203. Seeking talents is thirsty

This is almost a destined ending:

In June 2000, NetEase went public on Nasdaq, but it was not lucky. As soon as it was listed, it encountered the Nasnark bubble burst. On the day of listing, NetEase's stock fell below the issue price.

A week later, NetEase held a media meeting for its third anniversary. NetEase founder Ding Sanshi always smiled and chewed gum from time to time. Faced with NetEase's ups and downs in the stock market, Ding Sanshi's attitude was quite calm.

The darkness lasted until the second year. Ding Sanshi encountered the biggest challenge since his entrepreneurship - NetEase was suspended for misreporting revenue, and its stock price fell to as low as US$0.53, and was on the verge of delisting.

It was also in this year that Ding Sanshi decided to focus on SP business and game business.

NetEase officially established its online game business department in 2001.

Zhan Zhonghui (Dingdang), who had been in the industry for more than a year, joined the department. At that time, there were only about 10 people in this department.

In the second half of 2002, NetEase launched "A Chinese Odyssey Online".

But the disaster came again. Shortly after the launch of the Chinese Journey Online, it encountered problems with the engine architecture. There were too many program bugs, which led to emergency service suspension and rebuilding.

By the beginning of 2003, NetEase had established two new projects:

"A Chinese Odyssey 2" and "A Chinese Odyssey: A Miracle of the Fairy Walk".

Dache 2 is a new project.

NetEase used a planning draft named Xu Bo and the "Wind Soul" engine to rewrite "A Chinese Odyssey Online" and renamed it to "The Legend of the Condor Heroes"

This "Story of the Legend" is not open to the public. In order to avoid conflict between this product and "Story of the World 2", Ding Yingfeng plans to change it to the Q-version style and win it the qualification to establish internal projects.

If nothing unexpected happens, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" will be renamed "Fantasy Westward Journey", and then NetEase will establish its position in the gaming industry through two products, "Fantasy Westward Journey 2" and "Fantasy Westward Journey".

Even if you are influenced by Bomi, you may not be able to become the new overlord, at least you can support yourself.

But shortly after the project was developed, NetEase encountered a serious personnel crisis.

In March, Bomi's "Shan Hai Jing" project recruited 400 people, which directly hollowed out the core of the two projects.

Only a few hard-core old men or young people like Xu Bo and Ding Yingfeng who are ambitious and want to show their strengths.

However, due to the fact that many people, such as the program giant Yunfeng, their R&D strength has been greatly reduced. In addition, Bomi's continuous influence has caused people to attract people, NetEase is in turmoil and uneasy until the end of 2003, the game has not been officially launched.

The game itself is a money-burning project. It doesn’t make money, it only loses money, and other departments can’t provide it at all.

At this time, NetEase was at its end, and Ding Sanshi's beliefs collapsed.

The financial report has been losing money for years and cannot repay the debts owed. In desperation, he could only announce the dissolution of the game business unit.

The two projects that had been developed mostly died.

For a moment, NetEase's internal people were panicked, and the disbanded members of the game business department were now even more confused and didn't know where the road was.

...

When Cao Yang heard this news, he was very shocked.

The pattern of the times has completely changed.

In my previous life, NetEase was a true giant in the gaming industry. Before Penguin Games rose, it was basically the leader in the game industry. "Fantasy Westward Journey", "A Chinese Ghost Story", "Demon Suppression Song", "About the Cold", "After Tomorrow", "Identity V", "Wild Action"... A series of games are enough to remember for a lifetime.

This company is also Cao Yang's old boss in his previous life. Cao Yang worked at NetEase for more than 5 years before he switched to Penguin.

It can be said that he has deep feelings for NetEase.

NetEase is considered a conscience in the industry. In addition to having to keep people at night when there are several major nodes of the game, it basically does not work overtime and is guaranteed on weekends.

And it is one of the few in China. It’s not just for making money by playing games, but also hopes to earn reputation.

Of course, NetEase was not that pure after entering the mobile game era, but in that era of worse, NetEase was not bad.

Now, due to Cao Yang's arrival and Bomi's excessive expansion, Ding Sanshi's disbanded the game business unit, which was something Cao Yang unexpected.

The world pattern has changed, with Shanda in front and NetEase in the back.

I don't know who the next one is thrown away.

...

When facing reporters, Ding Sanshi seemed a little tired, but overall it was easy. Some things would become a heart disease for people after a long time. Giving up is easier than perseverance. When you really let go, the big stone in your heart has fallen.

Although there are some regrets and regrets, I can finally have a good sleep.

At the press conference, Ding Sanshi kept a calm smile as always, and his chubby round face looked a little cute. "We also disbanded the game business group due to helplessness, but this does not mean that we will never enter the game industry.

In my opinion, games are still a very market-promising industry. Giving up now may be for a better return in the future.

We also have a portal website and an email address. After that, we may focus on Internet value-added services to provide users with better products...

If you have the chance, maybe you will still see NetEase’s games in the future.”

...

The next day, Cao Yang received the resume submitted by Sister Hua.

Cao Yang glanced at him and found that there were many old acquaintances.

Ding Yingfeng, Xu Bo, Guo Wei, Tang Yilu, Chen Zhou, Huang Ming, Tang Ziyin...

Except for Cao Yang's eager Ding Dang (Zhan Zhonghui) who accepted the invitation from Boss Ding to stay with NetEase, the list of R&D personnel in NetEase Games Division is basically here.

Ding Jin (Ding Yingfeng) was Cao Yang's boss in his previous life. When he left NetEase and went to Penguin, Ding Yingfeng even talked to him.

Looking back now, I just feel like a different life.

After rebirth, it will be completely different.

In NetEase's history, there are several people who decide life and death:

The first one is Zhan Zhonghui (Dingdang). He followed Ding Sanshi a long time ago. When he was in the company, he was the only one who dared to argue with the boss in person. The most famous story is that once Ding Sanshi thought of some particularly interesting ideas and ran to the game business department and pointed at the program. Zhan Zhonghui directly said to them, "Don't listen to him, he doesn't understand games."

Among Internet companies, there is only one who dares to contradict the boss so bluntly.

After Dingdang left NetEase in his previous life, he went out alone and later founded [Jian Yue] with a group of elderly people. Zhan Zhonghui is an idealist and a loyal fan of Blizzard. He wants to make a game as great as Blizzard, and has always insisted on bringing happiness to players.

Then, Jian Yue was acquired by Alibaba, and Alibaba, who had originally vowed not to make games, still embarked on the road of making games.

It can be said that the early NetEase Games was led by Dingdang. He was in charge of the game business department and led many projects to achieve success.

The second is Xu Bo. Xu Bo has a low education, only graduated from junior high school, but he is very excited and has a good grasp of the players' psychology. He originally served as a customer service team in the customer service team of "A Chinese Odyssey Online", but this person is not willing to be a customer service only. During the game operation process, Xu Bo is also paying attention to and playing A Chinese Odyssey, and has accumulated a lot of his own ideas in the process.

NetEase invested a lot in "American Journey Online" and invited Stephen Chow to be the spokesperson. At that time, Stephen Chow ushered in a new career peak due to the release of "Shaolin Football". However, this product was not very successful and was quickly stopped and rebuilt.

NetEase decided to give up "American Journey Online" and divest its core members to the "American Journey 2" project team. Later, Wei Jianhong, who founded Guangzhou Optimus Prime, became a product manager in the group.

In May 2002, the sequel started internal testing. After Xu Bo from the customer service team participated in the experience, he wrote more than 30 pages of problem feedback and improvement opinions. However, the plot of the big counterattack did not appear. Dingdang, who served as the producer of "A Chinese Odyssey 2", did not adopt Xu Bo's plan.

Xu Bo retreated and asked to hand over "American Journey Online" to him for maintenance, but Dingdang did not agree.

Three months later, "A Chinese Odyssey Online" was on the verge of suspension, and Dingdang finally let go and handed over to Xu Bo for maintenance.

Xu Bo has also changed from customer service to planning.

Later, "American Journey 2" was released and was loved by players.

NetEase's stock price also soared from $0.95 in early 2001 to $70 in 2003, and it changed from a junk stock on Nasdaq to a high-quality stock.

Xu Bo began to tinker with "A Chinese Odyssey Online".

Using his planning draft and "Wind Soul" engine to rewrite "American Journey Online" and rename it "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", which was later "Fantasy Westward Journey"

The author of the "Fenghun" engine is Yunfeng. Almost all early NetEase games were built on this, including "A Chinese Odyssey 2".

It can be said that Xu Bo’s contribution to the two products that NetEase was successful at the beginning, "Fantasy Westward Journey" and "World Journey 2".

This person left NetEase in 2006 and founded Duoyi.com, which was invested by Kingsoft (later repurchased shares from Kingsoft at a price of 8 times PE).

So Duoyi is also called Kingsoft Duoyi.

Before Xu Bo left his job, he was the main strategy of "Fantasy Westward Journey". After Yun Feng learned the news, he was most concerned about the whereabouts of Guo Wei, the client manager of "Fantasy Westward Journey". Dingdang told Yun Feng that he didn't know where to go, but he said when he left his job, he would not go to the future.

Many people on NetEase are worried that Xu Bo's departure will pose a threat to "Fantasy Westward Journey". Yunfeng is confident that as long as Guo Wei does not help Xu Bo write the program, he is doubtful whether Duoyi's new product can be successfully completed.

But not long after that, everyone knew that Duoyi's vice president was named Guo Wei.

Xu Bo not only took Guo Wei away, but also Tang Yilu from NetEase Game Marketing Department. After starting his business, he achieved more than 100 million yuan.

And Duoyi later became the thorn in NetEase's heart.

The most famous game in this company is called "Shenwu". Basically, anyone who has played this game knows that Shenwu copied "Fantasy Westward Journey", but Xu Bo was still the original main planner of Fantasy Westward Journey.

The engine used is also the original Fantasy Westward Journey engine, so NetEase people hate Xu Bo to the core. This person is no different from a thief. He took the game away directly, and almost even the game style is similar. In this way, many people still play their games.

Later, NetEase filed a lawsuit against Duoyi, and the court ruled that "Shenwu" plagiarized "Fantasy Westward Journey".

The third one is Ding Yingfeng. At the beginning, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" was not open to the public. In order to avoid conflicts between this product and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes 2", Ding Yingfeng planned to change it to the Q-version style and win it the qualification to establish internal projects.

Later, Ding Yingfeng became the product manager of "Fantasy Westward Journey", and the earliest numerical system of Fantasy was established by Ding Yingfeng. At the same time, it was precisely because of the success of this game that NetEase saw the importance of numerical planning. The main planners of each subsequent game were basically from numerical backgrounds.

Ding Yingfeng naturally became the boss of the planning department. After Hui Xiaojun did not join and later Dingdang left, he divided the world equally with Hui Xiaojun.

At that time, NetEase in Guangzhou had only two factions, one was called the Dream Series, which was dominated by Ding Yingfeng, and the other was called the World Series, which was dominated by Hui Xiaojun.

The fourth is Hui Xiaojun, who joined NetEase in 2004 and served as the product manager of "Westward Journey 2" and the development chief planner of "Westward Journey 3". Later, he replaced Ye Hang as the main planner of "Westward Journey 2".

Hui Xiaojun is the most free and scholarly game planner in the game industry. He is introverted and rigorous and very handsome.
To be continued...