The Internet café at the entrance of the Zijingang Campus of Qianjiang University is a radish and a pit every day, and business is very hot.

Even among the top five universities in the country, there will be no shortage of students who play online games – at least since the beginning of this century.

However, now the summer vacation has begun more than a week. Except for those who have temporarily stayed in the city to play, as well as those who rent houses and do social internships, the other students have returned to their hometowns. The flow of people around the school is at least seven or eight percent less than usual. Internet cafes naturally have days of dissatisfaction.

Liu Min is in his thirties, a local demolition native, and the owner of a large Internet café 'Geek Internet Café' at the school gate.

His Internet café is big, but the business is not the best. Mainly because his family's machine was bought in 03; In the Internet café, which is almost 24 hours a day to operate, it is already a relatively critical behavior to not change the computer for two years, and now these computers are also playing Warcraft 3C and DOTA more smoothly, if you run "World of Warcraft", you can only open low picture quality.

An Internet café that doesn't have a good time playing World of Warcraft, how can business be good on the cusp of this kind of storm in mid-05?

Since the Warcraft became popular in April, in the past two or three months, Liu Min has repeatedly hesitated: Do you want to replace all the computers that have not been used immediately?

There are more or less channels for Internet cafes. I used the old computer for about two years, and although I didn't have a peer in a place like Qiantang; But if it's cheap enough to sell at a recycling price of seven or eight hundred, there are still small Internet cafes in the surrounding third- and fourth-tier counties to buy it. Therefore, the replacement cost is still within the tolerance threshold of Boss Liu.

More than a dozen cabinet air conditioners are blowing, strongly taking away the heat of the computers in the house. Liu Min's irritability in his heart was not taken away by the air conditioner at all: because there seemed to be fewer customers in the Internet café today than usual, and the attendance rate was only 20%.

There were several groups of students in a row, and when they went to the network management to turn on the computer, they asked a few questions. Then he turned around and left, and there were quite a few girls in the crowd. There are also some who didn't ask, paid the money to get on the machine, but played for less than 20 minutes, only spent a dollar, and left. At first, Liu Min didn't find any problems. But after a long time, I realized that something was wrong.

"Xiao Yao! What did the people who asked and left just now? Liu Min walked behind the hired female cashier angrily and asked unwillingly.

The Xiaoyao in his mouth is a cashier and network manager, a rural girl, who came to Qiantang to look for a job after finishing vocational high school, but unfortunately it didn't go well, so he came to be a cashier.

Xiao Yao pouted from an angle that the boss couldn't see, and replied with resentment: "What else can there be." Don't you always ask if the game 'Hatsune Singer' is installed? I heard that I didn't install it, so I went to the 'Youdai Internet Café' opened by Lao Wang next door. ”

"What? Didn't we also get a special proxy here, and we also provided a lot of registered public accounts on behalf of the dance troupe that can play Hanbok? This domestic game of 'Hatsune Singer',I heard that it's a copycat Korean product.,Why do you have to play that? Liu Min was very unhappy, and immediately thought of a possibility, so he poured his anger on Xiao Yao's head.

"Say! It's not that you're lazy when customers ask you. You didn't take the initiative to tell them we had a costume audition! ”

"Yes, but people don't look down on the Audition Troupe, saying it's two games entirely. Brother Liu, don't blame me, there are obviously domestic games, and they are doing well. Why don't we pretend, we have to help agents play Hanbok, the user experience is not good. ”

Liu Min was depressed in his heart, and said secretly: "Why do you think I don't want to?" Who knows, why is the hardware requirement of that 'Hatsune singer' so high? The computer that can run the dance troupe smoothly can't be installed at all with the 'Hatsune singer'. You have to play Warcraft to open a medium-quality computer to play smoothly! That burns the graphics card! ”

Liu Min was depressed, and when he saw an old customer who was very familiar but hadn't been here for a long time walk into the store, he didn't care about continuing to teach the female network manager, so he hurriedly went up to chat.

"Little Sun, why haven't you been here with me for more than a year? I thought you would run away after you graduated. Come, I'm in for a treat today! ”

The person who came smiled and agreed: "Brother Liu is willing to invite me, but it will be disrespectful." Recently, there was a new game, and I was not happy with my computer, so I came out to play it. ”

It turned out that the person who came was Sun Hongda, who was in the first year of research in the Academy of Mathematical Sciences, and he should be in the second year of graduate school at the beginning of school. This Sun Hongda was in the student union for a long time when he was an undergraduate, and when the world of Warcraft was launched in October last year, although he had retired, because the connections between the students in the college were still there, he was bought by Hatsune to be the "helmsman" of the "Wumao Sharing File".

In the student union of the university, some of the activities are self-funded. The merchants at the school gate are often the main sponsors of the student union cadres. Therefore, the owner of the Internet café is familiar with these people, and sometimes he will invite them to surf the Internet for nothing.

Since his graduate studies, Sun Hongda himself has not patronized Liu Min's Internet café again, but he has attracted a lot of business for him. In particular, Hatsune hired a lot of people to fight Warcraft in order to recommend the "Hatsune Download" software, and many poor students did not have their own computers, so Hatsune subsidized it with the money from Internet cafes. Sun Hongda used the subsidy funds on hand to take care of Liu Min's business.

Sun Hongda turned on a computer, looked for it, and didn't find the game "Hatsune Singer", he frowned suddenly, and checked the attributes of the computer again, it was actually the batch of computers he used in the early years of his senior year, and he hadn't upgraded it at all.

Sun Hongda didn't see Liu Min either, and said, "Brother Liu, you didn't do the business. When Warcraft comes up, you should seize the opportunity to change the computer immediately, what a good opportunity, it will definitely be able to attract a large number of customers.

It's no longer the same as four or five years ago, when we first went to college, few students could afford to buy their own computers, and those who came to Internet cafes were willing to play games as long as they could. At least one-third of students now buy their own computers. Today's younger brothers and sisters,Come to the Internet café to figure that your machine here is upgraded quickly,Smooth performance,If you break the computer, you can bear it.,They just play in the dormitory.,Why do you come out to waste this thing! 'Hatsune Singer' has been on the market for several days, and you can't run here, so what else is going on with this business? ”

This is not the first time Liu Min has heard such a view. It's just that when the female network manager said it, he was still a young girl who wanted to play by herself, and he was unhappy if he didn't pretend to be in the Internet café. Now I hear a figure like Sun Hongda say the same. Liu Mincai paid attention to it solemnly.

"Not really, right? Can this stuff market be compared to Warcraft? Why do you play with a big man? I've also heard that this thing is an imitation of the Korean dance troupe, and the whole thing is a brain-dead money cheating game, played by people below junior high school. ”

Sun Hongda looked at Liu Min with a pitiful look at aliens, and he was too lazy to speak for a long time, and Liu Min felt furious when he saw it.

"Brother Liu. What are you asking me to say about you? To be a human being is to be afraid of preconceived notions. Who said 'Hatsune Singer' is a game modeled after 'Audition'? Only a small part of the animation modeling is slightly similar, but the scalability and openness of the whole system are not comparable at all! Come on, come on, today I invite you, let's go to Yuyo next door to have a look, if they have a new machine over there, let's have fun. ”

LIU MIN WAS SO TORN THAT HE COULDN'T HOLD IT, SO HE HAD TO PICK UP A PAIR OF SUNGLASSES ON THE TABLE AND PUT THEM ON HIS EYES BEFORE GOING OUT TO LEAVE.

If you don't wear sunglasses, you will be seen by the owners of other Internet cafes and your peers will come to surf the Internet. I can't afford to lose this person.

The two Internet cafes were no more than 300 meters apart, and Liu Min walked in wearing sunglasses, and as soon as he entered, he was frightened by the violent contrast of excitement.

This competitor, which was once trampled under his feet, has an attendance rate of seven or eight percent today, which is four times that of his own family. Although the number of computers in his home is more than twice that of this Internet café, the absolute number of Internet users is not as large as here.

Liu Min was a little untenable. He and Sun Hongda drove two of the most expensive machines, four yuan an hour, ready to find out.

Many Internet cafes are in order to differentiate their tiered services. The price of the machines used is also different to meet the needs of customers who play games with different performance requirements. Otherwise, if you use a high-end machine for three or four yuan an hour, those retail investors who come to chat and play QQ poker will not be able to stand it.

The four-yuan machine is a fever machine that was just equipped two months ago, and it was bought by the owner of this Internet café with gritted teeth a month after the World of Warcraft national server was launched.

Liu Min and Sun Hongda walked to the upscale area and sat down. Boot. When I waited to turn it on, I glanced left and right.

There are about seventy or eighty computers that can be swept to the computer screen by the eyes of four or five rows of computers for four dollars an hour, and they are almost full of people. On-screen games. Sixty percent are playing World of Warcraft, and more than one percent are doing all kinds of chores, including playing domestic 3D free online games represented by "Conquering the Land" and "Perfect World".

There are also nearly 30% of people who are playing an online game that seems to look a bit like Audition at first glance, but is completely different when you take a closer look.

There is no doubt that this thing is "Hatsune Singer". Hatsune Network Technology's new online game, which was launched just a few days ago, is still operating for free. In the future, I heard that there will be items for sale, but they haven't started selling them yet, and the shadow of the online mall and the point card system is not visible.

Liu Min's heart was shocked, and he was even more curious, and he couldn't wait to experience the characteristics of this game immediately. I have to say that he was miserable by his preconceived brain-dead character about the Korean version of the Audition, and he actually missed such a popular game.

Turn on, find the game, register an account and log in. This took Liu Min about five minutes. During this period, he chatted with Sun Hongda for a while.

"Xiao Sun, even if this game is fun and distinctive, but you are a big man, you don't really want to play it, right? It's not your cup of tea. You'd better tell the truth, aren't you playing this game for the sake of your sister? ”

"Not ......"

"Don't lie to me! You don't know when I do? Koreans play Audition, all male players, ten or nine are to pretend to be cool fishing girls, dozens of pieces of virtual milk-hood are bought, used to send the girls in the game, especially more expensive than the real world to buy a milk-mask for horses. Maybe it's even delivered to a ladyboy! If I play, at least video chat first to see the goods before delivery! ”

Liu Min's spit on the beads was full of malice towards the dance troupe.

However, Sun Hongda only used one sentence to let all Liu Min's malice retreat.

"I'm not here to play the game for my sister, I'm here to test the water and see if I can make a lot of money playing this game."

"Play games to make money?" Liu Min felt that his eyeballs were about to fall out. was about to continue asking, but unfortunately Sun Hongda had already entered the game. Liu Min had no choice but to retract his gaze, and he began to focus on the game.

Whether there are dry goods or not, you will know if you try it. (To be continued.) )