Chapter 288: Mirage Electronics' New Business

Developing a new game is not something that Tianba Studio is doing its best to do now.

In fact, since the release of the game "Global Evolution", the situation of Tianba Studio has been different from what many people think.

"The studio currently has more than 320 employees, not counting the total number of employees in subsidiaries such as Mirage Electronics and Xianyu Digital."

Tianba Games CEO Huang Qing explained: "Among these 320 employees, the core game development team accounts for about 15%, or about 50 people!"

"From this ratio of people, we can see that the current Tianba Studio is completely different from before. The business focus and revenue structure have undergone tremendous changes..."

Today, Tianba Studio’s business focus is mainly on “operation and maintenance of old games”, and the development of new games is just a side job.

in other words……

There are two to three hundred people in the entire studio, and more than 80% of them are game operation planners. The employees who actually follow Chen Ba to develop new games are still the original group of people.

"The same is true for the revenue share. The operation and maintenance of many old games under the company are the real source of money, and the income from new games only accounts for a small part."

"Of course, I don't mean that new games are unimportant and success or failure doesn't matter."

Fearing that Chen Ba might misunderstand him, Huang Qing turned around and said, "What I meant by this is that whether Abba makes a profit or a loss, it will not have a big impact on the company's business."

Huang Qing knew that Brother Ba was under a lot of psychological pressure during the project of "The Story of Aba".

After all, there were too many people in the studio who opposed it, including Yang Dong, Lu Jing, Zhong Shengwei, Luo Ji and many other founding veterans, who were actually somewhat opposed to the project in their hearts.

But as an outsider CEO, Huang Qing strongly supports Chen Ba in this project.

The reason for his support is simple.

On the one hand, Tianba Studio is not a company with dispersed equity that needs to hold a board meeting to make important decisions. Brother Ba’s decision is basically equivalent to an imperial edict, and there is no point in opposing it.

On the other hand, as the CEO, he knows better than anyone how rich Tianba Studio's real assets are. It is no exaggeration to say that with this wealth, Tianba Studio can handle even four or five similar projects, let alone a game like Abba's Story.

"You're exaggerating!"

Chen Ba was somewhat speechless and said, "I admit that the studio does make a lot of money, but compared to big companies like Zhue, there is still some gap, and the ability to resist risks is not that strong."

"You can't compare it like that..."

"It's only been a few years since Tianba Studio was founded? If you insist on comparing it to big companies like Zhue, then it's really far behind. There are gaps in all aspects."

Huang Qing smiled and said, "But if you change the object of comparison, such as a rice mill, you will find that our Tianba Studio is actually quite good. It's really not bad."

"What do you mean?"

Chen Ba was a little confused when he heard this. How could it be compared with the rice mill? They were not of the same order of magnitude, were they? After all, Tianba Studio had not yet reached that scale, and there was still a big gap in terms of operating income.

“But it’s not that far away!”

Huang Qing was a little surprised. He didn't expect Brother Ba to look down on Tianba Studio. Wasn't this the company he founded? Why did he think it was so bad?

"Do you know what the latest valuation quote from venture capital firms is?"

"How many?"

Chen Ba has never paid attention to this aspect. After all, since the establishment of Tianba Studio, he has never thought about financing, so he has not paid much attention to the news in this regard.

About three years ago, a rich second-generation man from Jiangning approached him, hoping to acquire 20% of Tianba Studio's shares for 50 million yuan, but Chen Ba did not agree.

Based on the quotation from this rich second generation, he valued the overall Tianba Studio at about 250 million.

Three years ago, Chen Ba did not accept the 250 million yuan offer as he thought it was a bit low and he was not short of money at the time, so he ignored the rich second generation.

Three years have passed, and Tianba Studio's overall business is thriving. Its scale has been expanding again and again, and earth-shaking changes have taken place. Its valuation will probably increase many times, right?

"250 million?"

Huang Qing really didn't know that the second-generation rich was trying to acquire shares. After all, he hadn't come to Tianba Studio at that time.

Therefore, Huang Qing was a little surprised when he suddenly learned about this, but he immediately smiled and said, "Fortunately you didn't agree, otherwise you would regret it now!"

"What do you mean?"

"Valuations fluctuate and may change over time. Different investors may have different optimism about a business, so the bids may be high or low. Do you understand this?"

"I understand. So the bid is the highest. What's the latest valuation?"

“This number…”

Huang Qing spread out the five fingers of his right hand, nodded in front of Chen Ba's stunned look and said, "You read it right, it's 50 billion!"

"Fuck!"

Chen Ba was greatly shocked. Although he had no plans to raise funds and thus knew little about valuation, as the head of the company, he probably had some idea about it.

In his mind, Tianba Studio was worth probably around 10 to 20 billion RMB, which was equivalent to about 1.5 to 2.5 billion USD. It couldn't be too high.

After all, he is not a professional, and the calculation of company valuation is purely based on estimation. Moreover, he is somewhat insecure when he gives his own valuation.

He guessed that the actual valuation should be higher than his own estimate, after all, there is a certain "premium"!

But he never expected that the premium would be so high, more than double what he estimated...

"To be honest, I'm surprised!"

Chen Ba asked curiously, "There must be some reason, right? Why are these investment institutions so optimistic about Tianba Studio?"

"Is this unexpected?"

Huang Qing laughed loudly and said, "You know, in financing, there is a saying that you can ask for a high price and pay it back low. In other words, this 50 billion is just a preliminary intention. If we really want to negotiate, it is not impossible to double it."

"As for the reason you want to know, it depends on the real difference between Tianba Studio and other game studios..."

In the eyes of players, Tianba Studio is just a gaming company, nothing special.

But in the eyes of Jiangning officials, Tianba Games is not only a game company, but also a high-tech computer technology enterprise, or a high-tech company in short!

By the same token, the reason why these venture capitalists are so optimistic about Tianba Studio, and the reason why their valuation is increasing every month and they are pursuing it relentlessly, is also because Tianba Studio has strong "technical" capabilities.

"technology?"

"Oh yeah! I wouldn't have thought of that if you hadn't told me. This is indeed a big plus."

Chen Ba suddenly understood.

He has always looked at the valuation issue from the perspective of a "game company" and has never thought about looking at the valuation from the perspective of an Internet high-tech enterprise.

If that’s the case, then 50 billion is really not a lot, it’s even a bit “low”!

What kind of joke is this? With Tianba Studio's technical strength, if it is a "pure" Internet technology company, its valuation should be changed to another unit. 50 billion is still 50 billion. It's not too much to change it to US dollars, right? Unfortunately, Tianba Studio's identity as an Internet technology company is not pure. After all, their main business area is still games.

"So, I'm worth hundreds of billions now?" Chen Ba asked.

"certainly!"

"If you are willing to cash out, there are probably many investment institutions willing to take over. The premise is that you don't go too far. If you sell the entire company at once, there may not be many buyers, and the price will have to be reduced."

Huang Qing joked: "How about it, after hearing what I said, are you a little moved?"

"It would be a lie to say I'm not moved..."

Chen Ba did not deny that he was tempted. He even had an outrageous idea just now, which was to sell the company and start a new Tianba Studio.

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

But then he thought, there's no way this can be sold!

The core assets of Tianba Studio, that is, the underlying codes of its many games, cannot be copied and applied by anyone except Chen Ba himself.

This means that as soon as Chen Ba leaves, everything currently in Tianba Studio will be exposed.

Unless other people can read those codes that are like the divine book like him, and know what these codes are about...

Based on this premise, Chen Ba knew very early on that there was no possibility of Tianba Studio being sold. After all, no one in the world would be that stupid.

Before they decide to acquire the company, they must verify and calculate the company's assets. How should Chen Ba explain the origin and characteristics of those codes? "No matter how high the valuation is, it's none of my business!"

After sighing, Chen Ba said, "Whether the valuation is tens of billions, hundreds of billions, or even trillions or tens of trillions, it will not affect my daily life."

Is there really anyone stupid enough to treat valuation as an asset?

Valuation is valuation, which can be converted into money to a certain extent, but the premise of converting it into money is that you have to sell the things. If you can't sell something, no matter how high the valuation is, it is just a string of numbers.

so……

Chen Ba, a billionaire with a net worth of hundreds of billions, is reluctant to add eggs and sausage to his instant noodles and only drinks instant coffee. It all makes sense.

It’s really not that he has no money.

But his money, to a large extent, only remains on paper and cannot be converted into cash, so he just has to live his life the same way.

In a sense, Chen Ba Lun is much richer than Lao Wang, who is in real estate, even several times richer, but his quality of life has not reached Lao Wang's level.

Last time I visited Lao Wang's house, the nanny drove a flying goddess when she went out to buy groceries. The villa they lived in couldn't even be called a villa, it should be called a "manor". It was very large and luxuriously decorated. Anyway, Chen Ba was very envious...

But even though he was envious, he also understood that he was different from Lao Wang.

This is the gap between estimated worth and actual assets!

A guy like Lao Wang who is engaged in real estate may only be worth a few billion, but he can afford luxury cars worth tens of millions, live in luxury houses worth hundreds of millions, and leverage projects worth tens of billions or even hundreds of billions.

However, Chen Ba, who seems to be worth hundreds of billions, cannot do these things.

Perhaps this is also the reason why a certain real estate company’s bankruptcy involved debts of up to “trillions”, causing shock and heated discussion across the Internet.

Even if you sell the company as a whole, and even take into account all the assets under the name of the boss and senior executives, it probably still would not be worth that much money. This is the power of playing with "cash flow".

"By the way, Mr. Chen!"

Huang Qing seemed to have thought of something, and said, "Although we have acquired Mirage Electronics, its business has little to do with us. Instead, it has a certain connection with Xianyu Digital. Do these two companies need to be merged?"

Xianyu Digital? Mirage Electronics? Chen Ba thought about it and realized that it was indeed what Huang Qing said. Mirage Electronics and Tianba Studio were not closely related.

Since their businesses have a lot of overlap with Xianyu Digital, the two subsidiaries can be merged together to avoid unnecessary trouble.

"Mirage Electronics' main business is to produce gaming peripherals, right? Gamepads, keyboards, mice, and Galaxy suits?"

"right!"

"Then go ask them if they are interested in expanding new business."

New business? Huang Qing couldn't help but ask curiously, "What business? It won't be related to us, right?"

"Of course it does!"

Chen Ba affirmed: "Many of the games under our studio have derivative products for sale. This part is either authorized or customized by someone else."

Since we have to license it to someone else anyway, who can we license it to? Mirage Electronics is our own company, so licensing it to them means that the benefits will not flow to outsiders, which is simply killing two birds with one stone.

As for Mirage Electronics, its main business is digital technology and gaming peripheral hardware. It has never made gaming peripheral derivatives before, so lack of experience is not a problem at all!

If we can make controllers and keyboards, there’s no reason why we can’t make simple things like mobile phone cases, key chains, and refrigerator magnets.

Besides! Even if you dislike these things for their low technical content and low profit margin, and you still want to concentrate on your old business, you can also use the authorization to make a fuss! The co-branded handle of "Star Emperor", the co-branded wireless mouse and co-branded mechanical keyboard of "Cultivation Fantasy", isn't this a new way to make money? Be bold! Chen Ba will go to Lao Huang and Su Ma to discuss and find a future for Mirage Electronics. It is really useless to always make handles and keyboards.

Anyway, they are all gaming hardware. If peripherals like controllers and keyboards can be made, then hardware like motherboards, graphics cards and memory sticks can't be made?

That doesn't make sense...

Backed by Tianba Studio, Mirage Electronics is naturally suited to the PC hardware business. After designing and producing the products, it also has the Xianyu Digital platform to help with sales, providing a complete one-stop service.

The only problem is that if Mirage Electronics gets involved in the field of graphics card production, Huang and Su Ma probably won't have any objections, but it's hard to say about beating Renshuo, shrinking Shuixing, and refusing Baojia.

After all, it was a cooperative relationship before, but it became a competitive relationship in the future.

But having said that.

No matter how dissatisfied they are, as long as there is the "bond" of "Star Emperor 2" and the GAL League, the relationship will not become too strained.

The PC hardware market is huge, and there are many brands. It doesn’t really matter if a new brand pops up…

(End of this chapter)