You were supposed to have a fake marriage with the diva, so how did you become her father?

Chapter 354 Leveraging EA's Momentum

The next morning, as soon as Lu Ran arrived at the company, Zhou Mingzhe pushed open the door to his office and walked in.

"Where's that new game you mentioned? Let me see it."

Lu Ran took a USB drive from the drawer and placed it on the table: "The plan is in here. Take a look first, then we'll talk."

Zhou Mingzhe picked up the USB drive and walked back to his office.

Less than half an hour later, he pushed the door open again, his expression complex.

"are you serious?"

"When have I ever not been serious?"

"This visual," Zhou Mingzhe sat down opposite him, "is all blocks? Block trees, block mountains, block sheep, block pigs. Can players accept this?"

"Why not?"

"Look at the games on the market now. While League of Legends' graphics aren't the best, they're at least decent. Games like Wild Rift have the mainstream graphics—meticulously crafted, every frame could be a wallpaper. Yours is all blocks; players' first reaction will be, 'What kind of antique is this?'"

Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and looked at Zhou Mingzhe: "Do you think those players who play League of Legends stay because of the good graphics?"

Zhou Mingzhe paused for a moment, then said, "No, that's not it. They stayed because it's fun."

"That settles it. Graphics are just the skin; fun is the bone. No matter how beautiful the skin is, if the bone isn't good, players will get bored after a couple of days. Minecraft's bone is very tough; so tough that players have played it for ten years and still can't crack it."

Zhou Mingzhe remained silent for a while, then flipped through a few more pages of the proposal.

"You wrote here that 'the map size is close to infinity,' what does 'close to infinity' mean?"

"It means exactly what it says. Theoretically, the map in Minecraft can be generated to be eight times the surface area of ​​the Earth. But in reality, no player can reach the edge of the world because it's too big. You could walk for a lifetime and still not reach it."

Zhou Mingzhe gasped: "Eight times the surface area of ​​the Earth? Can the servers handle that?"

"It couldn't handle the load. So not all maps are loaded at the same time; the map is generated as the player moves around. Areas that haven't been visited consume zero server resources. This dynamic generation technology saves much more resources than EA's pre-built map method."

Zhou Mingzhe flipped through a few more pages and stopped at the page on "Redstone System".

"What is this redstone? It looks like an electrical circuit to me."

"It's about circuits. You can use redstone to build electrical appliances, machines, and computers. The 'players can create games within games' feature you see is based on this. Someone built a computer that can play Snake using redstone, and someone else built a calculator that can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division."

Zhou Mingzhe put down the plan and stared at Lu Ran for several seconds: "Are you crazy?"

"You think I made this up?"

"I'm not saying you made this up. I'm saying, if you make something like this, will players actually play it? People play games to relax, not to learn circuit design."

"Some people like building houses, some like mining, some like fighting monsters, and some like researching redstone. Everyone can find something they enjoy doing in the game, which is what makes Minecraft so great. Just because you're not one of those people doesn't mean they don't exist."

Zhou Mingzhe flipped through the plan again, then closed it and placed it on the table.

"The plan is fine; I looked at it for a long time but couldn't find any flaws. But I still have the same problem—manpower. Our current manpower is barely enough to handle League of Legends and Three Kingdoms Kill. If you add such a big project, the tech department will really rebel."

"I know," Lu Ran said, "so I'm not in a hurry to start. First, we need to stabilize League of Legends, finish the open beta of Three Kingdoms Kill, and open the Chengdu branch. Once we've trained this batch of new employees and have enough manpower, then we can start working on Minecraft."

Zhou Mingzhe did the math: "That'll be at least next spring. By then, EA's 'Wildlands' will have already established itself. If you release another new game, will you still be able to compete with them?"

"I can beat them," Lu Ran said. "And EA's current push for Wilderness Era is actually a good thing for me."

Zhou Mingzhe didn't understand: "Good news?"

"Yes. Wildlands is an open-world survival and building game. Players want to build houses and do whatever they want in the game. EA used their top-notch graphics and huge map to teach Chinese players a lesson—'So this is how games can be played.'"

He paused, then continued, "But EA's games have their limits. No matter how beautiful the house you build is, it's still just the same old thing. No matter how big the map you explore is, it's still just what EA has drawn for you. After playing for a hundred hours, the novelty wears off, and you'll find there's not much left to do. That's when Minecraft comes out. Although the graphics aren't as good as EA's, the freedom is ten thousand times greater. What will players choose?"

Zhou Mingzhe thought for a moment and said, "I'll give it a try."

"It's not just about trying it out," Lu Ran said. "I'll be spending a very, very long time in Minecraft. Because Minecraft has no limit. You might play for a hundred hours and just be a beginner. A thousand hours and you're considered a pro. Ten thousand hours and you might still be exploring new ways to play with redstone. EA can't provide that kind of depth."

Zhou Mingzhe leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

"You mean, let EA educate the market first, and then we'll reap the rewards once the market matures?"

"Yes. EA spent hundreds of millions of dollars and several years educating Chinese players that 'open-world games are fun.' We only need to spend a fraction of that cost to make a more fun, freer, and deeper open-world game, and then bring over the users that EA has painstakingly educated. This isn't a conspiracy; it's an open strategy. EA knows what I'm doing, but they can't do anything about it. Because their product logic dictates that they can't achieve the same level of freedom as Minecraft."

Zhou Mingzhe stood up and paced back and forth in the office a few times.

"You're such a cunning person."

"This isn't called being cunning; it's called going with the flow," Lu Ran said with a smile. "EA has money and technology, so let them charge ahead. We'll sharpen our swords in the back, and then we'll go in after they've finished their battle."

"What if EA's knife is too sharp and it eats up the market?"

"I can't handle it." Lu Ran shook his head. "Because EA's business model is different from Minecraft's. EA sells content; players buy the game once, and EA has to keep updating it to retain them. If they don't update, the players will leave. But Minecraft sells tools; players buy the game once and can enjoy it themselves, without me constantly urging them to update. This difference in business models determined from the very beginning who would have the last laugh."

Zhou Mingzhe stopped and looked at Lu Ran: "When did you come up with all these ideas?"

When you can't sleep.

"What on earth is going on in your head?"

"game."

Zhou Mingzhe was speechless at his words. He opened his mouth, but finally waved his hand and said, "Fine, fine, you're the boss, you decide. But regarding 'Minecraft,' I need to talk to Lao Wang. I need to prepare him mentally, so that he doesn't suddenly resign on the spot when you throw the proposal at him."

"He already knows. I treated him to a meal yesterday and told him."

"What was his reaction?"

"He asked if I was crazy."

Zhou Mingzhe couldn't help but laugh: "Same reaction as me."

"But he said he would take it. No matter how difficult it is, he will take it. Old Wang may swear a lot, but he does more work than anyone else. I trust people like that the most."

Zhou Mingzhe nodded, pushed open the door, and walked out.

Lu Ran sat alone in his office, opened the Minecraft project again, and flipped through the pages one by one.

The plan includes a chapter specifically dedicated to market timing analysis.

He reread what he had written and found that there was only one core point—EA's Wildlands was the best trailer for Minecraft.

It wasn't because he thought EA was bad; quite the opposite, it was because EA was too good.

They raised the bar for visual quality in open-world games to a very high level, letting players know that the world in a game can be this beautiful.

However, they narrowed the concept of "freedom" to such a small extent that players can only move within the circle drawn by EA.

Players playing Wilderness Era will have a feeling like, "This game is so much fun, but I wish I could do this," "I wish I could dig a hole here," "I wish I could flatten this mountain," or "I wish I could build a bridge over this river."

None of these "ifs" can be realized in Wilderness Age.

But in Minecraft, you can do all of that.

EA spent hundreds of millions to paint a beautiful picture for players, telling them that the pie was delicious.

What Lu Ran needs to do is give the players a handful of flour and tell them, "Make whatever kind of pancake you want."

Players will know which of these two logics is superior once they've played the game.

Lu Ran closed the plan and wrote a line in his notebook: "We'll go live once the first wave of EA runs."

After writing it, he looked at the line and felt it was too cowardly, so he crossed it out and changed it to: Let EA run first, and we'll join in when they're tired.

Still feeling something wasn't right, I crossed it out again and finally wrote a line: EA is running ahead, and we're chasing behind. As they run, EA looks back and realizes we're in another direction.

...