The handsome young man chuckled and said, "Dogs are man's best friend. They are also the most loyal friends. They are very intelligent. Um, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Zhong Ziyu, and my friends call me Zongzi..."
Hearing this, Chen Xu turned to Guan Yi and said, "Um, I'm hungry, shall we go get something to eat first?"
What's going on?
He initially had a somewhat good impression of this guy, but that impression vanished in an instant. What kind of person would just casually come up and introduce themselves like that? And say something about dogs being lecherous? Chen Xu thought this guy was definitely lecherous! He'd taken a liking to Guan Yi's good looks and was using such a despicable method to strike up a conversation.
When Chen Xu suddenly said those words so bluntly, Guan Yi and Zhong Ziyu were both taken aback, and then they both laughed at the same time.
Guan Yi stood up from his chair, extended his hand and said, "Oh, so you're the founder of SocialNet. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Zhong Ziyu also laughed and said, "It's just making a small website. The IT industry isn't that easy. But I heard from Uncle Guan that you were up there, so I came to check it out. It really lives up to its reputation."
Now it was Chen Xu's turn to be dumbfounded: "Ah. You know him?"
Guan Yi smiled and said, "I've long admired your name."
After Guan Yi's explanation, Chen Xu realized just how impressive this young man was. He was the founder of SocialNet, the first large-scale social networking service in China, predating other platforms like Renren and HaiNei. And this Zhong Ziyu was its creator, a true Cambridge returnee.
Hearing that he came to discuss business with Guan Yi's father, rather than to chat with Guan Yi, Chen Xu laughed and said, "Oh, hello, Turtle."
Zhong Ziyu touched his nose with a wry smile. Guan Yi pinched Chen Xu and said, "How can you talk like that?" Chen Xu chuckled. He extended his hand again: "Hello, Zongzi Turtle classmate."
Zhong Ziyu couldn't help but laugh. This sunny young man not only had a very handsome face, but his smile was also very infectious. He said with a smile, "I've been thinking about what to say to my savior, but it seems like I've wasted my time."
"His savior?" Chen Xu looked at Guan Yi. "What's wrong? You saved his life?" Guan Yi rolled his eyes and slapped Chen Xu, saying, "He's talking about you!"
Chen Xu was completely baffled. How did Guan Yi know? Hadn't they just met?
At this moment, Zhong Ziyu laughed and said, "It's like this. I've known Uncle Guan for a long time. Back then, I was in London, and I heard about his daughter... well, never mind, anyway, we've known each other for a long time and often chat online, but we've never met. But just recently, well, something happened that almost killed me. Because I love dogs, I usually go up and say hello when I see dogs on the street. Heh, don't laugh, I just tease them. But that day, I accidentally got bitten by a dog. I didn't pay attention at the time because many dogs in London are vaccinated against rabies, and I had been vaccinated myself. But I never expected to get infected later..."
Chen Xu said "Oh," no wonder he said that, calling himself his savior. So that's what happened!
As expected, Zhong Ziyu smiled and said, "I had already given up hope, but unexpectedly, just a week later, your father invented Rabies Killer, and I was one of the first test subjects. Heh, I got along very well with your father back then, and after hearing him praise you as his son, I had always wanted to meet you. Now my wish has finally come true."
Chen Xu was a little embarrassed by what he said, scratched his head and laughed, "It really is luck, hehe, luck."
Although Zhong Ziyu was smiling, his words carried a hint of seriousness: "That's right, it really is my luck to have met such a benefactor as you. Here is my business card. If you ever need anything in the future, feel free to contact me."
Then Zhong Ziyu smiled slightly and said, "Actually, we had met online before, and that's why I came to Hexie City."
Chen Xu hesitated for a moment, then Zhong Ziyu smiled and said, "Do you remember... FOX?"
"FOX? You're FOX?!" Chen Xu was so surprised he couldn't close his mouth. "FOX from the Red Hacker Alliance?!"
Zhong Ziyu smiled and nodded, while Chen Xu scoffed, "How did you know it was me?!"
FOX was the guy Chen Xu encountered on the hacker battlefield. He completely dominated Chen Xu, leaving him utterly helpless. In their ten matches, Chen Xu lost seven, and the three wins were all extremely lucky. He and FOX were considered two of the biggest scoundrels by the newbies on the hacker battlefield.
Chen Xu was that kind of person. If he didn't know someone well, he'd be quite reserved when talking to them, but once he realized they were someone he knew, he wouldn't hold back at all. Chen Xu punched him: "Damn it, were you deliberately investigating me? Otherwise, how did you know it was me?"
Zhong Ziyu wasn't annoyed by the punch and smiled, "Actually, it was really a coincidence. I saw that the Red Hacker Alliance was recruiting, so I thought I'd check it out. After all, I've admired Sister Blue Baby and the other experts for a long time. But to get in, you have to start from the lowest level and grind for points. And then I ran into you. We've clashed a few times, right? Once, after I hacked into your computer, before you unplugged the network cable, I saw some photos on your computer. They were photos of you with Guan Yi and Gao Xiaojie. Heh, later I found something else, so I was sure it was you."
Chen Xu sighed in frustration and said, "Brother, are you a detective? And this world is so full of coincidences; I run into acquaintances everywhere I go."
What really bothered Chen Xu was that he had run into the guy who had stepped on him. Ugh, how embarrassing! If he had met someone he had stepped on who immediately shouted, "Boss, take me on as your apprentice!", Chen Xu would have been grinning from ear to ear!
Zhong Ziyu, observing the situation, smiled and said, "You don't need to be so discouraged. Your offensive and defensive skills are actually quite good, but I can see that you are still a beginner. Your basic skills are quite solid, but your offensive and defensive methods are still somewhat limited."
Chen Xu's eyes widened and he said, "You can even see that?"
Zhong Ziyu laughed and said, "That's very simple. You type commands very quickly and smoothly, such as the PING command, the search command, and so on. You can also write your own Trojans to exploit system vulnerabilities. In this respect, you are much better than me. However, your biggest problem is that you only use the same few tricks over and over again in terms of attack methods. So I've concluded that you are a programmer with a good foundation who has just started to get involved in network attack and defense. But compared to that, you have a deep understanding of computer languages, which is especially rare."
Chen Xu can't stand being praised. He gets cocky as soon as he is. Although he said modestly that he was too kind, he was secretly overjoyed. He raised his eyebrows at Guan Yi with a sly look, as if to say, "Look, I'm not bad!"
Guan Yi rolled his eyes at him, and then Zhong Ziyu said with a smile, "There's one more thing. Well, I'm here today to do some business with you..."
Chapter 123 of the main text features a 64K video.
Zhong Ziyu smiled and said, "This morning Uncle Guan told me something. It seems that you, Guan Yi, and Gao Xiaojie, who independently developed the script for the Jin Yong Heroes: The Legend Continues, have come up with the same thing: a web game? An embedded interactive game?"
Chen Xu looked at Guan Yi, who nodded to indicate that she had spoken to her father. So Chen Xu hummed in agreement and said, "That's right, but there are still some difficulties to overcome."
"What are the difficulties?" Zhong Ziyu said, "Could you tell me so we can discuss it together? Well, I won't hide it from you, the community network I'm working on is also an SNS platform, so I'd like to cooperate with you."
Chen Xu thought for a moment and said, "It would be great if we could cooperate, but let me explain first. Basically, I made a 3D room model when I was bored, and you can customize the size of the room and the placement of things like beds. Then Gao Xiaojie realized that this could be separated, like leveling up in an online game to get money and items, so he suggested turning it into a web game. But later we found that if we were to make this kind of game, because it's all 3D modeling, the resource database would be huge, so it would probably be quite troublesome as a web game."
Zhong Ziyu listened carefully and nodded, saying, "That's right. To put it simply, a 3D model of a room would require about 1MB of space. If there's no client to directly support it, relying solely on network data transmission, players will have to wait a long time. What are your plans?"
Chen Xu spread his hands, looking helpless: "There are only two methods. One is to reduce the size of the materials. But that's too difficult, beyond my level. Even for experts, further simplification would only reduce the size a little, which wouldn't help the overall design much. The second method is to use a client-based approach, but that would be pointless. These online games that require client installation are not the target audience we're working with."
Zhong Ziyu nodded, "Indeed, your idea is good, but it's too complicated to implement. We need to think it over carefully."
To put it simply, few web games nowadays are 3D because of bandwidth limitations. Web games don't require a client; all data processing happens on a server, and players must download all the content from the web game via the internet to see it.
Let me give you a simple data example. Images in web games are only a few KB or tens of KB in size, so with current internet speeds, they can be downloaded easily and displayed to players.
However, with 3D modeling, a single 3D model of a room can easily be 1MB in size. Reading the room's data typically takes several seconds with a slow internet connection. The more online assets used, the larger the data becomes, further increasing the demand on internet speed. This means that for the average user, just reading the data can take an incredibly long time, causing frustration. Who would want to play such a game then?
Of course, if you use a client, it's a very simple matter... although Chen Xu's skills aren't yet sufficient to create a client on his own.
The client-side data primarily consists of images and models of scenes and assets. When playing the game, these scenes are retrieved directly from the client on the user's computer, a process that takes only a fraction of a second.
Therefore, the size of a client depends on the game's content. For example, World of Warcraft has a huge number of 3D models, resulting in its enormous file size. This is actually a necessary compromise for Blizzard. A large client can take dozens of hours, or even several days, to download, which would discourage many players.
Chen Xu made a rough estimate. If it were made into a client, the game would be over 100MB in size. The problem was that making an online game into a client would go against Gao Xiaojie's previous suggestion... to leverage existing resources and achieve a win-win situation with the SNS community.
Promoting an online game requires a huge investment of money. How many players this completely casual online game can attract as a client-based application is still unknown. However, if it's integrated into a social networking service (SNS) community, it can leverage the community's popularity to quickly accumulate users, and through word-of-mouth, the player base will rapidly grow.
"How about this?" Zhong Ziyu thought for a moment and said, "How about making it a 2D flat model? That way the resource database will be much smaller, and it will be easier to play with."
“I’ve thought about this,” Guan Yi interjected. “But if it’s 2D, firstly, it won’t highlight the significance of 3D rooms, meaning players can’t create a truly immersive environment for their rooms, which defeats the first purpose. Of course, if it’s just about gameplay, it should be able to do very well, but there’s another problem…” Guan Yi said, emphasizing each word, “If it’s 2D, then we can’t imitate or copy others. What we need to create is a game that others can’t easily replicate. Only such a game can be competitive.”
Chen Xu hadn't considered this question either. He glanced at Guan Yi in surprise, thinking that this woman's ideas were really too far ahead. But little did he know that Guan Yi had grown up in such a business family since childhood, and had learned a lot from her surroundings. Therefore, in business planning, her vision was much broader than that of Chen Xu and others.
Guan Yi continued, "Copyright issues in China have always been a major headache. And if you really want to get to the bottom of it, nobody knows who's copying whom. Take the popular Link-Link game from a couple of years ago, for example. It swept the entire internet, and almost every white-collar worker was playing it. But soon, countless Link-Link games appeared, even QQ Games released its own version. And then there are SNS communities, like your community network and Renren, etc. To put it bluntly, they're all just copying successful templates from others. Now, Gao Xiaojie has discovered that a web-based game can enhance internal communication within an SNS community and attract more people. So I believe that if we do this, others will immediately follow suit. 2D games don't have any outstanding features; almost anyone with that kind of talent can make one. So, where is our advantage?"
Zhong Ziyu nodded and smiled, "Guan Yi, you've thought things through very thoroughly. But there are some things we can't do. If the technology isn't up to par, then we can only make the game first and try to grab the first batch of users."
Guan Yi thought for a moment, then nodded and said, "That's probably the only way. Gao Xiaojie and I discussed it. If all else fails, we can divide the game into several parts. Just like World of Warcraft expansions, we don't release everything at once. For example, at the beginning, we can let you buy a house and then give you a garden to plant things. After others imitate this, we can quickly release the next upgrade, such as allowing you to buy a car... However, if we do that, the computational requirements will be too high later on, and we might really need a server-side component."
“Actually, it’s all about technology,” Zhong Ziyu thought for a moment and said, “I remember there was a demo back then that was made by a very powerful hacker. It was only a few dozen KB in size, but when you opened the demo, there was an incredibly gorgeous animation inside. If you were to calculate it according to the BINK format that is popular in games now, that animation should be at least a hundred MB in size, but it was compressed to only a few dozen KB. That’s godlike technology.”
His words reminded Chen Xu of a similar animation, so he asked, "By the way, how exactly was that animation made? It shouldn't be compressed to such a small size. That's a difference of several thousand times!"
Zhong Ziyu chuckled and said, "If I knew this compression algorithm, I wouldn't be here anymore. But based on what I've learned and know, I can say something. This highly compressed video is the work of a group of hackers participating in a competition. The entire work demonstrates the creators' high level of skill."
Zhong Ziyu thought for a moment, then called over a waiter and asked him to bring her laptop from the room. She then said, "I have a video like this on my computer. I'll take it out so everyone can take a look."
After waiting for a while, the waiter brought the computer over. Zhong Ziyu then opened a video, which was an award-winning video from the DEMO competition, titled "Ghost Castle".
The video is a single EXE file, 64KB in size. After it starts running, a full-screen 3D castle quickly appears on the screen, accompanied by music. The camera angle continuously moves and changes, gradually passing through many parts of the castle, including blood-red glass, a caged monster, and dark corridors…
The video lasted for five or six minutes before ending. Those watching it couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
This video is really only 64K.
Chapter 124 Negotiation
The reason Chen Xu and the others were sweating profusely was twofold. First, the demo was simply too incredible; a five-minute video occupying such a small size was nothing short of a miracle. Second, the 3D images in the video were so dizzying, especially when watching it intently.
“64K,” Guan Yi gasped. “That’s incredible! That’s tens of thousands of times smaller! If this technology were used as a regular method, how much would the website’s load be reduced?”
Zhong Ziyu shook her head and smiled, saying, "Actually, it's not that exaggerated. If you review the video from earlier, you'll see that a lot of things are repeated. It's just that the camera flips from different angles, making it look like two scenes."
Chen Xu thought about it and realized he was right. To be honest, the graphics of this demo weren't particularly sophisticated; in fact, they could be considered rough. However, the animation was long, contained a lot of content, and was very small in size, which made it impressive. Zhong Ziyu's comment reminded Chen Xu that many scenes were indeed repetitive, and even the music consisted of the same few beats used repeatedly.
After hearing Chen Xu's opinion, Zhong Ziyu smiled and said, "That's right. It's true that the production team used a compression algorithm, but the compression algorithm isn't powerful enough to compress tens of thousands of times. It's just that many of the materials in it, such as simple dots, lines, and planes, and many musical syllables are repeated. Take the music for example, it's all those seven syllables, repeatedly used, and arranged into a song based on these seven most basic syllables. So the actual usable space is very small."
Chen Xu nodded in understanding. This was essentially calling upon source material, using a program to edit music. Just as you only need red, yellow, and blue to create all colors, any song only requires seven basic syllables to form any melody… Of course, due to the nature of syllables, it's impossible to simulate the high and low notes of various instruments.
"So the reason this demo is so small is not only because of its own compression algorithm, but also because the materials it uses take up very little space, right?"
Zhong Ziyu agrees with this point, but if such a top-tier compression algorithm were available, reducing file size by tens of times would be no problem, but tens of thousands of times would be far too exaggerated. Otherwise, World of Warcraft could be turned into a web-based game.
A moment of silence followed. All three knew that such a top-tier compression algorithm couldn't be used on a small game like this, because such algorithms were typically extremely expensive, and using them on a small game was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
"Forget it, let's try a different approach." After discussing for a while longer, Guan Yi said somewhat dejectedly, "3D models are just too expensive. If we were to do it, we'd probably only be able to use 2D flat models. So, how about we do what we said before: first, quickly seize the market, then release expansion packs to upgrade the game. Once the game is big enough, we can see the user feedback and try releasing a client version."
The three discussed it and concluded that this was probably the only way to proceed.
However, Zhong Ziyu then seriously discussed how the two parties could cooperate. Of course, this wasn't just a casual discussion with Guan Yi in a swimsuit. Zhong Ziyu's community website was among the earliest SNS communities in China, attracting a considerable user base. In truth, many believe the IT industry had already reached its saturation point in the early 21st century. Entering the industry afterward offered little opportunity for significant success… because with several major portal websites dominating, new growth was difficult.
Actually, it's not like that. To give an example, just like today's community networks, school networks, and later, overseas networks, K, and other SNS communities, they were all in their initial stages in early 2007. Even earlier, Q was only in its early stages, and the development of online literature in 2003 was still a highly competitive landscape.
Therefore, business opportunities are always present in the market. It just depends on whether some people can see them.
When the discussion turned to business matters, Chen Xu couldn't get a word in edgewise; it was all done by Zhong Ziyu and Guan Yi. But unlike the previous amicable discussion about game development, the negotiations were now a heated exchange, rife with tension.
Guan Yi offered a 10% stake in the community network through equity investment. After the game was launched and started charging, the revenue would be split 8:2 based on the virtual currency developed by the community network. In other words, if players used virtual currency to purchase items in the game, Chen Xu would receive 80 cents for every dollar they bought, and the community network would receive 20 cents as a platform fee.
Zhong Ziyu naturally could not agree to this condition. His suggestion was that the two parties should split the profits 7:3, and the shares should absolutely not be transferred. He could pay a sum of money through a buyout, with the initial price set at 70,000 RMB.
However, Guan Yi rejected this condition without hesitation, scoffing, "Mr. Zhong, that's not very sincere of you. We all know that the creation of this game will allow your community network to gain a large number of users in a short period of time. You think you can just give us a few tens of thousands of yuan? That's not very sincere. You should know that we have many partners we can cooperate with, such as R, and Qianxiang Company would be more interested."
Zhong Ziyu chuckled and said, "Heh, Miss Guan, R has Qianxiang Company as its backer, and I just finished negotiating with your father. He agreed to inject some funds into the community website to expand its scale. In that case, I think it would be better for our two families to cooperate more closely." The implication was that the community website was now essentially part of your father's business, and it was best to keep the profits within the family.
Guan Yi laughed and said, "That's not how it works. My father is my father, and I am me. There's no necessary connection between us in business. We both believe this deal can be mutually beneficial and the future profits will be huge, so we'd better cooperate openly. To be honest, we don't care about that buyout fee at all, because according to my estimate, if there are 100,000 players online at the same time, only one percent, or 1,000 people, need to be willing to buy paid items each month, and the monthly revenue will easily exceed 10,000. But obviously, if there are really 100,000 people, there will definitely be more than 1,000 paying, and each person's monthly investment will definitely be more than ten yuan."
In fact, Guan Yi's judgment was not wrong. So-called free-to-play games, such as Legend of Mir, Legend of Mir 2, and even Shi Yuzhu's Conquer Online and later Giant Interactive, are often more profitable than paid games. This is because there are many people in China with disposable income. The development of paid items encourages those who don't want the slow and steady grind of leveling up to purchase these items, resulting in enormous revenue!
Moreover, Guan Yi has already positioned this game for white-collar workers. These white-collar workers usually have a lot of spare money, and they are all young people. Many of them have credit cards or other online banking accounts. As a result, their proportion of paid recharges will be much larger than that of other groups. If a charging model is developed, the revenue will be considerable.
Listening to Guan Yi and Zhong Ziyu's conversation, Chen Xu realized how incredibly naive he was.
He hadn't thought of many commercial aspects, or rather, he hadn't even considered them!
Chen Xu didn't know if he was being careless or what, or if he simply didn't care about the money... In fact, Chen Xu knew that if he wanted to make money, it would be as easy as snapping his fingers. The rabies killer had earned his father over a billion dollars, and the food testing device hadn't even been released yet, but he had secretly calculated that if it were released, it would earn several hundred million dollars more—it was only a matter of time...
In Xiaomin's file... there's plenty of this kind of thing. If he wanted to, he could just take a few things out and shock the world. Want to make money? That would be too easy.
When money has become just a number, Chen Xu feels that he doesn't care much about the tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan he has now.
That's why he said those things to Guan Yi's father, but Guan Yi's father just thought the young man was young and impetuous. Little did he know that what he said was actually entirely achievable.
However, Guan Yi has a good business sense. Chen Xu thinks that this woman's choice of information technology is a complete mistake. She should have studied something like financial management... But he doesn't know that Guan Yi chose information technology just to have fun. She spent all four years of college playing around. As a financial genius, no one would have paid attention if she had chosen information technology.
The stand-in Guan Yi found was studying financial management at Cambridge. As for these troublesome family issues, this woman would not be involved in them for the next four years.
But starting his own business, and doing it for Chen Xu, is a different matter altogether.