Chapter 681 Coin-Operated Arcade Machine

The economic crisis soon affected all industries in Hong Kong;

After the stock market crash, international capital withdrew, leaving behind countless local small shareholders and small companies that suffered losses. Many of these people were in debt when speculating in stocks. After the losses, some people went bankrupt, but not the majority. Most of them persisted.
The stock market suffered heavy losses, so in order to repay the debt, the company had to sell its properties. The same was true for the company. In addition, the market expectations were not good, and the real estate market also began to decline. Especially in the first month, the decline was very large, once exceeding 15%;

The decline of both the stock market and the property market has also caused a significant reduction in the wealth of many people, so consumption has naturally declined. The various hotels and restaurants in Causeway Bay no longer have the charm they once had, and even the taxis nearby have seen a significant drop in business.
At this point, the financial industry, real estate industry, service industry, etc. have all suffered a huge impact, and various layoffs have naturally occurred. Too many people have become unemployed, which has caused further sluggish consumption and formed a vicious circle. Many times, this is the reason why economic crises are difficult to resolve.

Fortunately, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry is mainly export-oriented, so the local economy has little impact on it. In fact, it is the opposite. When other industries in Hong Kong are prosperous, the labor costs of the manufacturing industry increase. Now that other industries are not doing well, more people are flocking to the manufacturing industry to seek jobs, which in turn lowers the cost of the manufacturing industry.
This is very "good news" for Hong Kong's manufacturing industry, which relies on making money in "sweatshops". Coupled with the normal operation of several container terminals, transportation costs have also been reduced a lot. Hong Kong's manufacturing industry will naturally continue to prosper.

Time soon came to 1973, the economic crisis continued, and Yang Wendong paid little attention to these things. Now, with the arrival of the economic crisis, what he wanted to plan had either been realized or needed to wait;
After all, even if history changes, this crisis will take at least a year or so. Unless it is some high-quality real estate, there is no investment value now. As for those companies that are worth looking at, they also need to wait moderately. At least Wharf Holdings must first acquire a few buildings before pitting Jardine Matheson. At the same time, it can also allow its own shipping company to get out of the future crisis earlier, killing two birds with one stone.
As for Hutchison Whampoa, it is still too early. With Qi Dezun's ability, this crisis will not have any impact on him at the beginning. Only when the overall economy is in a slump for too long and Hutchison Whampoa's performance in all aspects is really beyond recovery, can he be defeated.

Therefore, Yang Wendong's focus naturally began to gradually shift to several manufacturing industries under his own name.

On January 1, Yang Wendong brought Su Yiyi and his eldest son Yang Zhiwen to the Honor Electronics Industrial Park in North Point, Hong Kong Island. After years of planning and investment by the Hong Kong government and Honor Electronics, this has become the largest electronics industrial base in Hong Kong. Even many electronics companies that have nothing to do with Honor Electronics have settled here.

Tens of thousands of workers have stable jobs here, and their average income is much higher than that of other industries such as textiles, toys, and plastics. This has also provided a stabilizer for Hong Kong's economy in times of crisis. At least the consumption and life of these groups are still normal, unless they have participated in the stock and property markets with heavy debts.

After arriving at a laboratory, he saw a large number of arcade machines placed inside the room. When Yang Zhiwen saw them, his eyes lit up, but he did not dare to move due to the authority of his father.

Until Su Yiyi, as a mother, saw the child's performance, she smiled and said, "Go play for a while."

After hearing this, Yang Zhiwen immediately laughed happily, then trotted over to a game console and started playing happily;

Yang Wendong said to an assistant here: "Follow Zhiwen and let him take a break after 20 minutes. He can't have the habit of playing for a long time."

In fact, children's nature is to play, no matter what era it is. In the past, those born in the 80s gathered together to play marbles, hoop rolling, shuttlecock kicking, stone grabbing, etc., those born in the 90s played with red and white video games, game halls, video halls, and Internet cafes, and those born in the 00s played with smart phones, various online games, etc.
It is impossible to stop them from playing, and humans are also gregarious animals. If a child cannot get in touch with the games played by their friends, they will be isolated, which is not suitable for their growth.

Therefore, any game for children is fine as long as it does not involve safety issues, but no game should be addicted to it. Moderation is enough, especially for video games, which can easily cause myopia, so this should be taken more seriously.
The young assistant agreed, "Yes, Mr. Yang."

At this time, Wang Zhiqun beside him said, "Mr. Yang, Mrs. Yang, the machine in front is the coin-operated arcade machine we are developing recently. It has been developed and engineers are using the "Space Adventure" game to test its accuracy."

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "You guys are quite fast."

Wang Zhiqun smiled awkwardly: "It's not that we are fast, but coin-operated machines have long been available overseas, but they are only targeted at the snack retail industry. This thing is still quite popular in Europe and the United States where labor is expensive, but it is almost non-existent in Hong Kong;

So I invited two coin-operated snack equipment engineers from the United States through Lin Sheng very early on, and then they just made some minor changes based on our needs. "

Places with high labor costs will gradually use various automated equipment to replace manual labor. This is even the basis for the development of some special economies. If labor is cheap enough, there will be no such demand, unless there is an industrial revolution like the steam engine that can greatly improve efficiency.

"Are you targeting the U.S. quarter?" Yang Wendong asked.

Wang Zhiqun replied: "Yes, the size of our equipment track is designed according to the size of the American 25-cent coin. However, we are not going to use money to invest directly. Instead, we will make game coins of the same size and give them to the bar owner."

"Why is that?" Yang Wendong also thought of the game hall he visited as a child in his previous life. The money used in the game hall was not coins, but game coins.

However, because it is the same size as a one-yuan coin, sometimes one-yuan coins can be found in a pile of coins.

Wang Zhiqun explained: "There are several reasons. One is to avoid legal risks. Using currency directly as game currency is not a problem in theory, but we are afraid that there will be disputes and cause trouble for the bar owner or even our company. After all, the laws in different states in the United States are different, which is very troublesome."

"Well, this is fine." Yang Wendong nodded in agreement;

When doing business in Europe, you have to deal with different languages, cultures, laws, etc., but although the United States is a country, the laws of each state are different, which can be very troublesome sometimes.
Wang Zhiqun continued: "The second reason is that we may also enter markets outside the United States in the future, so we cannot only use US dollars. Customized game coins are the most convenient;
The third is that 25 cents per game is too expensive, which will scare off many ordinary customers. If we use game coins, the value of each game coin is up to the owner to set the price. In this way, the owner can also achieve the most profitable pricing according to the situation of his bar. "

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "You've thought about it a lot. Good. How long can one game coin last?"

In the early 70s, the average salary in the United States was just over $7000, which was only $600 a month. Although people who came to the bar were more likely to be better off, it cost $0.25 to play a game and a few dollars a day to play a few games. This cost was too high.
Although it is different from 50 years later, even in this era, Americans' basic expenses are still quite high, especially rent, medical insurance, cars, etc., which also account for a large part of their income.

Wang Zhiqun said: "It depends on the difficulty setting of the game. We are also going to hand over this power to the boss, because we ourselves cannot figure out how to set the difficulty and currency pricing to maximize profits. I am counting on a large number of bars in the market to do the test, and then when we have feedback on the results, we will inform other customers."

"You are quite smart." Yang Wendong said with a faint smile.

When the two variables are combined, and considering that different bars have different customer groups, it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately study in the laboratory how to set them up to maximize profits.
But the market itself can. Countless bar owners, in order to maximize profits, will study and conduct different tests, and eventually they can find the best business model;
Wang Zhiqun smiled and said: "Making full use of the market is also our business principle."

Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Okay, how is the development of the new game I gave you earlier going?"

At present, Honor Electronics has two games, Ping Pong and Space Adventure, which are also responsible for the task of slowly expanding the US market.

As for the third game, Yang Wendong also understood that there was no rush, because Americans knew very little about arcade games, so this game was given to the internal team in Hong Kong to develop. These teams were also Chinese teams that returned from Intel or were poached from other companies.

This new game is called "speed race", in which players control cars to race on the field;
Although it is a racing game, it is still very different from the racing games in the previous life. The requirements on the screen are similar to [Ping Pong], which are games composed of different pixels;
Because of this, whether it is interface design, software design, hardware design, etc., we can refer to Intel’s previous designs. Therefore, we can give the Hong Kong team some practice with confidence. In essence, it is just a matter of slight changes.

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(End of this chapter)

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