Xueleshan's office is still a three-story building, but there are not many things in the office building for Yu Dong and the others to visit.
However, Peter took Yu Dong and the others and introduced them enthusiastically every time they went to a room.
"This used to be our gym, and the utilization rate was quite high. Colleagues often came here in the afternoon, and there was a tea room next to it. Even if they were not working out, they would come to drink tea and chat. There were hundreds of people in our company before.
Very lively……"
"This was originally a game room. In order to keep everyone inspired, Ken specially set up this game room for us. Here, you can play almost all the games on the market, and even some games that are not on the market...
…”
"This is a cabbage room. If anyone is too stressed at work, he can run here and imagine himself as a cabbage. Don't think about anything. Originally there were many closed sleeping cabins here, which are actually similar to lunch rooms. When you are tired, you can
Run here to rest..."
"This room originally had a ping-pong table in addition to the pool table, but later the ping-pong table was removed and only this pool table remained."
…
Pique basically talked about what was there before and how it was before, but when he opened the room, most of the office was empty.
After Xueleshan laid off employees, many things in the company were also cleared out.
This is somewhat beyond Yu Dong's expectation. In fact, compared to people and intellectual property rights, the company's assets are not worth much at all.
For a group as big as Vivendi, there is no need to spend time on worthless things. I didn’t expect Vivendi to be so brilliant and move everything away. Or maybe, this is Vivendi.
Maybe it’s the reason why Dee can become bigger and stronger.
"How many people are there in the company now?" Yu Dong asked.
Peter thought for a while, "Then I really haven't counted them carefully. There should be about twenty or thirty people. It was originally less, but after they came back, they recruited a few more people."
Although game companies do not have such high requirements for the number of employees, it is a bit exaggerated for such a well-known game company to have only so many people. After all, their company still has some old games in hand, and they cannot ignore those old games.
, it will definitely require some manpower to maintain it.
There are more than 20 people in total. Except for the human resources department and the finance department, there are not many people left in other departments. It is indeed quite miserable.
Yu Dong looked at Peter and felt that this kid was saying this on purpose just to make him cry in front of him.
After walking around, Peter Yudong and the others took them to the general manager's office.
The two didn't stay in the general manager's office for a while before the Williamses came back from the meeting.
"Sorry, sorry, I've been in a meeting just now." As soon as he came in, Ken Williams apologized repeatedly, and then complained to Pete: "Pete should have told me you were here as soon as possible."
"I asked him not to tell you."
Yu Dong shook hands with Ken Williams, said hello to his wife Roberta, and the four of them sat down.
Ken Williams is tall and taller than Yu Dong. Not to mention his body shape, he is two times bigger than Yu Dong. His wife Roberta is quite small. There is a huge difference in stature between the two when they walk together.
huge.
Not only are the two physically different, but they also look very different.
The first impression that Ken Williams gives people is that he is a very serious and cold-faced man, while Roberta has a very warm smile on her face from the moment she comes in, and is very approachable.
After explaining to Ken Williams why he came so early, Yu Dong talked about "Plants vs. Zombies" again, "Deep Space Games is developing a new game, Shinji Mikami should have told you, right?"
The reason why I say this is because Yu Dong knows that Ken Williams is more concerned about him.
Ken Williams nodded, "I told you, but he didn't say much. Shinji Mikami just told me that this is a tower defense game, and didn't say anything else. But from the name of this game, it should be similar to "Resident Evil"
"It does matter."
"It has some relationship, but not much."
Roberta, who was standing next to her, wondered, "When Ken and I first heard the name of this game, we thought it was a spin-off of "Resident Evil" made by Deep Space Games. We used to wonder why there was no "Resident Evil" in the name.
"
In Roberta's view, if the game's name can be associated with Resident Evil, then the game will have an advantage over other games at the beginning.
After several years of development, Resident Evil has become a big IP. The combined sales of the series of novels have exceeded 100 million, and the games are also a frequent visitor to the best-selling list.
As for movies, although they are a little slower, every one of them can get very good box office results.
Since last year, there have been rumors in the industry that Universal is going to cooperate with Deep Space Corporation to build a Resident Evil theme park in their Universal City. However, this news has been circulating, but no one has come out to confirm it.
Although Roberta was surprised when Yu Dong said that "Plants vs. Zombies" had nothing to do with "Resident Evil", she was not disappointed.
From the perspective of a company manager, it is certainly beneficial for "Plants vs. Zombies" to be related to "Resident Evil".
But Roberta is also a game designer herself, and has made great contributions to adventure games.
Her first game, "Mystery House," provided a lot of reference value for early adventure games. Later, many adventure games made reference to this game.
The game she is most well-known for is naturally the "King's Quest" series, which is also the game where Xueleshan made her fortune.
As an excellent and ambitious game designer, Roberta actually hopes that "Plants vs. Zombies" will be a different and interesting game.
The Williams couple have no interest in literature. Roberta's understanding of Dong comes more from the several games he participated in the design of, "Escape", "Lianliankan", and "Xiaxiaole". These are all seemingly models.
A simple, yet eye-catching game.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Of course Roberta also wants to see if Yu Dong can design another game that is equally eye-catching.
Although Shinji Mikami did not reveal the gameplay of this game, he told the couple that Yu Dong was deeply involved in this game, and even the props in it were designed by Yu Dong.
Yu Dong didn't mean to reveal the details of "Plants vs. Zombies" to them. He just picked up some things that didn't involve the core of the game and said, "This game is indeed a tower defense game, with some card elements. Mikami and I
Shinji is very confident about this game. Shinji Mikami told me that the game will be ready in three or four months. You guys have to help them with the online work. You were not here just now. Pete told me that the company is still
There is quite a shortage of manpower, and I hope you can recruit some people as soon as possible. The space is currently managed, but it won’t be long before you have to take over it yourself, and you will need a lot of people.”
Ken Williams nodded, "Don't worry, I'm already doing this. The number of people in the company will gradually increase, but everything must be done slowly."
Yu Dong waved his hand, "Don't take your time. How much money is needed? You can make a list later and report it to Jimmy, and he will solve it for you."
Ken Williams was surprised and said, "Really?"
"Of course it's true...but you should also pay attention to controlling the amount, and it's best to submit a stage schedule so that Jimmy can see your plan."
"Okay, no problem." Ken Williams looked very happy.
What Xueleshan lacks most now is not games, not platforms, but money.
After Deep Space acquired Xueleshan, it solved Xueleshan’s debt problem, but it did not inject a lot of funds into Xueleshan.
After taking over Sierra Mountain again, Ken Williams found that the money in the company's accounts did not allow them to restore their former glory in a short time, and they could only do it step by step.
Ken Williams has achieved financial freedom long ago. This wave belongs to retirement and re-employment. He is not eager for success in business management, so he did not mention the capital matter to Jimmy. After all, a space has been saved for them.
That's a lot of money.
Now that Yu Dong has offered to increase investment in them, Ken Williams is quite surprised.
Yu Dong looked at Roberta again, "I saw comments on the Deep Space Tribe. Some netizens heard that you returned to Snow Leshan and expressed great anticipation. They are all players of "King's Quest" and hope that you can create more
What an excellent adventure game. How about it? Do you have any thoughts on this after returning to Xueleshan? Although Xueleshan’s main business is now game publishing and space platform operation, game production is not completely absent. If you have any
The idea is to set up a separate studio."
Roberta smiled and shook her head, "Adventure games have reached a bottleneck, and there is no point in releasing a sequel to the "King's Quest" series. Of course, I still hope that Xueleshan can retain its game production business, even if it does not develop adventure games.
, we can also develop other games. Since we want to operate space, we must develop our own games. Although there are Deep Space Games and other studios under Deep Space to rely on, we still have to retain the ability to develop games ourselves."
"No problem. If you have any ideas, you can always mention them. Jimmy and I will support you."
"Actually, I had an idea before, which was a bit like an adventure game, but it was completely different from "King's Quest"," Roberta said.
Yu Dong became interested: "What do you think?"
Roberta looked at her husband and said, "Actually, it was Ken who suggested it. After watching "The Martian," he came up with an idea. Maybe we could adapt "The Martian" into a survival game."
Yu Dong pondered, "Is the gameplay like the character being trapped on Mars and needing to use priority materials and work to survive or even leave Mars?"
"We did think so at the beginning. After all, it fits the content of the novel very well. But after a period of consideration, we thought that this kind of gameplay would become very monotonous. If the difficulty of the game is made very good, then increase it
If the player's threshold is exceeded, many players will lose interest. If it is set very low, players can still play it at the beginning, but after playing it twice, it will become boring."
"So, what do you think after thinking about it?"
Now it was Ken Williams' turn to speak, "Our idea is to break the limitations and not follow the plot of the novel, or even follow the background of Mars. We can set up such a story background that the earth can no longer bear the earth.
population, humans continue to open up new lands, so they set their sights on Mars. After detection, it was found that there is water and various ores underground on Mars. As long as these things are obtained, humans can settle on Mars."
"In order to accomplish this goal, the Earth sends people to Mars in batches. The task of these people is to obtain water and ore on Mars to build a base. We can set up a variety of ores, and these ores can be synthesized into what they want.
Make all kinds of tools and equipment.”
"That's right." Roberta continued her husband's words and said, "We can set up a material synthesis system to allow players to work hard to find various materials on Mars to synthesize tools and equipment to create a perfect
Camp for subsequent landing humans to survive in. Of course, if you think this is a bit unrigorous, we can actually put the background on other planets, a virtual planet. Otherwise, some people may accuse us of making the game
Not rigorous enough.”
After listening to the ideas of the Williams couple, Yu Dong raised his eyebrows and said, "Is this a sandbox game you are talking about?"
The couple looked at each other, and Ken Williams smiled and nodded, "Yes, it is a sandbox game."
Sandbox games are nothing new. This concept developed from early open worlds.
Some people believe that the game "Elite" released in the 1980s is the earliest sandbox game with real significance. The main content of this game is that the player drives a novice spaceship to complete commissioned tasks throughout the universe and interact with
The enemy fights. The characteristic of this game is that the universe inside is automatically and randomly generated, and embodies a kind of freedom of space movement and choice. The game world is no longer a closed maze, but an open universe.
Later, the concept of sandbox was introduced into various games, such as "The Legend of Zelda". In this game, Nintendo consciously forced players to think about what to do next, increasing the freedom of the game.
.
Another example is "Super Mario 64", which has a very high degree of freedom in interacting with the environment.
There are also business games such as "Sim City" and "Railway Tycoon", which also have the flavor of sandbox games.
Chapter completed!