Chapter 57 Ma Huateng surfing game journey

For Chen Tianqiao, the following days were still five-flavored bottles. Tang Jun returned to the Wall Street road show in 2006, intending to save Shanda's stock price, which was falling steadily at that time.Unlike two years ago when he explained to Wall Street investors how much growth space Chinese online games would bring to Shanda, his mission in 2006 was to explain to Wall Street why Shanda’s strategy had changed, and this change would bring Shanda’s future growth. what are the benefits. Even a professional manager like Tang Jun, who is familiar with Wall Street's coping strategies, still has a headache for the mentality of American investors.But these troubles are far from enough to compare with the benefits of going public.Compared with the stringent regulatory strategy for domestic A-share listing in China, it is much easier to choose Hong Kong or NASDAQ in the United States.Of course, another great benefit brought by overseas investment is that the amount of financing can meet or exceed a high expected value.

Today's Chen Tianqiao is not as famous as it was then.The battle on which it became famous was also interpreted by the media as a victory for speculators. With a third-rate Korean game, it accidentally became the number one in China.As for the "grand box" that Chen Tianqiao once swore to swear and sell everything, he has long been forgotten in the Jianghu because of his superiority and widowhood.What annoyed him even more was that almost no one believed that Tang Jun could have done it all by himself if he hadn't relied on Tang Jun's help in the matter of Shanda's listing.Chen Tianqiao also said, "After Shanda took the lead, it is very difficult for other companies to catch up with Shanda through mergers and acquisitions. Because the best companies in all links of the industrial chain have already been acquired by Shanda."

The rise of online game companies such as Jinshan, Perfect World and Giant, especially Giant's "Zhengtu" became the most profitable game of the year in 2006.A piece of "Dragon and Babu" supported Sohu's stock price to rise by 11.13% at one point, reaching a maximum of US$59.49. The current Chen Tianqiao still hasn't stopped.Although Shanda's performance continues to hit new highs in the industry, it still makes the industry and the investment community doubt the firmness of its status as the king of the game industry. In 2007, China's independent research and development of online games entered an encouraging stage, with seven or eight domestic companies carrying out research and development projects.It exploded during the fifth session of Chinajoy.The biggest news during the exhibition was that Shanda put on the posture of Shang Yang's reform, drove Mercedes-Benz to the venue, and wanted to recruit the world's heroes.From the perspective of capital, Shanda needs to make a further gesture of returning to online games and regaining the top position before 2008. Therefore, some acquisition integration plans and internal adjustments they started are reasonable.

Shanda launched a massive investment plan in 2007, spending 3 billion yuan to establish 18 seed funds. Currently, nearly 20 investment projects have been negotiated, with an average investment of about 8 million yuan.It is reported that the fund may be further expanded.Although the difficulty in raising new investment funds has made it more difficult for companies to raise funds, Chen Tianqiao still declared that Shanda will be the most steadfast investor in the entire industry and will not reduce investment. When Shanda started planning for tomorrow with all its strength, Ninetowns also handed over a good financial report.The company's net revenue in the fourth quarter of 2007 was 36.2 million US dollars, an increase of 21% compared with the previous quarter, and its net profit increased by 33% compared with the previous quarter, returning to the top three in the domestic online game industry.

However, most of the $36.2 million in revenue came from World of Warcraft.For a long time, Ninetowns has been criticized by the outside world for its practice of only acting as a game agent and relying too much on "World of Warcraft". When Zhu Jun received mixed reviews from the industry, Sina, which has always held a relatively conservative attitude among the three major portals, also started his own way of online games. In August 2007, the Sina Game Division was established to promote large-scale online games on the Sina platform through joint operations, supplemented by game advertisements, game information and the original game platform. The launch of UTGame, an auxiliary tool for instant messaging, strategy query, and client integration, is also considered by the industry to be a sign of Sina's vigorous investment in online games.Compared with Sina's hindsight, Shi Yuzhu, as a latecomer, relied on online games to achieve the second spring of his career.Although the whole process was ups and downs, the result was beautiful.

After Shi Yuzhu started playing online games, this business maniac spent four or five hours a day on online games, but he let his fortune-making health care products business go his own way. Became a "player". After fleeing debts in 1997, Shi Yuzhu rarely showed his face in public for many years.But in Shanghai on April 8, 2006, Shi Yuzhu personally put on a suit to support the first online game product "Zhengtu". In the famous Jinmao Tower, Shi Yuzhu held a huge press conference.At the press conference, Shi Yuzhu claimed that the first online game product "Zhengtu" with an investment of hundreds of millions announced the date of public testing and began to accept market tests. With a balance of payments and a slight surplus, it can be said that it has started to make money.”

At the press conference, Shi Yuzhu took the opportunity to talk about the various benefits of "Zhengtu": "The first one is the problem of addiction. I am a free game. Players who are online for one hour are the same as ten hours. My game design does not let players Hanging up for a long time; the second is the problem of violence. If the game cannot be PK, people will definitely not play it, but we have set up rules. In the game, you will go to jail if you kill a foreigner for no reason. A level may be ten hours or eight. Hours; the third is the boring game. Traditional games are basically upgraded by fighting monsters. We are different. I have tens of thousands of question banks, and I finally want to get 4 million questions. There are all kinds of astronomy and geography. "

These benefits are obviously like all kinds of "treasures" in the game, which can be used for self-defense when retreating, and attacking when advancing. Shi Yuzhu thinks that he will be able to dominate the Chinese online game industry through this. After that, it didn't take long for Giant Network to appear on Nasdaq.According to the prospectus of Giant Network, from January to June 2007, the total revenue of Giant Network was 687 million yuan, and the net profit in the same period was 512 million yuan.The online game "Zhengtu", the flagship product of Giant Networks, had a peak concurrent online audience of 1.07 million and an average online audience of 510,000 in the second quarter.They are the first among similar products in China.

Industry analysts believe that "Zhengtu" and "Zhengtu Time Edition", which are currently being operated by Giant Network, have the largest number of online users in similar products, with strong profitability. In addition, "Giant" and "King of Kings 3" worth looking forward to, the future The potential for growth is huge.Under the general trend of the New York Stock Exchange's market plummeting more than 200 points, Giant Network successfully listed against the market, with an opening price of 18.25 US dollars, 18% higher than the issue price of 15.5 yuan.At this time, Shi Yuzhu successfully completed his triple jump from real estate to health care products and then to online games.

According to insiders in the securities industry, the market value of Giant is as high as US$5 billion, making Giant the largest online game company in China and the largest Chinese private enterprise in the United States. On the one hand is the road to NASDAQ where Giant Network is flourishing, and on the other hand is the good news that the state is extremely supportive of the development of online game companies.Kou Xiaowei, director of the Audiovisual Electronics Department of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said that the state will support the healthy development of online game companies from a policy perspective, including negotiations on unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies in foreign business.

The support behind this statement is the huge output value represented by online games.According to a "2007 China Game Industry Survey Report (Abstract)" participated by IDC, as of December 2007, the number of online game users in China has reached 40.17 million, of which 22.36 million paid online game users, compared with 2006. An increase of 31.3%, the actual market sales revenue was 10.57 billion yuan, an increase of 61.5% over 2006.By 2012, the number of online game users in China is expected to reach 84.56 million. Related industries driven by online games have also become gold mines with huge potential. In 2007, the direct revenue generated by the telecom business driven by online games reached 26.11 billion yuan, 2.5 times the sales revenue of the online game market. The direct income generated by the IT industry reached 9.76 billion yuan in 2007, mainly from PCs, online game servers, network and storage products, software and services.The direct income generated by the publishing and media industry reached 4.25 billion yuan in 2007, equivalent to 40% of the sales revenue of the online game market, an increase of 8% over the 3.94 billion yuan in 2006. The main source of this part of the income is the game Distribution and sales of similar newspapers, magazines, books, and online media. On November 1, 2007, in front of Americans, Shi Yuzhu suddenly returned to his old self.He said: "When the giant was listed, the New York Stock Exchange specially hung a Chinese flag, which made me feel more pressured, because if we want to maintain growth and win glory for Chinese companies, we must sleep less, not take vacations, and play hard. Therefore, the listing is My pain started." Shi Yuzhu's words became a prophecy. On November 27, Giant Network Group encountered its first lawsuit after listing.On behalf of investors, an American law firm filed a class action lawsuit against Giant Network and specific executives and directors in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, demanding that the defendants compensate investors for losses caused by incomplete information disclosure. Shi Yuzhu's joys and sorrows were infinitely magnified at the end of 2007.All the paper media and websites have magnified Shi Yuzhu's success and ups and downs.At this moment, Ding Lei of Netease is enjoying a kind of peaceful joy.Since the great success of "Journey to the West 2", the game has never left the pillar position of NetEase.So no matter how low-key he usually is, Ding Lei will always show up at the annual game industry annual meeting and Chinajoy, talking about the development of the Chinese game industry and NetEase games that he cares about. At the game industry annual meeting in January 2008, Ding Lei was full of spring breeze in the cold winter.Because he and Netease's game products have won six awards in total, including "Fantasy Westward Journey" and "A Chinese Story of Westward Journey 3", and Ding Lei himself won the most influential person award in China's game industry.Although the award made Ding Lei happy, what he valued more was the new direction of NetEase games that NetEase conveyed to the outside world at this annual meeting. "Netease has taken an extreme route in game design." Until June 2008, Netease's online game products still insisted on the charging model.And relying on the model of playing games for free and earning money from props, the pioneer Shanda and the follower Giant have successively created wealth legends in China's Internet.For these, Ding Lei and NetEase have been waiting and watching for two years. For Ma Huateng, he is also full of confidence.A year ago, the agency rights of the Korean version of the game "Dungeon and Warriors", which almost all domestic game manufacturers participated in the competition, finally "won" Tencent. On December 15, 2007, Tencent Holdings officially announced a contract with South Korea's Samsung Electronics and game developer Neople to obtain the exclusive right to operate the game in mainland China.Tencent said that after obtaining the agency rights of the game, it will vigorously promote the localization of the game, and the promotional animation specially designed for Chinese players will also be launched soon.Tencent's move is the latest masterpiece of Chinese Internet portals entering the field of online games at the end of 2007. According to Tencent's third-quarter financial report, the game business has grown rapidly since 2007. The third-quarter revenue was 230 million yuan, accounting for 20% of the total revenue for the quarter.Brokerage analysts said that online games, together with Internet value-added and advertising, will constitute the three pillars of Tencent's revenue. According to the industry, 2007 was a prosperous year for the online game market.The listing of online game companies such as Giant, Perfect World, NetDragon and Kingsoft has not faded out of people's sight, but Sohu's game revenue in the fourth quarter suddenly appeared.Tencent's entry into China's online games will undoubtedly make the online game market lively again.According to Analysys data, the growth of self-developed online game companies in 2007 differentiated the market shares of Shanda, Netease, Giant and other major manufacturers, and the industry concentration rate dropped from 62.97% in 2006 to 57.65%. Compared with the business models represented by Ninetowns and Ninetowns, online game companies that take the route of independent research and development are more likely to succeed, and investors who are new to the market competition prefer to take the route of independent research and development.As a result, the concentration of the online game market has further declined, and the overall market structure of the online game industry has shown a "long tail" trend. Ren Yuxin, senior executive vice president of Tencent Interactive Entertainment System, said that the game business will be carried out in three modes: independent research and development, joint operation, and agency.In terms of independent research and development, Tencent has invested heavily in the construction of its own game planning and development team, and has successively launched products such as "QQ Fantasy" and "QQ Three Kingdoms", and "QQ Speed" is also under testing. "QQ Three Kingdoms", which was put into operation in June 2007, performed well in the third quarter. It is reported that, except for Tencent, all enterprises suddenly increased their product launches in 2007.The leader of online games——Shanda Company announced five games in a row, namely "Ghost Blowing Lantern Online", "Across the World", "DragonNest" as an agent of Korea, and "Disney Magic Flyboard" from Disney. Such a high frequency is unprecedented. According to iResearch data, in 2008 China's online game market size was 20.78 billion, a year-on-year increase of 52.2%.