When it comes to Electronic Arts (EA), some people may not be familiar with it.

But when it comes to Blizzard, or Activision Blizzard, this game company is very famous.

- After all, the cheating Alsace has influenced a generation.

As an existence that can compete with Activision Blizzard in the game industry, EA is actually not to be underestimated.

Among other things, the famous Estood studio, which created the "Red Alert" series, was eventually acquired by EA and disbanded.

In this regard, EA actually has a very bad track record -

The company likes to buy up some well-known game studios and then dissolve them soon after, for a variety of reasons.

Although the reasons used are generally relatively high-sounding, no one knows if there is no plan to take the opportunity to destroy the opponent and completely annex it.

For Charlotte, though, none of this was a problem.

After all, as the seller of copyrights, he can sit firmly in Diaoyutai when facing game companies.

All he needs to care about is how strong EA is and how much money he is willing to pay.

——Fortunately, as a well-known and established game company, EA is still relatively reliable in terms of development capabilities.

As for the money—

"EA's bid for the copyright isn't too low, but a $3.5 million one-time buyout is this-"

"Less!"

Charlotte said bluntly,

"Even if it's limited to one game, it's not a very high price. What's more, what they want should be the right to develop and use the entire copyright in the game within a few years, right?"

"Yes. ”

Alexis nodded,

"EA actually wants to bypass us and reach an agreement with Rowling directly. However, because we had already had an agreement with Rowling before, Rowling did not agree, but directly relayed it to me. ”

Long before preparing "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", Charlotte worked with J. Brown. K. Rowling has signed a supplementary agreement - unlike the copyright of the original book, the peripheral copyright derived from the adapted movie no longer belongs to Rowling.

Although she was able to get a share of the profits from the licensing of these copyrights, the management of this part of the copyright has been received under the name of the Ghost Party Studios.

- Rowling will agree to this agreement, partly because it is currently practiced. On the other hand, it is also because she herself does not have enough financial strength at the moment to hire professionals to help manage copyright.

In this case, it is not a good idea to hand it over to the Ghost Party Studio.

- At least it can reduce a lot of problems.

Let's take the EA incident this time-

EA's move this time is actually suspected of rubbing the heat on the sidelines.

Indeed, unlike film and television anime, the rights to the Harry Potter series belong entirely to Rowling.

If Rowling licenses the game in her name, it's not impossible.

But EA came to the door at this time, how could it be just for the authorization of simple copyright!?

They obviously want to take advantage of the popularity of the "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" movie!

If the release of the game can be synchronized with the release of the movie, it can save a lot of publicity costs, and then maximize the benefits.

——The common film and game linkage mode in later generations, isn't this what it looks like!

Charlotte can imagine that once Rowling agrees to the license, EA will inevitably "borrow" heavily from the TV animation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and the characters and set design of future films......

And once the Ghost Party Studio initiates a copyright lawsuit, the other party will fight on the grounds that it has obtained the authorization of the original author......

It is important to know that copyright litigation has always been a difficult problem in the judicial field, as long as both sides insist on their own words and have excuses, they will often be protracted.

Therefore, more than 80% of copyright lawsuits end in out-of-court settlements.

It's not that there's a right or wrong, it's just that both sides have been dragged out of the way and have to reach a compromise.

Fortunately, because an agreement was reached with the original author Rowling in advance, this small move on the EA side did not work.

However, Charlotte still felt that the other party's offer of $3.5 million lacked sincerity.

You know, in the 21st century, tens of millions of dollars in copyright money are not so uncommon.

Although it was only 1998 and the dollar had not depreciated so much, the $3.5 million mandate was still too little.

In particular, looking at what EA means, what they want is full copyright in the game field......

"Full copyright is impossible!"

When discussing this with Rowling, Charlotte made this very clear,

"Joanna, since you are going to write "Harry Potter" as a feature-length series, unless it is a sky-high copyright fee of hundreds of millions of dollars, it is better not to grant full copyright, which will lead to a lot of trouble. ”

"I get it. ”

Rowling nodded.

After "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" gradually became popular, Rowling also learned a lot about copyright.

- After all, the main income of literary and artistic creators, in addition to the manuscript fee, is the copyright money.

Even if Rowling is a "magic mother", she has to pay attention.

- What's more, it was only a little more than a year for her to get out of poverty and become rich......

In short, Rowling still attaches great importance to EA's plan to adapt "Harry Potter" into a game.

Although looking at EA's quotation, it can't be regarded as very sincere, but business is all about talking!

"I'm hoping to get $5 million in royalties with a percentage of the profits. ”

Charlotte saw what Rowling meant, and he directly stated his plan, much to the surprise of the magical mother.

"It's really a lion with his mouth wide open!"

Although she feels that $3.5 million is not sincere, Charlotte's conditions are a bit too much in Rowling's opinion-

Just $5 million is not a small amount, but it is not an exaggeration.

But the profit sharing ratio is really not acceptable to ordinary companies.

- After all, at this time, the second "Chamber of Secrets" of the "Harry Potter" series has not yet been officially published, and it is far from reaching its peak moment.

To put it simply, the magic mother at this time is just a turtle who has never seen a lot of money.

In contrast, Charlotte, as a big director who has become famous, is calm and light-

First of all, he knows that the copyright of the "Harry Potter" series, or this IP, is becoming more and more valuable.

As long as he doesn't crash, this trend won't change. Even if EA doesn't buy it this time, there will be people who are willing to pay more money in the future;

Therefore, he has nothing to fear;

Secondly, he has memories of the future, and knows that although EA often has small calculations, it is indeed willing to invest money in IP.

Not to mention anything else, after they got the license from Lucas Studio, they produced "Star Wars: The Old Republic", and the overall development cost was more than 100 million dollars.

- Naturally, the royalties contributed to George Lucas, the Maharaja of the Sith, are indispensable.

Because, Charlotte is not very worried that EA will be scared away by her own offer.

In the end, in Charlotte's hands, there is another set of killer features-

When I was working on the TV anime version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the 3D scenes of Hogwarts and the 3D modeling of many of the characters in the story would definitely save them a lot of development costs if they were made available to EA.

- With this in hand, Charlotte doesn't have to worry about EA not taking the bait.

"The 1998 Oscars will be held in a few days, and I'm going to go back to the United States, and I'll go straight to EA's Los Angeles headquarters to talk!"

After talking to Rowling for a while, Charlotte finally came to this conclusion.

Rowling didn't object, she wanted to wish Charlotte the Oscar, but she didn't expect Charlotte to wave her hand as if she could read minds.

"Needless to say, I guess I'm just going to go through the motions this time, and I shouldn't be able to win the award!"

"This year's Oscars are destined to belong to "Titanic"!"