Chapter 588: Dominate the World

In just a few days, Hua Wei had placed the version planning document for "All People Super God" on Fang Hong's desk.

He hadn't needed to exert much effort to get it.

This wasn't exactly some core secret—version previews are sometimes even open to the public, to gauge player reactions and such.

Tencent's game operation model is all independent studios—these studios compete with each other, fight over the group's resources, and enjoy the freedom to independently decide the direction of their games and their hiring.

As long as you can make money, do whatever you want.

It's a separate administrative system from Tencent's main body—perhaps that's also why Tencent is so prone to corruption.

Hua Wei watched as the Principal across from him finished reading the planning document, then laced his hands behind his head and leaned back in his executive chair, as if pondering something.

"Actually, this game was rushed to market, the optimization is terrible, and players often run into lag and phone overheating—anyone with a low-spec phone simply can't play it," he said, laying out the problems with "All People Super God."

Fang Hong stayed silent and didn't respond—low-end players can't play it, but high-end players still can.

And this isn't an insurmountable problem; every game nowadays has issues like this. Even "Honor of Kings," after slashing its graphics quality again and again and optimizing again and again, still has players complaining about poor optimization and lag.

Phone specs are what they are—you can't ask for too much.

He was thinking about how "All People Super God" had self-destructed in his previous life—which gameplay feature or design had gone wrong and caused players to leave.

He considered the impact he himself had created, whether there was any butterfly effect on this game—if there was, he'd steer it back on track, let this game return to its self-destruction trajectory.

He had to help Tencent along; just sitting around waiting for them to die on their own was too far beyond his control.

He thought for a moment, then picked up that stack of planning documents again to look through—there were versions to be updated soon, and versions to be updated further out.

He spotted a few keywords: "PVE," "training," "enhancement."

Training and enhancement are both pay-to-win hooks; PVE has strayed from MOBA's core—looks like this game is still going to fleece the leeks.

All Tencent games are like this—the group above sets their KPIs, measured by how much money they make each month and each year.

That's also why Tencent games start out as masterpieces, then within two months start fleecing—they need to recoup costs fast.

Don't expect them to take the players' side—impossible!

"See if you can get them to push these features live as soon as possible." He circled the keywords and handed them to Hua Wei.

Hua Wei took it and looked. "I can give it a try."

"Good, then I'll leave this matter to you—don't let anyone know," Fang Hong said.

This was just going with the flow, accelerating things ahead of schedule, not changing anything—so it was easy enough to handle.

As long as "All People Super God" lives, Tencent will always have a product to target; once this game dies, even if it gets targeted, it's hard to find a replacement out there, and players will have no choice.

Soon, "Gravity" had been in theaters for over a month; after breaking through 3 billion at the domestic box office, momentum stalled, and the final box office was 3.37 billion!

Correspondingly, other films saw box office declines of varying degrees—"Dragon Blade" took 440 million, about 300 million less than in the previous life.

"Zhong Kui: Devil Fighter" took 160 million, two to three hundred million less than in the previous life.

"Wolf Totem" took 280 million, roughly four to five hundred million less than in the previous life.

"From Vegas to Macau 2" took 2.486 billion, about five hundred million less than in the previous life—no one expected this film to land in second place in the Spring Festival Slot.

Very normal—"Dragon Blade" only had a burst at the very start, then afterward it couldn't hold a candle to "From Vegas to Macau 2."

Later on, "From Vegas to Macau 2" was very steady.

Other films like "Triumph in the Skies" and "Dad's Holiday" didn't even break 100 million.

One could say that across the entire film market, "Gravity" crushed all the other films so badly that none of them really made money—some even lost money.

Those big stars and big directors were definitely losing money—actor fees and director fees alone were no small sum.

Of course, the film and TV practitioners themselves didn't lose—they still took their salaries, still took their fees; it was the investors who lost.

One could say that Fang Hong, single-handedly, had plunged the entire film market into a state of depression, even total stagnation.

No way around it—he was the only one making money, everyone else wasn't, so correspondingly future investment expectations would shrink.

This is the high risk of the film industry—you might work for a year or two and earn nothing, even end up losing money.

But it doesn't matter—big capital will come in and reshuffle the deck.

Even though those film and TV companies are all losing money, their stock market performance is rising.

Huayi Brothers' market cap was about to break through 40 billion—although they didn't make money, they have theaters, which is a roundabout way of making money.

Other businesses like games and Zhangyue were profitable.

Guangxian Media was about to break through 20 billion—although Guangxian didn't have much in the way of representative works, their investment in Taopiaopiao was a huge success, earning in one stroke what others take years to make.

Other film and TV companies all saw rises of varying degrees—this was capital-inflated.

These past two years, film and TV stocks have been in a bull market—it's the prevailing trend, can't be stopped; Fang Hong could only take on one or two companies.

Recently there was an article making the rounds, published on the Dianyingjie online publication, with the headline: "Huayi Brothers' De-cinematization: Gained Economic Benefits, Lost Its Place in the Jianghu!"

The article pointed out: Huayi Brothers had long since lost its "top dog" status in the film business, and its content production capability was far below what it once was!

Looking back over Huayi Brothers' 21 years of development, it had once been the undisputed "top dog" of the China film market.

But the era of one flower blooming alone was finally broken by Yutu.

In 2014, twenty-year-old Huayi Brothers lost the championship position for the first time—the top four private film and TV companies by domestic film distribution box office: Yutu Group, Guangxian Media, Bona Film Group, LeTV Pictures.

And Huayi Brothers' film box office revenue accounted for only 5% of the annual domestic film box office.

Once hailed as Neidi's "box office miracle maker," Huayi Brothers was now under intense scrutiny in an increasingly competitive film industry.

The reason was its de-cinematization strategy—trying to transform and copy others by getting into some grand entertainment business!

Once, with production as its main strength, Huayi Brothers only had to put out the Feng Kuzi and Huayi Brothers brand, and it was as good as a sweeping victory.

But over the years, Huayi Brothers had been reforming its distribution business, building a ground-level distribution team—yet the business team had never kept up with the pace of market development, and due to strategic missteps, its distribution scheduling suffered.

Yutu has Taopiaopiao, Wanda has Mtime, Alibaba has Taopiao, Tencent has Weying Times, LeEco has LeTV.

Huayi Brothers' vulnerability in distribution became more and more obvious—decades of company history, decades of experience from the General Manager Xiao Wang, couldn't match the Principal's vision and layout of just five or six years.

The "top dog" status no longer exists!

Although the article didn't name names as to who the top dog was, everyone knew perfectly well.

The Principal was mentioned many times, and Jade Rabbit was repeatedly placed at the very front, but the future film market was in turmoil, with new forces like Alibaba, Wanda Pictures, and LeEco emerging one after another.

No one could say for certain who the future "top dog" would be.

Regarding this Wenzhang, Lao Wang Zong came out to explain: "It's not that we're not making films, but that we can't only make films. Huayi will also try its best to shake off the company's dependence on the film industry, promote the development of gaming and internet entertainment businesses, transform toward greater entertainment, and comprehensively develop its own industrial chain."

In other words, a resolute de-filmatization—you can't rely on films alone to hold things up; the Principal didn't rely on films alone either.

They have television, Variety, and Animation Department!

Shows like "Dad Where Are We Going" and "Keep Running" are all Variety programs they created.

Others may not know about films, but those in this circle all know the risk is too great—if a big film's box office doesn't perform well, it easily turns into a crisis.

This comprehensive box office failure is the best example; fortunately, capital flooded in, so it wasn't too painful.

You can't expect every film to be a big hit; being able to break even and not lose money is already pretty good—if one out of ten films makes a big profit, that's already pretty good.

No one is the Principal; no one has the Principal's ability to guarantee every film makes money.

Capital flooding into the film market caused great changes in the film market landscape; Fang Hong catalyzed it, and also caused changes in the film market landscape.

Led by Wanda Pictures Media, jointly invested by three theater chain companies—Dadi Times Film Distribution, Jinyi Film Media, and Hengdian Films—the distribution company: Wuzhou Alliance! announced its formation was complete.

This was initiated last year, but assembling and connecting everything took some time.

Dadi, Jinyi, and Hengdian are all among the top ten theater chain companies in the country; Wanda essentially merged the forces of the theater chain end, attempting to seize the initiative from the downstream of the industrial chain—a threat to all film production ends.

Not long after, Huayi also secretly plotted, preparing to join Weipai Times and Shanghai Film Group to create a Huaying Tianxia.

Weipai Times is a brand under Tencent's WeChat portal, equivalent to a new force in internet distribution.

Shanghai Film Group, which owns cinemas and distribution channels—United Theater Chain is theirs.

These three joining forces, together with Linrui Yingye and Juhe Yinglian, is equivalent to a distribution company that has gathered the upstream, midstream, and downstream forces of the film circle.

If done well, pulling in Alibaba's Taopiaopiao, one could say it would be invincible, no less impressive than Wanda.

But this time Alibaba didn't join in—they wanted to do it themselves; Jack Ma was proud and arrogant; in his view, these were just a rabble.

Of course, these parties can all be said to be coming for Jade Rabbit, because Jade Rabbit is that "top dog"—without taking down the top dog, how could they have an easy time.

From now on, Jade Rabbit's days won't be easy either.

Because capital is increasingly getting its hands into scheduling arrangements; if they want to deal with the Principal, in the near future just a little manipulation will do.

Of course Fang Hong wasn't idle either—Jade Rabbit invested 1 billion, Chang'e invested 1 billion, injected into Tu Piaopiao, diluting the shares of Meituan, Wanda, and Tencent.

And launched the Hong Kong IPO listing path!

Tu Piaopiao has been established for over three years and can go public, and has been preparing for listing all along.

This money is to resist increasingly fierce market competition and continue burning cash—after all, Alibaba has entered the fray.

Chang'e can give it slowly; giving 100 million a month is fine—first use Jade Rabbit's money to front it; the other purpose is to dilute those three companies' shares and seize absolute say!

Subsequently, Jade Rabbit, Chang'e Technology, Tu Piaopiao, and Crystal United Cinema—four parties jointly established a distribution company: Xiongba Tianxia.

It was announced externally as aiming to connect the entire industrial chain of online, offline, production, and distribution, not targeting any third party.

This series of moves was reported on financial websites, and people inside the film industry also knew about it.

But people knew that saying it doesn't target third parties is clearly just showing off muscles—like when two countries have a conflict, they each fire a missile into the Pacific Ocean to let everyone see the power and not mess with them.

Xiao Wang Zong was very surprised: "Damn, did they just make up this name randomly?"

"Probably just to scare people—after all, they're all his companies; it would be the same without doing it this way." Lao Wang Zong felt the Principal was deliberately targeting them.

When they form combinations, they're all under different entities; having such an alliance makes it easier to distribute benefits and connect resources.

What resources does the Principal need to connect? They're all his—just link them up and it's done; this is purely mischief, disgusting them, saying I'm coming too.

Lao Wang Zong also paid attention to Jade Rabbit's recent moves, saying to Ceng Maojun: "Isn't this pure nonsense?"

"The Principal is declaring war on you!" Ceng Maojun just didn't like that kid.

"This kid's done pretending, he's showing his cards." Lao Wang Zong saw it clearly.

Back then he felt this kid was wildly arrogant, but at that time they hadn't fully entered the film and television circle, and the authorities above hadn't yet loosened up capital in the film and television industry, so it wasn't easy to act.

But from now on it's hard to say—in the future it'll depend on real ability, real swords and real guns fighting it out.

Alibaba also reacted—they just increased the scale of burning cash and sped up their acquisition pace, without so much bullshit.

Jack Ma only talks a lot of bullshit on stage; off stage he doesn't have much to say.

Tencent is the same—they're just more low-key; after all, they're reserved, and also slow, as if they can't react.

But that doesn't mean their pace has stopped—they're also constantly getting involved in the film and television field, increasing investment in Tencent Video, and doubling down on imported films.

For example, "Warcraft," "Wonder Woman," "Kong: Skull Island," etc. all had their distribution rights taken by Tencent.

(End of chapter)