Recently, a Japanese journalist was planning a book and a collection of interviews with the founders of many successful video game companies to find out the secrets behind their startups.

You know, starting a business in Japan is a very taboo word. Ordinary people start a business, in everyone's opinion, it is basically not much different from a joke.

Without social resources and bank resources, it is basically difficult to start a successful business. Of course, if you start a business by opening a grocery store on the corner, there are many ordinary people who succeed.

Japanese society is a society that has not cut off the tail of the old society. Although the nobles did not have that noble title, they still stood on the high ground of the economy, and still looked down on the ordinary people they had looked down on many years ago.

In fact, the owners of some video game companies are very low-key, because in the circles of these former aristocrats, there is a collective perception of making a lot of money.

Instead of speaking in the media every day to pull hatred, it is better to make money in a low-key manner. Many Japanese people use these big chaebol products for their daily necessities.

It is said that in Tokyo, the ratio has reached nearly 90%. This is a very scary number, and this number basically means that those people who live at the bottom have almost never turned over in their lives.

Therefore, the topic of entrepreneurship is very, very sensitive.

However, the journalist was also very insistent and his background was a little delicate, so most of the founders of game companies were interviewed.

Of course, it is impossible to say in the interview that those people in the mall are cheating. For example, if your company launches a game of the same type as my company, and it sells well, I don't think your game is pleasing to the eye, and you can't go to the field, so what should I do? Then I'll register the trademark for the sequel to your game in advance.

You can't skip three in the game, just go straight to four.

This kind of thing has really happened. Right in the arcade fighting game market. The trademark of "Street Fighter III" was registered by a competitor. Before the expiration of the trademark, they had no way to launch the third installment of the Street Fighter series, and they had no choice but to launch a new Street Fighter series to make up for the gap in the past few years.

Of course, in fact, this kind of bad thing, real fans, already know it well. After all. Anyone can remember this. It's quite interesting to say.

The content of the interview is basically about the hardships of the entrepreneurial process. Some people take such a path, some people take that path, maybe the people behind will deny the people in front, but the people in front are just as successful.

In interviews, it was mentioned more than once. The younger you are, the more you feel that you are smarter, and as you grow older, you realize that you don't understand so many things.

Every time you look at a problem from one more angle, you actually find yourself with more shortcomings. This in itself is a boost.

Of course. Having said that, it has been mentioned more than once in the report that there is no blind self-confidence. It is difficult to have the courage to start a business, so all roads lead to Rome.

In fact, these entrepreneurs are basically the kind of people who have already saved or have connections. In fact, many of the experiences they tell are only half of them, and they only talk about how I worked hard and succeeded almost from scratch. But I never said that it was the second day of my business. got the family's investment of 200 million.

In fact, if you have technology, you can start a business. often not enough.

This is also the reason why Lin Yan did not choose to start his own business, he does not have such a connection. What kind of connections will a child of a home appliance repair shop have?

After the first failure, the second cooperation between Hayashi Hiko and Chiba Yuki can be described as a success.

After interviewing the founders of ten well-known game companies, the reporter seems to have finally remembered Chiba Games. She found Chiba Games, only to find that Chiba Yuki refused her interview and instead asked her to interview Hayashi instead.

And because of Lin Yan's reputation among players, this young reporter didn't insist on anything, and came directly to Lin Yan for an interview.

Reporter: Tell me about before you joined Chiba Games.

Lin Yan: When I was a child, I had a dream to bring happiness to all people in this world.

At first, I wanted to act, to bring laughter to others. Unfortunately, when I was five years old, I made a mess of a drama performance, and the audience had to take off their shoes and throw them on stage, so I gave up acting.

After that, I did a few other things, but unfortunately they all failed.

Until I was in high school, I was just one of thousands of ordinary people.

Suddenly, one day, the electrical repair shop at home had to repair an old computer. In fact, it was an old computer with a burned-out motherboard, a mess that my father had made by gambling with others when he was drunk.

At that time, my father passed out from an electric shock and was treated in the hospital.

And the man who made a bet with my father came to urge my family to pay off their gambling debts. I looked at the broken computer, at the keyboard, and I wondered if I could make a video game console that could interact with people.

It didn't take long for me to use the CPU on my computer to make a Space Invaders.

This "Space Invaders" was a hit and a great success. In just a few days, players put in the arcade coins, enough to pay off their father's gambling debts.

Maybe you don't know, one day someone suddenly came to me and said that the arcade machine was broken and malfunctioned, and let me check it out. When I went to look at it, I found out that it was coins that were stuffed with the piggy box, which made me have to make it several times larger.

The success of "Space Invaders" has made many people take a fancy to the new gadget of video games. They asked me to cooperate, and I finally chose to cooperate with Dongli and the persimmon family.

The three of us formed a company, and you may have heard the name of it, called Video Game Alliance. I was in charge of the development of the arcade machine, and Tori was in charge of the production of the hardware. And the persimmon family is responsible for the sales channel.

The first few months were a great time to work with.

The arcade machines that I make, such as "Tank Wars" and "Pac-Man", can be described as popular.

However, tragedy soon struck. The persimmon family and Dongli may think that I am alone. It only accounts for one-third of the shares, which is really unreasonable.

Moreover, there is such a thing as a game. It seems simple, but it seems that anyone can do it. So they forcibly kicked me out of the video game league.

By the way, I was in the Video Game League at the time, and the last project I worked on was a gaming watch.

I was depressed at the time, but when I was in high school, the head of my club, Yuki Chiba-senpai, approached me and asked if we could start a video game company together.

To know. In the high school club, we launched a very popular card game called "Destiny Games". At that time, our cooperation was very smooth.

So, we hit it off and established this Chiba game.

Strictly speaking, Chiba Senpai and I are the co-founders of this Chiba game.

Reporter: Your entrepreneurial journey is not a smooth road. Do you remember the first project in Chiba Games? When I start my business again, is the start-up capital enough?

Lin Yan: The start-up capital is sufficient. Although I didn't know the identity of Chiba-senpai at the time, she did get a lot of money. At the time I thought it was money. It's the money from Game of Destiny in high school.

I remember the first project, which seemed to be an electronic pet. You know, I was young at the time. There is inevitably some resentment about the behavior of the video game league.

I think I'm far more capable than the video game leagues, the designers who only make games that follow the trend.

So, I made an electronic pet machine. It's the kind of small machine that keeps electronic pets on the LCD screen. Basically, it's a game watch that is benchmarked against the video game league.

You also know that facing the battle like this is a matter of life and death.

The end result is clear. It was we who won, it was Chiba Games that won.

Reporter: Chiba Games gave up the arcade business at that time. Whose idea was it to go all-in on home consoles? How is it considered?

Hayashi Hayashi: This may be a bit complicated to say, but at that time we also made arcade games like Donkey Kong. Successfully carved out a sea of blood in the game arcade of the cookie-cutter video game league.

But while there is such a product. Proven to be strong. However, it is not a good idea to duel head-to-head in the arcade also video game League.

They have an incomparable advantage in the industrial chain, so in the end, they made a detailed judgment. We've found that there are a lot of gamers who are tired of going to arcades and want to be able to play at home. I'm tired enough to go to work, so why go to the arcade hall to smell the smell of sweat if I can go home and play a game comfortably.

Moreover, we also found that the home machine market seems to be much larger than the arcade market. There are tens of millions of households in Japan, and even if only half of them buy home phones, this is a market of tens of millions.

You may also have the experience that a person's energy can only work more efficiently if they focus on one point. Therefore, we gave up the arcade market and invested all in the research and development of home machines.

The research and development of home machines is actually quite different from arcade machines. Arcade machines can be relatively cost-free, but home machines need to consider the cost.

Now that the shape is clear, the price has a decisive impact on the sales of home machines. At that time, we were struggling with how to achieve a balance between price and performance.

In the end, we compromised on the price, and did not blindly pursue the best performance and the latest technology.

Finally, we have seen the showdown with the video game league in the field of home consoles.

Reporter: At that time, did you have so confidence in the home machine market? Must think that this is a market of tens of millions? Can you tell us how you made the game at the time?

Lin Yan: Of course, we are full of confidence. The arcade market gave us enough confidence. At that time, arcade games led by "Space Invaders" could be regarded as suitable for all ages, and even housewives liked to play a few games with change money on the way back from grocery shopping.

In fact, at that time, our vision was relatively small, and we only saw the Japanese market, not the world market. In fact, the first generation of Chiba games has sold nearly 150 million units in the world.

You know what that sales means, and how terrible it is.

In fact, we were very hesitant to update our console when we first wanted to. Because, updating the console means giving up hundreds of millions of old console players.

However, in order to bring more fun games to our players, we finally decided to update the console.

The first game of the red and white machine is actually a ported version of "Donkey Kong", that's right, the "Donkey Kong" on the arcade.

At the time, we didn't have the idea of licensing the game for the red and white mechanics. Just thinking about my own games, it's like a home console version of an arcade platform.

Later, I felt that an area the size of a TV screen was really getting in the way of showing the fun of the game, so I invented the scrolling technology.

To put it bluntly, it is to deceive the TV and let him refresh the new scene where I want.

Of course, this technology is embedded in the hardware of the red and white machine, and when I designed the red and white machine, I already had a certain idea in my mind.

Later, what appeared was, you should have played it too, and it was Super Mario Bros. This game directly boosted the sales of red and white machines.

You know, this game can't be played in arcades.

At this time, we realized that the speed at which we made our own games could not satisfy the appetite of players, and a third-party manufacturer asked us if they could make games for home consoles.

So, we opened up the license.

The royalty system of "all evils" began. As you know, our royalties are very high. However, we also have no way, we can only do this in order to ensure the quality of the game. Use royalties to filter out manufacturers with insufficient qualifications.

After all, we had limited energy at the time. We can't afford to live up to the trust our players place on our platform.

However, this regret has been made up for recently, and I don't know if you have played any of our recent games on an indie platform. That platform doesn't require royalties.

Reporter: Can you tell us about the accidents you encountered during your work?

Lin Yan: Yes. There have been many accidents, some big and small, and the most important thing is the technical problem, originally we planned to make a game, maybe six months to finish. However, sometimes there are technical difficulties that may not be finished. You need to work overtime.

Of course, there are times when we find that the game is not fun after making it, so we delete the game. (To be continued.) )