"Digital distribution?" Zhan Ping and Zhuo Jin were actually not unfamiliar with this word, but they didn't expect Ye Shenxi to talk to them about this matter.

"Offering a web download version for sale instead of an installation disc via CD-ROM or DVD? Ye always wanted to do this? ”

"Yes."

Digital distribution was a relatively early occurrence, with Steem established abroad in 2003, although Villefort was originally only to publish its own games such as Heroes of Counter Terrorism and provide anti-cheat support.

However, at a time when only about 20% of users in the United States had Internet at home, steem, which required long-term Internet access, was seen as a threat that could violate PC security. In addition, their own servers were very bad at the time, and many players who purchased the game were often unable to log in to the game due to network reasons, and they themselves were updated frequently, and the unbright interface did not make a good impression on players.

Fortunately, at the end of 04, the release of "Half Dead 2" saved the steem, and if you want to play this popular FPS game all over the world, then you must first have a steem account.

In '05, steem finally welcomed the first non-Wilford games, "Kung Fu Dolls" and "Darinia", which also means that steem has finally changed from a game browsing downloader and server to a real online game store.

In 06, the STEEM platform interface is more in line with the positioning of the game store, and the game free trial and game trailer online viewing functions have also been added.

Last year, more filters such as "Best Sellers" and "Newest Releases" were added to improve the usefulness of the store interface, as well as important features such as game time logging, friends list, community groups and voice, which increased the platform's user stickiness.

By this year, the number of users of the Steem platform has exceeded 20 million.

Zhan Ping thought for a while and asked, "Does Mr. Ye know the digital starry sky?" ”

Ye Shenxi nodded and said, "I know." ”

In China, in fact, similar platforms have also begun to appear, and many people think that the precedent for the digital release of domestic games is "Ancient Sword Story" in 2010, but it is not.

In March '06, a company called Digital Star was founded in Beijing, and they initially served as the exclusive publisher of Kaspersky in Chinese mainland, providing online software distribution and operation services to domestic players since last year, such as personal products such as ACD, a Canadian graphics and image software.

Of course, it also includes the digital distribution business of the game, and they and one of the three major portals in China, Xinlang Games, which has been on the decline at this time, jointly launched an online distribution service known as "China's first genuine game download service".

On their main interface, it is very accurate to describe that in the future, it is the general trend of the development of the software industry to legally download genuine games.

It's just a bit biased to attribute the motivation of all this to the fact that because I'm lazy, I'm too lazy to go out and buy games.

There is a certain deviation in understanding.

The results are known to everyone.

Zhan Ping said: "Digital Starry Sky they also made this thing that Mr. Ye said, but it doesn't seem to have any repercussions in the market. ”

Ye Shenxi shook his head and said: "Since there have already been predecessors who have done it and failed, then we, as later generations, should first analyze why they failed." ”

Zhan Ping had also thought about this before, because the profit of physical sales was indeed very low, and he had to think about other sales channels.

Of course, digital distribution has also been considered, but it has been defeated in the past, and this idea has been dispelled, believing that the time is far from ripe.

His knowledge of Ye Shenxi only comes from hearsay and the Internet, but most people think that this person has insight and foresight in the game industry that no one else can fathom, and he is also very interested in hearing how Ye Shenxi sums up the failure of Digital Starfield.

Ye Shenxi quickly phrased words in his mind, then sat upright, and said in a straight voice: "I think there are three main reasons for the failure of Digital Starry Sky. ”

"Mr. Ye, please speak."

"First of all, there is a problem with Digital Star and Xinlang's understanding of digital distribution."

"Isn't it to broaden sales channels and reduce distribution costs?" Zhan Ping asked.

"Not exactly. Reducing distribution costs is a very important part, but again, there is another reason, digital distribution can make it easier to provide players with the subsequent after-sales service of the game. ”

"After-sales service !?"

"Service?"

Not only Zhan Ping, but also Zhuo Jin, who was watching the old monk on the side, couldn't help but ask out in a silent voice, the first point thrown out by Ye Shenxi was something they hadn't thought about, or thought about, but it was definitely not a word to describe after-sales service.

Isn't that something that is traditionally sold in a brick-and-mortar market?

"Mr. Ye is talking about game bug fixes?" Zhan Ping asked.

"Bug fixes certainly belong to the category of after-sales service, which is the bottom line that our developers must guarantee, and it is also the most intuitive embodiment of the most after-sales service, but for the game content, it is broader than this. Including the addition of follow-up game content, small-scale expansion packs, these are also follow-up service content. ”

"What does the follow-up game content refer to?"

"For example, new weapons, new props, new maps, new plots, and even new clothes for the protagonists like Yun Tianhe, these are all things."

"Then don't we also have to invest in human cost to research and development?"

The game has already been sold, but the studio still needs to continue to develop new content like online games, and it doesn't get paid, which seems simply silly.

"It doesn't have to be free." Ye Shenxi smiled, his smile at least on the surface seemed quite sincere.

"We can call it DLC (Donloadable Content), that is, the follow-up downloadable content, the specific content depends on the developer, and similarly, whether it is charged, it also depends on the developer's personal wishes, measures the specific development investment, and increases the richness of the content to decide."

In fact, the emergence of DLC was much earlier than everyone imagined, as early as 96 when ID's "Thor" set off a wave of online battles, John Carmack selflessly made QuakeC, the game's map editor free and public, so that players can use their own creativity to develop a lot of new maps and new ways to play, upload them to the network for others to download for free, this is actually the beginning of the formation of the DLC concept.

On the console platform, in 2000, Soni's PS2 ruled the world, but it didn't pay attention to DLC and various online services, and was exploited by giant hard.

Launched in 2002, Xbox Live was not only an online platform, but also a place where players could download a number of DLCs to add to the fun of the game, but at this time the DLCs were basically free.

Paid DLC began to gain popularity at the end of '05, with the launch of the Xbox 360 console and Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM) at the same time, integrating DLC and allowing players to purchase freely. At the same time, because XBLM provides huge hard point consumption, young players without credit cards are eager to pay for it, so the paid DLC has entered the field of vision of more players.

"Will players buy the paid follow-up content?" Zhan Ping asked, with his market experience, it is not difficult to understand this concept, this method can indeed continue to bring revenue to the game without greater development pressure and cost, and at the same time can ensure the vitality of the game.

However, what about player acceptance?

In fact, in this era, Ye Shenxi can't say for sure, and he can't give Zhan Ping and other agents and developers a positive answer. From his standpoint, he can only say: "If players really like this game, they are willing to buy a game for 69 yuan, or even 169 yuan to buy a game character figure, why don't they want to spend more than ten yuan to buy a follow-up side plot." ”

Ye Shenxi even wanted to say, like those games where the heroine of yours says she will die, how can players not want to spend a little more time with those cute characters.

"Free and paid DLC can be launched without interfering with each other, and players can distinguish which DLC has more content, of course, the price of payment depends on your own expectations, a few dollars or a dozen dollars can be, and it is okay to do word-of-mouth for free."

"In fact, selling game products and selling physical goods are common in many places, and there are many other service Qingyu platforms that are also willing to bear the cost independently."

"For players, the Qingyu platform is fool-like, from purchase, download, installation, subsequent updates, as long as the player buys the game, it is all automatic, and this is also included in our service."

He didn't say anything like a trial refund right now, he was really afraid of scaring Zhan Ping and Zhuo Jin.

Zhan Ping nodded, thought for a while, but didn't say anything, and said, "Mr. Ye, what about the second point." ”

"Well, second, Digital Star's game library is too small and old. To this day, there are only more than 30 games in their entire game library, and it is written that they will continue to be updated in the future, but in fact, they have not been updated for a long time. One of the latest games is the indicator of "Resurrection of Qin Wound Prequel", 04 years, a game four years ago, this game I remember was represented by your company. ”

"It's our Huanyu agent."

"Then Mr. Zhan should also know the strategy of the digital star."

"They're buying old games that have almost disappeared from the market at a cheap price and selling them cheaply. They are different from our herrings, they themselves need to attract users to the platform through hot games, but these games themselves are already unattractive, and how to attract players, even if their prices are really cheap, a game is priced at three to five yuan. ”

"Players don't buy games they don't want to play just because the price is cheap, Mr. Zhan, you say no."

"Indeed, how can Mr. Ye's herring guarantee that players will buy some older games on your platform?" Zhan Ping's question is actually a bit acute.

Ye Shenxi almost couldn't help but snap his fingers: "This is the advantage of our herring fish platform." ”

"Listen up."

"The Qingyu platform now has more than 1.7 million users, but it doesn't seem to be many."

Zhan Ping nodded, it is indeed not much compared with other QQ game platforms such as Tenghua.

"But four months ago, we had less than 50,000 independent users on our platform." That was before the three web games were launched without deletion, "Immortal Dao" had not yet returned, and "Eternal War" had not yet met players.

"It took us less than four months to go from 50,000 to 1.7 million." Ye Shenxi said very calmly, but this kind of words themselves had a taste of pride or even conceit.

But this kind of conceit will not be disgusting, such as Zhan Ping and Zhuo Jin, who are gamers, only admiration and envy.

This is indeed a miracle created by the herring network.

"Mr. Ye's herring is indeed developing very rapidly." Zhan Ping said.

"Our platform doesn't really need games to add users to us, and our own conservative estimate is that the number of users on the platform will directly double in the next two months."

"It's about allowing our users to reach out and get to know your company's games, see the display content, trailers, screenshots, and reviews of other players on the platform, and then decide whether to buy or not."

"But Mr. Ye still hasn't explained clearly, how can I let current players buy for example, "New Peerless Double Pride III"?"

"Then I will answer Mr. Zhan's question positively, first, because of the community attribute of the Qingyu platform and the player's collection attribute."

"Mr. Zhan also develops games himself, and should know that collecting is one of the important attributes of players, and we will show all the games he owns, so that those who collect these classic games can be seen in front of other players in the community, and their friends can also see that they have these games, so as to satisfy their sense of achievement to the greatest extent. For these players, there are even some games that they just buy during the promotion, and may not play them at all, put them in their own game library, and forget about them. ”

Zhan Ping was surprised: "Players do have collectible attributes, but they buy games but don't play them?" Is this possible? ”

Ye Shenxi also smiled: "Who knows, but this is not the point." ”

"The key point is the second point, the herring platform itself is a way to play. Mr. Zhan, do you know how many unpopular businesses the Tenghua QQ icon has been lit up? ”

Zhan Ping and Zhuo Jin immediately understood what Ye Shenxi meant: "Ye always said, use popular games to drive unpopular games? ”

"Yes, of course, it may not be so deliberate, to give a simple example, for example, players playing "New Peerless Double Pride III" on the Qingyu platform, will drop a special platform prop, with this prop and other limited game props can be combined to synthesize a golden badge, or unlock a platform avatar, personal page background, an achievement, or even synthesize a set of character costumes in your company's "Sword and Fairy Five", or you can also sell it in the platform market. Under this linkage, Mr. Zhan thinks that more players will play this game? ”

Zhan Ping and Zhuo Jin both had expressions of sudden realization: "Mr. Ye, this is really far-reaching." ”

Such different game series, and even the linkage between games under different agents, need to rely on the carrier of the herring fish platform to achieve.

Ye Shenxi let the two of them digest this content again, he knew that or these two had already begun to think about the specific possibilities of linkage with games and platforms.

After waiting for a while, Ye Shenxi said: "I think the third reason for the failure of Digital Star is that they are separated from the majority of game developers and individual game developers, and they are simply Internet retail, which is actually not much different from a traditional storefront, and even their way of targeting piracy is only through lower prices than piracy." ”

But for developers, the Qingyu platform is a one-stop platform that provides sales channels, promotions, paid promotions, genuine protection, anti-cheating, and data collection and analysis services. We want to build an all-encompassing partnership with all the developers and bring everyone together to reopen the market for single-player games, not just sell games. ”

In the process of talking slowly, Zhan Ping and Zhuo Jin seemed to have an illusion that Ye Shenxi was here to give a speech today. 10