Chapter 143: Regularization of the Studio
A new day starts with fried dough sticks and soy milk.
Chen Ba opened the developer backend of the Steam platform early on and checked the sales changes of many games under Tianba Studio.
Yesterday afternoon, the Steam platform launched a developer autumn sale event.
It's an honor! Tianba Studio has become the star of this developer sale, which means that the entire event page only has games under Tianba Studio.
Gabe Newell really gives me face.
You know, developer sales like this are usually exclusive to global gaming giants.
Only they have the strength and appeal to support a special sale. If other developers release a bunch of games that players have never heard of, who would support them?
Tianba Studio originally did not have this qualification.
After all, if you want to hold a developer sale, you have to have at least ten games on sale, right? If not ten, at least seven or eight, right?
Tianba Studio has only five Steam platform games on sale, and "Star Emperor" has even been turned into a free game, which does not meet the requirements no matter how you look at it.
But Gabe has his own plans.
He heard from somewhere that Tianba Studio was developing a racing blockbuster, and it seemed that Tianba Studio was operating their "official website" channel.
Don’t!
Steam platform made a lot of money from Tianba Studio. Knowing that Tianba Studio has become more powerful and is now showing a trend of building its own platform and going solo, it is natural to try to retain it.
This special sale by the developer is the sweet treat they are offering.
In addition, they also promised to give Tianba Studio, a first-tier game developer, preferential treatment in terms of profit sharing ratio, and no longer take 30%.
Chen Ba was also very satisfied that Brother G gave him so much face.
Steam is the PC game distribution platform with the highest market share in the world. Tianba Studio cannot do without Gabe Newell for the time being, and building its own platform is just a small thing.
Steam Platform was willing to show goodwill, and Chen Ba also went along with it and accepted the goodwill.
The developer’s special sale is still very powerful.
In just one night, the sales curves of "Land of Divine Grace", "Love Advisers" and the first two simulator games all soared.
Among them, "Love Staff" and "Divine Grace Continent", as the latest games, had the most obvious sales growth, with the two games selling nearly 300,000 copies in one night.
“Okay, okay!”
Chen Ba took out the calculator he bought online, calculated it, and finally came to a conclusion: "Shennong Continent" has become the most profitable game in the studio's history! This result does not include the professional version and personalized customization services.
If these two items are added, the profits of "Shennonglu" will be even more exaggerated, even more than all other games combined.
after all……
The reason why "Land of Divine Grace" makes money is not because of how expensive the game is sold, nor because of how many tens of thousands of copies the game has sold.
It was because Tianba Studio would charge a "toll" for any animation produced using "Shennong Continent"! This was an absolute huge profit!
Many people think that the majority of Apple's profits come from hardware products such as mobile phones, tablets, computers, and watches.
Yes, this hardware does make money.
But what is more profitable is actually the commission from the software store channel, which is "very low cost" and "makes money without doing anything", which is commonly known as the "Apple tax"! Apple's software store generates trillions of dollars in revenue a year. Although the vast majority of it belongs to developers, Apple also extracts a toll from it.
Guess how much it took?
"Shennun Land" is not as powerful as Apple, and the Shennun animation market is not that huge.
According to authoritative statistics released by the Shen'en Animation Association, the annual output value of the specific market of "Shen'en Animation" is approximately 4-5 billion yuan.
This is the annual output value, which does not represent the specific revenue data, nor is it the object of Tianba Studio's collection of tolls.
The actual tolls collected are about 100 million yuan a year, and after deducting taxes, it is about 80 million yuan.
“Brother, this is outrageous.”
When Wang Kun learned about this astronomical figure, he almost fainted.
You can just lie down and do nothing for a year and earn tens of millions for free. What kind of magical game is this?
"Is it that outrageous..."
"Others' game King of Glory has a monthly turnover of several billion! Compared with mobile games, ours is nothing."
Chen Ba didn't think it was an exaggeration.
Mainly because in recent years, the money-making ability of mobile games has greatly exceeded his cognitive limits.
Compared with the exaggerated monthly revenue of hundreds of millions or even billions of mobile games, he only earned this little in the whole year, which is really meager to be honest.
"You can't compare like that!"
Wang Kun explained: "Shennong Continent is a stand-alone PC game, and it is not on the same track as other mobile games."
"And King of Glory and other games need to release skins and hold events, and they need to be constantly updated and maintained. What have you done?"
Do nothing, just lie down and collect money.
Compared with the cost and income, these tens of millions are really good, mainly because the tolls come too easily.
"That's true."
Chen Ba nodded and said, "According to what you said, "Divine Grace Continent" is indeed the game with the highest return rate of Tianba Studio."
"Star Emperor" comes second.
Although he is not very conspicuous and has always been very low-key, the Star Emperor actually has a not low income.
Xianyu Digital is very profitable.
As the online distributor with the strongest background in the entire network, Xianyu Digital's reputation has long spread throughout the Internet, and its business is simply booming.
Not to mention, Xianyu Digital has also started live streaming since last month.
Brother Ba, GAL professional players, and the official person in charge of the graphics card manufacturer all came to the Xianyu Digital live broadcast room to sell goods...
Sales are exploding! In addition to Xianyu Digital, the in-game krypton gold purchase of "Star Emperor" is actually doing quite well as the number of players surges.
Based on these two points, "Star Emperor" is now one of Tianba Studio's most profitable games, second only to "Divine Grace Continent".
Then it was the turn of "Love Advisor", "Garbage Match 3" and two simulator games.
"Hey, Brother Ba!"
Wang Kun seemed to have thought of something and asked curiously, "Your studio is doing so well, don't you have any investors or investment institutions looking for you?"
"Yes, I have……"
"These guys have noses more sensitive than dogs. They smelled the scent and came to our door long ago."
Chen Ba said speechlessly: "But I rejected them all. After all, financing and the like will definitely affect the normal operation of the studio."
Mainly affects decision-making.
He can now have the final say. Whatever he says is the truth. If he says to develop a certain game, then that’s what will be developed. He doesn’t need to be accountable to anyone.
But once investors are introduced and there are other shareholders and decision-makers, things become very troublesome.
“That’s true…”
Wang Kun sighed, "There are pros and cons. Anyway, it's not easy to get their money. You don't pursue listing, and you don't lack money, so just ignore them."
Brother Ba has made great progress!
Looking back, among the buddies who graduated with the same dormitory, Wang Kun was the most promising one. After all, he got a stable job in a state-owned enterprise, with easy work and good benefits. He was so happy.
At that time, he often helped Brother Ba and lent him money without telling his parents.
But now it's different.
Now that Brother Ba has become successful, he has come to support him and lent him money to buy a house in Jiangning.
"Brother Ba, thank you..."
"Okay, what's there to thank me for given our relationship? When you helped me before, you weren't as pretentious as you are now."
Chen Ba waved his hand and said, "By the way, I haven't asked you yet, why do you want to buy a house out of the blue?"
"Well……"
After taking a quick glance and making sure his wife Zhang Xiaojuan was not there, Wang Kun explained, "Do you understand the conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law? I'm stuck in the middle, and I'm getting bullied by both sides!"
"After discussing with Xiaojuan, I decided to take out a loan to buy a house and move out, so I don't have to be nagged all the time."
I see.
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
Chen Ba finally understood why Kun Kun wanted to move out for no reason.
Something must have happened in his family. They said it was a conflict between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, but in reality it is definitely not as simple as a conflict. Maybe they just had a big fight.
Every family has its own problems! Patting his good brother on the shoulder, Chen Ba said nothing. After all, even Wang Kun felt embarrassed about such family affairs, and it would not be good for him, an outsider, to help anyone.
"Speaking of which..."
After Wang Kun finished talking about his sad story, he asked curiously, "Brother Ba, your studio is already this big, why don't you upgrade it to a game company?"
"It's just a matter of name!"
Chen Ba explained: "The studio was registered as a company on the day it was registered. It was originally a gaming company."
The reason why I call it a studio is because it is so small that it is more appropriate to call it a studio to the outside world.
The name may be changed in the future.
But it doesn't matter whether this thing is changed or not. Anyway, the core team only has so many people, so it's okay to call it a studio.
"It's mainly to look more formal."
Wang Kun was speechless: "I have never seen a studio that left a private phone number for game customer service."
It's amazing! If he hadn't seen someone posting in the community, he wouldn't have known that when "Star Emperor" encountered recharge-related problems, the customer service number he called was actually Brother Ba's personal mobile phone number.
Too abstract!
He couldn't figure out what was wrong with Brother Ba that he would use his personal mobile phone number as the game customer service phone number.
The key point is that it has been so long, and no one has discovered it?
"Uh! Not many people call this number, except for one or two players whose recharges have not been credited to their accounts..."
Chen Ba said awkwardly: "For other players, the first way to find game customer service is basically to go to Xianyu Digital."
It's not his fault that he is careless.
Previously, it was a stand-alone machine with no internet service, so just leaving an email address was enough, and there was no need for a dedicated customer service phone number.
Later, after "Star Emperor" launched the online mode and had in-app purchase services, it was only then that it reluctantly set up a telephone customer service.
only……
When players of "Star Emperor" encounter game-related problems, they will not call that mobile phone number at all, but will go to Xianyu Digital to find the store customer service for feedback.
In the words of the players, isn’t Xianyu Digital’s customer service just game customer service? Who says they can’t solve game problems? Wang Kun: “…”
Online store customer service, pretending to be game customer service? This is something that Brother Ba is capable of doing. The key is that players still think it is very reasonable, and no one questions whether there is a problem with this method.
"But you did remind me."
"It's not safe to use my personal mobile number as a customer service number. I'll change it to Xiao Lu's number later."
Chen Ba hadn't thought of this before, but he now understands it.
Once the news that he was using this phone got out, he would never have peace in the future. There would surely be countless players who would come to him in the middle of the night to talk.
If it was a little too much, he might have been too addicted to the game and called him and scolded him harshly.
There must be such people!
Now, everyone is used to reporting game-related issues through Xianyu Digital’s customer service, so he is not harassed.
But it’s hard to say in the future…
Chen Ba felt that he had reacted promptly. After Wang Kun's reminder, he had replaced the customer service phone number with Xiao Lu's number.
But he forgot one thing.
That is because someone had exposed this matter in the community before, and now it is too late for him to hide the number.
Ding ding ding! Chen Ba's phone was completely unusable. It kept ringing all day long. When he answered it, he heard cordial greetings from various players.
Xiao Lu is not much better.
The restless players simply used phone and text messages to double bombard Brother Ba, just to tell him to quickly strengthen the Winged Supreme! "It's crazy..."
Chen Ba pulled out the SIM card and finally got a moment of peace.
Crazy players are nothing.
The most exciting thing is that a female player actually tried to seduce him over the phone, hinting that she was pretty and had a good figure. As long as Brother Ba nodded, she would fly to Jiangning tonight...
Ouch, who can stand this? Chen Ba, who almost failed the test, decided to follow Wang Kun's advice and hire a dedicated game customer service staff to deal with players.
Otherwise, if he and Xiao Lu were to receive these players, he would probably become mentally ill in a couple of days and be admitted to a mental hospital, taking a lot of medicine.
“The studio needs to be formalized.”
"Recruiting game customer service is one thing, we also need to set up a dedicated R&D team and operations team and make a clear distinction."
You can't go the mix-and-match route anymore.
As the studio grew in number, Chen Ba felt that R&D and operations must be separated and done separately.
Mixing them together will first lead to management chaos and secondly seriously affect normal work efficiency.
In the past, it was normal for four or five people to not make any specific distinctions, and there was no interference between them.
But it is not possible now. Game operation and game development are two components, and personnel must be managed separately according to the division of responsibilities.
He is in charge of the R&D team.
Yang Dong is in charge of the operations team. Generally, he does not participate in the development of new games, but is only responsible for old games. In special circumstances, he can participate in game development projects.
“So we have to work separately?”
"want!"
Chen Ba explained: "But they don't need to be too far apart. Normal communication is still necessary, as long as it doesn't affect each other's work."
There are only these two teams for now.
As the studio expands further in the future, the operations team may be split into teams such as marketing, customer service, and technical products.
(End of this chapter)