Santa Monica.

In the conference room of Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters, after listening to the EA management's report on the company's operations, everyone started the theme of today's meeting.

The secretary distributed a piece of information, and everyone in the conference room couldn't help but recall all the information about the novel called "Dune" in the information in hand.

Strictly speaking, "Dune" is not a novel, but a general term for a series of science fiction novels surrounding the planet "Dune".

After Frank Herbert, a famous North American science fiction writer, released his first novel "Dune" in 1965, until his death in 1986, he has been perfecting his "Dune Universe" and has first published many science fiction works around the planet "Dune Son", "Dune God Emperor", and "Dun Savior".

However, these works basically revolve around a planet named Yarages, a sand dunes that is everywhere. In the distant future, people have discovered something called spices on the planet Yarages. Spices have various functions such as extending human lifespan and assisting space jumps, which can help humans achieve space travel. Moreover, humans have only discovered spices produced on the planet Yarages over the years, so there have been too many stories surrounding this planet with all the sand dunes.

Because of the complete story background setting and Hundred's narrative structure of the "Dune" series, this science fiction series has been popular since its birth and has been rated as the space version of the "Lord of the Rings" series by some media.

Likewise, like the Lord of the Rings series, there have been many hopes to bring the story to the big screen for years.

In 1984, DeLaurentis Entertainment Group, directed by David Lynch, eventually burned $40 million and finally brought the story to the big screen. But the result was not very good. With a $40 million investment, the North American box office after the release of the film was only over $30 million.

In the conference room at this time, Simon was also very curious about how the boss of DeLaurentis Entertainment had the idea of ​​allowing David Lynch, a director who was so literary that he could no longer be literary, to shoot a commercial science fiction masterpiece, and he dared to invest $40 million.

That was $40 million in 1984.

DeLaurentis Entertainment is now bankrupt, and Simon quickly retracted his thoughts, walked to the whiteboard in front of the conference room, picked up a pen and wrote a few words on the whiteboard: Real-Time Strategy Game.

Speaking of which, EA's current strength is sports games, and Simon has no idea of ​​reversing this trend.

While maintaining EA's advantages in sports games, he plans to let EA focus on developing the most popular real-time strategy games in the 1990s in the original time and space. Because of the real-time strategy game mode, this type of game is also very suitable for PC platforms.

Although it is planned to port a large number of EA's games to the TV game console platform, Simon will also allow EA to maintain its dominant position in the PC field.

For today's meeting, Simon had already done a lot of homework in advance and personally sorted out the information in his memory based on the information in his memory.

Real-time strategy games appeared in the early 1980s, but in the 1990s, with the emergence of "Warcraft" and "Starcraft" and other games, the concept of real-time strategy games was finally improved in the 1990s. Now, all types of real-time strategy games are actually just a prototype mode, and usually do not have all the elements such as resource collection, force production and real-time battles that mature real-time strategy games should have.

On the other hand, Simon did not directly take out the peak real-time strategy games such as Warcraft and StarCraft that he had played. On the one hand, it was because there were some restrictions on the hardware conditions at this time, and on the other hand, it was also out of the need to let EA practice first to accumulate experience.

The real-time strategy game in the original time and space finally matured after more than ten consecutive years of exploration. EA has no experience in this area yet. If you get started immediately, it may ruin several classics in Simon's memory.

Speaking of which, the real-time strategy game adapted from the "Dune" series was also quite successful in the original time and space, which is also the reason why Simon instructed Nancy to win the adaptation rights of the "Dune" series of games at a high price.

Daenerys Entertainment promised that the price of the copyright holder of "Dune" is similar to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", with a basic adaptation fee of $500,000 and a 5% net profit share of all "Dune" related video games. News spread during Nancy's contact with the copyright holder of "Dune", and there were also other competitors who tried to compete, but they did not succeed.

Obviously, the $500,000 adaptation fee is only secondary. If "Dune" can achieve the success of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", the 5% net profit share will be a big investment.

The failure of the 1984 David Lynch version of the "Dune" movie made this series of projects that were originally coveted by many studios suddenly become an unpopular existence. The copyright holder of "Dune" has fallen into a big flaw in the film and television adaptation of this series, so naturally he would not make such mistakes in game adaptation.

Compared with the failure of the "Dune" movie, all the video games adapted from "Dune" are very successful.

"Warcraft" developed by Blizzard Studios in the original Time and Space is also recognized as a work that follows the trend and imitates the 1992 real-time strategy game "Dune Castle 2".

Simon told everyone in the conference room in detail about the resource collection system of real-time strategy games, the key points of the development of real-time battle system and force production system. Finally, he briefly described the prospects of this type of game in networking battles, and finally said: "It's probably these, and you still need to explore the detailed plan yourself. I personally am very optimistic about the development prospects of real-time strategy games. This type of game can also make EA's advantages in the PC field reach the extreme, so I hope everyone can treat this project very carefully."

Tripp Hawkins, the current chairman and CEO of EA, and the founder of the company, first said after Simon's speech: "Simon, according to you, the development of this game has a lot of similarities to the Sim City we launched this summer."

Simon nodded and said, "I have also read the information of "SimCity" and have tried it. The first generation of this game was not successful. I think it is mainly the limitation of the hardware platform. If it can be further improved into the 3D version, this game will definitely be very popular. However, "SimCity" does not have a battle system, and it is two different concepts from the real-time strategy game I just mentioned."

Another EA executive said at this time: "So, Mr. Westeros, you mean, is the core of this game a battle?"

"Of course not. If it is just a battle, it will become another game concept. I think the key point of this game development is the real-time battle system, resource collection system and force production system. So, during the development process, I hope you can spend a few months to perfect the settings of this game in the early stage and not be impatient. Because this is the first attempt, and accumulating experience is the most important thing."

As the topic unfolded, others in the conference room began to ask various questions.

This was not until noon that the meeting finally ended.

Simon is still going to rush to the Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills to attend the signing luncheon hosted by Qintex Group. As soon as he left the conference room, Nancy chased after him and whispered to Simon: "I haven't negotiated with the development team of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" for the next salary plan. About half of them are going to resign. They plan to set up their own studio."

Blizzard Studio's first game achieved phenomenal success, and the development team will naturally rise.

The game development in this era is not as good as a team that often requires hundreds of people to coordinate and cooperate many years later, and can even be completed by one or two people. Because of the huge expected profits of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", the development team has also proposed salary increases, and Nancy has been dealing with this matter recently.

In the end, it still failed.

However, Simon didn't care much.

These developers probably only saw one "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" game that brought hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to Daenerys Entertainment, but did not see a series of unscrupulous investments in the game release process.

Leaving Blizzard Studio and without Daenerys Entertainment's financial and channel support, these people wishfully thought that they could copy the miracle of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" by mastering some of the key points of game development. This idea can only be said to be naive.

Moreover, with the advent of the 32-bit console era and the further development of the PC platform, the era when one or two people can develop a game will end.

In the 1990s, the development of electronic games was destined to develop into a team of multiple people. Teams of dozens and hundreds of people developed a game together. The risks were not something that only a few people could bear. Even if these people found other funders to support them, the possibility of copying a phenomenal success like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was very slim.

After all, although "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" does not reach the height of "Super Mario", it is also a phenomenal game that sells millions of cassettes.

Simon was able to determine the success of this game based on his prophet's advantages, and he invested a lot of manpower and material resources. Even if those people mastered some tricks of game development, they could only try their luck in various games.

Luck is obviously the most unreliable thing.

"Leave, leave, this industry has never lacked technical talents."

Simon said, noticing that Nancy didn't have much concern on her face. Her female executive obviously understood that Daenerys Entertainment had too many advantages than a simple game development team. A group of technicians left only affected the development progress of the sequel to "Teenager Tortoise" and it was impossible for Daenerys Entertainment to have the studio equity required by these people because of the success of a game.

After hearing Simon say this, Nancy said: "I will conduct a new round of recruitment as soon as possible. If necessary, I can also second some technicians from EA."

"Actually, I'm also thinking about the game studio recently..." Simon just started and the two of them had already arrived downstairs. Simon simply said, "Why go to Beverly Hills with me to attend a banquet and say it on the way?"

Nancy didn't think much about it, so she nodded and got into his luxury car with Simon.

As the car drove out of the parking lot of Daenerys Entertainment headquarters, Simon continued: "I think it is difficult for a game studio to maintain a long-term and vigorous vitality. It is very rare for a game studio to be able to develop one or two successful video games in its life cycle. Therefore, Daenerys Entertainment can adopt a development model similar to a movie project in this regard. Form a team and invest in a project. If there is a need to develop a sequel after the project is over, the team will continue to maintain it. If not, the development team will be disbanded directly."

In fact, Simon is considering the fact that the excellent game studio in his memory will usually decline rapidly after being acquired.

However, this has not happened yet. EA is still far from the title of "Studio Terminator".

Originally, as a bystander, Simon was very disgusted with EA's behavior of "destroying" one studio after another, but now, standing in the position of a boss, Simon's thinking pattern is inevitably changed.

The reason why the studios that were acquired by large game developers in memory declined may be due to the constraints of the parent company. However, another possibility is that the game team gradually loses creativity. Game companies want to make profits. It is impossible that because a studio once developed a phenomenal game, it has always supported the studio to develop their imagined works at will.

Moreover, to be honest, if the game company acquires these studios, it is probably more of the game copyright that has been successfully in the hands of these studios.

In this case, it is better to follow the movie development model and invest in some game projects with good ideas from scratch, as this will greatly reduce the cost.

For example, acquiring Blizzard Studios, which owns the copyrights of popular games such as Warcraft and Starcraft, may require billions of dollars, but if you only invest in the development of game projects such as Warcraft and Starcraft, it may only cost a few million dollars. There will definitely be a large number of failed projects, but as long as one or two phenomenal works appear in ten projects, it is a success.

After all, electronic games usually have a long life cycle. If a game is successful, many sequels can be made.

After hearing Simon say his thoughts, Nancy agreed: "You can really try it. In addition, in order to promote the enthusiasm of the development team, we can also promise them to share profits. This will also reduce costs appropriately in the early development."

Considering the forward returns, most people are often willing to accept lower early pay.

"You take the time to think about this matter carefully, it's better to come up with a plan," Simon said, and smiled again. "In addition, when it comes to salary, do you want a salary increase?"

Nancy glanced at Simon: "Boss, are you going to give me a raise?"

"It depends on the situation. If you threaten me to change jobs immediately without a raise, I will definitely give you a raise."

"Then I'm going to fall into a situation like Rem."

"It's very likely that I'm actually a very generous person, but I'm not used to asking me for anything."

"This is a very unreasonable thinking."

"Who made me the boss?"

“…”
Chapter completed!