There is no innocent snowflake in the avalanche

Source: Zhennan Observation

Author: Xu Ying

2017 is coming to an end. If we talk about the most memorable event in the Chinese Internet, it is the "opening of casinos on online game platforms and a major gambling case". In this incident, Nanchao Games, a domestic online game giant, ushered in the biggest crisis since its establishment.

The amount involved in gambling reached 300 million yuan, and more than 20 senior executives of Nanchao Games participated. Chairman Lin Qinghe was stranded overseas for a long time...

Zhang, an executive of Nanchao Games, said something that was even more thought-provoking after being arrested, “No one in the entire market is innocent. Gamblers are not, online game companies are not, channel companies are not, and Internet giants are not, either.”

All of this has forced us to focus on this game company that has been established for less than ten years.

【Ageing over 50 years old, I will join the Internet entrepreneurship】

Although Nanchao Games is named after the company's executive Lin Nanchao, most people in the industry believe that its chairman Lin Qinghe is the real initiator and founder of Nanchao Games.

In 2011, when Nanchao Game was founded, Lin Qinghe was already fifty years old. It is hard to imagine such an elder who devoted himself to and founded an online game company at the beginning of the mobile Internet.

But when we look at Lin Qinghe's personal resume, it is not difficult to see some clues from it.

During the 1990s, Lin Qinghe used Binhai City as its development base, and many incidents and clues also pointed to Zhengfang Trade, a family business founded by his three brothers in his family. Zhengfang Trade was mainly engaged in private lending business in the early years. In earlier reports, relevant information pointed out that Zhengfang Trade had deep cooperation with the former Binhai giant Ye Jianguo's casino in the 1990s. The latter was arrested and imprisoned in a Thunder Operation three years ago.

In the mid-1990s, Lin Qinghe transferred his company's business from Binhai City to Zhennan Special Zone.

At that time, Shenzhen South Huaqiangbei gradually became an important commodity distribution center, and in the future it developed into a trade center dominated by electronic products.

Lin Qinghe also began his transformation. After Zhengfang Trade's private lending business was once engaged in, Lin Qinghe transferred its stronghold to Zhennan, it continued to carry out related businesses as the main body of Muhe Finance. However, after Zhengfang Electronics was established, Lin Qinghe's business territory center also began to transfer to the electronics industry.

Zhengfang Electronics was founded in 2000 and was originally located in Seg Electronics City, a well-known Seg Electronics City in Huaqiangbei. At the beginning of its establishment, Zhengfang Electronics mainly focused on "reselling and buying" electronic originals. With the expansion of its business scale, Zhengfang Electronics gradually achieved certain achievements in some semiconductor components. At that time, Zhengfang Electronics also had certain advantages in pricing voice of the same manufacturer because of its huge purchase scale. After Zhengfang Electronics received components at a low price, it could then charge higher prices downstream.

In 2003, after completing the accumulation of original capital, Zhengfang Electronics began to seek transformation and moved from traditional supply and marketing to production. During this period, Zhengfang Electronics spent tens of millions to acquire a equipment production line of an electronic factory on the verge of bankruptcy. After six years of development, by 2009, Zhengfang Electronics had built first-class semiconductor component production factories in Longhua, Pingshan, Binhai and other places.

In 2010, Zhengfang Electronics took advantage of the victory and listed on the Shenzhen South Exchange GEM. After the completion of the IPO, Zhengfang Electronics hit the daily limit for five consecutive trading days, and it was not until the next week that the daily limit was opened.

In 20 years, Lin Qinghe completed the transformation from a grassroots hero to a successful businessman.

Some people say that Nanchao Game was created by Lin Qinghe who missed the old world. The grassroots are still rash in their bones and do not look down on the slow money of Zhengfang Electronics, which is a regular business. But I think this is ultimately due to interests. The facts also prove that Nanchao Game is on the "correct" path, and it took only five years to reach a height that Zhengfang Electronics had never reached.

I have to say that this is the result of the times, and it is the mobile Internet that helped Lin Qinghe realize the fantasy of starting a business in his fifties.

[Unobstructed channels, one advertising fee can push the application up]

The suspected gambling of Nanchao Games is not new news. When we review the development of Nanchao Games, it is not difficult to find that its relationship with "gambling" is almost inseparable.

In this development history, there was an incident that changed the situation of the entire industry, commonly known as the "Second Generation Dream Valley Incident".

In 2010, the birth of Menggu Advertising marked the beginning of the mobile Internet era, and the banana market also became a landmark case of the mobile Internet. As a channel, the application market can naturally promote many application groups within a group ecosystem. As a third-party company, these channels are also inseparable from these channels.

For Nanchao Games, online channels are nothing more than application markets, brand mobile phone pre-installation, etc., while offline channels are even more numerous. As an important channel in the early stage of domestic mobile Internet, the success of Nanchao Games is naturally inseparable from the "help" of the banana market.

In 2013, during the launch of Menggu Advertising, an article titled "Go to Your Dream Valley" became popular all over the Internet. In my opinion, the premise for attracting widespread attention is nothing more than three points: "Luzhou is a rich second generation", "Luzhou relies on a large number of relationship networks of his parents during his entrepreneurship in Menggu", and "Menggu Advertising involved illegal business during its founding."

The writing style is quite similar to an article "The Penguin in Dog Day" three years ago. Meng Gu's article complained that Lu Zhou concealed his life experience and power to deceive entrepreneurs, while Penguin article was to use Penguin to plagiarize the attack on entrepreneurs to arouse the common sense of entrepreneurs.

In terms of the ending, "Go to Your Dream Valley" is at the level of nuclear bombs, and it has indeed achieved the purpose of the initiator. Menggu Advertising's first application for IPo in early 2013 was rejected by Xiangjiang Exchange, and it asked Menggu Advertising to add instructions for illegal business in subsequent review materials.

Among the illegal business, this article also takes the cooperation between Nanchao Games and the Banana Market as an example, and directly expresses the help of channels to the black industry of "gambling".

From the actual understanding, we have also obtained some industry insiders' opinions. In the early stages, whether it is Qiandu Penguin Alibaba Dream Valley, the earlier the channel, the more likely it is to violate the rules. First, because the channel supervision is not strict in the early stage, the platform can use it to gain benefits, and most of the time it turns a blind eye. Second, because the punishment of the channel involves light, this also gives relevant applications an opportunity to take advantage of it. And not only in the channel, but also in the payment field, things like this are also some unspoken rules. Yes, large companies will indeed establish a complete monitoring system, but no matter what the rules, the black market side can always find loopholes.

One of the game industry executives who did not want to be named even revealed that the author has revealed that some chess and card mobile games in Internet companies are themselves "gambling games" that criticize legal sluts.

He showed me a chess and card game developed by Mitao Zhuiguang, a subsidiary of Menggu.

"Like this game, it completes the entire domestic game version system, and it is a 'legal game' itself."

Then he completed a purchase of virtual currency through the payment channel provided by Peach Zhuiguang.

"Many game operators will join similar official malls for the purpose of improving the excitement of players' games. To put it bluntly, the official sells these game coins and props to make profits. However, the official itself does not have a channel to exchange virtual coins into RMB. Therefore, in nature, this game is difficult to characterize as gambling."

In response, the author asked, "Why do you say they are 'gambling games' in skin?"

What this executive showed next completely changed my view on the entire chess and card game.

"This type of WeChat message group is nothing new, almost a lot of them are caught. Different games have different groups. We usually call them "Silver Shop". Similar to the game Peach Chasing Light, the official does not provide the transfer of virtual coins in the account. Then the Silver Shop used the method of opening an empty gambling table and losing all the virtual coins to the exchanger to exchange coins to others.

This opens up the exchange channel in disguise. The virtual currency that players can win can be exchanged for RMB in a certain proportion."

He then smiled, "This is not a big news in the industry, nor is it just Menggu, but other companies. If you want to provide entertainment for players, then the official doesn't have to do a virtual currency system, right? But Internet companies are profitable, and there are many people who rely on silver merchants to bet, so the official virtual currency can be sold more.

Many of them are, the officials are calling each other every day, saying that they cooperate with relevant departments to thoroughly investigate bank business and use technical means to monitor the exchange of gambling funds. But no matter how much they shout, the virtual coins in the mall are still selling very well.

This is no different from talking nonsense with your eyes open.”

It is precisely through this that Nanchao Games has gained a vast development space.

However, since the online gambling incident of Nanchao Games, many game companies in the same industry have also begun to tighten their chess and card game policies.

It is worth noting that Peach Zhuiguang has just completed a financing of over 100 million US dollars recently. Although the market is bleak, companies with strong profitability are still constantly favored by capital.

[No privacy under big data, no one can escape]

Regarding data, someone once mentioned a saying: from the birth of human beings to 2003, the total data generated by all human beings was about 5eb; by 2010, after the Internet age and PC era, the total data was about 500eb; and by 2010, the beginning of the mobile Internet, the total data generated by all human beings was as high as hundreds of ebs each year.

1eb is equivalent to one million tb and one million 1t capacity hard drives. Even the cheapest mobile hard drive at 300 yuan per yuan per year, Internet companies around the world need to spend hundreds of billions of yuan to provide data storage for users every year. In fact, not only storage, but also the server itself or bandwidth, Internet companies need to spend huge costs to maintain products and provide services to users.

They spend money, so who is paying the bill in the end?

The answer is us.

Compliant Internet companies act within the law and use data reasonably. We spend our attention and time on the products of Internet companies, we buy things, browse advertisements, and they make profits based on them.

Optimistically, this is a "win-win".

If it is in the dark, it is really hard for us to imagine the scene.

We got an amazing answer when interviewing a program engineer who once worked in the Philippines.

This engineer roughly described his work content. He told me frankly that in terms of technical level and engineering ability, he can only be considered mid- and downstream. In the small and medium-sized Internet companies he currently works for, he manages a small team of several people, mainly engaged in and develops e-commerce applications. His monthly salary is around 20,000 yuan, and he can get 14 months of salary and annual bonuses a year.

This is an unattainable 300,000-year income in my opinion, and he said that when he was in the Philippines, his salary was about twice the current level.

He stayed there for three years, and only returned home for two holidays every year during the Spring Festival and mid-year period.

"When I went to the Philippines, the site was not fully operational. I had experienced its entire life cycle in full. Of course, this type of platform can survive for a relatively short time. Many times, you have to change places after a shot."

"Why?"

"Supervision! After a while, the boss has to arrange a new server and move the entire program to a new base."

"What about the past customers?"

"That must be kept. Now I'm smart about doing these things. Register and leave a mobile phone number, and you can send a new sales promotion in one go.

As for the others, it mainly depends on buying. When I first started working, the boss once gave a database. In fact, you can tell clearly that this is the income from purchasing through the dark web or familiar hackers. As for a small platform, a group of programmers can at most ensure the security of funds and the normal operation of the website. There is really no hacker attack.

There are mainly two types of data. One is a library that is dragged from other gambling stations. This is a gambler directly, so we use some technical means to push messages to him. The other is a better one is a library of online loans.

But the score is also a few hands. If you are overtaken too much, the people in it are often 'senior' gamblers. Such people are not far from death and cannot extract any value."

"Why are online loans better data?"

"Haha. I borrowed gambling, and many people who went into the water had this cycle."

"So does the explosion of p2p and other things have anything to do with this?"

"This is not within our consideration. Of course, you said that there are many such platforms in peripheral countries, and there must be some impact. There are also many other ways of drainage, but generally speaking, the efficiency is relatively low. In the past, Qiandu could still be put into use, but later, not only Qiandu can not do it, but other channels can not do it either."

"What other methods do this mean?"

"The registration machine makes a number and sends barrage comments on the live broadcast platform. Similar to these, this does not cost much, but it takes time and has low effect. But it is better than nothing.

There are still some channels that can barely invest, but there are more middle-level layers of people who are going around. For example, some self-media advertising, Weitou will definitely not be able to do it, but there are a few companies that can invest in the online earning category, then join the group, and finally lure them to the platform. This type of product is very professional now, and the middle-level one needs to pay some fees."

Hearing this, I think no one wants data to be circulated like this. When a person is really involved in gambling, it is really hard for me to imagine that he can get out of the game in such an environment. Especially in this, the prevalence of online loans has deepened the harm of these platforms to a certain individual. Perhaps as this engineer said, it may be that they are not far from death, so that these gamblers can finally escape and get on the shore.

And I couldn't help but ask myself, is there any possibility of such illegal procurement data among Internet companies?

Recently, an arrested executive of Nanchao Games also revealed a piece of information during the trial in order to reduce his sentence: during the early days of Nanchao Games, he purchased several gambling platform databases from the hacker organization Sander.

[The group of silent voices in the thunder just can't control it]

The 21-year-old Shi Zi sat in front of me, and he was also very straightforward. If it weren't for the interview that he could have been vain, he wouldn't have been in vain with me in an open-air cafe.

"If I want to say, this is all the sins of these dogs. Okay, the boss will make some money by hobing and hiding overseas and having sex for the rest of his life. He doesn't think about this kind of person. What he enjoys is hard-earned money! That's human blood, human flesh!"

"Before I was a foreign exchange salesman, calling people to sell transactions all day long. I don't have much culture, but I can fool people after a few years of financial knowledge. As for your own platform, if you lose two months' salary, why don't you run away quickly? To be honest, high leverage is no different from gambling. If you really can predict the market, who is willing to make hard money?"

The stone poked the cigarette butts in his hand.

I don't know very well whether he regrets his wife and children's separation due to gambling. Even if he looks thin, I can't get an answer.

"There are too many of these things. It doesn't mean that you can achieve it just by wanting to quit and go ashore. You can achieve it just by really wanting it. I also think I am Li Ka-shing!

I searched a thousand degrees in the middle of the night, and I wouldn’t stop playing Pujing-Ao gambling, right? I opened WeChat and added friends every day. Those are all recruits from various platforms. I thought about looking at the website and watching live broadcasts, and it was just an online gambling website.

How do you say quit this?"

"It's not nice to say, everyone here is guilty! What kind of dogs and lis are all rich, and they are not all shit when they are stretched out. You are CCTV, so you have criticized thousands of dollars a lot, is it useful?

It's just about money."

I felt that the interview was really difficult, and I asked, "Did you ever realize your mistake?"

Shi Zi laughed, "It's said that there is. But what's wrong with me, a poor man? I just understand that I have it, but it doesn't help me if I can get ashore."

"After the divorce, the child is fucking with him, right?"

Shi Zi was a little sad when he heard this, and was so excited that the topic was painful.

"Well, I haven't seen each other for two years. There is nothing to see, and I dare not see you."

Listening to his words, it is hard for me to imagine how many people there are like stones, and how many people there are like his family. In the midst of a thunder, they are not like the senior executives and chairman of some companies, and can be spread with just one word. They may be wrong, and there is no innocent snowflake in the avalanche, but they do not have a way out like Lin Qinghe.

If you die, you will be really dead. If you break, you will be really broken.

We say that the Internet is constantly redefining our lives, and perhaps this is also part of its defined life. It is helplessness, and human nature is constantly amplified. The stones feel unprecedented stimulation through these platforms and eventually fall into the abyss.

But thinking about it again, we are actually just looking for a patch to break our own reality in this web that envelops everyone.
Chapter completed!