Time has unknowingly entered the autumn of two thousand years.

In this year of two thousand years, the electronic game industry is still developing, but the direction of development is somewhat different from the past.

Many stand-alone game manufacturers have gradually begun to explore the networking of stand-alone games.

However, the road to exploration is not smooth, and most manufacturers have failed during the rugged adventure.

In these failed fields, in order to cope with the crisis of increasingly high game development costs, they entered another route, the route of DLC game expansion package.

In a sense, DLC expansion packages are similar to players making MODs, both using the same set of engines and materials to provide more game content.

The more DLCs you launch, the more you can share the development costs, the lower the development costs, and naturally the higher the income.

In this way, the high development costs can be solved to a certain extent.

Game manufacturers for two thousand years have really solved the problem in this way. After they launched the game body, they started selling expansion packs in a few months.

The content of the main body is already very rich, and the expansion package is basically an expansion outside the main plot.

This kind of behavior of making money by standing up can be called conscience.

only……

They quickly discovered that this approach was a bit too slow to recover costs.

So, some manufacturers began to try to directly divide the game body into several small parts.

Since players can't accept the price increase of the game, then just sell one as multiple copies.

For example, in a real-time strategy game, there are dozens of countries. After players buy it, they find that there are ten countries that can be used.

What should I do if the remaining dozens of countries want to use it?

The answer is very simple, it is to buy.

Just buy a country expansion pack.

Don't worry, the national expansion package is very conscientious.

It is divided into European expansion packages, Asian expansion packages, and African expansion packages. If you can't buy them, you will suffer losses or be deceived.

Only then did the players realize that what they paid for was not a game, but a ticket that required continuous payment.

Although players are very disgusted with this kind of money-seeking behavior, there are so many game manufacturers.

Can you not buy a game? Can you not buy all games?

In this wave of charging, Wanhu Interactive Entertainment's first pure online game was launched.

This game cancels local battles and local area network battles, which means that players can only start the game when they connect to the Internet and enter the Wanhu Battle Platform.

Wanhu Interactive Entertainment's practice caused an uproar, and most American players did not agree with it, and did not agree with Wanhu Interactive Entertainment's practice.

Because, this violates their freedom to have games!

Do they spend money on games to play when there is an internet connection?

this……

What exactly does Wanhu want to do!

Almost instantly, there were negative reviews.

However, the way Wanhu Interactive Entertainment responds is also very subtle.

They announced that the game is free forever!

That's right, it's free forever!

Free forever like free security software!

As soon as the news came out, the players lost their voices, and the fellow workers began to wonder what Wanhu really wanted to do!

How is it possible to be permanently free?

If it is free forever, who will pay for the money for developing games and the money for operating games?

Everyone is a commercial company and knows that it is impossible for each other to do charity. If one of the companies announced that they would make their games free forever, it is basically certain that they have found a new toll road.

They were not stupid either. They soon learned what the toll road was before Wanhu through Wanhu’s previous actions.

The game is free!

Props charge!

Use all kinds of weird, colorful stickers, spray pictures and other things to make profits.

only……

Can you make money like this?

You know, although the model trading system used by StarCraft is very successful, StarCraft itself is a paid game.

Could it be...

Could it be that Wanhu made a lot of money using this model system on StarCraft?

Other game manufacturers have also begun to quickly demonstrate the feasibility of doing so.

They know very clearly that once free games appear, it will be a huge blow to the current mainstream paid games, a dimensional reduction blow.

You know, many players are not actually dislike a game, but they cannot buy a game for dozens of dollars at once.

This is why game manufacturers always fail to try to increase prices.

Because once the price is increased, most people can't afford it, and most people can't afford it, the sales volume of this game will drop.

The decline in sales volume is caused by a decline in overall sales data.

The advantage of free games is the advantage of downloads. If you want to play, you have a computer at home and you can download and play.

You may pay to sell one million games, and you can get ten million downloads for free.

If one-fifth of the players of this ten million will choose to pay for props, then there will be two million, which is far more than one million people who buy it.

but……

Many game manufacturers have a question about these players who have purchased games because they don’t have to pay a cost.

Their question is very simple, that is, as non-paying players, they don’t even spend money on getting this game. Will they really spend money later?

Although economics always says who is a rational person, who is a rational person?

No matter it is a car, a house, or a lipstick, who has never consumed it impulsively?

It is precisely because of this uncertainty of people that they do not know what choice they will make.

wait.

Let's wait first.

The timid game company started waiting.

The bold game company will immediately start planning its own free games.

The most direct competition with the free game Wanhu is the "Counter-Strike" of Vilford Valve Factory, and even the free online game Wanhu has a provocative name in Jiaozuo "Counter-Terrorism Operation".

"Counter-Strike" is a new game developed based on "Half-Life", and the price is not high, less than twenty dollars, only nineteen nineteen. Even if you go to the supermarket to buy, the supermarket will really find a cent.

It is a traditional stand-alone game that can be online on the LAN and online locally. You only need to pay once and you don’t have to spend any more money.

The "Counter-Terrorism Operation" cannot be online locally or locally, and can only fight online. It does not charge at the beginning. If you want to do not spend money, you can never spend money.

Although the two games are the same type, they are very different inwardly.
Chapter completed!