The high-definition chibi version of the Plants vs Zombies wallpaper was downloaded over ten million times within a day after it was released on the YY website. There were over a hundred thousand comments on the wallpaper download page alone. These users came from all over the world, and every single one of them had a country's flag behind their ID. Looking at the comments page, it was filled with flags from all over the world, and comments from all over the world appeared on the same page at the same time. It made Li Mu feel like he was browsing YouTube. The popularity of the game was evident.
Plants vs Zombies Online had only been online for two days, and its highest number of online players had already exceeded fifty million. On the third day, the game's daily sales of props and skins had reached thirty-five million RMB. The profitability of the game had impressed the entire industry.
Li Mu was an experienced person, so he was well aware of the development trajectory of paid skins in the game. As more and more people used paid skins, even though other users did not experience any disruption in their normal gameplay, the potential impact caused by aesthetics would continue to ferment. Until one day, ordinary users could no longer stand the unchanging original skins and began to step onto the path of paid skins, never to return.
Li Mu could already foresee how popular the YY skins and YY show would be once they were released. By that time, the paid YY show alone would be able to generate a lot of revenue for the company.
Apparently, all the video game companies in the market were researching Plants vs Zombies Online, and were trying to imitate it as quickly as possible. This even included the famous Blizzard. Even they wanted to imitate Plants vs Zombies Online and make a tower defense game.
However, even if every video game company tried to imitate Plants vs Zombies Online, Li Mu wasn't worried at all, because he knew that the only thing that Plants vs Zombies Online couldn't be imitated was YY.
Without YY, even Blizzard wouldn't be able to promote a similar tower defense game.
Without YY, even Microsoft wouldn't be able to make the entire world's netizens fall in love with the game.
Without YY, even if Steve Jobs and Nokia installed the same game into their phones, they wouldn't be able to get the players to interact with their friends on YY.
If anyone, or any company, wanted to make a similar game reach the heights of Plants vs Zombies Online, they would need to have a social product that was highly compatible with YY, otherwise it would be hopeless.
KFC and McDonald's both received an offer from Makino Technology to collaborate on the cartoon characters in the game. Makino Technology's proposal was: McDonald's or KFC would pay a certain amount of copyright fees, and Makino Technology would license the packaging of the cartoon characters to them, allowing them to print the cartoon characters on the packaging of their products. If they wanted the rights to use derivative products, they would have to pay more. For example, dolls and dolls made from the cartoon characters in the game.
If it was in China, most companies would use their own cartoon characters to produce all kinds of products, and they wouldn't have to pay a dime for copyright fees. However, it wasn't the same in America. If any company dared to use their copyright without authorization, they could easily win in American courts, and demand huge compensation.
Multinational companies like KFC and McDonald's had similar collaborations with many well-known copyright holders in the past. McDonald's had close collaborations with copyright holders like Disney and Pixar. They would often introduce derivative gifts with Disney or Pixar's cartoon characters as the core, and then combine it with the set meals in their stores for promotions.
KFC, on the other hand, not only had close collaborations with American companies, they also had deep collaborations with Japanese copyright holders. For example, this year, KFC released a "Doraemon" set meal, which sold very well in China. Besides using Doraemon's name and image as packaging, the set also came with a remote control Doraemon toy, which was very popular among children.
However, these two companies didn't have similar collaborations with Hua Xia's domestic copyright holders. Up until now, all of Hua Xia's cartoon characters lacked influence in the international market. Whether it was Calabash Brothers, Black Cat Sheriff, or Schuck's Beta, none of them were recognized in the international market, and it was the same for Sun Wukong.
It could be said that even if all of the achievements of Hua Xia's domestic cartoons were accumulated over the past few decades, their influence in the world still couldn't compare to the influence that Plants vs Zombies Online had accumulated in the past three days. In fact, it was a far cry from it!
Plants vs Zombies Online became popular all over the world in a short period of time, which also made the cartoon characters in the game familiar to more than half of the people in the world. Therefore, behind every cartoon character in the game, there was a huge profit margin.
Therefore, when Makino Technology approached these two companies, they both expressed great interest.
Li Mu was very good at grasping the pain points of these companies. He asked BD to approach these two companies and propose a collaboration, but he didn't make an actual offer. At the same time, he released the news to let these two companies know that he was negotiating with them on the same matter at the same time, creating a sense of urgency for these two companies.
Before Plants vs Zombies Online became popular, there were countless competitors in the international cartoon copyright market. Even if one of the two companies found an opportunity to collaborate in the market, the other company would be able to find other similar competitors. For example, KFC collaborated with Doraemon, while McDonald's collaborated with Toy Story. They were evenly matched, and no one would be left behind. If KFC took Hello Kitty, McDonald's could also go for SpongeBob SquarePants.
However, the current gaming market wasn't the cartoon market. At the current stage of the gaming industry, the only game that could become cartoonish and popular all over the world was Plants vs Zombies Online. If their competitors took advantage of this opportunity, it would be very difficult for them to overtake them.
Even if they brought in the entire global cartoon market to compete with Plants vs Zombies Online, they might not be able to get away with it. This was because, in the global cartoon market, other than a bunch of well-known cartoon characters, there hadn't been any new cartoon characters that were internationally famous in the past one or two years.
Therefore, there was also the problem of popularity.
A cartoon character like Doraemon was indeed very popular. At least a third of the people in the world knew about it. However, even though Doraemon was famous, it had nothing to do with popularity. It was just like how everyone in Hua Xia knew about the Six Little Spirit Children. In 2015 and 2016, although he was still famous, he wasn't as popular anymore. His appearance fee wasn't even a hundred thousand RMB. However, at that time, even if he had only debuted a year or two ago, his appearance fee was still a few million RMB due to his popularity. This was the importance of popularity.
Nowadays, even with all the cartoon characters from the past hundred years, there wasn't a single character or series that could compare to Plants vs Zombies. Therefore, for companies like McDonald's and KFC, it wouldn't matter if Makino Technology didn't use this character to collaborate with the fast food industry. Once they did, they would do everything they could to get their hands on it.
It was the same for Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
These two companies had been rivals for decades. They were basically "mirror image brothers". They would always come up with whatever you came up with. I'll come up with Coca-Cola if you come up with Sprite, I'll come up with Mirinda if you come up with Sprite. Not only did they fight to the death over their own products, but they also spread the flames of war to other industries. If you have an exclusive collaboration with McDonald's, then I have an exclusive collaboration with KFC. Strategic partners were also rivals …
Under these circumstances, when Plants vs Zombies Online suddenly wanted to collaborate with both sides, it immediately ignited the flames of war. Moreover, if the losing side were to compete, they wouldn't have any other similar products to choose from.
Under Li Mu's instructions, Makino Technology's BD gave KFC, McDonald's, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola two proposals to choose from:
The first was a yearly license for the cartoon characters. Each company would quote a price for the license, and the highest bidder would win.
The second was a commitment from the user of the cartoon characters to be displayed. For example, Pepsi could promise that Plants vs Zombies Online would be displayed a hundred million times on their products within a year. Coca-Cola could promise two hundred million times. However, whoever promised the most number of times would get the exclusive license. On this basis, Makino Technology would only charge a nominal fee of a hundred thousand USD per year.
However, Makino Technology had a clear limit on the number of times it could be displayed. For example, Pepsi could promise that Plants vs Zombies Online would be displayed a hundred million times on their products within a year. Coca-Cola could promise two hundred million times. However, whoever promised the most number of times would get the exclusive license. On this basis, Makino Technology would only charge a nominal fee of a hundred thousand USD per year.
In other words, if these companies wanted to get the license for Plants vs Zombies Online, they would either have to pay more, or produce more products related to Plants vs Zombies Online.
Li Mu was leaning towards the latter. He didn't care about the hundred thousand USD, or the five million USD annual license fee. What he wanted was to use these companies with strong offline distribution channels to quickly push Plants vs Zombies Online's image to the world's offline market. This would fill in the gaps of Plants vs Zombies Online's offline market, and increase Plants vs Zombies Online's global influence. This would push the popularity, influence, and value of the cartoon characters in the game to the top of the world. This was what Li Mu wanted the most.
Online was Li Mu's absolute advantage. If the internet was the ocean, then Makino Technology would be the biggest whale in the ocean. However, no matter how strong the whale was, it would be hard for it to become the king on land. For Makino Technology, the offline world was equivalent to "land".
The difference was that KFC, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi were all giants in the offline market. This was what Li Mu lacked.
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