In the early morning of the next day after the announcement of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, many overly sensitive Yanjing people began to flee Beijing. They asked their relatives and friends scattered all over the country about the situation of SARS in various places, found a city without SARS, and drove there to find a hotel to stay in for a while. If SARS was found in the local area, they would move to the next one.
Although this approach was a bit extreme, there were many people like this in Beijing, which had a population base of 20 million.
Many people who originally had plans to go to Beijing changed their travel plans temporarily after learning about the epidemic in Beijing. The tourism industry in Beijing began to enter a cold winter period that lasted for several months overnight.
The traffic connecting Beijing and other provinces immediately entered a "Spring Festival Mode". The number of people entering Beijing decreased sharply, and the number of people leaving Beijing soared.
In his previous life, Hai Zhou had borne the burden of many panicked people who had fled from Yan Jing. At that time, the few hotels and restaurants in Hai Zhou were all full, and a large number of Beijing cars were running on the streets. These people had poured into Hai Zhou like a tide during the SARS outbreak, and after the SARS ended, they had disappeared without a trace like a receding tide.
In Li Mu's impression of Haizhou for decades, the spring and summer of 2003 was the time when Haizhou had the most foreign population.
At this time, when the foreigners could not wait to avoid and the locals were fleeing, Li Mu's parents drove all the way to Yan Jing before dawn.
At the same time, Zhao Ziqiu's mother, Xie Yun, also set off for Beijing.
Xie Yun brought a nanny and two drivers from home. The last row of seats in the business car was filled with daily necessities that she had sorted out overnight. This time, she had already planned to stay in Beijing until the second half of the year.
Although Zhao Xianliang was a little reluctant to see Xie Yun leave, after putting aside the irrational pride of an old man like a child, he also agreed with Xie Yun's decision. After all, Xie Yun's decision was indeed the best solution at the moment.
This also made Zhao Xianliang, who was in his forties, realize a truth. Although adult men were the main producers of society and had a more rational and comprehensive way of thinking, men's personalities were not as stable as women's in many critical moments.
The best thing about Xie Yun was that she was steady enough. She might not be able to achieve ten out of ten in anything, but she could achieve eight out of ten in most things. Zhao Xianliang himself could achieve ten out of ten in some aspects, but sometimes he would fall into his own shackles and couldn't even get a passing mark.
This incident also made Zhao Xianliang understand a principle. A successful man couldn't do without an outstanding wife. If there wasn't a strong corrective mechanism by his side, a man was likely to be destroyed by his own personality and stubbornness.
…
Zhao Ziqiu was happy for the whole night.
In the first half of the night, she was extremely distressed, but in the second half of the night, she was so happy that she could not sleep at all.
When her mother told her on the phone that she would come to Yan Jing to accompany her, she was so excited that she yelled and screamed, waking up the people on half the floor in the corridor.
Fortunately, Zhao Ziqiu had a good relationship with others. Otherwise, if she yelled in the middle of the night and disturbed the sleep of so many people, she would probably be hated by the group.
In the morning, Zhao Ziqiu kept sending text messages to her mother, asking her where she was, whether she had eaten, whether she was tired, and whether there was a traffic jam. She couldn't wait and looked forward to it, so that Xie Yun didn't even have a chance to take a nap in the car.
Li Mu was very busy this morning.
In order to motivate his employees, Li Mu arrived at Makino Technology early in the morning, and brought along the company's top management for a meeting with all the employees. The main purpose of the meeting was to let the employees know that the company's top management would stick to their posts with them in times of crisis. At the same time, the company had made ample preparations for everyone's safety, so that everyone could reduce their fear.
After the staff mobilization meeting, Li Mu immediately had a meeting with Kong Lingyu, Chen Tong, Fang Xudong, and the other top management to discuss the most important tasks in the near future. The company's epidemic prevention and employee comfort had already been confirmed, so the next step was to focus on business as much as possible.
During the top management meeting, Kong Lingyu reported on the global operations of Plants vs Zombies Online. Currently, Plants vs Zombies had already surpassed a hundred million players worldwide. Basically, 90% of YY users were playing the game, and because of the game, YY had gained twenty-eight million new accounts. This was due to the fact that Plants vs Zombies Online was completely integrated into YY's ecosystem. Anyone who wanted to play Plants vs Zombies Online would have to log into YY, even if it was in single player mode. This forced every single player who didn't have YY to register a YY account.
The biggest difference between a social game and a regular MMORPG was that a regular MMORPG could still be played without any "connections". However, if a social game didn't have any "connections", it would lose most of the fun of the game. Plants vs Zombies Online and Paradise Town had the same purpose in this regard: to guide the users to improve their gaming experience, and increase their own connections in YY.
The user base of Plants vs Zombies Online was constantly increasing, and the number of hardcore fans was also constantly increasing. Currently, the HD wallpaper for Plants vs Zombies Online had already been downloaded over a hundred million times. If you were to count the number of repeated downloads, there were still over twenty million different users who downloaded it. This proved that over twenty million users were interested in the side products of Plants vs Zombies Online.
YY had also released the exclusive skin for Plants vs Zombies Online. The number of times the skin was downloaded was even higher than the number of times the wallpaper was downloaded, at over thirty million.
At the same time, the YY Show with the theme of Plants vs Zombies Online was also officially released on the YY Show Mall. Using the popularity of the YY Show, in just two short days, it had generated an equivalent of fifty million RMB in sales.
What sold even better was the various skins in Plants vs Zombies Online. The super cute versions of the plant skins could greatly increase the user's recognition and sense of superiority when battling with friends. It was just like the skins of the various heroes in Kings of Glory and LOL, which were instantly popular among the players. There were over three hundred skins released in the game, and the total number of purchases exceeded two hundred million within a few days. The average price of each skin was around 2.8 RMB, and the total sales had reached an astonishing five hundred million RMB.
The sales figures of Plants vs Zombies Online completely toppled the current business model of the video game market. There weren't that many shady things in the video game market. There were basically two ways for video game companies to make money, either by selling the game, or by charging by the hour. This was especially true for MMOs, which almost completely followed the model of charging by the hour. However, not only did a game come out of nowhere that was free to the users, the key thing was that it was able to generate such a high amount of revenue from selling virtual avatars.
Even the popular Legend of Mir 2 wasn't able to reach the level of Plants vs Zombies Online. Legend of Mir, with the help of the Miracle of Mir 2, was able to barely make two hundred thousand RMB a day. However, compared to the one million RMB a day in his previous life, it was a lot weaker.
After Kong Lingyu finished reporting on the statistics of the game, he patted Old Xu, who was in charge of designing the game, and said to everyone, "Old Xu came to see me yesterday, and showed me a prototype of the game that he designed. I think it's very interesting, so I'll let Old Xu explain the details to everyone."
Old Xu nodded, and said humbly, "Dear leaders, our Plants vs Zombies Online has indeed achieved great results. However, in my opinion, even though our game is excellent, the gameplay isn't fully developed enough. The problem with this is that the lifespan of the game isn't long enough. At this point in time, everyone is madly in love with our game, but after a year or even half a year, when the fun in the game has been exhausted, the number of users will start to drop. Therefore, I feel that we need to upgrade and expand the gameplay as soon as possible, especially when it comes to the issue of friends playing together."
Everyone, including Li Mu, agreed with Old Xu's point of view. Plants vs Zombies Online was a small game, easy to learn, and fast to spread, but it also had the problem of not having a strong foundation. In Li Mu's opinion, games like this rarely had a long lifespan, so if they wanted to make it live longer, they needed to further develop the gameplay.
Therefore, Li Mu said to Old Xu, "Old Xu, if you have any good ideas, feel free to share them with everyone else."
Old Xu said, "Li Zong, you've previously categorized this type of game as a turret defense game. Gamers are born with a defensive mentality, as well as a sense of accomplishment when they succeed in defending. I agree with this point, and it has also given me a lot of inspiration. Now I finally understand why I like to use France the most when I play Red Alert with my friends, and why I like building huge cannons, prism towers, and anti-aircraft missiles around the base. Actually, every gamer has this kind of defensive mentality. In some situations, the sense of accomplishment when they succeed in defending is more prominent than the sense of accomplishment when they succeed in attacking. That's why I've unknowingly played Red Alert as a turret defense game."
"The reason why Red Alert is so fun for me is because of the variety of maps and terrains. World of Ice and Snow, Bering Strait, Arctic Circle, Eternal Arena. These maps are fun because of the variety of terrains. Islands, tidal flats, plains, mountains, passes, bridges, and many other elements allow players to fully exert their organizational and coordination abilities. They can carry out different defensive arrangements for different maps. I believe that when players play Bering Strait and Arctic Circle, most of them will first break the bridges on both sides of the island in the initial stage. When playing World of Ice and Snow, they will think of ways to snatch the gem mines in the middle. When playing Arctic Circle, they will think of ways to seize more oil wells. This huge space for free play is the key point of the game's long-term appeal to users."
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