Brother Ma was kept by Song Weiyang. Not only that, Song Weiyang also summoned Ding Sanshi, Zhang Chaoyang and Rebs.

Several people sat in the No. 3 store of Time Cafe, Song Weiyang went straight to the topic and said: "The agency rights of World of Warcraft must be taken down. This game is definitely profitable, and it may even be more profitable than "Legend". Moreover, European and American online games do not have as many low-level bugs as South Korea, and the agency is smoother."

"Why doesn't Divine Sword Network participate in the dispute over agency rights?" Rebs said curiously.

Song Weiyang said: "Divine Sword Network is developing "Shan Hai Jing". In the future, it will compete with "World of Warcraft". You can't snatch "World of Warcraft" and play and fight with each other, right? That will distract your energy and will not be beneficial to both games."

Brother Ma said: "In fact, I am also optimistic about Warcraft. I also personally participated in the Singapore symposium of World of Warcraft at the end of February and successfully passed the inspection of Victory. Now there are only five qualified agents left in Jiucheng, Guangtong, Tencent, Ogilvy and Ubisoft (Shenghai). But I plan to give up the agency competition because Victory's asking price is too high!"

"How high?" Zhang Chaoyang asked.

Brother Xiao Ma said: "The signing fee is several million US dollars, and the late copyright fee is given quarterly, and at least several million US dollars per month. Moreover, I estimate that the development funding of World of Warcraft is not enough, so we actually ask our agents to pay the preliminary R&D investment and early promotion fees in one lump sum, which is at least more than US$20 million. In other words, regardless of the late copyright fee, the money given when signing the contract is almost nearly US$30 million, which is converted into RMB 200 million."

"Is it too expensive?" Ding Sanshi exclaimed.

Song Weiyang shook his head and said, "It is definitely not a one-time payment, otherwise which domestic agency can afford it?"

In fact, Brother Ma expected it well, and World of Warcraft was indeed tight in development funds.

So as early as September 2001, Blizzard released the news about World of Warcraft in advance and began to look for agents, trying to earn some signing fees to fill the funding gap. Then at the end of 2002, Blizzard came to China for publicity, attracting hundreds of Chinese companies, many game companies even temporarily registered, and there was no specific office location.

The Chinese companies that compete for the agency rights of World of Warcraft are really mixed up, so Blizzard had to put forward rigid requirements: First, there must be an independent telecommunications-grade computer room with direct backbone network lines; Second, no servers for other games or services should be placed in the computer room; Third, each group of servers consists of 3 game servers and 1 na server. China plans to build 25 groups of servers, each group of servers supports 6,000 people online, ensuring an average of 70% of the online load of the server...

There are many related requirements, and even the server's CPU level is limited, which leads to a large number of competitors automatically exiting.

Too harsh!

What if you can't get the agency rights if you spend so much money to build such a high-end computer room? Even if you get the agency rights, who knows when World of Warcraft will be launched? Historically, even Shanda, who is rich and powerful, chose to withdraw due to these harsh conditions - of course, the reason for Shanda's withdrawal is very complicated, not just because of this.

By mid-February this year, there were about 10 competitors left, and only 5 were left by the end of February.

Just a few days ago, Blizzard Vice President and Wei Wangdi China Manager came to Shenghai to personally screen these five Chinese companies.

Zhang Chaoyang suddenly said: "If World of Warcraft can make a lot of money as the boss said, then Sohu can participate in the competition. Sohu's current agent "Knight ol" is a bit unsatisfactory."

Ding Sanshi shook his head and said, "NetEase has operated two online games and is developing the third one. It doesn't have that much energy or financial resources to represent new products for the time being."

Rebs also said: "Kinsoft is working hard to develop "Swordsman Love O" and can't afford any extra money."

Zhang Chaoyang smiled and said, "Since that's the case, Sohu will take it as his own."

Brother Xiao Ma suddenly reminded: "Based on my contact with the manager of Wei Wangdi in China, Wei Wangdi plans to quarrel, no matter who gets the agency rights, he will suffer a lot."

"Blow out?" Zhang Chaoyang was a little confused.

Brother Ma nodded and said, "It's just a quarrel. Because Chinese game companies are so enthusiastic about World of Warcraft, nearly a hundred companies are competing for it. What would you think if you were a seller?"

"Start the price!" Rebs said.

"It's not just about starting a price," said Little Ma Ge. "During several negotiations, Virgin Di's attitude changed significantly. At the beginning, he said some substantive content, but later he didn't say anything or asked nothing, but just said which companies should continue to be inspected. Today, inspecting this company and tomorrow that company forced us to keep increasing the price. At the end of last year, Tencent had a contract fee of $1 million and promised to invest $2 million in early development expenses, which were listed as key manufacturers. At the beginning of this year, Tencent had to increase the contract fee to $2 million, and other expenses were also greatly increased, but Virgin Di's attitude became more and more ambiguous."

Ding Sanshi smiled and said, "This is to treat Chinese agents as kids."

Brother Xiao Ma said: "That's why I said that if I want to get the agency rights of "Warcraft", put aside the subsequent copyright fees, the other funds will cost at least 200 million yuan. And everyone, look at it, Wei Wangdi will still leave our Chinese manufacturers for a few months, without negotiations and only conducting inspections, forcing Chinese companies to give a sky-high price."

Wei Wangdi's approach is even more shameless than what Xiao Ma said!

The agency fees given by Chinese manufacturers are getting higher and higher. Wei Wangdi still feels that he can squeeze out some more oil and water, but he actually wants to marry a woman and sell it for two goods, divide China into two major regions, and hand it over to two different companies for agency operation. After this plan was proposed, it aroused strong opposition from Chinese companies, and none of them were willing to take over.

Wei Wangdi had to come up with a second plan to separate the game's technical support and market operation. The technical support platform was handed over to operators who were good at technology; then the market operation was handed over to operators who were good at channel promotion; and Wei Wangdi registered a joint venture to connect communication technology and market.

It was still selling it in one piece, which directly broke the industry rules. Shanda was undecided at that time, and it was because of this that he decided to withdraw.

The game industry was uproared, calling this a "unequal treaty", a "traitor" for operators willing to cooperate, and even several major companies threatened to "clean up the portal". Moreover, at that time, the agency fee of "Warcraft" was hyped too high because of Wei Wangdi's strategy of raising Gu, which was almost equivalent to 10% of the market share of Chinese online games!

The agency fee for a game actually accounts for 10% of the entire Chinese market share, so it would be strange if operators don’t jump up and scold them.

Of course, the sky asked for the price and paid back the money. Because the prestige Di sold it in one piece, the agency fee was finally reduced, and a large part of it was paid in installments. In the end, Jiucheng Hezong Lianheng sold out his teammates and successfully obtained the exclusive agency rights as a "traitor".

"Since you don't want to, then forget it." Song Weiyang said.

Zhang Chaoyang said: "Sohu can try it."

Song Weiyang said: "Sohu family definitely does not have that strength, so please include Sogou. Anyway, Ding Ming also wants to do online games. Sohu and Sogou jointly set up a game company. Well, the name is 'Soupai Changyou'. Remember, no matter how outrageous the requirements of the Prestige Di are, you can choose to follow up. At critical moments, it is just a matter of jumping back to the price."

"Yes." Zhang Chaoyang chose to agree, because Sogou's capital flow is very healthy and there is more spare money than Sohu, which has already been listed.

Song Weiyang's intentions were very sinister. He asked Sohu and Sogou to join forces to bid, just to act as a messenger. With Victory Di's urinary nature, as long as there are still many competitors, it will continue to drag down, and the price will be higher and higher. At that time, Chinese manufacturers mistakenly thought that Victory Di wanted to run the game themselves, because no one could see Victory Di's sincerity, and felt that Victory Di was playing tricks on all companies.

Song Weiyang just asked Sohu and Sogou to make trouble. The longer it drags on, the more interesting it becomes. It is best to delay the "Shan Hai Jing" to be online in advance.

Anyway, no matter what the result is, Song Weiyang will not suffer any loss.

Sohu, if Sogou wins the agency rights, then World of Warcraft will be operated by its own company; if it cannot win the agency rights, then the launch date of World of Warcraft in China will be delayed forever. For this reason, it can even falsely report high prices, making Wei Wangdi think it is profitable, and then lower the price before signing the contract. When companies such as Jiucheng want to take over, they will jump out and say that they can continue to talk. The previous repentance was just because of the inconsistent internal opinions.

Even the Virgin Di can be so disgusting, why can’t we fight against the disgusting?

Even Song Weiyang said to several others: "NetEase, Kingsoft, and Tencent can participate, pull the agency fee up hard, and make it look like it must be an agent. Several of our companies joined hands to muddle the water, making Wei Wangdi think that the agency fee can be discussed for hundreds of millions of yuan, and it will be delayed for a year and a half before talking about it."

Ding Sanshi was immediately happy: "Old Song, are you buying time for your own "Shan Hai Jing"?"

"That's what it means," Song Weiyang smiled, "All the fees for your companies competing for the agency rights of "Warcraft" can be paid by the Divine Sword Network, just to accumulate their own negotiation experience."

"Old Song, you are so bad!" Rebs said with a smile on his face.

Zhang Chaoyang was a little dizzy: "Is Sohu and Sogou competing for agency rights true or false?"

"When it is true, it is true, and when it is true, it is true," said Song Weiyang, "Don't worry, when did I make a mistake in judgment? World of Warcraft will definitely make money. Sohu and Sogou can compete for it, it is true, and if it is not competed for it, it is false. Even if it is not competed for it, it will cause the company it competed for to bleeding!"

In another time and space, according to the listing application submitted by Jiucheng, Jiucheng paid more than 74 million US dollars for World of Warcraft in four years. However, the initial fee was only more than 10 million US dollars, and the others were paid in installments, which was nearly half cheaper than when the agency fee was at its highest. Wei Wangdi was insatiable and scared away too many operators and did not finalize the agency rights at its highest point.

If all the Internet companies under Song Weiyang join the competition, they might be able to speculate on the early agency fee to more than US$30 million, which will directly make Victory lose its mind and make World of Warcraft landed in China more than half a year later!

In fact, not only in China, but also in the United States, World of Warcraft has been postponed for several months before the internal testing was started due to the resignation of the person in charge of Blizzard's bidding and the greed of Virgin Di.
Chapter completed!