Chapter 289 The significance of the existence of the open world
When Huang Qing conveyed Brother Ba’s idea to the management of Mirage Electronics, the entire Mirage Electronics was stunned.
What the hell? Making peripheral hardware like controllers, mouse and keyboards, and Galaxy suits is useless? If you want to make hardware, why not make hardware that can be installed in the computer case? Ah this...
The management of Mirage Electronics probably never dreamed that they, a company that makes gamepads and keyboards, would one day be able to produce and design graphics cards. This is simply incredible! If someone else had said this, they probably wouldn't have believed it. After all, if you say you want to produce graphics cards, then you can produce graphics cards. Do you really think that chips and design solutions are cabbages? But the person who said this is Brother Ba, so... it's hard to say!
As we all know, consumer-grade PC graphics cards are clearly divided into public version and non-public version.
The public version is the "reference" solution developed by NVIDIA and AMD themselves, while the non-public version is the version that downstream manufacturers redesign and enhance in materials, heat dissipation and frequency based on the design plans and core layouts of NVIDIA and AMD.
The so-called production and manufacturing of graphics cards by Mirage Electronics must be non-official version.
This involves several very important issues, that is, if you want to produce non-public version graphics cards, where do the core chips come from? Where do you get the design plan? Will AMD and Nvidia agree? The most important of these issues is how to convince upstream supply chain manufacturers such as AMD and Nvidia.
No kidding!
In the field of consumer-grade PC graphics card hardware, only A cards and N cards can compete to some extent. If Mirage Electronics wants to enter the market, it must obtain the consent of at least one upstream supplier.
Once the upstream suppliers, that is, one of AMD and Nvidia, are dealt with, the remaining problems will be easily solved.
After all, now that we have the core, all that's left is to redesign the appearance and cooling solution, and tweak the frequency to ensure that the graphics card maintains a balance between "performance" and "cooling".
Originally, Mirage Electronics had no such idea, nor the ability to do so, but Brother Ba took the initiative to speak up...
Considering Brother Ba’s strange voice in the “graphics card industry chain”, the people at Mirage Electronics suddenly gained confidence and courage.
Don’t ask, just ask about connections!
Today, with so many first-, second- and third-tier brands such as Renshuo, Shushuixing, Jubaojia, and Xicanhong, it is still a bit difficult to create a new graphics card brand.
After all, there are too many first-, second-, and third-tier brands, with a mixture of large and small manufacturers, and a wide variety of product lines. For a graphics card with the same core, you can search for more than a dozen versions with different prices on e-commerce platforms...
Under such circumstances, both NVIDIA and AMD have actually begun to reduce licensing.
Take Nvidia as an example.
The market for consumer-grade PC hardware is not that big, and there are very few players who like to DIY consoles.
Moreover, Nvidia's AI chips are booming, and its stock price has soared, so most of the talent has been allocated to AI chips that are more profitable and have better market prospects.
Production capacity is first supplied to AI chips, and there are so many younger brothers waiting to be fed, hoping to get the latest 70 series and 80 series graphics card cores, which will definitely lead to a situation where there are too many people and too little meat.
This is also why, some second- and third-tier brands, whose graphics cards are obviously good and gamers are extremely satisfied with them, are difficult to buy, which makes people feel like they are being played a trick on them.
However, this is not a monkey trick, but the fact that this second- and third-tier graphics card manufacturer has obtained too small a chip share, and a good cook cannot cook without rice, and cannot meet market demand at all.
Unless it is a manufacturer of the level of Darenshuo, you will not be troubled by this.
In the eyes of AMD and Nvidia, the number of more than a dozen graphics card brands can no longer be increased. Instead, they should be appropriately reduced, retaining only four or five brands with stable product lines.
Of course, this is for other people.
This is not the case for Brother Ba. As long as he opens his mouth, neither Lao Huang nor Su Ma will refuse his face, so it will not be a problem for him to get the share.
Not only can you get a share, you may get a lot of it! After all, this is how connections work, you can handle all A and N cards!
As expected!
After Chen Ba stepped forward, Mirage Electronics quickly obtained the qualification to produce graphics cards, and it won over both A and N card companies at once.
But then again...
Although we have obtained the qualification, it will probably take some time to polish Mirage Electronics' first graphics card before it comes out.
There is no way! After all, Mirage Electronics has never manufactured graphics cards, and lacks experience in cooling solutions and frequency adjustments. It is estimated that the finished product will not be available until the second half of this year at the earliest.
"No rush, take your time!"
Chen Ba reminded over the phone: "For the first batch of graphics cards, we must strive for stability in quality, and we must pile on the materials and maintain our reputation."
Consumers certainly lack trust in a newly-born graphics card brand, so you can't be in a hurry to make money at this time. You would rather make a small loss to make the "Batian" series famous.
That’s right!
After discussions between Chen Ba, Huang Qing and others, the first generation of products designed and manufactured by Mirage Electronics, namely the 7050, 7060 and 7060Ti mid-range series, were named "Ba Tian Jian Ji".
The sub-flagships are 70, 70Ti, 80, 80Ti, and are named "Batian Sword Saint" and "Batian Sword Demon"! The top flagships 90 and 90Ti are called "Batian Sword God"! This is the name Chen Baqi gave...
Don’t ask where the inspiration came from. At first, it was the name “Tianba” read backwards, and then it reminded me of a very famous sci-fi skin in LOL - Batian Mecha.
Therefore, there are four series names: Sword Lady, Sword Master, Sword Demon and Sword God.
When the graphics cards are produced, we can also seek cooperation with Tencent to take advantage of the popularity. Anyway, the new graphics cards need to be well-known to increase sales!
For the first batch of Ba Tian series graphics cards, Chen Ba had very high requirements and even proposed a very abnormal heat dissipation design plan to carry out two-way optimization for the now extremely popular "Star Emperor 2".
What is two-way optimization?
In addition to game developers, who give special consideration to the "Batian" series of graphics cards, the Batian series of graphics cards will also give special consideration to games under Tianba Studio. This is called two-way optimization.
What, is this a shady deal?
It's shady, but who asked Chen Ba to be both the referee and the player? He has his own game and his own graphics card, so isn't he the one who has the final say on optimization?
If you don’t agree, why don’t you make a game and create a graphics card brand?
…
The development work of "The True Story of Aba" requires Chen Ba to take people to hospitals, disabled persons' federations, communities and other places to understand the actual situation.
It's quite a tiring job.
How to say it?
Take a disabled friend contacted by Tianba Studio as an example. He had his left leg amputated and needed to use crutches or a wheelchair to move around. In this case, motion capture is very difficult to do.
For normal games that require any special actions, just have people put on a motion capture suit and do some operations.
However, the "prototype" motion capture could not be used in "Abba's Story". The person was already disabled, and if you asked him to wear a motion capture suit, wouldn't that be deliberately embarrassing him? Therefore, Chen Ba could only let a healthy motion capture actor observe disabled people in reality, and then wear a motion capture suit to perform and simulate the movements or trajectories.
This is troublesome!
It takes time to observe, and it also takes time to try to perform and reproduce the scene after observation. This has to be done for every type of disability involved in the game.
The motion capture actors have been replaced twice...
The main reason was that the workload was too heavy, and there were only one or two motion capture actors, which was not enough. So Chen Ba simply recruited more than a dozen people and took turns to use them.
During this visit and investigation, Chen Ba encountered something that moved him deeply.
It turns out that there is a "special" car wash shop at the entrance and exit of the highway in the suburbs of Jiangning.
Why is it special? Because all the employees of this car wash are disabled people. The boss told Chen Ba that he did not think about making money when he opened this shop. After deducting the water and electricity bills, the remaining money every month is directly distributed to everyone.
Oh my god!
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
It was the first time that Chen Ba encountered such a special car wash shop. He also saw light from the owner, and this light made him feel a little ashamed.
The owner of this car wash shop is the one who truly helps disabled friends. In comparison, what he did seems a bit "empty and pretentious".
“Can I buy shares?”
Chen Ba suggested: "The car wash is a bit small, and you only have four or five employees. How about expanding the scale of the business? Open a breakfast shop next door, or a small hotel?"
"OK!"
The boss also saw Chen Ba's idea and readily agreed: "Your joining can provide more job opportunities and positions for the children. I thank you on their behalf!"
"No, no, no, you don't have to thank me. This is what I should do. After all, I want to put your car wash shop into the game, so just consider it as the copyright fee I paid..."
"Into the game?"
The boss was a little curious when he heard this. After all, they had never met before and he really had no idea what Chen Ba did.
"Let me introduce myself, Chen Ba, from Tianba Game Company!"
Chen Ba smiled and said, "I am developing a game with disabled people as the protagonists, and I came here specifically to visit and understand the real situation..."
Chen Ba introduced the general outline of the "Abba's Story" project and expressed his intention to add this car wash shop into the game as a special game "easter egg".
The boss was very interested.
Although he is a middle-aged man in his fifties, there is a saying that goes, a man is a boy until he dies. Even at his age, he is still full of curiosity about games.
"That's great. I've never played this kind of game before. I will definitely support it when it comes out!"
As for Chen Ba's idea of adding a car wash into the game, the boss said that it was no problem and that if he wanted to add it, then go ahead and add it, he didn't care.
"Can you tell me the story of you and your employees? For example, how did you meet each other? And how did you come up with the idea of opening such a store?"
Chen Ba had an idea.
Not only does he want to add this car wash into the game, he also wants to create a hidden plot that can only be triggered after the player comes to this car wash and "washes the car" once.
This hidden plot actually introduces this "special" car wash shop that exists in reality, and how the boss gets to know and get along with these "special" employees.
Chen Ba is looking forward to the players accidentally passing by a seemingly ordinary car wash during the game, washing their car on a whim, and then triggering the expression in the plot.
It’s going to be exciting, right?
Especially at the end of the story, the address of this store is posted in the game, indicating that this is not a fictional plot but a true story that exists in reality, which is even more touching.
certainly!
The story of this car wash also reminded Chen Ba that the country is so big, there must be many people like the car wash owner and the same touching stories.
It’s just that these people are relatively low-key and don’t like to talk about their own affairs everywhere, so they were not reported.
If we can organize it and set a few more similar Easter eggs in the game, it will surely greatly arouse the players' desire to explore! Don't forget...
"Abba's Story" is an "open world" game with a large map and many realistic streets and buildings.
Normally, unless players are extremely curious and have a lot of free time, they will just follow the main storyline and rarely explore the entire map.
After all, the map is so big, and there is no clear goal. Who would have the time to walk around every corner? After so long since the release of GTA5, how many players dare to say that they have explored the entire Los Santos and walked through every corner of the map? The open world is just a cover! Why do you say that?
Because of the large open world map, many players do not use it and have not explored it. Take Xiaomi's ace game "Yuan Shen" as an example. There are so many players, but how many dare to say that they have walked all over the map? More than 80% of players will choose to follow the "mission" or "goal" when playing an open world game.
In other words, he will explore the map, but his exploration is highly purposeful, either to complete a task, or to obtain materials to unlock new features, etc.
When you enter the game, you just go wherever you want, playing the game with a complete tourism or sightseeing mentality. There are very few players who walk to every corner of the map and greet every NPC seriously.
If nothing unexpected happens.
The same will be true for "Abba's Story". Although the map is so large, the places where players will actually explore are only a few mission locations.
So here comes the question…
If this is the case, what is the point of Chen Ba and others working so hard to make this open world map? Such a large map must be explored and experienced by players. But what if players are lazy and only want to complete tasks and push the main storyline without going out to hang out? Then give them a goal! Add some buildings or NPCs like "car wash" on the map that have hidden plots and can get "hidden achievements" after unlocking them.
This is similar to the "Adventure" system of XX Chinese-style martial arts mobile game. Anyway, it encourages players to wander around the map and strive to unlock more achievements and plot easter eggs.
With a goal and benefits, players will actively explore the map! In this way, the open world map has a meaning and value, and it will not be like other open world games, where the map looks large but is actually empty.
(End of this chapter)