The Manufacturers' Little Schemes

Empty floors, dirty and messy walls.

Meng Shu walked through the dust to the window, silently lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag.

Looking down at the lush greenery of the Industrial Park from the 7th floor, I exhaled a smoke ring.

"Please give me a reasonable price."

"Okay, Mr. Meng."

The saleswoman in business attire behind him flashed her signature smile.

"Jichuang Industrial Park is located in a relatively bustling area, with various shops and restaurants nearby, and it's less than a ten-minute walk from the Metro station. If you are serious about renting, this entire floor of more than 500 square meters can be rented for you at 4 yuan per square meter per day."

After hearing this, Meng Shu nodded.

"The monthly rent is 60,000, right? What about the property management fee?"

"The property management fee is 15 yuan per square meter, payable monthly."

After hearing this, Meng Shu took a deep drag of his cigarette, exhaled, and the smoke dissipated into the air.

"67,500."

He turned around, walked into the empty company, and looked it over carefully.

This is one of the rooms on the 7th floor of Building A in Jichuang Industrial Park.

In terms of size, it's about 70 square meters.

Originally, Meng Shu did not intend to consider this place, even though the location was good, she was prepared to change places.

Because it's too small.

But then the real estate agent said that everyone on the entire floor had moved out, which made him stop.

Upon further inquiry, it was learned that the previous company was a training company, which had become unsustainable for some reason, leading to the decision to leave.

Meng Shu didn't care about her previous company.

Such an opportunity to occupy an entire floor is rare in Shencheng.

Moreover, the area is about 500 square meters. As long as the walls other than the load-bearing walls are knocked down, it will appear very spacious.

So he thought about it and didn't leave immediately.

Instead, he went into each and every room to take a look.

It has to be said, there was a lot of trash.

The previous training company left a lot of things here.

Is it possible to lower the price?

The agent was immediately at a loss.

"Mr. Meng, this price is already the lowest. It was originally 5 square meters per day, but seeing that you are a young entrepreneur, I talked to the landlord for a long time before we got this price of 4 square meters per day."

Seeing the sincerity in the agent's words, Meng Shu couldn't help but smile.

Just listen to what she says and leave it at that.

After looking around, I became more and more satisfied, and a renovation plan began to take shape in my mind.

If we rent this place, we can staff it with more people.

At the same time, for the sake of employees' health, the gym and office furniture need to be upgraded in all aspects.

Therefore, both the office area and the gym area need to be larger.

We also need to hire a cook to prevent them from eating takeout.

The ample space allows for a larger Motion Capture Room, and given that it's a game company, it's perfectly reasonable to have a multi-platform game experience room.

At least it allows employees to relax and unwind here.

Of course, it may be impossible to use it frequently due to being too busy with work.

But that doesn't matter. For Meng Shu, having such a lounge is no problem; the employees will definitely use it.

So after thinking it over, he decided to rent the place.

After discussing the safety hazards and follow-up issues with the agent, I went to the agency to sign the contract.

Next, you need to find a suitable renovation company to start designing and decorating.

Meng Shu handed the matter over to Accountant Sister Mei, and then went to the real estate center.

The new office space has been chosen; all that's left is the renovation.

This will probably take at least six months to resolve.

So I still have to work for my current company.

Furthermore, due to space constraints, there are not enough positions available for new employees, so the recruitment process must continue to be postponed.

Meanwhile, Meng Shu also outsourced the console porting of the three games, Dark Forest, 21 Points, Visage.

It was originally intended to be handed over to Infinite Network Entertainment, but they are currently developing a new game and cannot spare the time.

Therefore, they could only provide Meng Shu with a few studios that had long-term cooperation and decent technical capabilities for him to choose from.

Meng Shu spent some time learning about these companies and eventually chose a small company called ' Future Studio '.

Although they are not large in scale, they are quite powerful according to the company information.

They are involved in most FPS games on the market, and they themselves say they are very good at shooting games and are long-term partners of many game companies.

Because of their exceptionally good shooting feedback, they have a good reputation in the industry and among gamers.

So asking them to help port the game would be a waste of their talents.

However, this reassured Meng Shu, who then entrusted all three games to them for porting at once, and provided ample funding.

The goal is to allow players who are afraid to play VR to also experience Horror Games through other means.

As for the VR version of "Dark Forest".

Due to the current limitations of engine technology on the market, no company can achieve this except for its own monkey system.

So I have to do it myself.

Qiu Yuan, Xu Hong, Xia Nianzhen are currently working diligently.

Chen An even suggested expanding the storyline and adding side quests to the VR version of "Dark Forest".

Meng Shu thought about it and agreed to the request.

Anyway, everything will eventually have to go through his approval before it can be implemented, so let them do whatever they want.

Now, it's time to move to a new home.

At this time, due to the global popularity of Skyhill, and the public criticism from Jiyou Network, the situation was further complicated.

Many medium and large domestic manufacturers have begun to re-examine this development company called ' Only Game '.

Although I paid some attention to the Dark Forest game when it was released before, I didn't take it seriously.

After all, this game was Horror Games at the time, and it was advertised as being developed by an individual.

Therefore, domestic manufacturers do not believe that there will be any achievements.

It was just a young man with wild ideas wanting to pursue his dreams.

There are quite a few people like this at the university game expo every year.

To their utter astonishment, the young man actually succeeded!

The game industry is known as an extremely niche market, where the horror and suspense genre is so unpopular that anyone who tries it will fail. Yet, this unknown young man and his game have actually become famous.

Even so, the major manufacturers were only slightly surprised and did not take it seriously.

After all, the Horror Games genre has been a niche genre for over a decade.

The sudden emergence of a wildly popular Horror Games could be seen as either a final burst of energy before the market dies, or a small, unexpected wave in a calm sea.

After that, everything returned to normal.

They wouldn't blindly rush into the horror market just because a Horror Games has become a hit. Entering without experience would be suicidal.

It would be better to stick to making the game genres you're good at.

Moreover, over the past decade, many bold companies have ventured into this niche market to seek profits, but all have ended in failure.

With so many failures to their name, they didn't want to blindly spend a large budget and manpower to develop a Horror Games with an uncertain future just because of one successful case.

Therefore, the huge success of "Dark Forest" did not impress the developers, who even believed that it was just due to favorable timing and location, and that the next game might not achieve the same results.

but

They never expected this.

Following "Dark Forest", this young man has actually managed to get on the good side of Infinite Network Entertainment!

Then, with the help of big investors, they launched the VR Horror Games "21 Points"!

And it's free!

VR + free + horror, combined together, was undoubtedly a godsend at a time when the horror environment was extremely poor and VR Game were terrible!

So unsurprisingly, this Horror Games became a hit again, with 4.1 million downloads making developers realize that the Horror Games market is gradually recovering!

It's no longer a stagnant pool like before!

It's a 'new market' with lots of players and lots of money!

As a result, major domestic manufacturers began to pay attention and started to conduct comprehensive market research.

But the market has been stagnant for so long that no one has any experience in making Horror Games.

Entering the market with zero experience will only result in being crushed by "Dark Forest" and "21 Points," becoming someone else's stepping stone and using your own reputation to help others succeed.

No!

So we still need to be careful, and at the very least, we need to have experience!

As a result, major manufacturers began recruiting talent to prepare for entering the Horror Games market.

As for the Only Game, they still didn't take it seriously, after all, Infinite Network Entertainment had a well-known reputation.

The success of the game will only be attributed to the strength of this leading company, not to the Only Game "working for" it.

This led them to believe that Infinite Network Entertainment was the Only Game.

Then, major manufacturers gathered talent to study Dark Forest and 21 Points, analyzing their gameplay and mechanics.

In this context, the release of Visage once again shocked the developers.

This new game features an unprecedented rational setting, ingenious story presentation, a terrifyingly thrilling experience, and a mysterious and enigmatic story background.

With its exceptional quality, it has once again captivated players.

The manufacturers immediately became uneasy.

They saw it all and were very worried.

If this continues, the entire Horror Games market will become the domain of Infinite Network Entertainment.

Therefore, manufacturers began to release a game first to test the waters and see the market response, regardless of the consequences.

If you have no experience, try it out and gain experience; after all, this is something that is accumulated over time!

With this in mind, the manufacturers began to take action.

Unexpectedly, at this moment, a dark horse suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

Jiyou Network burst onto the scene with its game "Jungle Terror," dominating the market.

With its own technological prowess, it squeezed out other manufacturers and dominated the competition with its Horror Games.

Then it got cold.

The kind that can't be saved.

This has made major manufacturers wary once again.

History has repeated itself: whoever makes Horror Games is doomed!

Even leading companies like Jiyou Network suffered a crushing defeat, so how could small and medium-sized companies dare to spend money to try and fail?

But now that we've recruited people, established a working group, and analyzed the game, are we going to give up halfway?

Seeing the booming Horror Games market, major game developers decided to take the failure of Ji You as a warning. They immediately settled down, intending to take their time and focus on quality, developing their own Horror Games to avoid following in the footsteps of Ji You.

And so, it was still in production until the release of Skyhill.

At the same time, the prize-winning activities of the Only Game made them take it seriously.

This company, which they viewed as a 'job', has already created a globally bestselling blockbuster game in less than a year since its establishment.

They even funded events that were essentially free to give back to the players.

Do you think Infinite Network Entertainment would be so kind?

That's definitely impossible. We're all in the same industry, so we all know each other's character to some extent.

Capitalists are giving money to a bunch of people who just play games, and they think that's all they're doing?

Would Infinite Network Entertainment do this?

Joke!

Therefore, the only one who can afford to take out this money and make the decision on their own is Only Game itself.

If they were truly just employees, Infinite Network Entertainment would definitely not agree to this.

So, what is the relationship between these two companies?

It might not be as the outside world thinks.

The Only Game's quality is exceptionally high, its technical capabilities have reached the VR field, and it's willing to offer generous rewards to players.

These factors alone are enough to make manufacturers take this seriously.

As a result, a company called Xingheng Games set its sights on Only Game.

I didn't finish this chapter yesterday, so I rewrote it and am only posting it today. There will be two more chapters tonight.