boyutpedia Chapter 356 The Strength of EA Company
Chapter 356 The Strength of EA Company
It took half a month from the initial planning to the launch of the Brawl mode.
For the past two weeks, Xiao Yang has practically lived at the company.
During the day, I monitor operational data; at night, I coordinate map parameters with the technical department; in the early hours of the morning, I take a nap on my cot in the office; and the next morning, I'm back at my workstation on time.
Zhou Mingzhe said she had lost weight, but she waved her hand and said it was good for her to lose weight, as she didn't need to go to the gym and it saved her money.
Every time Lu Ran passed by the operations department and saw her hunched over her desk drawing map drafts on the screen, he felt that this girl was completely different from how she appeared during the interview.
During the interview, she was gentle and soft-spoken, but now she starts saying things like, "This value is wrong," "That balance is wrong," and "Old Wang, if you don't fix it, I'll sit next to you and watch you fix it."
Old Wang was driven to the brink of collapse by her. One night, he sent a message to Lu Ran saying, "President Lu, can you do something about Xiao Yang? She's been sitting next to my workstation until midnight for three days in a row. I don't even dare to go to the bathroom more than once."
Lu Ran replied, "Tell her yourself."
Old Wang said, "I wouldn't dare. The last time she glared at me, I had nightmares all night."
Lu Ran laughed for a long time after seeing the message.
The final version of the map for the free-for-all mode was drawn by Xiao Yang himself.
She didn't know how to use professional map editing tools, so she drew grids on paper, marking out the locations of bushes, minion waves, and defensive towers grid by grid.
After the drawing is finished, scan it into the computer and have the technical department copy it.
But this little girl's drawing skills are indeed first-rate; she has marked out almost all the points that need attention.
When Lao Wang received the hand-drawn map, he remained silent for a long time before saying, "This is clearer than the one I made with an editor."
Xiao Yang said, "Of course. I drew it seventeen times."
After the map was completed, it underwent two days of internal testing.
The first day was full of bugs. Heroes would get stuck in the bushes, skills had no special effects, and minions would just disappear into thin air.
Old Wang and his team from the technical department worked through the night and sent a message to Lu Ran the next morning saying that it was fixed.
Lu Ran played a few rounds on the test server.
In the first game, he was given a hero he didn't know how to play, died eight times, and killed two people.
He felt he had played well, and his teammate typed in the chat: "Mr. Lu, you should go back to writing songs."
In the second game, he got a hero he was very good at, killed fifteen people, and died three times.
He typed a message in the chat box: "You guys should go back to coding."
Teammate replied: "Bots."
Lu Ran closed the game and sent Zhou Mingzhe a message: "You can log in now."
On the day of the official launch, Lu Ran specially asked the operations department to post a splash screen ad on TUTU, with a caption written by Xiao Yang that consisted of only one sentence: "Can't get a spot? Come to the free-for-all. No need to fight, play whatever you get."
Less than an hour after GG was sent, the matchmaking queue for ARAM was full.
Lu Ran checked the backend data and saw that the number of players playing the game simultaneously had exceeded 500,000.
This number is still rising, increasing by tens of thousands every time it's refreshed.
Xiao Yang stood next to his workstation in the operations department, staring at the data curves on the screen, completely frozen in place.
A colleague nudged her, and she realized what was happening; her eyes immediately welled up with tears.
"President Lu, the data has gone up." She sent a message in the work group, her voice trembling slightly.
Lu Ran replied: "I saw it. Players like the map you made."
Xiao Yang sent a crying emoji and said, "Can I ask for half a day off? I want to go home and get some sleep. I haven't been home for three days."
"Approved. I'll have Brother Zhou drive you."
"No need, I'll take a taxi myself. I'm afraid if Mr. Zhou drives me, I might fall asleep in the car and talk in my sleep, revealing company secrets."
Zhou Mingzhe sent a string of ellipses in the group chat, then said, "What secrets do you have? You even know where I hide the snacks in my drawer, that's not a secret."
The group chat erupted in laughter.
After the release of the brawl mode, player feedback was even better than expected.
On TUTU's gaming section, several thousand more posts about Super Smash Bros. appeared in a single day.
"I got a hero I'd never played before, so I just went in and went for it. I didn't even care if I died, since I could just get another hero in the next game. It felt so good."
"I used to smash my keyboard in anger when I lost ranked matches, but I'm not angry at all when I lose in ARAM, I even find it funny. Just now, three of us were killed by a low-health enemy, and I laughed in front of my computer for five minutes."
"Please, please stop with the ARAM mode! The matchmaking is too fast. I just clicked start and before I knew it, I was in the game. I didn't even have time to go to the bathroom."
Lu Ran flipped through these posts, a smile playing on his lips.
In addition to the free-for-all battle, the operations department also launched a sign-in event.
Sign in for seven consecutive days and play at least one game each day to receive a permanent hero; sign in for a month to receive a skin.
The event page is very simple, just a calendar. You can check in by clicking it once a day. Even the button is designed to be very large, as if afraid that players will not be able to click it.
Xiao Yang was initially worried that the event was too rudimentary and that players would feel the company lacked sincerity.
Lu Ran said that simplicity didn't matter; what mattered was whether the players could get the items.
If you offer enough, players won't complain about your page design.
If you don't offer enough, no matter how beautiful the page looks, players will still complain.
On the day the check-in event was launched, the number of participants exceeded five million.
Xiao Yang stared at the data in the backend and sent a message to Lu Ran, saying, "President Lu, you're right. Players don't mind the ugliness, they mind the stinginess."
Lu Ran replied, "Of course. After all these years of being so frugal, how could I not understand this principle?"
Xiao Yang sent an "I'm impressed" emoji.
With these two measures implemented simultaneously, the player attrition has been temporarily stabilized.
League of Legends' peak concurrent users have returned to over 2.3 million, which is 100,000 higher than before the launch of EA's Wildlands.
But the situation at EA is completely different from that at Tutu Technology.
Two weeks after its release, Wilderness Era saw its user base not decrease but actually increase.
Lu Ran checks the data backend for League of Legends every day, and also glances at EA's publicly available data.
The curve kept going up, not very fast, but very steadily, increasing a little bit every day.
Lu Ran had seen this kind of growth curve before; it was a hallmark of health products.
It wasn't an inflated price surge driven by a single marketing campaign; it was built up little by little through positive word-of-mouth from users and the inherent appeal of the product itself.
Zhou Mingzhe would send a daily summary of EA's data to the work group. One day, after sending the data, he added a question: "Where exactly is EA's user growth coming from? We haven't lost many users, so where are these new users coming from?"
Old Wang replied, "It's not like it fell from the sky."
After seeing this conversation, Lu Ran put down his phone, thought for a while, and then turned on his computer to check Tencent Games' data.
Tencent Games does not publicly disclose detailed financial data, but there are many research reports written by industry analysts on TUTU that summarize and compare publicly available data from various companies.
Lu Ran flipped through several reports and discovered an interesting trend—Tencent Games' daily active users had decreased by about 12% in the past two weeks.
Twelve percent may not sound like much, but for Tencent Games, that's nearly ten million users lost.
He then looked through the data from other gaming platforms.
NetEase Games' daily active users also saw a slight decrease, but the decline was smaller than Tencent's, at around 5%.
As EA's partner in the Chinese market, Perfect World's daily active users not only did not decrease but actually increased, which is not surprising.
The situation is even worse for Sakura Games.
Lu Ran called Chen Mo to ask about the situation on his end.
The phone rang twice before he answered. Chen Mo sounded much more relaxed than during their last call, showing no sign of sadness about the shrinking of Tencent's business.
"Mr. Lu, I was just about to call you."
"What's wrong?"
Have you been following Sakura Games' "Samurai Warriors" lately?
"I've followed it. The data doesn't seem very good."
Chen Mo laughed, a laugh he had been holding back for a long time before finally letting it out: "Not good? You're too kind. Let me tell you the truth, Sakura Games' data decline is much more severe than League of Legends'. When League of Legends dropped by 10%, Sakura Games dropped by 25%. Now League of Legends has recovered, but Sakura Games is still declining. Their game, Samurai Warriors, has lost more than half of its users in less than a month since its release."
Lu Ran paused for a moment after hearing the number.
He had anticipated that the data for Sakura Games would decline, but he didn't expect it to decline so quickly.
"Why did it drop so badly?" he asked.
"Two reasons," Chen Mo said. "The first reason is that EA's Wilderness Era was released, which took away a large portion of users. Sakura Games makes an action game with a Sengoku period theme, which doesn't seem like direct competition with EA's open-world survival and building game, but in reality, they are vying for the same group of people. Those players who pursue high-quality games will go for EA's product without hesitation."
"The second reason is Sakura Games' own problem. The gameplay of 'Samurai Warriors' is too monotonous. Once you've completed the story and maxed out your characters, what else is there to do? Grind dungeons? Grind for equipment? Players get bored after a few weeks. It's not that Sakura Games doesn't want to update, it's that they update too slowly. At their current pace, by the time new content comes out, the players will have already all left."
Chen Mo paused, his tone tinged with undisguised smugness: "To tell you the truth, Mr. Lu, seeing the data for Sakura Games drop has made me incredibly happy. Don't you think that's a bit unfair of me?"
Lu Ran laughed: "It's not very kind. But it's understandable."
"I'm glad you understand," Chen Mo said. "I've told the investment department before that Sakura Games' model won't go far in the Chinese market. No matter how good their products are, they're still thinking in the Japanese market. What do Japanese players like? Exquisite graphics, rich storylines, and deep character development. Chinese players like those too, but they value one thing even more—social interaction."
"Why is League of Legends able to retain players? It's not because of its great graphics, but because you can play with friends. Playing alone is no fun, but when five people team up, even if you lose, it's still enjoyable. Sakura Games doesn't understand this. The games they make are essentially single-player games; there's no interaction between players. After playing for a while, the loneliness builds up, and you don't want to play anymore."
After listening, Lu Ran's judgment of Chen Mo improved even more.
This person doesn't just look at the issue from Tencent's perspective; he looks at it from the perspective of the entire Chinese gaming market.
He knew what the players from the Dragon Kingdom wanted and didn't want.
This kind of insight cannot be cultivated by looking at data; it requires years of industry experience and a deep understanding of the market.
"Mr. Chen," Lu Ran said, "what's Tencent's investment department's attitude towards Sakura Games right now?"
Chen Mo snorted: "Their attitude has changed. Before, there was at least a 70% chance that the investment department would agree, but now it's less than 50%. It's not because I said anything in the middle, it's because the data speaks for itself. The data for 'Samurai Warriors' has been declining all the way down. Even if the investment department still wants to cooperate with Sakura Games, they have to think twice. They won't be able to explain themselves if they invest in a product whose data is declining every day."
"What about EA? What is Tencent's attitude towards EA?"
Chen Mo paused for a moment, then said, "EA's situation is rather complicated. Currently, EA and Perfect World are deeply intertwined, so even if Tencent wanted to get involved, it wouldn't be easy. Moreover, EA's product positioning overlaps with Tencent's existing game business, and if they were to cooperate fully, there would be many internal conflicts of interest. Therefore, in the short term, it's unlikely that Tencent and EA will make any major moves."
"But in the long run, it's hard to say. EA's products are indeed very good. If they gain a foothold in the Chinese market, Tencent will have to deal with them sooner or later. It will either be cooperation or competition. Tencent will not stand by and watch EA eat up the market share in China; it will definitely take action."
After listening, Lu Ran nodded: "I understand. Mr. Chen, thank you for telling me all this."
"You're welcome," Chen Mo said. "I've told you before that I'm on your side on this issue. It's not because you offered me such great terms, but because I believe the future of the Chinese game market should be in the hands of the Chinese people themselves. EA and Sakura Games can make money in the Chinese market, but we can't let them dominate it."
After hanging up the phone, Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a while.
Chen Mo said that the data for Sakura Games dropped by 25%, which was larger than he had expected.
He originally thought that Sakura Games could last longer, at least three months.
Unexpectedly, in less than a month, more than half of the users left.
It's not that Sakura Games' products are bad; it's that EA's products are too strong.
It's so powerful that it has directly attracted all the high-end users in the market.
These users don't really think much of domestically produced games; they usually play foreign AAA titles.
When EA's Wildlands was released, they pounced on it like sharks smelling blood.
Sakura Games is caught in the middle, with EA's high-end products vying for users above and national-level games like League of Legends taking away its viewership below. It's no wonder it's failing.
Lu Ran picked up his phone and sent a message to Zhou Mingzhe: "Brother Zhou, Sakura Games' data has dropped by 25%. Have the marketing department write an analysis article, not too long, just present the data and trends. Don't criticize them, just analyze objectively. Post it on TUTU's game section so people in the industry can see it."
Zhou Mingzhe replied, "Are you trying to rub salt into Sakura Games' wounds?"
"This isn't about rubbing salt in the wound. It's about making it clear to those investors who are still hesitant that foreign capital isn't a panacea in the Chinese market. Even a product as good as Sakura Games can still see its data drop. The Chinese market has its own rules, and if you don't understand those rules, no one can help you."
"That makes sense. I'll have Lao Zhao arrange for someone to write it."
Lu Ran put down his phone, opened his notebook, and drew an X on the page about the Sakura game.
This opponent is basically someone we don't need to worry about too much.
They won't die; they're doing very well in the Japanese market.
However, they cannot turn things around in the Chinese market in the short term.
Now, there is only one real competitor—EA.
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