Chapter 291 Players and Tianba share the world!
There is a very special game under Tianba Studio.
How special is it? It is so special that this game, as an online game, does not have its own operation and planning team, and the planning team of the neighboring "Star Emperor" came to work part-time!
Apart from daily downtime for server maintenance and to make their presence felt, the entire project team did nothing except drinking tea, chatting, taking a shit and playing with their phones...
certainly!
Anyway, there are not many people in the project team, and they will probably be laid off by Brother Ba in a while, so it is normal to slack off.
This amazing game is the well-known "Don't Leave After School: Marble Storm" in the gaming circle, which has a very good reputation and is simply a reverse example of "Three Kingdoms Kill"! "Marble Storm" is an online game with multiple servers.
So far, the total number of game servers has exceeded 10, and the average total number of online players has stabilized at around 1.5 million.
Let’s not talk about overseas for now.
In China, "Marble Storm" has become one of the "three giants of online games" alongside popular games such as "League of Legends", "Cross Fire", "Dungeon & Fighter", and "Naraka: Bladepoint".
What? Why are there five of the Big Three? This is an old joke in the gaming circle. In the beginning, there were only three of the Big Three: CF, LOL, and DNF.
But games like PUBG, Naraka, and Marble Storm that emerged later were always very popular for a period of time, and it always felt unfair not to include them, so the number of the Big Three became an "unknown number".
Maybe three, maybe four, maybe five...
The exact number of the top three online game giants depends on whether there were other games at the time that were as popular as CF, LOL and DNF.
"Don't Leave After School: Marble Storm" is definitely one of them. After all, the number of online users and word-of-mouth popularity may not be as good as LOL, but it is more than enough to compare with CF and DNF.
But for such a popular online game that ranks among the top in China, its operation team consists of only two or three people. Can you believe it?
It's outrageous, but it's true! As the game developer, Tianba Studio's support for the game "Marble Storm" is limited to providing a server. As for the rest of the work?
Sorry! Don't bother me. If you have any questions or needs, I suggest you contact your "game partner" on this server directly.
In the game, each area has one or more game partners, who are the real "operation planners" and "event planners" of the game "Marble Storm".
These gaming partners had the reputation of being "local emperors of the server" in the feudal era of the past two years, and for this reason, each server had experienced rounds of dynasty changes.
However, with the development of the times and the progress of players' thinking, the local tyrants were gradually overthrown, and the players spontaneously organized and established the "Player Autonomous Committee" in each district and server, referred to as the Player Committee.
The establishment of the Player Committee marks the beginning of a new stage in the operating environment of the game "Marble Storm", which is also called the "era of co-governance" by community historians.
What is co-governance?
The co-governance here has two meanings. On the one hand, it refers to the governance of each server, which is no longer dictated by local emperors, but every player can make suggestions and participate in the governance and maintenance of the server.
On the other hand, the so-called co-governance era is also called "players and tyrants share the world"! This statement is quite heartbreaking...
But even Brother Ba himself has never denied these words in public. He even said in the community that half of the current "Marble Storm" belongs to the majority of players.
The Play Committee was a makeshift organization at the beginning, a bit like the "Owners' Committee" set up in some communities.
It seemed to be somewhat useful, but in fact it was just like playing house! But that was only a temporary embarrassment. Soon the play committee grew stronger and stronger, with a formal structure and activity charter, additional personnel, and clear division of responsibilities among departments.
This is not surprising at all.
After all, in the popular areas of the game "Marble Storm", there are 100,000 to 200,000 active players in one area, which is almost catching up with the population of some small counties.
In other words, it is not difficult for a small, remote county to put together a framework for a gaming committee with enough people.
During this process, some talents in the system and legal administration also emerged to help with the establishment of the Play Committee...
Interestingly, more than 70% of the players of "Marble Storm" are office workers, mainly men over 30 years old.
It's not surprising that there are a few civil servants, lawyers, general managers, CEOs, etc. among them !
The Play Committee was full of talented people, and they quickly put together a necessary framework and team, and elected the so-called "Pearl Holder", who was the leader of the Play Committee in this area.
The commander-in-chief then appointed special mediators for player disputes and conflicts, as well as event planners, advertising specialists and other positions, and combined with the members of the player committee, a management team was formed.
The emergence of this management team has greatly alleviated the operational pressure of Tianba Studio.
After all, from now on, Tianba Studio can let it go and only needs to perform daily maintenance on the server.
Everything in the game is under the responsibility of the player committee and the management team led by the bead holder.
This is the era of co-governance! It has to be said that "Don't Leave After School: Marble Storm" really made many players experience the feeling of "turning over and being the master" for the first time.
When playing other games, the planner or designer has the final say. Players can only play whatever the planner comes up with, and there is no choice at all.
But this is not the case with "Marble Storm". The operating rights and management rights are in the hands of the Player Committee, which is elected by the players and represents the common will of the players. Players can finally choose what to play for themselves.
Human ambition is endless...
After experiencing the feeling of being the masters of the games they play, players are not satisfied with this and begin to seek higher levels of autonomy and freedom.
The era of co-governance?
No, no, no! The players don’t want to share the world with Brother Ba. When they think of having Brother Ba above them who can launch “heavenly punishment” at any time, the players feel that it is not appropriate.
Now that we have come to this point, why should we still tolerate the existence of "Brother Ba", the emperor? We have already overthrown the local emperor of the server, so why can't we overthrow Brother Ba, the local emperor? Chen Ba realized the players' thoughts very early.
He is also thinking seriously.
How does that sentence go?
He can use strong measures to stop the players, or just shut down the service. Anyway, the final decision is in his hands.
But isn't everything that is happening now the result of his own actions? In other words, when the game bug was first exposed, which would lead to players usurping the game administrator's authority, he had foreseen what would happen today.
He didn't stop it then, so he naturally won't stop it now!
"I can make the players shut up. With one big silencing spell, no one in the entire server or region can speak."
Chen Ba asked Luo Ji, "But what's the use? Can I stop the players from making progress? Why should I stop them?"
"Think about it from another angle. Did we lose anything? Nothing! Legally speaking, the game still belongs to Tianba Studio. It is just entrusted to the Game Committee for operation..."
There is no loss.
After all, even if the game is handed over to the Player Committee and the server is maintained by them, then the game revenue should still belong to Brother Ba and no one can take it away.
On the contrary, after handing over the server to the players, although they lose direct jurisdiction over the game, they also save the cost of maintaining the server and daily operations.
In short, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages!
Chen Ba's only concern about this matter is that it is fine to hand over the server to the Player Committee, but does the Player Committee really have the ability to do daily maintenance? Daily maintenance of the server is not such a simple task, at least it requires a certain amount of manpower to complete.
In addition, the data security of the server is also worth questioning! Tianba's games, especially online network games, are often attacked and invaded by hackers, as well as various cheating software such as plug-in scripts.
With Tianba Studio's current technical strength, solving these problems is naturally a piece of cake. Even the world's top hackers will be useless with the assistance of Tianba Studio's "spirits"!
But after the server is handed over to the Game Committee, how can the Game Committee, which lacks the corresponding technical capabilities, ensure data security? …
In response to the two questions raised by Tianba Studio, representatives sent by the game committees of various districts and servers discussed and gave a relatively clear answer.
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
For the first problem, which is the daily maintenance of the server, they will allocate special funds to hire 3-5 server-side development engineers to ensure that there are no problems.
As for where the special funds come from? Don't worry about it. "Don't Go After School: Marble Storm" doesn't have much else, but it has never lacked advertising sponsorship. A little advertising fee is enough to cover the expenses.
The second problem is the data security of the server. They really don’t have a good solution and can only "store" the server in Tianba’s computer room and have it protected by Tianba Studio.
"Well, let's do this..."
"Since you don't plan to move the server, it should stay in our studio's computer room. So why not keep the same maintenance staff as before? What do you think?"
Chen Ba suggested: "While the server has been handed over to you, the existing maintenance and data security protection mode has not changed. Even the server is still maintained by the people from Tianba Studio."
This way it won’t be so troublesome.
It means that nothing has changed, the only thing that has changed is those employees, whose salary source is now paid by the "Play Committee" instead of Brother Ba.
But they are still Tianba employees, just without salary...
"How do you calculate the daily maintenance and operation costs of the server?"
"We will calculate the electricity fee, bandwidth fee and other miscellaneous expenses and submit a bill to you every month. You just need to settle it on time."
Chen Ba made arrangements.
The server remains in Tianba's computer room, which makes it easier to protect the game data and prevent it from being snooped and invaded by bored hackers.
But the expenses on the server side have to be sorted out separately. At least the electricity bills and labor wages can no longer be borne by Chen Ba, and he has no obligation to bear them. After all, the servers have been sold to the Game Committee.
"Okay, that's settled!"
The Player Committee was also very satisfied and immediately sent this preliminary agreement to the Tianba Community to inform all the players of "Don't Leave After School: Marble Storm".
The players are all very excited.
The servers have been taken down? Wow! This is simply a miracle in the history of online games. No online game has ever dared to let players control the life and death of the game like "Marble Storm"! However, although they were happy, the players soon faced a slightly embarrassing problem, that is, to raise money to buy the servers.
That’s right!
Although Tianba Studio agreed to transfer the ownership of the server, including the game data in the server, it was not free...
If he gives it to players for free, then Chen Ba is not a fool, how could he do such a thing?
You have to spend money to buy it!
The amount is not excessive, it is almost the cost price plus a small premium.
Up to now, there are 10 regions and servers in "Marble Storm". Each region and server needs to raise money separately and then pay it to Tianba Studio to obtain ownership of the server in the name of the Player Committee.
Where does the money come from?
Some regions and servers choose to "raise funds", which means that every player donates a little. Anyway, there are 200,000 players in a region, and if everyone contributes a few dollars, the money can be raised quickly.
Some regions and servers have chosen to raise funds by "temporarily withholding advertising fees."
That is to say, in this area, assuming that ten advertisements are placed, then out of these ten advertisements, only the advertising fees of eight advertisements will be distributed to the players. As for the income from the other two advertisements, it will be used to purchase servers.
Regardless of the former or the latter, all ten districts have pooled together funds and purchased the ownership of their own servers.
At this moment, community players desperately posted and celebrated this historic moment crazily. Various media also reported it, calling it "the freest group of players in the history of games"! This also attracted heated discussions from other netizens.
[I don’t quite understand. Does it mean that in the future, players will have the final say on how to modify and operate the game? ]
[Not only that! From this moment on, the game completely belongs to the players, Brother Ba? You are just a rubber stamp, you know the Ying Kingdom royal family, right? ]
[Don't be so mean, the server is still in Tianba's computer room, Brother Ba can still control the players, it's just that it doesn't benefit him. ]
[Who said there are no benefits? Do you believe that Brother Ba will issue an announcement tomorrow saying that the electricity bill has increased? ]
[You understand Brother Ba too well hhh]
[Now that we have the rights to the game, should we change the name? I suggest calling it "Danzhu Bobo Ren", brothers, give me a thumbs up and send me up! ]
[I feel it is not as good as "Rebirth: I am the King of Marbles"...]
Looking at the posts by players in the community, Chen Ba couldn't help but complain: "How did they guess that I was going to find an excuse to raise the electricity bill?"
Damn, I was predicted!
This trick can't be used, otherwise it would be too obvious. How about another way of saying it, the server has been hacked too many times, so it's not too much to raise the "protection fee" next month? (End of this chapter)