Revisiting Future Path

085 Eyes on Tencent shares

Wei Dongsheng has a high theoretical advantage, and Xiao Leiqiang has more than ten years of experience in detail, and the "Cambrian 2004" supercomputer project can move forward in an orderly manner.

Busy, 2003 came to an end.

Although the Spring Festival is the dividing point between the old and the new year in the hearts of the Chinese people, in the actual operations of various companies, January 2004 already belongs to the first quarter of 2004. And since January 21, 2004 is New Year’s Eve, time is very tight, and the staff of various media have worked overtime to sum up everything in 2003.

The Wisdom Universe series of companies are still in the preparatory stage; Seed Download Artifact and Chunqiu Security Manager are not profitable despite their strong momentum; third-party Alipay has a low sense of existence; Chunqiu Security Browser and Chunqiu Look at the current market share of search engines It is also extremely difficult to attract attention. Therefore, in the public's impression, Wei Dongsheng and the Spring and Autumn Series are still an online game developer and operator.

The field of vision narrowed to the online game circle, and the Spring and Autumn series companies unexpectedly became the attention. Netizens voted for the top ten news in the online game industry in 2003. The first is "Spring and Autumn of Ten Nations" launched by Chunqiu Network and Chunqiu Software in a freemium model; the second is also Chunqiu Network, which signed a contract with "World of Warcraft" at a sky-high price of RMB 830 million. . Correspondingly, the legendary copyright incidents that raged in the first half of the year ranked third; the news that Guangtong Communications signed the "Legend 3" contract with 20 million yuan, ranked fifth.

After signing the "World of Warcraft", Chunqiu Network began to prepare for listing in the United States. In order to attract capital cooperation and enhance the trust of public opinion, after months of silence, Chunqiu Network took advantage of the year-end summary of the news boom and announced the operating data for the year: "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn" June revenue was 9.81 million yuan; July revenue The amount was 32.913 million yuan; August revenue was 44.787 million yuan; September revenue was 58.608 million yuan; October revenue was 82.119 million yuan; November revenue was 107.51 million yuan; December revenue It is 13308 million yuan, and the total annual revenue is 468 million yuan.

The operating data of "Ten Kingdoms" is undoubtedly very gorgeous, not only the total amount is shocking, but the monthly growth rate is also at a loss, as if it is not at the same level as other games.

More than ten days later, detailed data have been released one after another, further highlighting the outstanding existence of "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms".

Looking back at 2003, statistics show that the total annual revenue of China's online game market was 1.722 billion yuan, which was inferior to the optimistic forecast of 2 billion yuan at the beginning of the year. In fact, if you ignore the impact of "Ten Kingdoms", the growth of the online game market in 2003 will definitely be much lower than expected. However, with "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" is the "Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms", public opinion is now feeling that the online game market will only compare the 910 million in 2002 with the 1.722 billion in 2003, and draw a positive conclusion: the online game industry is a year. A sunrise industry with a growth rate of 89.23%.

Chunqiu Network's annual revenue is 468 million yuan, accounting for 27.1%, ranking second among online game operators in China.

Shanda Networks ranked first, with revenue of 633 million in 2003, accounting for 36.7%.

Following Shanda Networks and Chunqiu Networks, it is the ninth city ranked third and Guangtong Communications ranked fourth. Among them, "Legend 3" operated by Guangtong Communication has a better market performance than "Miracle MU" operated by Ninth City. In recent months, especially at the turn of December 2003 and January 2004, "Miracle MU" was dragged into the abyss by the flood of private servers and plug-ins. At present, the number of people online at the same time is less than 100,000. Just like Shanda Networks to Chunqiu Networks, "Miracle MU" has been in operation for 12 months, while "Legend 3" was officially charged on August 1. The ninth city relied on the time advantage and secured the third seat; Guangtong Communication is subject to time disadvantages, and the fourth seat is unstable.

However, the past is just the past after all.

Although the ninth city ranks ahead of Guangtong Communications, public opinion is downplaying the ninth city because of the significant decline in the operating data of "Miracle MU", and they are more willing to list Guangtong Communications as one of the three giants in China's online game industry. Although Shanda Network ranks ahead of Chunqiu Network, public opinion is bullish on Chunqiu Network because of the sky-defying operating data of "Ten Kingdoms".

Shanda's annual revenue is 633 million. This data is the common revenue of many games such as "Legend of Blood", "Legendary World", "Bubble Hall", and "Crazy Tank". When "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" reached a monthly revenue of 13308 million, it had already left "Legend of Blood" far behind. Not only that, the media roughly estimated the total revenue of "Legend of Blood", "World of Legends", and "Legend 3" in December. The total revenue of the three games of the Legend Family was only more than 90 million. This means that although "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" ranked second in the 2003 rankings, in fact it has not only surpassed the "Legend of Blood", but also completely surpassed the "Legend" brand. One game is better than the three legends. game.

If there are no other changes, Chunqiu Network will definitely be the king of 2004.

Optical Communication ranked fourth but was regarded as third, and Chunqiu Network ranked second but was regarded as first.

Chunqiu Network only operates one game "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn", with a very single source of income, which does not seem to be a healthy financial institution.

However, don't care too much about these, because the online game industry in China currently has such a business model. Analyzing the revenue structure of Shanda Networks in December, the three games of "Legend of Blood", "Legendary World" and "Bubble Hall" accounted for 96.9%. Except for these three games, all the remaining revenues only add up to 3.1%. The income of the ninth city mainly comes from "Miracle MU"; the income of Optical Communication mainly comes from "Legend 3". Although they operate a large number of online games, they cannot change the cruel fact of a single income.

In all these cases, Chunqiu Network has become the undisputed king of the Chinese game market. If 2002 was named the Year of Legend, 2003 could be named the Year of Chunqiu.

The development of Chunqiu Networks is like a raging fire, and its listing plan in the United States is naturally sought after by various venture capitalists. On January 14, 2004, Jing Minqiang sent positive news: “IDG is willing to negotiate with us on the replacement of Tencent’s equity.”

Let me recall the background first.

At this moment last year, Yang Fei of IDG, influenced by Zou Shenglong and Cheng Hao, focused on the download tool market. Yang Fei contacted Chunqiu Software and Wei Dongsheng and checked whether the seed download artifact project was worth the investment. Unexpectedly, Wei Dongsheng choked back by saying "The seed download artifact is free software".

As the saying goes, business is not a friendship.

Commercial operation is not the ideal of painting. No matter how successful a company is, the success rate from cooperation intention to real cooperation is generally less than one-fifth. In other words, most of the world's business is impossible to do; most of the sales staff's market development fails. However, in the process of negotiation, negotiation, and cooperation, both parties will invest more or less emotions and funds. There are many reasons for the failure, some are because the two parties have inconsistent judgments on market demand, some are because the time is inappropriate, some are due to internal conditions, some are due to lack of funds, and some are due to insufficient authority. Not all cooperation failures are Deliberately. If we can adhere to the principle of "doing business is to make friends" and successfully demonstrate our own abilities in the negotiation, this failure will be the accumulation of success next time.

Failure is the mother of success, not just a sentence.

Therefore, although Yang Fei's investment in seed download artifacts on behalf of IDG ended without a disease, it did not affect the friendship between each other.

Commercial competition is commercial competition, commercial cooperation is commercial cooperation, and private friendship is private friendship. Wei Dongsheng clearly distinguishes it.

From January 2003 to June 2003, Yang Fei’s attention to Wei Dongsheng stopped in his impression of the seed download artifact, and occasionally came to Wei Dongsheng to chat and talked about topics such as "download tools are profitable". It wasn't until "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" was launched and the revenue in July was as high as 32.913 million yuan, Yang Fei took a long breath, and his impression of Wei Dongsheng was no longer limited to the seed download artifact. Yang Fei regretted that he missed the "Ten Kingdoms" project, and immediately expressed willingness to invest in "Ten Kingdoms" operator Chunqiu Network and "Ten Kingdoms" developer Chunqiu Software, or develop existing markets or continue to develop new games.

Online games are a special industry.

The cost of an online game is mainly concentrated in the pre-development and server rental purchases. After the game is launched and operated, it is the time to harvest profits. Yang Fei wanted to invest again after the operation of "Ten Kingdoms", just as farmers were indifferent during the period of plowing, selecting, planting, fertilizing, irrigating, weeding, and disinfesting. Seeing that the seedlings were about to mature, he ran over and said: "I invest You two sickles, let's harvest them together."

Haha, "The Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" has been paid, who will accept your investment?

Wei Dongsheng is not a fool.

However, Wei Dongsheng did not reject Yang Fei.

Because the purpose of Chunqiu Network in the next phase is not to slowly harvest players' money bags, but to go to the US to go public to circle the money of American investors. Both Wei Dongsheng and Chunqiu Network need the help of venture capital.

Today, IDG's influence is relatively weak. For example, a few months ago, Zhou Hongyi wanted to sell 3721 to Google instead of Yahoo, but IDG was awkwardly unable to reach Google executives, and was unable to get through the talks between Zhou Hongyi and Google executives. In the end, Zhou Hongyi could only indirectly spend one hundred thousand dollars in bribes to follow the route of former US Vice President Al Gore, and euphemistically met a Google executive. Look, in 2003, IDG's reputation could not even meet with Google executives. Under the same IDG, Yang Fei's resources can be stronger.

Wei Dongsheng does not expect IDG to help Chunqiu Network to go public in the United States.

However, small is also good, if limited cooperation with IDG, Spring and Autumn Network has more options.

Considering IDG's weak and stingy family background, habitual investments of US$1 million, US$2 million, US$10 million and other scales of investment are small and big, even if Yang Fei is very willing to invest in Chunqiu Network, he can't spend much money. Wei Dongsheng resolutely gave up the investment method of capital investment. The monthly revenue of "The Spring and Autumn of Ten Kingdoms" reached 13308 million yuan, which is not short of IDG's several million dollars.

Compared with shabby funds, Wei Dongsheng is more optimistic about IDG's investment income, such as its Baidu shares and Tencent shares.

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