Old friend Dawson Smith came to Seattle again, just as he also went to Funan during the Spring Festival last year, celebrated the Spring Festival with the two of Yuxi, and negotiated the release of "Getaway" at the dinner table, this time also for the physical release of "No One Survived", but fortunately, it didn't have to cross the entire Pacific Ocean.

In fact, in the eyes of the outside world, Qingyu Network is basically destined to maintain a long-term cooperative relationship with Activision, unless there is a big change in the middle, so that both parties are not very happy disputes, otherwise other distribution companies do not have to join in the fun.

First of all, Pasca's work, a slightly more powerful publisher is coveted, and it's clear who picks it up and makes money. "Nobody Survives" is released on PC, PS3, and XBOX360 three main platforms simultaneously as always, and in the mainstream attitude of players and media, no one believes that it will have sales of less than 10 million, as for whether it is 1,000 or 20 million, or even more, this will be slowly observed after the release.

There are only a handful of publishers with the ability to distribute such works, and among these publishers, Activision is the most generous.

Since the beginning of this year, Activision has officially surpassed EA to become the world's number one third-party game publisher, even if it has been willing to spend more money than EA on some of the products they value internally.

Every year from November, Halloween to Thanksgiving, to Christmas, and at the end of the year, Activision's investment in TV media, online media, search engines, or offline physical advertising can basically account for more than 20% of the total marketing spend of the entire game market.

Don't forget that the current record of the world's most expensive game still belongs to this company, 09 years of "New Year's Call 6: Modern Warfare 2" of 275 million US dollars, and rumored to be after the Bang Chicken studio got out of the giant hard, another new IP newly created, the console exclusive "Destiny", Activision even said how much it costs, you can say casually, the estimated total cost within them, research and development plus publicity, should not be less than 300 million US dollars (in fact, it was 500 million later, 140 million production costs, and 360 million spent on publicity and distribution).

The impact of the size of the advertised release on the sales of a game cannot be explained.

So herring and Activision, this is simply the best combination.

If other publishers want to compete with Activision for the distribution rights of the corpse of the herring fish game, they can only work the sharing agreement and make huge concessions, and they need to make big concessions.

…… But Activision doesn't.

……

The reason why "Nobody Survives", like "Getaway", only slowly talks about the release of the game half a year before the game is released is because the company does not need the publisher's investment at all. Many developers don't have so much money, especially now that the cost of 3A production and development is getting higher and higher, when making a game, they can only negotiate the release first, rely on the publisher's funds to support the operation of the project team, and then complete the research and development of the game. Ultimately, the game rights are also the issuing company, just like Halo belongs to Microsoft instead of Bang Chicken, and Bayonetta belongs to Sega and not Platinum Studios.

A lot of developers have to hug the thighs of big publishers to survive.

But this point does not exist for the herring network.

Last year's Spring Festival EA, a third-party publisher like Yubi privately visited Ye Shenxi and Xia Qingyu's love nest in Funan, in fact, this year is the same, although they themselves don't have big expectations, anyway, they don't need money to talk, and it's okay to meet with Pasca more often to cultivate a relationship.

EA even offered a plan for all publicity expenses, not less than 100 million US dollars, and sales in addition to the cost of the development bank, but Ye Shenxi still said that he would consider it carefully, and it was the same as what he and Xia Qingyu said last year.

……

"Pasca, I'm really glad you're finally starting to do action-adventure and shooter games." In the small living room of the North American herring, Dawson looked at the working environment here and said, "Hey, I'm really ashamed, we've known each other for so long, and this is the first time I've come to visit your headquarters in North America. ”

"I should have invited you earlier." Ye Shenxi raised the teacup.

Dawson also held it up, a little awkwardly, drinking tea like a toast, perhaps this is also a cultural difference: "Chinese tea, after taking some from your house last year, it took me about two months to drink it at first, and I actually slowly fell in love with that taste, and then I wanted to drink it, but unfortunately it is not easy to buy it in the United States." ”

"You told me earlier, I'm ......."

"I can't always let you send it."

"I'll give you the address for online shopping."

Why does Ye Shenxi think that Dawson is a friend worth dating, this rich man who now seems to be a little middle-aged and fat, and has obvious signs of failure, has given enough respect to Qingyu Network and Ye Shenxi from the very beginning of "The Origin of All Things", and even now, after cooperating with three products, they will adjust their plans every year according to the "value" of Qingyu Network, showing sincerity.

The herring is not the little herring they saw for the first time in 08, and the agreement with a small company is not the same as that between a large company.

Many other manufacturers Activision actually report an attitude of "help you publish, help you make money", and for herring, they can also calm down and cooperate with each other on an equal footing.

Here's why.

"Hahaha, okay, remember to give me the address for online shopping."

"How do you feel here?"

"The people here are already the elite of various large game companies, and with your tuning, I think this is the place with the highest game development capacity in North America."

"Dawson, your compliments are getting more and more Chinese. I know that Activision has always been outstanding in the adventure genre, especially in the shooter genre, and no one can match you when it comes to publishing games in this genre. ”

Last year's "Getaway" became a masterpiece of the Activision RPG genre, and directly dumped EA's "Mass Effect" and "Dragon Age" two major RPG series. Activision has also proven to other RPG developers that it is capable of the genre as well.

In terms of sales, although the first sales volume is lower than last year's "New Year's Call 7", the follow-up sales are even stronger, and the current 24.07 million units sold by "Getaway" are very close to the 26 million units of "New Year's Call 7", and it is likely to be overtaken within this year, which makes Activision more full of expectations for this year's "No One Survives".

"I want to tell you about our internal positioning for 'Nobody Survives'."

"Of course, I'd love to."

"We believe that it will set a new Guinness World Record, which is not based on the subjective judgment of a large number of your fans in our company, but through the calculation of the current discussion of "No One Survives" players, your company's user stickiness, word of mouth, time to market, the overall environment of the game industry, etc."

"Of course, our distribution strength will also play an important role."

The current Guinness World Record is 7.5 million units sold on the first day of "New Year's Call 7" last year, as the most successful entertainment product, breaking the previous record of 7 million for "New Year's Call 6" the year before, and the $450 million first-day sales are also the first in history.

As for the record of the fastest entertainment product to break 1 billion, it currently belongs to the movie "Avatar", which took 18 days.

"More optimistic than your "New Year's Call 8: Modern Warfare 3"?"

“…… We think they're exactly the same level of work, haha. ”

"What are your internal expectations for Modern Warfare 3's first day of sales?"

"It's about 8 million sets."

"You're stressing me out a lot."

"Let me tell you our conditions, no less than 150 million US dollars in publicity and distribution, for advertising, marketing, distribution of various channels, and we are willing to concede to 64 percent."

Last year's "Getaway" Activision promised a guaranteed $60 million investment in publicity, but in fact, it was later added to $100 million, which was the first real 3A work of the Blue Fish Network, and there were still some controversies in the hard power of research and development, and it was an RPG type of release that Activision was not good at at at the time.

That's when they dared.

This year, it was directly opened to a $150 million guarantee, and Ye Shenxi even doubted it...... Dawson didn't know where to find out the conditions offered by EA...... But he himself did not reveal, and EA is even less likely. So Activision is really upright, "Nobody Survives" is different from "New Year's Call" or "Destiny", and the copyright belongs to Qingyu Network.

With a small broad, you can only look at luck, and a large investment and high return is the normal business logic, in the case of guaranteed quality.

"I believe our conditions are very competitive." Dawson was pretty sure.

"It's even impossible to refuse." Ye Shenxi added.

"If we can, we can sign a formal agreement on sending the team as soon as possible."

"I don't have any opinions, it's just ...... Can there be fewer signing sessions......"

"Tired, huh...... Last year, "Getaway" didn't have many signing sessions, only 9 shows, Hollywood, London, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, ......"

"No, because after "Nobody Survives" comes out, our other "Paradise Lost" will be launched soon, and I still have to take care of that."

"Huh? Is it so fast? Paradise Lost? ”

"yes, it wasn't long ago that the name was decided."

"No, I mean, this game is still half a year away, and you have never released any corresponding news, or even announced! My God. ”

"Isn't E3 about to be officially announced?"

"Need a publisher?"

"Pay attention to the words I use, the launch is not the listing, this is an online game, Dawson."

"We can also publish online games, do you have any information, can I take a look? Demo? ”

"Dawson, we only plan to release a digital version of this game, and it can only be downloaded and played through the FG platform."

“…… In this case...... I guess it's used to fight Villefort's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. ”

"As you expected."

"You're really calm."

"Who's to say it isn't."

"In fact, only the PC version and the physical version are not in conflict, we can also be responsible for the distribution of the physical version, isn't this the case with "Getaway", the disc comes with the activation serial number of the FG platform, and it also contributes to a very considerable sales, think about it?"

“……”

……

The physical publisher of "Nobody Survives" is still Activision, and soon the two sides issued a joint announcement, which is basically in line with everyone's expectations, at most some people will doubt whether Activision will "favor one over the other", after all, the release time of "New Year's Call 8: Modern Warfare 3" is November 8th, and "No One Survives" on November 11th is only 3 days apart.

But if they knew the details of the agreement, they wouldn't think so.

Activision's investment plan for the release of "Modern Warfare 3" is also based on 150 million as the minimum standard, and the treatment of the two games is almost the same, and there is no difference between in-person and adoption, who sells better, each depends on his ability.

It's also a shame that they can take out so much money in a short period of time, and November this year is also an unprecedented spending experience for Activision.

……

On June 7th, the E3 electronic entertainment exhibition arrived at the Los Angeles International Convention and Exhibition Center as scheduled, and it was still a familiar taste.

Before the official start of the exhibition, at half past nine in the morning Los Angeles time, the pre-exhibition press conference of the Qingyu Network in Hall 6 also officially met with the media. This is the first time that Qingyu Network has held a separate press conference on E3, one is the improvement of the company's status, and on the other hand, because there are more things this year, it is impossible to rub other people's press conferences.

With the rise of digital distribution platforms such as FG and steem, the share and status of PC games in the European and American game markets have increased significantly, and the number of exclusive PC games participating in the exhibition has also increased compared with previous years, and several of the more heavyweight games have also been announced at the herring press conference. Just like Soni Giant Nintendo, they will introduce the PS3, XBOX360 and ii game lineup in the next year at the press conference, and the Blue Fish Network will also introduce the FG platform lineup.

This press conference also has a lot of domestic media to participate, and to provide live signals to Chinese players, but players almost only choose a live broadcast platform to watch, Longyan, the traditional way of providing live broadcast signals on various websites, in contrast, it looks old, and will soon be eliminated. Whether it is fluency or clarity, or even the viewing and communication experience, it is too far from Longyan.

On the Longyan live broadcast platform, Qingyu officially opened a live broadcast room for the E3 special conference, and also invited Xiaobei, the host of the game style stand-alone game channel, and the senior gamers and individual video author Daxi on the FG platform to jointly comment, both of whom are characters with excellent English.

Because of well-known reasons, although it is the same platform, the mainland and the "out-of-town" are separated, and the two sites also belong to two different teams within Qingyu that operate separately. Chinese players can't communicate with foreign players, and there is an invisible wall in between.

But fortunately, the international site is not walled, if the player likes it, you can also open the international site directly and communicate in English.

When the herring press conference officially began, because of the relationship between the United States daylight saving time, China time was half past eleven in the evening, and at the domestic site, 43,000 people had gathered to wait for Ye Shenxi to take the stage, and when Ye Shenxi waved his hand and stepped onto the podium in the applause of the audience, the number instantly soared to 52,000.