Chapter 795 The Human Game Behind the Data

Chapter 795 The Human Game Behind the Data

To be honest, in this movie "The Bride with White Hair", only Zhao Zhuozhuo's fighting scenes are worth watching. Her posture of fluttering in the air in a white dress is indeed elegant.

But how did everyone else perform?
It looks just like an embroidered pillow in a window, which looks good but is useless.

In comparison, although "The Lost Tomb" used many newcomers, the performances of the main characters were just right. Especially the brilliant moment at the end of the film, when Chen Guandong slowly stepped into the black stone door and suddenly turned his head to smile evilly.

The smile was three parts sarcasm and seven parts madness; the curve of the corners of the mouth seemed to have been carefully measured with a ruler, and even the eyes revealed a chilling joy.

Later, this short three-second shot was praised by countless film critics as the most unforgettable cult moment in Chinese-language films.

The audience in the theater was obviously shocked. When the end credits started, one could hear people gasping in shock.

He is worthy of being Brother Guandong. He has good looks, good acting skills, can sing, dance, and take photos. He is simply a perfect artist.

Chen Xi clapped along with the audience's applause.

"Oh, Chen Guandong is still quite handsome, and that Peng Yuyan is not bad either after losing weight..." Xu Yun was similar to other women, with a crazy look on her face.

"Haha, a rich woman like you can definitely afford to support several male artists, and you can have a different one every day."

"I am a very loyal person in relationships, and my father is the boss of a listed company, so my private life cannot be as promiscuous as others!"

Seeing the man next to her teasing her again, Xu Yun pretended to be a holy fairy.

"Haha, what do you think of our company's movies?"

"Not bad, you were able to invite so many well-known artists, which shows that you have good resources."

Xu Yun said proudly.

"Didn't you say you wanted to invest money?"

"It depends on my mood. I suddenly have another idea."

"what is that?"

"I think Ni Li is just average looking, not to mention her acting skills. She can play the leading role, so I don't think it will be a problem for me to play the role."

"..."

Chen Xi looked at the woman carefully and didn't say anything.

"What? Do you think I'm not pretty?" Xu Yun stood up and turned around. Several audience members who were about to leave gave her puzzled looks.

To be honest, Xu Yun's looks are okay now, but in the future she will definitely be an internet celebrity.

To put it simply, she has no special features. If someone like her were to act in a movie, probably few people would be able to remember her appearance.

"Um...acting in a movie requires a lot of acting skills."

"This is easy, just learn a few steps and you'll be fine. Boy, I see you have a nice build, do you want to have a nice encounter tonight?"

Xu Yun leaned over, pressed her fingers on Chen Xi's abdomen, and performed an impromptu performance.

This look is quite like the style of a sea queen.

Chen Xi felt ashamed and thought that this woman could only play the role of a scumbag.

A few minutes later, the two walked out of the screening room and happened to bump into Yang Dan who had just walked out.

"You, woman, are really involved with him. I thought you were joking and making excuses to reject me!" Yang Dan looked at Xu Yun who was holding Chen Xi's arm, and his anger suddenly rose.

"Do I have anything to do with you?" Xu Yun sneered and glanced at Yang Dan and the woman beside him.

"Do you know who he is? My father and your father are business partners. His father is our common enemy. You are actually involved with the son of our enemy..." Yang Dan said relentlessly.

"What nonsense! Heng Xiao Group only cooperates with the strong. I have never heard my father say that he is a partner with you. Besides, in the business world, today's enemy may be a friend tomorrow. There is only eternal interest!"

"Don't talk nonsense to me! Chen Xi, just wait for your money to be paid. I just checked and our "Legend of the White-Haired Witch" was sold out and received rave reviews online. Your little movie that was put together by someone else can't compare..."

"Let's go. I don't want to listen to a mad dog barking." Chen Xi ignored Yang Dan's chattering and walked towards the door.

"Fuck, you two bastards." Yang Dan raised his middle finger upon seeing this.

"We haven't watched 'The Treasure Chronicles' yet. Do you want to go and have a look?" After everyone left, the woman next to Yang Dan said while looking at the posters of Chen Guandong, Hu Ge and Eddie Peng on the wall. After all, no woman could resist seeing these three handsome men on stage at the same time.

"Look at your mother!" Yang Dan glared at her and left angrily.

"You're crazy. If you don't take me to see it, I'll buy a ticket and go see it myself." The woman curled her lips, picked up her phone, opened the address book, found a person named Spare Tire No. 13 and dialed the number.

An hour later, Xu Yun was downstairs at the hotel.

"Your acting just now was pretty good. You acted like a domineering female CEO."

"What, are you fascinated by me? Didn't you ask me before if there was a trap under my skirt? Do you want to check it out tonight?" Xu Yun rubbed against Chen Xi.

"Haha, I'm only interested in business. If you want to invest, you can come to me. But I'm not short of money at the moment. If you have a lot of money, I can consider it..." Chen Xi shrugged, pushed Xu Yun into the hotel and left.

"What an unromantic man! Am I really so unattractive?" Xu Yun looked at Chen Xi who was leaving and couldn't help but start to doubt her own appearance.

The next day, God Forum.

There were two strange men sitting on the sofa in the office.

Xing Tian is very familiar with one of them, that is the current helmsman of 17173 - Liu Dehua.

Speaking of 17173, it was previously acquired by Chao Yangge. Later, after a certain Fox went public, it was spun off. Then companies such as Penguin and NetOne extended olive branches to it.

This website was a popular main site for online games in China in the early days. If you wanted your game to be well-known, you had to cooperate with them and advertise.

As for the other one, he is the once influential figure in Legend of Mir - Xiao Xiami. Almost all the old players who have played Legend of Mir have heard of his name. He is known for defending Shabak alone and monopolizing the main city of Shabak for six years.

This person is a boss in Zhijiang, who is engaged in real estate. Later, he changed his industry and became an investor in international web games and live broadcast guilds. His financial strength is not bad. The main reason is that he is good at speaking and has great appeal, which can attract many game players.

As for how Chen Xi got to know him, it was just a coincidence.

That year, this Xiao Xiami account was stolen, and the hacker came to exchange accounts with Chen Xi. At that time, Chen Xi's account was also one of the best in the district. After seeing the nickname of the other party, he did not refuse, and just took an account with a good level and equipment and exchanged it with the other party's empty account.

Then the original owner of the account, Xiao Xiami, came to visit, and Chen Xi gave the account to him directly, and the two became friends.

In fact, many of these people who play Legend are big shots in real life. Many years ago, they just spent hundreds or tens of millions to buy equipment and hire people to fight, and they don’t feel sorry at all.

"I heard that Tianya Forum is now cooperating with a Korean game company. Although our website can provide advertisements for it, domestic players cannot download your games..." Liu Dehua said it very implicitly, meaning that Chen Xi's money would be wasted.

"There are many Android phones in China, and each phone basically has its own shopping mall. Many players search for games in the mall and enter the channel server without knowing it. This has led to a large number of players thinking that they are playing on the official server. Although mobile game accounts are not as expensive as online game accounts, they can still be sold for money. The first thing we have to do is to let them download the unified official server, which requires both parties to cooperate to create a software that will provide domestic and foreign game downloads." Chen Xi explained.

"But this will reduce the revenue of mobile phone manufacturers." Liu Dehua was a little hesitant.

“Don’t worry about that. Their channel services don’t actually generate much revenue. If we become big, and mobile phone manufacturers choose to boycott us and not let our software be listed in the mall, we will be the ones who suffer the biggest loss. On the contrary, our App can be downloaded directly from the website…” Chen Xi smiled and waved his hand.

Taptap also encountered this situation in its previous life. The software could not be found in any major mobile phone shopping malls because it was affecting other people’s business.

But later on, mobile phone manufacturers felt that this was meaningless. Android software can be downloaded directly from the website and installed on the phone. Their software store is just for mobile phone novices.

After using a smartphone, most Android users will not download anything from the original app store. Instead, they will choose to install the Google Play Store and get apps directly from the full-blooded store.

Because almost 99% of mobile phone shopping malls in China are castrated versions, there are only a handful of software options.

"How do we solve the recharge problem?"

"This is easy. International players usually top up their accounts by credit card, but Apple is very simple. WeChat has already launched the payment function, and it won't be long before top-ups become quick and easy..."

"What about the game live streaming we discussed before? Three live streaming platforms have just appeared on the market in the past few months, Douyu, Foxtooth, and Zhanqi. The predecessors of these three platforms were A站, Waiwai, and Bianfeng Network. They had millions of users just a few months after going online. We are also doing game live streaming now. Isn't the competition too fierce?" Liu Dehua said hesitantly.

"If we don't enter the market now, we will have no chance once they become bigger. According to the information I have heard, DouYu platform is now in a state of loss, and it is not small, and it is completely supported by financing. Fox Tooth has achieved profitability through commissions from rewards and advertising fees. Since it was spun off from Waiwai, it has a user base. However, because the platform took too much commission and it was too early, some anchors have begun to switch to DouYu. Zhanqi has a state-owned background and focuses on live broadcasts of LOL events. It is a platform with relatively few types..." Chen Xi analyzed for them based on the memories and investigation results of his previous and current lives.

"I support game live streaming, and we want to make an international version!" Xiao Xiami, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up. This person is a bold person, because he had accumulated a lot of funds in the early days of real estate, and he was not afraid of losing money at all.

"The current international version of the live streaming platform is Twitch, which has 1 million monthly active users. It's a bit difficult to compete with them now. Let's develop the domestic market first." Chen Xi analyzed, touching his chin.

According to the situation in the past life, Twitch is currently the international leader in game live streaming, but in a few months it will be acquired by Amazon, followed by a decline in performance.

But this life is different from the previous one and cannot be defined in this way.

"The game Legend is still popular, but the PC version can no longer be live-streamed. I think we should get the copyright from Korea and develop it into a mobile game. The Legend web game is very popular now. What's the brainwashing slogan? One sword will create 999 fires. If you are a brother, come and chop me." Xiao Xiami could hardly hide his excitement on his face.

The game Legend is different from 99% of the games on the market. You can PK at will, which is very attractive to players who play games with high payout ratio.

You know, many games nowadays have no competitive attributes. No matter how much money a player tops up, he can only enjoy himself in front of the screen, and a lot of top-quality equipment has become useless ornaments. It is called an online game, but the attributes of single-player games are getting stronger and stronger.

If you want players to recharge, you must make them feel that recharging is useful. Recharging can crush other players, and it also corresponds to the real world, which can motivate people to open their wallets.

"Well, but we have to develop other games. Young people nowadays don't like games like Legend. They like fair gameplay without krypton gold. In fact, I quite like the earliest point card recharge, but it is no longer suitable for the market. Players will turn around and leave when they see that there is a charge for something." Chen Xi nodded, then shook his head.

"So what game should we play?"

"We have previously worked with a Korean company to develop a game called Monster Summoning. It not only has exquisite graphics, but also uses a blind box card drawing model. It will be open for testing in a while. By then, there will only be one server in the world, and all players will be in it. I hope you can promote it well." Chen Xi took out a computer to show the two of them.

This Monster Summoning is actually the Summoners War that was popular all over the world in the previous life. It has been popular for ten years since its launch and can be said to be a money-making tool in the global mobile game industry.

"This game also has a global competition mode where you can win generous prizes. In addition, we are also planning to create a team mode and take out bets on foreign gambling websites. Of course, people in the country cannot participate, after all, they have to abide by the law..." Chen Xi added.

"Oh, this does look a bit like Pokémon!" the two said in unison while looking at the screen.

"That's right, this is made according to the Pokémon model." Chen Xi snapped his fingers.

Nowadays, the game industry is full of copycats. As long as you have your own original story background and design, you won't be sued for plagiarism.

"Well, there are two types of game live streaming now, one is the technical type, and the other is the appearance type. What competitive game you just mentioned, you can get a few game babes up there to bring in some traffic." Xiao Xiami gave a suggestion.

This reminded Chen Xi of a celebrity in his previous life who later became an NBA ambassador. It seemed that next year would be the time for his debut, and the location would still be in Xinlu. Of course, that debut was not successful, and he gradually became famous by wearing overalls and playing basketball.

(I happened to meet this NBA ambassador when I stayed at the Versace Hotel two months ago. In fact, I didn’t know many of the young artists nowadays until I saw a group of fans holding up Kun Kun’s sign and calling him brother. My first reaction was to wonder why this guy was so popular. Later I realized that Kun Kun was actually the spokesperson for Versace. Kun Kun was quite popular on the Internet before. I watched a lot of ghost videos, which were quite magical, haha.)
Thinking of Kun Kun, Chen Xi felt that he could also expand his platform through some talent shows.

He expressed his thoughts, and everyone's expressions were very strange. Because this is the gaming industry, not the entertainment industry.

"Games + singing and dancing, seems to be a good idea." Xiao Xiami touched his chin and grinned.

What he was thinking about in his mind were naturally the things that the marginal anchors did.

Liu Dehua is a returnee from overseas. He used to be more of a homebody. All he imagined was the scene of female anchors wearing in-game costumes to attract the audience.

A month later.

The battle between "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch" and "The Treasure Notes" has finally come to an end.

The two are evenly matched in terms of box office, one with 4.3 million and the other with 4.2 million.

However, the film claimed to have invested 2 million yuan, but in fact it cost more than that. Even if the subsequent copyright income is included, it cannot make back the investment. According to previous calculations, the box office must reach about 5.5 million yuan.

in the country, when the box office revenue is shared, the film company actually receives less than 40% of the money.

Among these, cinemas and theater chains account for the highest proportion, reaching about 50%, the National Film Fund and distribution agency fees account for about 10%, and the rest is the income of the film company.

The hidden costs include publicity and promotion fees, tax + financial costs, and copyright amortization, which total about 3000 million.

Of course, the box office of "The Bride with White Hair" is higher than that of "The Lost Tomb" not because the movie is good, but because they won by buying tickets.

In terms of investment, the investment cost of "Treasure Notes" is obviously lower than that of "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch", because those big-name artists are only guest stars, and although they received some symbolic fees, the total amount is not as high as that of Huang Daming and Shui Ye.

Most of the investment went into special effects and publicity.

Chen Xi actually bought tickets, but not too many. Most movies actually buy tickets to make the data look good and attract more audiences.

"The Legend of the White-Haired Witch" Douban score: 6.7 points

Summary of the review:

★★☆“Special effects are gorgeous, but the plot is fragmented”

"Zhao Zhuozhuo's fighting scenes are indeed amazing, but the whole movie is like a PPT-style narrative. The 'blackening' of the White-haired Witch has no foreshadowing, and the emotions are forced by makeup and background music. Huang Daming's dialogue skills are still terrible, and every time he opens his mouth, people are distracted."

★★★“Martial arts skin, romance core”

"The costumes and props are exquisite, but the script is too weak. The heroine's view of the 'jianghu' is to quarrel with the hero, make up, and quarrel again. Fans of the original novel want to overturn the table, but Zhao Zhuozhuo's martial arts design is worth one star."

“Waste of IP”

"Does the director think that the audience just wants to see slow-motion gray hair? The plot logic is so broken that it looks like the work of a novice screenwriter. Shui Ye's acting is like 'I'm very expensive, don't let me act too much' throughout."

"White Hair" ranked first in the most popular comments: "After watching it, I just want to ask: where did the 2 million go? Did Shui Ye's salary account for 1.5 million?" (5.2 likes)

"Treasure Notes" rating on Douban: 8.3 points

Summary of the review:

★★★★"A new benchmark for domestic adventure films"

“Chen Guandong’s evil smile will definitely go down in film history! The script has twists and turns, and the scene design is sophisticated, especially the long shot of the ‘bronze strange tree’. The special effects are not exaggerated but full of oppression.”

★★★★☆“The supporting role is more eye-catching than the protagonist”

“Although the new actors are not very experienced, the cameos by the veteran actors are the icing on the cake. The lighting and shadow arrangement of the final tomb collapse scene is comparable to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is definitely worth the 8.3 rating.”

★★★★“Finally, they don’t treat the audience as fools anymore”

“There is no forced love storyline, and the focus is on puzzle solving and team games. The investors have sharp eyes and the production team is highly skilled. The special effects of this film are definitely better than those of many domestic films.”

At this stage, a domestic film that can score above 8 points on a certain platform is considered an excellent work.

"The Treasure Hunters" topped the list of reviews: "Pay attention to the Easter egg at the end of the film! Chen Guandong's smile was improvised, and the director said to keep it. This is even more cruel than what was written in the script." (8.7 likes)

Previously, Chen Xi and Huang Youde's bet was based on the box office, return rate, and ratings of the movie. Now "Treasure Notes" is considered to be two wins out of three.

In the office, Xing Tian clenched his fists excitedly and cheered on the spot. But when he looked at the calm Chen Xi, he couldn't help but asked with a puzzled look on his face: "Why are you not excited at all?"

“Why are you excited?”

"They lost 50 million to us."

“Do you think they will give you this money?”

“It’s written in black and white!”

"Hey, why don't you call and ask for money?"

"Beat me if I want. Do I need to worry that they will default on their debt? If they don't give it to me, I will sue them!" Xing Tian picked up the phone unconvinced.

After more than ten minutes, he couldn't laugh anymore and hung up the phone angrily.

"That bastard Huang Youde actually refused to pay, saying that the contract didn't work and that it would be useless even if I sued him. He even turned the tables and said that we cheated by swiping tickets and buying points, and that we won by using despicable means..." Xing Tian lit a cigarette and inhaled too hard because he was angry, causing him to cough a few times.

"There is nothing wrong with what he said. This contract actually has loopholes, according to Article 153 of the Civil Code, Article 11 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, and Article 34 of the Film Industry Promotion Law. If it only involves property gambling (no manipulation of box office), it may be deemed a valid contract. If there is false advertising through ghost theaters or money is slipped into the theater chain, then the contract will be invalid..." Chen Xi explained slowly.

"You know all this, so why do you still want to gamble?"

"In fact, I don't care about the money in this bet. Even if I win 50 million, I still have to pay taxes! How much can I get? The reason I agreed to this bet is nothing more than to deal with Shui Ye and Huang Youde. This guy has been doing small things to harm us in private before, so I naturally want to retaliate against him. Of course, they have the Film Association behind them. This revenge on them must have a legitimate reason. We are in the right now. Although everyone has cheated on the tickets, we are the loser in the box office competition, so it doesn't count..." Chen Xi said while taking out his mobile phone from his pocket. (End of this chapter)