Author: Wilderness Elegy

EA has a sports game department, which basically covers all sports game categories. The best game among them is of course "FIFA Football".

How exaggerated?

EA invests more in the game "FIFA Football" every year than all other sports games combined. It is one of EA's four flagship games.

This time John Riccietti came to China, his apology was false, but completing his own redemption was true.

In the past few years as EA's CEO, EA's stock price has dropped by 65%, from the world's largest game company to the world's third largest now.

With such a report card, who will step down if he doesn’t step down?

However, because of Changyou's appearance, he grasped the last straw.

The conservatives' attack on Codemasters studio angered Changyou, so much so that Changyou made an unexpected decision. They were going to make a football game.

They even have to collude with FIFA to grab the naming rights of "FIFA".

This shakes the foundation of EA!

Very dangerous!

Prior to this, Lucasfilm had already announced that it would not renew its contract with EA for the rights to adapt "Star Wars" games in the future. At the same time, Codemasters is a well-known car game studio, and its momentum is not as strong as the current "Need for Speed"

》How much difference.

For EA, this is very dangerous.

Among EA's four major games, the "Need for Speed" series, the "Star Wars" series and the "FIFA Football" series may all encounter crises due to offending Zhou Buqi!

It can be said that it is too reckless for conservatives to attack Codemasters rashly.

It’s not good to offend anyone, why not offend Zhou Buqi?

What's his momentum now?

Many financial media are predicting that Mr. Butch Zhou is likely to become the world's richest man this year!

It would be unwise to provoke at this juncture.

For John Ricciettilo, this was his chance.

If he can convince Zhou Buqi and ease the relationship between the two parties, then he may have made a great contribution to EA and may be able to keep his position as CEO.

Zhou Buqi was able to guess the other party's thoughts, which he found very funny.

With the stock price plummeting like this, stepping down is the best response to the company.

In this regard, Don Mattrick added two points: "First, John is a senior director of EA and an early founder. He went out to put out fires twice during EA's crisis and made outstanding achievements; second, EA's

Even if the stock price plummets, we can't put all the blame on him. The global game industry is at a trough, and although EA's stock price has fallen so much, it's not too bad compared to most of its peers."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

This is true.

If nothing else, look at Japan’s gaming industry. How miserable is it?

For example, Capcom, which Changyou is eyeing, had a stock price of 3,000 yen at its highest a few years ago, but now its stock price is only 300 yen, a 90% drop!

Not to mention the Japanese game industry, many domestic game giants are also in dire straits, including Giant, Perfect, NetDragon... Shanda even delisted due to this.

Compared with those poor students, EA is indeed good.

However, EA was once the number one in the world, how can it compare with poor students?

Zhou Buqi gave a clear response simply and neatly, "I will not reconcile with EA! They took action first, so don't blame me. Well, you can accept exclusive interviews with several reporters and make a summary of Changyou's decision-making changes.

A simple explanation: Changyou is not targeting anyone, Changyou is just protecting its own interests."

"I know." Mattrick had already guessed this outcome and sighed, "However, John has already left, and he will probably meet you soon. You have to try your best."

Zhou Buqi said: "Whether he strives for it or not has nothing to do with me. Changyou's aircraft carrier battle group has already set off. You can't just return to Hong Kong just because of a few words."

Mattrick smiled and said: "That's right."

Zhou Buqi thought of something else through this conversation, "You weren't involved in the procurement in Europe, were you?"

Mattrick was silent for a long time, and then said slowly: "It has my signature, but it has no interest in me. When it is found out, I will take the initiative to take responsibility."

Zhou Buqi actually had such confidence. How much money would it cost to share all the tricks in the procurement? With this little money, he could buy off the CEO of Changyou. That was too cheap, so he said: "

By the way, you just said that Sega has made sports games before?"

During this period, Zhou Buqi was deeply involved in the Japanese game industry, and it was inevitable that he was very concerned about Sega.

Mattrick said: "Yes, it used to be the dominant player in sports games. It entered this field earlier than EA. It also had several football games. However, in the 2000s, Sega invested heavily in developing a football game.

Games, they wanted to compete with "FIFA Football" and "Pro Evolution Soccer" in the market, but failed miserably. Sega became frustrated and cut off almost all sports game business, and sold several studios to Take

-two."

Zhou Buqi said: "That's why take-two has emerged in the field of sports games."

Mattrick said: "Yes, they integrated all those sports games together and created the '2K' sports game brand. In addition to football games, other sports stand-alone games are almost the first choice of players. 2K

Football, 2K Baseball, 2K Basketball, 2K Ice Hockey, and even 2K Fighting, Billiards and Table Tennis.”

Zhou Buqi asked: "EA can't do it either?"

"The overall scale of EA's sports games is definitely higher than that of Take-Two." Mattrick is very familiar with this, because the largest consumer market for sports games is the United States. "However, EA's largest source of revenue is "FIFA Football"

". If you don't count this game, then EA's sports game revenue is half of take-two."

Zhou Buqi thought about it and said: "Sports games will be a general direction."

"ah?"

Mattrick was slightly startled.

I heard the meaning behind Boss Zhou. He was not satisfied with starting with "Pro Evolution Soccer" and wanted to further get involved in the sports game market.

Zhou Buqi asked: "What is the market value of take-two now?"

Mattrick said: "$1.7 billion, about."

Zhou Buqi smiled, quite happy, "Not high. Did you say last time that the car game with the highest sales in the world is also owned by Take-Two?"

Mattrick said: "Yes, it is the "Grand Theft Auto" series. Its sales volume is almost four times that of EA's "Need for Speed". It is the most profitable game in Take-Two."

Zhou Buqi said: "How about merging take-two?"

"Really?"

Mattrick took a deep breath.

Somewhat dazed.

I have a better understanding of this boss Zhou.

This is too domineering!

Can such a large deal be decided in just a few words? There is no need for detailed market research, industry analysis, or reading relevant financial report documents?

As for whether I can buy take-two, that's not a problem at all.

take-two is an American game company.

This is more market-oriented than Japan's Capcom, Konami, Sega and so on. As long as the money is available, you can buy, buy, buy. The game industry is not a sensitive industry. It can be promoted by pure capital operation.

conduct of transactions.

Mattrick said: "Take-Two is a very good game company. I admire it very much. It not only has the "Grand Theft Auto" and 2K Sports series of games, but also the "Civilized City" series and the "BioShock" series.

There are also the "Duke Nukem" series, "Mafia" series, "Golden Dead", etc. These are all very high-quality game IPs. However, these are all stand-alone games."

Zhou Buqi said: "Changyou's current strategic focus is on mobile games, but it does not mean that stand-alone games on the computer will lose the market. Not to mention that after acquiring more intellectual property rights, mobile games can be adapted, and cloud computing technology will be used in the future.

With more powerful and faster network speeds, cloud gaming must be the general trend. When the era of cloud gaming arrives, it will be equivalent to a metaverse in the gaming world. Of course, the more intellectual property rights, the better."

Generally speaking, the bigger the game, the more beautiful it is, and the bigger it is, the more fun it is.

However, the game is too large and difficult to run.

Whether it is an arcade, game console, computer, or mobile phone, it requires extremely high configuration to run a game with such a large data scale and enable the best audio-visual effects.

In the era of cloud gaming, it will be different.

All games are in the cloud and run on the powerful cloud computing power of the cloud.

That would be awesome.

This means that when designing a game, it can be "infinitely large" and the amount of data can be "infinitely large". Platforms such as local game consoles, computers, and mobile phones are just receiving screens for game screens, and all game data are run on

Do it in the cloud.

The cloud has infinite computing power.

This means that cloud games can be infinitely large, and many games can even be integrated together... Like the Metaverse, several friends enter the cloud game world together, and this world is equivalent to a game platform

, you can integrate all the games together, and you’ve had enough of playing "Dragon Babu"

", you can take your friends to play "World of Warcraft" next door for a while. After playing "World of Warcraft" enough, you can also go to play a game in the "Pro Evolution Soccer" next door. Players do not need to enter the game

, when you exit the game, you will be in the game world of the metaverse from beginning to end.

Take-Two has a lot of heavy-duty single-player games.

This kind of complex, exquisite, and highly game-like large-scale games will have a huge market in the future cloud gaming era. Because there are no hardware configuration restrictions, the game has truly entered an era of reality and fantasy.

Even if you don’t think about it in the long term.

In the short term, take-two is also one of the best investment projects in the game industry. If it can be acquired at a price of US$1.7 billion at this stage, the investment income in the mobile game era will not be worse than investing in Apple and Google.

However, what Zhou Buqi is most concerned about is not actually the profit aspect.

He focuses on two points.
Chapter completed!