On the same day.
The news had already covered the sky!
"Plants vs. Zombies' latest guide!"
"First day of downloads sets a new record!"
"Industry insiders predict: Plants vs. Zombies may exceed 100 million downloads in half a year's time!"
"Zhang Ye — a man who has once again written a legend!"
"Zhang Ye gives a priceless shot of adrenaline to the domestic games industry!"
"The future of the domestic puzzle games industry is bright!"
"Plants vs. Zombies crushes all other games of the same genre!"
"Zhang Ye has written his name in the history of the Chinese gaming industry! He has also erected a monument for the puzzle games industry that no one else will ever be able to surpass! "
The media was applauding!
The game was selling like crazy! The newspapers and magazines were also selling like crazy!
"How awesome!"
"We've totally crushed the foreigners this time!"
"These sales figures are too fucking unbelievable!"
"Those foreign games that were released at the same time were even bragging about how they would sell in the millions or even tens of millions in the domestic market. But look what happened in the end? They didn't even make a dent in the sales figures of Plants vs. Zombies! "
"Plants vs. Zombies has become popular, and so has Zhang Ye!"
"Now that I think about it, Central TV Department 1's banning and freezing of Zhang Ye, it was all because of their wishful thinking! A godly person like Zhang Ye would always shine in any field he goes to! How could they ban him? How could they ban him? What a joke, those leaders of Central TV Department 1 still thought that they had the imperial sword in their hands! "
"Yeah, even the SARFT couldn't ban him, so who does Central TV Department 1 think they are?"
"Right, if Teacher Zhang wants to maintain his popularity, he could just make another game every two months. Not only would that stabilize his popularity, it might even increase by a certain amount!"
"It's just a pity about Zhang Ye's talent in making shows. Hai, I really like his variety shows!"
"I like them too, but there's no other way. Central TV Department 1 has already cut off all avenues for him. We won't be able to see Teacher Zhang's TV shows for at least half a year. We'll have to wait until his contract with Central TV Department 1 expires. Hai, during this period, Teacher Zhang can only take an unconventional approach and find other ways to increase his popularity!"
A few days later.
The number of downloads of Plants vs. Zombies continued to soar. The speed at which it soared made the netizens and industry insiders shudder!
2 million downloads!
5 million downloads!
8 million downloads!
It rose like a rocket!
Not to mention outsiders, even the employees of the Plants vs. Zombies publishing company were trembling in fear. They felt like they were in a dream, afraid that they would wake up at any moment!
Many of Zhang Ye's friends sent their congratulations.
Big Saber Bro: "Teacher Zhang, create glory once again!"
Dong Shanshan: "Congratulations!"
Fan Wenli: "A milestone for a domestically-produced game! No one can surpass him! "
Yao Jiancai: "@ ZhangYe, help this old bro get a game serial number. Hurry up!"
There were also gaming industry insiders who left messages for Zhang Ye.
Huang Xing Gaming's vice president: "Plants vs Zombies has opened a new door for the gaming world. I've never been so confident in domestically produced games before!"
A famous game designer: "This is the counterattack of domestically-produced games!"
In their previous understanding, casual games were niche games, both in China and overseas. Many people thought that puzzle games were just a small hobby, something that smaller companies with less money would play around with. But today, Plants vs Zombies had changed everyone's opinion. A small hobby? Puzzle games were definitely not a trivial topic! They had a huge market that no one had ever expected! Just by looking at the number of downloads of Plants vs. Zombies, what kind of niche genre could create such a miracle?
Puzzle games were also a mainstream genre in the gaming genre!
Although the barriers to entry were low, the fees were low, and some were even free, this was precisely the advantage of puzzle games. Because of the small size of the game, the game was only a few tens of megabytes, or at most a hundred megabytes. It was very easy to download. As long as you wanted to play it, you could finish downloading it within a minute. Together with the low fees, it would attract even more players. With a small profit margin, the success of a puzzle game would definitely not be any lower than those large scale RPG or online games. In the past, everyone thought that puzzle games were niche games because they did not have Zhang Ye's capabilities, because they could not make a game like Plants vs. Zombies! But it was definitely not because this genre was not good enough!
The gaming world was extremely excited!
Zhang Ye had found a path for them, a path that could turn the tables on the foreigners' games. Due to the factors of technical standards and the size of their assets, they might not be able to make a large scale game like the foreigners' with exquisite 3D rendering for the time being. Other than the xianxia and wuxia games that had some local advantages, other games like shooting games, magic fantasy games, puzzle games, etc., were not on the same level as the foreigners. Some of them did not have enough money, while others did not have the technical skills to do so. But puzzle games were different. There were no technical barriers for puzzle games, so what was it that they were competing for? It was creativity! It was creativity that made everyone's eyes light up! Plants vs. Zombies had given them a good start. It also gave hope to many of the domestic video game companies that were struggling on the brink of bankruptcy!
… …
At noon on the fourth day of the game's release.
Fat Sis officially invited Zhang Ye to a celebratory banquet at a small banquet hall in Beijing's Wangfu Hotel. More than thirty employees of the company were all present!
The dishes were served.
The wine was filled.
Fat Sis raised her wine glass and said, "Zhang 'er, let me toast to you first!"
The company's two vice presidents also said in unison, "Me too."
"Don't stand on ceremony, don't stand on ceremony." Zhang Ye clinked glasses with them and said, "This is the collective effort of everyone, not just me, so let's not toast each other and just drink as much as you like."
The vice president drank a mouthful of white wine and his face was flushed red. "We've really been able to hold our heads high this time!"
Fat Sis asked, "Zhang 'er, is it possible for Plants vs. Zombies to surpass 100 million downloads?"
Zhang Ye laughed and said, "I don't know either, but I think there's a chance."
A female employee said excitedly, "There's definitely no problem! We've already hit 8 million downloads today! I estimate that we'll hit 10 million downloads this week! "
Another employee also said, "Yeah, the sales figures are out too. The number of paying customers is as high as 47%, and we're making a few million in revenue every day!"
The game that their company originally produced only had an investment of a few million RMB. Later on, after Zhang Ye took over the reins, although the game had undergone major changes to become Plants vs. Zombies, the core game engine did not change much. It wasn't as if they had overhauled it. So even though Plants vs. Zombies was announced to have been produced with an investment of 10 million RMB, it was actually just a slogan. If they didn't include Zhang Ye's endorsement fees, copyright fees, and production fees, they had only invested a few million RMB at most. This was also the maximum amount of funds that their company could mobilize.
And now, the profits were clearly huge!
The revenue of Plants vs Zombies in a day was almost enough to offset the total investment of the game! The rest of it was a net profit! It could be seen that they had really made a killing this time!
During the banquet, the atmosphere was very lively. All of the employees were very excited.
After some toasting, Fat Sis looked at Zhang Ye and brought up the topic of the endorsement fees again. "Zhang 'er, the game is selling like crazy, and you deserve the most credit for it. You were the one who created the game in the first place, but we haven't discussed the endorsement fees and copyright issues yet. Yesterday, the company held a meeting with the higher-ups and discussed this matter. Even though we have a personal relationship, we still have to make it clear how much we should pay for it."
But Zhang Ye waved it off. "Fat Sis, let's talk about this another time. I'm not short of money right now, and to be honest, I don't have anything that I need to spend money on."
"That's still …" Fat Sis said.
"Why don't we do it this way." Zhang Ye smiled and said, "When I need money in the future, I'll ask you for it!"
Fat Sis pondered for a moment, then decided, "That's fine too. I'll convert it into shares for you to invest in the company. As for the exact amount, I'll discuss it with my sister later to see how it's appropriate. After we've decided on the shares, we'll meet again and talk about it again. If you have any requests, just let me know."
Zhang Ye directly said, "There's no need to talk about it again. You can discuss it with Old Wu. I'll listen to her."
That sounded a little …
Fat Sis exclaimed, "You're pretty close with my sister?"
Zhang Ye was taken aback, then quickly said, "Yeah, Old Wu is my old boss. Whatever she says, I'll definitely listen to her."
Only then did Fat Sis understand.
Suddenly, a phone call came in.
Fat Sis answered, "Hello … Uh … What!?"
When she hung up, everyone looked at Fat Sis nervously when they saw that she didn't look too good.
The vice president said, "What's the matter?"
Zhang Ye also asked, "What happened?"
Fat Sis said angrily, "A pirated copy of Plants vs. Zombies has been released!"
"Ah?"
"How could that be!"
"Why is it so fast?"
"This is bad!"
Everyone turned pale with fright!
Pirated copy? To the game companies, this was a phrase that would make them tremble in fear. This was the scariest thing of all! The domestic game market environment was not very good to begin with. If there were pirated copies of the game, how could they make any money? Their income would definitely be greatly reduced, and they might even lose everything!
Before releasing the game, they had already made preparations for it. Piracy was no stranger to any game company and they knew that it was unavoidable. But even though they were mentally prepared for it, they did not expect that it would happen so quickly. It was so fast that it caught them off guard!
Fat Sis said, "In the past, the pirated copies of our company's games were very slow. Some of them even took half a year to get out. That was because the sales of our games were not good and there weren't many players. As a result, the pirated copies didn't make much of a profit, so they didn't put in too much effort. But now that Plants vs. Zombies has become so popular all over the country, it must have attracted the attention of many pirated copies and speculators! They're all trying to snatch our jobs! That bunch of grandsons! "
Zhang Ye frowned. "We can play the game without using the serial numbers now?"
Beside him, the group of employees had already gone online to check on the situation!
Fat Sis nodded. "After the first three levels, we don't need the serial numbers anymore. We can now play up to the sixth level. However, this version of the pirated version is not fully cracked yet, so there are more bugs in it. A lot of people will automatically jump out of the game once they reach the sixth level, so we don't have to worry about it for now."
A vice president said anxiously, "We can't not worry about it. With a pirated version appearing in just a few days, it's only a matter of time before it's fully cracked. Moreover, if a lot of the players who were planning to pay for the game find out about it, a large portion of them might not pay for it anymore and just wait for the pirated version. That would definitely be a fatal blow to our sales!"
Fat Sis nodded. "That's right!"
Everyone's hearts were heavy.
Plants vs. Zombies had just made a name for itself, so the media and industry had high expectations for it. They even shouted that it would hit 100 million downloads. But in the end, it had only been a few days and they were going to have to watch helplessly as it was destroyed by the pirated copies? If they really waited for the fully cracked version to be released, how many sales of their official serial numbers would there be? Although they could still earn quite a bit of income from domestic sales, advertising, and partnerships, the official serial numbers were their most basic source of income. It was also their biggest source of income right now, so they definitely couldn't lose this fortress!
At least … they couldn't lose it so quickly!
"What should we do?"
"That bunch of immeasurable pirates!"
"Fuck their ancestors!"
Faced with this sudden bad news, a lot of people started cursing. No one was in the mood to have a celebratory feast anymore. If anything went wrong, all the hard work that Plants vs. Zombies had just done might go down the drain!
Seeing this, Zhang Ye gave it some thought and said with a smile, "How about this? I'll give it a try and see if I can control the pirated versions."
The vice president was taken aback. "How are you going to try?"
Another vice president said, "The pirated versions can be controlled? How? "
But Zhang Ye did not say much. "I'll go make a call first. I can only say that I'll give it a try."
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