Saved twice, abandoned twice: the life of the disgusted Shanda game (transfer)
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Shanda Games (July 14, 2001 - December 31, 2016), at the age of 15 and a half, without a last word.
The only thing that is a little gratifying is that although Shanda Games is gone, the "child" Chen Tianqiao accidentally acquired will continue to exist after the makeover.
If Shanda Games also had an idea, it must not understand that it helped "father" Chen Tianqiao become the richest man, established a business empire, and returned to save the field after being abandoned. So disliked that he was swept out of the house.
Before Shanda Games is about to leave us, let's review the life of Shanda Games, which was despised but full of legends.
1. Rescue: The Grand Game is Coming (July 14, 2001)
Shanda Game's life was completely controlled by Chen Tianqiao. And Chen Tianqiao's success and failure are related to his personal character. Forward thinking, desperate gamble, impatient and eager character, together with intelligence and melancholy have become the footnotes of Chen Tianqiao's career.
When dismantled, the so-called all-or-nothing game is speculation at heart. Because the bet is very shrewd and successful, it will continue to stimulate gambling. Therefore, thinking ahead is also a gamble, lack of patience is also a gamble, eager to achieve success is also a gamble, and the beginning of chaos is also a gamble. In the end, Chen Tianqiao became farther and farther away from the practice of sharpening his sword in ten years-because he became famous by gambling, he did not get through from the bottom, and of course he didn't know what to do at the bottom: big logic is clear and straight, and implementation lacks guidance and guidance. effectively monitored. Just like Fang Haibo's comment on Zhihu: It is impossible for a virgin to write erotic novels, and it is impossible to figure out the wonderful details.
Shanda was established in November 1999. At that time, 26-year-old Chen Tianqiao and his younger brother Chen Danian founded Shanda Network in a house with three bedrooms and one living room in the expert building of the Academy of Sciences in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. Shanda Network has been involved in the development and operation of online interactive entertainment communities, the development and service of instant messaging software, as well as online animation and comics. And launched the online virtual community "Paradise Returns to the Valley". It later received $3 million in financing from CDC.
It can be seen from this that Shanda wanted to be "Internet Disney" at that time.
However, his entrepreneurship was not smooth, the animation community had no income, Shanda has been in the rhythm of "burning money and waiting to die". And then broke up with China.com.
On July 14, 2001, Chen Tianqiao made a big bet for the first time and made a desperate attempt to obtain the exclusive agency rights of Actoz's "Legend II" in China with only the remaining 300,000 US dollars. Shanda Games was born.
At this time, Chen Tianqiao had already spent all his funds, and the subsequent business expansion was all driven by this contract: in order to solve the problem of hardware facilities, "We took the contract signed with the Korean side, found Inspur and Dell, and told them that I would like to Operating Korean games and applying for a trial machine for two months. When they saw that it was an international formal contract, they agreed." Chen Tianqiao recalled. "Then, I took the server contract and approached China Telecom in the same way. China Telecom finally gave Shanda a free bandwidth trial for a two-month test period. With the Korean contract, plus the server manufacturer and China Telecom's With support, Chen Tianqiao gained the trust of Shanghai Ubisoft, the leading stand-alone game distributor in China at that time, and cooperated with Shanda to sell Shanda game point cards, with a share of 33%.
In this way, various problems have been solved, but Shanda is also hanging by a thread. For example, later, Shanghai Ubisoft also felt that this matter was unreliable, and suddenly changed its mind, so Shanda decided to cooperate with Internet cafes and directly develop Internet cafe owners and Internet cafe administrators into sales offline. Internet cafe computers are pre-installed with games, and Internet cafe owners and administrators get a share of selling point cards.
Although walking a tightrope, Shanda Games has survived. On September 28, 2001, "Legend" began its public beta test. Two months later, it was officially charged. At the same time, the number of online users quickly exceeded 400,000.
Legend's greatest success lies in: refactoring the channel at that time. Previously, the revenue of the game relied on the distribution of game discs and game point cards - there was no online financial system, no client and connection at that time, and everything depended on the publisher. Through direct cooperation with Internet cafes and Internet cafe owners, Shanda controlled the largest offline distribution channel at that time. When Shanda Games was making a lot of money, Ma Huateng's father and Ma Yun's father were still at a loss for their future careers.
But the regrettable problem is that, although he is proud of his ancestors, Chen Tianqiao just doesn't like this kid called "Shanda Game". He still wants to have a child he likes. He calls it "Online Disney."
2. Chaosheng "Online Disney", Shanda Games was abandoned for the first time (May 13, 2004)
On May 13, 2004, Shanghai Shanda Network Development Co., Ltd. was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and issued 13.85 million ADS shares at a price of US$11.00 per share, raising a total of US$150 million. At this point, it was less than 3 years before Chen Tianqiao made a desperate choice. The grand game that represented "Legend" became a legend.
After success comes fame and fortune. Just when people expected Shanda Games to open a new era of online games, Chen Tianqiao became dissatisfied with what he had done because of his economic and political status.
In fact, Chen Tianqiao doesn't look down on "Legend", but looks down on any game. He has no feelings for this cause, and the game is just a tool to make money.
"Someone played my game until they died of a heart attack, teenagers were addicted, and the front page of "People's Daily" called our name..." The accusations and abuses of public opinion dragged him from the cloud to the ground. A "Legend" player rushed into Chen Tianqiao's office because he lost his equipment and pointed at his nose and cursed. For the same reason, a player attempted to set himself on fire at Shanda's headquarters (attempted).
Chen Tianqiao despised the game, because the game brought too much pressure to him. When people equate "Chen Tianqiao" with online games, he is the culprit in the eyes of society and parents.
It is said that Chen Tianqiao once told his friends more than once that online games were contrary to his original intention of becoming a mainstream figure in society. Chen Tianqiao has the feelings of the family and the world. Online games cannot carry his dreams. He wants to transform and the society recognizes his value.
At this time, he thought of Adou who couldn't help him back then: Online Disney.
Back then, he adopted Shanda Games because he couldn’t make money and struggled. Now Shanda Games earns enough money to continue to breed online Disney. Chen Tianqiao chose online Disney without hesitation.
The plan of Chen Tianqiao's entertainment empire is the "Grand Box", the core content of which is to transfer online movies and other content to TV.
At the end of 2004, the first version of "Shandong Box" was finally born. Chen Tianqiao distributed a trial to every middle and high-level cadre, but Chen Tianqiao was quite unhappy that the product did not reach the predetermined target in terms of quality and sales. .
In 2005, due to dissatisfaction with the progress of Shanda Box, Taiwanese Zhang Yijia, who was leading the project of Shanda Box at that time, resigned. The product originally released in August 2005 has been continuously delayed. Although Chen Tianqiao personally took command, it still failed to achieve the expected results.
During offline sales, in the pilot city of Yiwu, Shanda Box sold 20 units a month, and many of them were personal relationships. After the box failed, on December 12, 2005, Chen Tianqiao launched the Yibao EZ Pod in Beijing. "Yibao" is divided into EZPod based on personal computer and EZStation based on TV and broadband platform, a "remote control", a TV card and supporting software, an ordinary PC or TV, can enjoy "all-round family" Broadband Entertainment Center".
But the reality is cruel. In the first quarter of 2006, Shanda's financial report officially indicated that Yibao's sales were declining, "(including Yibao) other business net operating income was 31.8 million yuan, down 42.6% from the same period last year. The quarter of other business income The decline is mainly due to the decline in the sales revenue of EZPod in this quarter." Subsequently, a document from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television - "Notice of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on Stopping IPTV" completely killed Shanda's new strategy.
The aborted project also brought hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to Chen Tianqiao.
There are many reasons for the failure of online Disney, but the big ones are as follows:
A. The strategy is too advanced.
Apple launched Apple TV in 2006, and the follow-up of Xiaomi LeTV and others is basically a matter of recent years. It can be seen that Chen Tianqiao's strategy is indeed far ahead.
but! Leading too much, pioneers can easily become martyrs. This time, Chen Tianqiao's desperate attempt has encountered an unprecedented setback.
B. The approach is too radical.
Chen Tianqiao, who has money, is ready to forcibly give birth when all the conditions are not met. Before getting the birth certificate, he planned everything for the child. But it never occurred to me that the mother of the child was not ready. I didn't expect that the big environment categorically rejected Chen Tianqiao's super-birth plan.
C, a small horse-drawn cart.
Unmanageable out-of-control beyond one's ability is the biggest bad thing. Just like the tens of billions of dollars Xiaomi must have the ambition to rush to hundreds of billions of dollars. The game field that Chen Tianqiao gave up has changed from a few hundred million yuan to the current scale of tens of billions of dollars, and even Tencent cannot control it all; but Chen Tianqiao was thinking of taking down the entire entertainment industry. Such a large scale far exceeds what Chen Tianqiao can handle. From this perspective, failure is inevitable.
D. Too many enemies.
In terms of entertainment and other aspects, Chen Tianqiao's ideas are too ambitious. He wants to cover (subvert) the entire industry and cause resistance from the entire industry.
No matter what, if Chen Tianqiao could wait a little longer, if Chen Tianqiao didn't hate the "eldest son" so much, if Chen Tianqiao was a little patient, maybe everything would be rewritten when the birth certificate appeared.
However, because there was no chance of being born, "Online Disney" eventually aborted. The desperate Chen Tianqiao once again fell into crisis, and the abandoned grand game was picked up again from a forgotten corner.
3. Riding alone to save the field again: Freemium (November 28, 2005)
On February 28, 2006, Shanda released its unaudited financial report for the fourth quarter of 2005 and the full year: its Q4 net loss reached 538.9 million yuan, which was Shanda's first loss since its listing in May 2004.
Not long ago, some media said that Shanda's transformation was ineffective and was questioned by investors. "Recently, Shanda has disbanded the media center, and most of the original center employees have been dismissed, and the functions of this department will be classified as the sales center."
At the same time, there was news that Shanda's capital chain was cut off from the market.
Regarding Wall Street's disapproval, Chen Tianqiao believes that "that's because they don't understand the Chinese market." Regarding layoffs, Chen Tianqiao said, "Some people who do not meet the requirements will inevitably fall behind."
After losing hundreds of millions of dollars and losing his second son, Chen Tianqiao had to rely on his eldest son again for respite. Fortunately, although Shanda Games has not been favored, it still has industry influence.
On November 28, 2005, Shanda announced that "Blood Legend" and "Dreamland" would be permanently free, and another flagship product, "Legend World", was officially free on December 2, 2005.
The so-called permanent free is not completely free, players still need to pay to enjoy other value-added application services provided by Shanda, such as Chuangtianguan, forging, shopping mall, etc.
Free is also shaping the moat of competition. The giant Shi Yuzhu believes that the threshold for online games (non-mobile games) is at least $100 million. Shanda took the lead in making several games permanently free, which is also a concrete manifestation of its first-mover advantage! If the latecomers want to catch up, they have to spend more or sacrifice more benefits. In this way, the threshold of the online game industry has been raised virtually.
As a result, Shanda began to transform into online games. In that year, more than 800 R&D personnel and more than 1,000 operation personnel were formed. However, at that time, Shi Yuzhu's "Journey" had already started to sweep for free, and the grand game of riding the Savior alone was not easy.
Still, the freemium model works. Reports in 2006 showed that Shan Daguang had made hundreds of millions of dollars in income from the "Crossing the Sky" and selling props during the "May 1st" period. The fee for selling the card is fixed, but the value-added fee can be charged indefinitely.
In 2007, China's online game revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan, and relying on Shanda Games, Shanda also maintained double-digit performance growth for two consecutive years.
In June 2008, Shanda Games Co., Ltd. was established. From January to April 2009, Shanda Games successively reached strategic cooperation with Kingsoft, Rainstorm Entertainment, and Thousand Oaks Interactive to jointly operate game products such as Swordsman World, Prophecy Online, and Shushan. Industry recognition and recognition.
In September 2009, Shanda Games was successfully listed on the Nasdaq stock market in the United States. And then announced the acquisition of the US MOCHIMEDIA company.
When Shanda Games thought that he was successful in "rescue" and already had an identity, Chen Tianqiao, who survived again, abandoned it again. Chen Tianqiao still hopes to have a "son" that he is satisfied with.
4. In the race for culture and entertainment, Shanda Games was abandoned again (September 25, 2009)
In 2009, it can be seen as the beginning of Shanda's prosperity and decline.
It was also in that year that Shanda's dominance for many years was challenged by Tencent, ranking second. However, Chen Tianqiao, who had slowed down the layout before, didn't care.
On September 25, 2009, Chen Tianqiao used his magical financial skills to spin off Shanda Games and raise an additional US$1.04 billion, making it the largest IPO in the United States that year, and the largest financing scale of China's Nasdaq-listed companies at that time. most.
Why do you say it's amazing? Because the core of Shanda Network was only the game when it was listed, and now the game is split and listed, it means that a fish has been sold twice, and both have made money! This financial skill is only comparable to Chen Yizhou of Renren.
However, if you think that the financing is for the development of Shanda Games in the future, then you underestimate Chen Tianqiao's ambition for "Disney" and his dislike of games.
As early as October 8, 2004, when there was no concept of IP, Shanda acquired Qidian Chinese.com. Around 2008 and 2009, a large-scale layout began. In July 2008, related businesses were integrated into Shanda Literature.
Shanda Literature accounts for 72% of the entire original literature market. The original literature websites operated include Qidian Chinese.com, Hongxiutianxiang.com, Novel Reading Network, Under the Banyan Tree, Romance Novel Bar, Xiaoxiang Academy, and Tianfang Tingshu.com, Yuedu.com, Jinjiang Literature City (50% equity). ). At the same time, it also owns three book planning and publishing companies, namely "Chinese World", "Zhongzhi Bowen" and "Jushi Wenhua". It is the largest private book publishing company in China, and has signed contracts with many contemporary first-line writers such as Han Han, Yu Dan, An Yiru, and Cai Kangyong.
In addition, Shanda acquired Ku6 Video for more than 100 million US dollars... In addition, there are many chess games on platforms such as music and reading terminals, and the puzzle modules of its entertainment empire are being successfully laid out piece by piece.
During this process, the treatment of Shanda Games was a bit miserable. In Zhihu's answer about why Shanda Games failed, Shanda Games at this time has also begun to fish.
For example, Zhihu Wang Ke believes that Shanda operates games with the mentality of “getting one vote and leaving”, and many good games are killed, resulting in extremely poor reputation. After Aion, there were a large number of die-hard users when it first came out, but they did not do anything because of the proliferation of plug-ins. In the end, they even sold Obis points directly and openly. It was really impossible to play. After the Dragon Valley, equipment that hits other occupations cannot be traded, and the transaction must be unbound, and it will cost money to unbind. It will cost a few hundred yuan to unbind a month. I really can't think of a reason to have such a disgusting charge point.
During the period, someone else gave an example: the so-called successful products such as CF and DNF have also gone through detours, but Tencent has just changed the product, and the plug-in that should be dealt with has also been dealt with. After Shanda got the Dragon Valley, it was a great opportunity to turn around, but in the face of numerous bugs and technical problems in the early stage... "It just lacks the kind of focus and patience of other companies such as Tencent."
Zhihu user Cuddymm Miao said that he has been fascinated by Legend World since the second grade of elementary school, but "Shanda started with games, but it doesn't manage well. You can go to Shanda-related games, most of them are scolding Shanda and Chen Tianqiao. ".
Zhihu user Daokedao commented that Shanda Games, "It's really a bottomless and unscrupulous way to attract money. After you get it, you are an uncle if you have money. Crap!" "A very good game, I really admire it by Shanda!"
But it also comes from Chen Tianqiao's view of the game. Unlike the past, which is still on the side, this time through the freemium model, the remaining value of the game can be further squeezed. It's not what I want anyway, so why not squeeze it out?
Some professionals analyzed that: "The free model has triggered Shanda's crazy expansion and construction of value-added services. Game developers no longer pay attention to the entertainment of the game itself, but tend to set up obstacles to allow users to pay for customs clearance."
"When developers don't pay attention to the entertainment of the game itself and only want to make money, players become guinea pigs under the control of Shanda's new model. In order to make money, Shanda Games has carried out a lot of customs clearance for value-added services, such as unpacking and earning props. This setting allows paying players to have a greater probability of getting clearance items than other ordinary players, so on the Shanda platform, many RMB players are born, which destroys the most attractive balance of the game itself Lose."
In a sense, Shanda personally sounded the "death knell" for its "Legend" and other game products.
However, Chen Tianqiao must not care. Shanda Games has also become a money making machine, and no one cares how far he goes. There are also waves of criticism on the Internet, and Shanda Games can do nothing about it. In terms of exhausting the pond and fishing, no one cares about the grand game. He tried hard to win the appreciation of his "father", and eventually he became something that even he hated.
5. Farewell: The "son" who was never loved (January 1, 2017)
On August 31, 2016, news broke on the Internet that Zhu Jisheng, the COO of Shanda Games, resigned, and Cui Wei, the vice president of Shanda Games, Zheng Jianxin, the producer of the legendary mobile game, and He Ping, the IT director, also resigned one after another. On Shanda Games, the traces of Shanda have faded, and only the name left behind will disappear and be cleared in a few months.
In November 2014, Shanda Games received a privatization offer, and since then has sung this privatization drama that has never seen an end. When the privatization was in progress, in November 2014, Shanda Games announced that Shanda Network would sell its 18.2% stake in Shanda Games. At the same time, Shanda Games announced that Chen Tianqiao resigned as the director of Shanda Games and the chairman of Shanda Games, the remuneration committee, and the chairman of the corporate development and finance committee. Chen Tianqiao sold the business he started with and turned from an integration madman to a Terminator.
Not long before, Shanda sold Ku 6; not long after that, on March 16, 2015, Tencent's merger with Shanda Literature was finally settled, and the new company after the merger became the "leader" in market share and had nothing to do with Shanda. .
What followed was the news that Chen Tianqiao had faded out of the industry and was ready to engage in investment. The current positioning of Shanda's official website is: "the world's leading investment holding group". To become an investment holding group like Legend Holdings, this is Chen Tianqiao's new battlefield. It is also the "fourth child" he gave birth to after the "Second Son" Shanda Box and the "Third Son" Cultural Entertainment. Although he has not yet surpassed the status of Shanda Games, it is said that he has been living well. Chen Tianqiao also put all his energy on it.
Then, this has been drained, and the father does not like the child at all, of course let him go out and establish his own business.
Fortunately, this child has been relatively strong since he was a child, and has propped up the facade of the house by himself. I believe that after being kicked out of the house, no matter how good or bad, he will always be able to live. The only suspense now is: On January 1, 2017, "Shanda Games" will cease to exist, so who will it be?
Goodbye, Shanda Network; hello, the second half of life full of unknowns.
Startup-Partner.com's exclusive manuscript, please indicate the link and source for reprinting. The author of this article: Lesser Gun, Eyan, WeChat: zrzlike, please contact: [email protected]