Chapter 15: Ways to kill channel dealers (please read it!)

"Free game?

Where is the profit point of free games?" Ashley asked, "Although this is our first game, its quality is definitely not comparable to free games."

The free games that people understood in this era are completely different concepts from the free games that were popular in China in later generations.

Most of the popular free games now are games that come with the purchase of a computer, system or computer manufacturer, such as Minesweeper, Spider Solitaire, 3D Pinball, etc., which are simple stand-alone games.

The free games that became popular in China in later generations should be, to be precise, free online games. Free players use them as consumables for paying players, and games are used to achieve differentiation through payment to induce people to consume.

This free game focuses on interaction and comparison between players.

In 1998, network infrastructure limited the existence of similar games.

The free games they understand are only small games that come with the Windows system.

In the opinion of Ashley and Stephen, Angry Birds is definitely not comparable to free video games.

If their company name were not Riot but Y (the developer of the Fallout series of games), Angry Birds would have a chance to compete for Cybermania (a video game award started in 1994).

The TGA had to wait until 2014 to be established.

If the transfer amount is greater than or equal to our listed price, a verification code will be sent to your mobile phone number.

Zhou Xin’s idea is actually the prototype of electronic payment.

If you cooperate with a larger game publisher, this proportion will increase to 70%.

Zhou Xin quickly thought of a way, electronic payment, but in this era, electronic payment has not yet been born.

"Verification code?" Ashley asked.

Zhou Xin nodded and said: "Yes, SMS verification code.

But there is a conflict between these.

After players receive the verification code, they can download the game.

What we need to do is guide players on how to pay.

Zhou Xin was asked by Ashley, because in this era of online advertising, there is no Google or Amazon.

Give the other party an account number for transfer, and then after the other party transfers the money, send a six-digit verification code to the other party through the mobile phone number.

Yahoo charges an advertising fee of US$30-100 for running banner ads, which are 468x60 pixel horizontal bars at the top of the page.

Otherwise, how can we get the game into the hands of players?"

Stephen raised his hand: "That still has to go through channels.

Now that Google has just been born, Yahoo obviously has no idea of ​​sharing its advertising revenue with other websites.

Zhou Xin instantly understood why free games cannot succeed, or that free games in this situation are unrealistic at the moment.

Then sell the game to interested players.

But this does not mean that there is no solution.

Now we transfer this part of the cost into server costs and bank fees.

Although this was in 1994, even if four years have passed, the price will not be much higher.

Zhou Xin nodded and said: "Yes, we need to ask players to send us their mobile phone numbers as a postscript when transferring money.

Just because Angry Birds is so confident, if we adopt a free model, the cost we need to spend on the server will be higher than the advertising cost.

Thirty thousand dollars.

Stephen quickly realized the problem:

"If there are too many people, such as a hundred people." He stopped after speaking, "Are you planning to send a group text message via email?"

In other words, in addition to providing players with the first ten levels for free trial on the web page, they also teach them how to pay.

This is definitely a genius idea in this era, but there are still several problems that need to be solved.

Do you know what the price was after they invested for three months?

Players have a limited amount of time on our page.

We can put the first ten levels on our homepage for players to experience for free.

They can enter the verification code on our webpage to open the page for downloading the game.”

The six-digit number consists of numbers and letters.

"What you said makes sense, because Angry Birds is a level-breaking game.

And it is growing at any time, and advertising costs will not increase because of the increase in the number of our clicks.”

As you all know, my father works for AT&T (America Telephone and Telegraph Company, equivalent to China Telecom and China Mobile), and AT&T was the first online advertising provider.

That is, even if we put all our energy into Angry Birds, its update speed is far less than the player experience speed.

Ashley nodded and said: "We cooperate with banks, and the bank charges a few dollars at most for each transfer. However, as an unknown game company, if we cooperate with game publishers, their charges will be at least 50% of the game price.

The Internet giant that currently dominates online advertising is Yahoo.

We communicate with the bank in advance and ask them to provide us with their mobile phone number and transfer amount at a fixed time every day.

No advertiser will be willing to advertise on our page.

That is to say, try it first and then release it.”

He even plans to set up a company to focus on electronic payments if the results are good, leaving PayPal alone.

"I think this idea is totally feasible.

As long as they are willing to pay the handling fee, the bank is absolutely willing to provide us with the postscript and transfer amount.

Zhou Xin quickly thought of a way: "We can pass the verification code."

Advertisements on web pages are designated by Google. The higher the click-through rate of your page, the more money Google will give you.

And this will make history!

Once we take this path, there will be no room for game publishers to survive in the future." Stephen was very excited. The value contained in this mechanism alone far exceeds the game itself.

When Angry Birds gains a certain level of fame, we will need to bear high server costs.

With more than 200 million verification codes, our sales will never reach this number."

At the same time we have no reputation.

Stephen added: "Yes, Newman, I know your idea, put the game on the web and then charge for it through online advertising.

PayPal wouldn't be born until December 1998.

However, Google Adword, which later generations of Google relied on for survival, had not yet been born, and it would have to wait until 2000. That is, paying for web pages based on clicks.

And we might not make any money.

This cost will be greatly reduced.”

Zhou Xin nodded and said: "So what we need to do next is to first improve this game, and secondly, whether it is mass text messaging or verification of the payment amount, we need to build a complete system to count this number.

Then we still need to build an official website, negotiate cooperation with banks, and rent servers.

There are many things to do, but the path to success is already in front of us.”
Chapter completed!