Xiaowei heard Wang Bo's shout, hurriedly turned his head to look over there, and couldn't help but sigh at a glance: "Tsk, look at the depth of the people, that chest ...... How vast! ”

Zhao Haiguang then turned his head and glanced at it, and said very calmly: "What you are fuss about, it must be a show." Lexing, you say yes. ”

"Well, Brother Zhao, you're right, they are ShowGirls, and they can also be called performance girls." Zhang Lexing explained next to him.

"But what does their performance have to do with this game show, it seems to be quite far away." Wang Bo scratched his head and asked puzzledly.

"Actually, there are many kinds of ShowGirl performances, you see the cabaret performances over there, the past few are cosplay performances, that is, play as characters in the game, and those who hang ribbons to distribute promotional materials, these are all. In fact, this is a means of attracting attention, you pay attention to observe, is there ShowGirl booth more people visiting, and ShowGirl higher quality booth visitors more people, what reason, I believe you should understand in your heart. ”

The association trio observed according to Zhang Lexing's statement, and the situation was really like this, and after carefully recalling it and glancing at each other, they all laughed knowingly......

The entire south hall turned down, and the first day was almost over, and the representatives of the game companies who had become avid players also came back one after another, and from the expressions on their faces, Zhang Lexing felt that his goal had been achieved.

"It turns out that there are so many tricks in the game!" A group member who was deeply shocked by the wonderful changes of light and shadow along the way, and the variety of game forms sighed.

"The gap between us and foreign games is really big, but we can definitely catch up." One of the members of the Nishiyama House who was not shaken down issued a bloody declaration.

Of course, there are also those who are frightened by the qualitative gap that can be intuitively felt and the insurmountable gap in terms of quantity, and even at this time they are not even interested in talking, but just sigh beside them with a gloomy face. Zhang Lexing felt that the goal had basically been achieved, but the effect seemed to be too good.

After returning to the station for dinner, Zhang Lexing and Zhao Haiguang and others had a secret discussion, and Zhao Haiguang came forward to convene the members of the E3 delegation for a short meeting.

After Zhao Haiguang summed up his impressions of today's visit in a few sentences, he changed his words and said: "...... When I came back today, I felt that although I saw the gap with foreign countries, most people still have fighting spirit, but a few people seem to have given up, which is very bad...... The gap is real, in order to narrow the gap, our association is ready to come forward to organize a game developer conference, please ask Mr. Zhang Lexing to explain the specific situation. ”

Zhang Lexing took the microphone and said: "Well, this game developer development conference is planned to be held in Beijing in October this year, with the participation of game developers on computers and game consoles, game marketing personnel and game-related professional development personnel......

In addition, I plan to invite some famous game designers from abroad to give special lectures, give speeches, and share development experience. I believe that with the long-term holding of the Game Developers Conference, as long as everyone has confidence, the gap with foreign countries will gradually narrow, and even catch up. ”

Hearing the news, everyone in the E3 delegation only felt refreshed, and their confidence seemed to be back again.

Zhang Lexing looked at everyone's expressions and decided to add more fire, so he continued: "In addition, I want to tell you a good news, the first professional game talent training institution in China, the students of Fengyun Game Academy will graduate at the end of June, and then we can provide game developers with a certain foundation for our company." ”

This good news made everyone present feel very high, what is the most lacking in these years - "talent", and now there is someone who can help solve it, although I don't know how the students of the Fengyun Game Academy are, but at least it is much stronger than those who don't understand it at all. The reason why Zhang Lexing wanted to announce this news was, of course, not so kind as to give up all the graduates of Fengyun Game Academy to other companies, at least not yet. On the one hand, they want to use developers who have undergone initial training to help game companies in mainland China improve their game development capabilities, and on the other hand, because after the expansion of recruitment, this year's graduates will reach 180, while the creative workshop is expected to only recruit about 120 people, and about 60 more people, if it can be arranged to other companies, it will be a very good thing for both parties.

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