A great director who grew up happily

Chapter 476 Investment Invitation from Youke

Chen Jinnian pushed the door open and greeted the two people in the conference room.

"Sorry for keeping you two waiting."

Yang Qi and Feng Ji immediately stood up and said, "Hello, Mr. Chen, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you by our visit."

After shaking hands and greeting Chen Jinnian, the two men did not beat around the bush and directly introduced themselves and stated their purpose.

Only then did Chen Jinnian realize that the two people in front of him were Feng Ji, CEO of Game Science, and co-founder Yang Qi, who were responsible for game planning and game design respectively.

After sitting down, Feng Ji got straight to the point and said, "We heard that Mr. Chen's company is going to enter the gaming industry. I wonder if he has any plans to invest in other gaming companies."

"What project?" Chen Jinnian asked knowingly.

"A 3A game from the Journey to the West project." Feng Ji admitted.

Chen Jinnian's mouth curled up slightly. He had not originally thought about investing in Game Science, but he did not expect that Game Science was so short of money in the early days that it actually came all the way from Nanshan District to invest.

However, Chen Jinnian did not express his opinion, but said something that surprised Yang Qi and Feng Ji extremely.

"Yuka, I know you."

Yuka is the name Feng Ji gave himself when he first started working as a game planner, just like hairdressers like to give themselves foreign names, like Tony and Lisa.

This was the industry trend at the time. Everyone was benchmarking against foreign investment salaries. If their salaries couldn't be raised, they would work hard on their reputation.

After Ali became popular, those Davids and Harrys were all transformed into Feng Qingyang and Huang Yaoshi. There were office buildings and Peach Blossom Islands everywhere. For a while, there was a martial arts heyday with "Guo Jing" as numerous as dogs and "Four Masters" everywhere.

"This... I really didn't expect that Mr. Chen actually knew me for a long time."

Chen Jinnian surprised Feng Ji, but after thinking about it carefully, it was quite normal. Chen Jinnian was not one of those investors in their forties or fifties. He was a young man who grew up in the era of online games.

"Back then, you published an article called 'Who Killed Our Games?' denouncing the item-based charging model. I had a good impression of you, until I played the game 'Douluo Dalu' that you spearheaded. You were such a rip-off, forcing me to spend money. If I didn't buy that set of phantom armor, I wouldn't even be able to defeat the minions in the dungeon, and I wouldn't be able to level up."

He really did play Douzhanshen, but he got into it relatively late, in his first year of high school, and uninstalled it after two weeks.

"Regarding the props charging issue, I..."

Feng Ji now only felt the pain on his face from being hit by a boomerang. At that time, he was young and ignorant, and wanted to rule the world. Now he understands that if he does not have such great ability for the time being, he should not dream of such a beautiful thing.

The premise for a gaming company is that it must first survive.

"Mr. Chen prefers the point card charging model." Yang Qi asked on behalf of his old partner.

"I don't like it. The point card charging model is a product of the times. The games that are still operating now are the afterglow of that era. If you develop new time-based charging games, new players will not buy in."

After Chen Jinnian finished speaking, he flipped through the documents handed over by the two people.

"It's not that domestic standalone games aren't good enough. Early domestic games like the Three Swords and Meteor Butterfly Sword had great plots and great controls. It's just that they were born at the wrong time. Computer hardware wasn't up to par back then, and the wave of online games ruined them all. And we have to admit that Warcraft, Tianxia 3, and Blade & Soul were all more playable than the standalone games of the same period."

As Feng Ji listened to Chen Jinnian's chat, he realized that the other party was different from other investors. His technology, indicators, and return on investment could not attract him.

"Mr. Chen is right, but now is the era of mobile games. Traditional online games are inevitably going downhill. Now that the PC has returned to the public's attention in China, the most important thing is the single-player market."

"No, the most important thing is the hardware market. My family runs a computer hardware business, and we're currently the regional general agent. Do you think upgrading game cards only changes the game's graphics quality? No, it also affects the penetration rate and many other areas."

Large-scale single-player games involve more than just money and technology. If most players' computers can't run the game, who will you sell it to?

"Mr. Chen, what you mean is that large-scale stand-alone games cannot be produced in China now?" Yang Qi said.

Chen Jinnian handed him the document in his hand. "No, your draft is too rough. The game itself is only one part. The Unreal Engine 22 for game development has been released for three years, and you plan to complete the project in years, which means it will take another six years."

"That's nine years in total. By then, the Unreal Engine V will have been released. Do you think you'll join the National Army in 49?"

"And you've only released a portion of it in 22 years, with the rest being added as DLC. I don't even know how to evaluate it. I really plan to spend the rest of my life with Unreal Engine ."

Youke’s “Black Myth” is a good project, but in 17, even Feng Ji himself probably hadn’t figured out how to do it.

"You can let me invest, but take your time. If you're anxious yourself, it's hard for me to give you the money."

Feng Ji gave a bitter laugh and said, "Mr. Chen, I know the timeline is a bit tight, but even if I shorten the project plan to 22 years, it's still unacceptable to most investors."

Large-scale stand-alone games require huge investments and have a long return on investment cycle.

Invest 500 million to 600 million yuan and wait seven or eight years for the results. This time span is enough for an ordinary company to be reborn two or three times.

And even though it takes so much time to do it, you won’t earn as much as you would by making a card-drawing mobile game.

Stand-alone games are a one-time deal, and once players buy them, that's it. But mobile games are continuous. If they are well-managed and have sufficient daily activity, they can generate stable profits every year.

"Money matters are easy to talk about." Chen Jinnian is now very wealthy. Not to mention the company's unpaid box office revenue, he also has the pile of bitcoins he acquired last year. When he sells them in two years, it will be an astronomical figure.

He glanced at his phone and said, "It's lunchtime. Stay for dinner. We can talk about investment when I'm free."

Yang Qi and Feng Ji naturally wanted it very much. Chen Jinnian took the initiative to suggest that they talk about it next time, which meant that there was still hope for the investment.

The company did not have a separate cafeteria, so Chen Jinnian arranged for the two to stay in the room where they had interviewed a few days ago.

As soon as he entered, Yang Qi noticed that the whiteboard was covered with photos, each of them was a top-notch beauty.

"It seems that Mr. Chen is busy casting for the movie recently."

"Oh, what you are talking about is not movie casting, but game casting." Chen Jinnian then said, and asked his assistant to order food.

"Does game casting involve motion capture and modeling of characters?" As the art director, Yang Qi is extremely troubled by the role issues of the project.

Wukong and Erlangshen.

Both of these characters have character templates, and it is very difficult to create character images that will satisfy the players.

"It's not that complicated. I'm making a real-life interactive video game. I don't need motion capture. I can just let the actors appear on camera and shoot."

"Ah." Yang Qi was stunned. As a tech geek, his mind had already slipped into the sewer.