The No. 1 brother of Guoyou Fourteen years ago is now acquired by a Korean company? A breakdown of Ninetowns’ awesome games

Fourteen years ago, there was such a company. It owned half of the domestic Internet games. Tencent nodded when it saw it, NetEase bowed when it saw it, and even major international companies like EA and Blizzard. You have to watch his eyes and act accordingly, so he is nicknamed the No. 1 Brother in domestic games.

But after more than ten years of hard work, the former No. 1 brother has become an existence at the tail end of the crane. Not to mention running any games, even the company is about to be acquired by South Korea's Xiao Xiba...

Today, let’s review this awesome game that introduced a series of awesome games such as “World of Warcraft”, “Guild Wars”, and “Planetside 2” into the country. Company - The Ninth City.

Is it the peak after debut? Relying on "Miracle MU" to conquer half of the domestic online games industry

It makes sense, even if there are so many gems like Tencent, NetEase, MiHoYo, and Perfect World behind us, in terms of strategic vision, everyone has to go Later, because throughout the history of domestic game development, no game company can match The9 in terms of game selection.

When I first entered the game industry in 2002, I quickly acquired the domestic agency rights of "Miracle MU" and completed the procedures related to the online public beta as quickly as possible. Start competing with the grand "Legend".

The most awesome thing is that "Miracle MU" developed by Ninetowns took only one year to win the first place in the early days of domestic online games when the average computer per capita was big. reached a total of 12 million users, creating a “miracle” of user growth.

Ascend to God in one leap! Gathering the entire company’s efforts to spend tens of millions to represent “World of Warcraft”

After successfully entering the online game track with “Miracle MU” and becoming a leading agent manufacturer, The9 is not satisfied with just lying around. Instead of making money, they took a bold gamble and made a big gamble - gathering the strength of the entire company to spend tens of millions of dollars to represent "World of Warcraft".

Regarding this crazy decision, Shanda CEO Chen Tianqiao once said that The9's crazy offer has scared off many competitors because according to their investigation, "World of Warcraft" may not be able to be produced in China. Profit of tens of millions of dollars, and Blizzard's strict requirements for server rooms and subsequent operations have made it difficult for many domestic manufacturers to make the next decision to risk the fate of the entire company.

But later facts proved that Ninetowns's big gamble was not only right, but also made a lot of money, making him the best in the country. Online game agents have gained nearly 60% of Internet game users.

With a sharp vision, they were the first to win the agency rights of "Guild Wars"

The most correct decision they made during The9's agency for "World of Warcraft" was that no domestic game manufacturer When I noticed it, I took over the agent of "Guild Wars" first, and started a wave of protective "shoddy" operation methods.

In fact, The9’s move is so awesome that it directly kills the possibility of “Guild Wars” becoming popular in China. It also makes it difficult for such a fantasy masterpiece that is popular in Europe and the United States to threaten “World of Warcraft” in China. 》status. Therefore, I reasonably suspect that Fujiko’s various protective internal tests and methods of taking down game agents and destroying them directly were all learned from Ninetowns.

What a pity! "The Sword of Excellence" ended without any problem

As a phenomenon-level Korean game that Ninetowns spent a lot of money to win the agency after "Miracle MU", "The Sword of Excellence" was still very popular from 2007 to 2008. of.

It’s just that at that time, Ninetowns already looked down on Korean games, and began to shift its strategic focus towards the international market, trying to represent the “next Warcraft”. Therefore, the subsequent operation of the game failed to keep up, and it ended in vain, which made people feel very regretful.

The desperate road to internationalization, "FIFA Online 2" was deceived by EA

went to discuss cooperation with EA and represented "FIFA Online 2" 》It is definitely the decision that Ninetowns regrets the most.

Although judging from the layout of the game strategy, "FIFA Online 2" does have the potential to become the next "World of Warcraft", which can help Ninetowns attract a lot of new users who are football fans across borders. But it was also because this operation shook Ninetowns' Warcraft base, causing Blizzard to choose to flip the table on the spot and refuse to give Ninetowns subsequent agency rights.

As for "FIFA Online 2", although it helped Ninetowns make a little money, it was completely unable to make up for the lack of World of Warcraft, and it did not bring the benefits as Ninetowns expected. to achieve huge cross-border profits.

It’s hard to reverse the decline of "Planetside 2", which was ruined by bugs

After the collapse of the negotiation with Blizzard, Ninetowns actually adjusted their mentality very well, and also found a great comeback The ultimate move – representing Sony’s “Planetside 2”.

To be honest, even in the current online game world, although "Planetside 2" is not as popular as Warcraft in terms of users and popularity, it is still a well-known online game. It is highly recommended to all FPS and mecha lovers. Just for fun.

What makes people speechless is that this online game, which was used by Ninetowns as a Jedi comeback, had "infinite flash" on the day of the public beta of the national server. The extremely vicious BUG "Quit" caused all the players who came here to be persuaded to quit.

What’s cool is that this crash bug took three years to fix in the national server. Even when the server was shut down, there was no guarantee that the mainstream configuration machines at that time would not crash. I strongly suspect that this is caused by Ninetowns' anti-cheating system. After all, their international version does not have this BUG.

The last straw that broke the camel's back! "Firefall", which was tricked to death by 360, is a masterpiece that The9 invested huge sums of money to join forces with Qifei International, a subsidiary of 360, and poured money into Red 5 Studio, a former employee studio of Blizzard—— "Firefall" was definitely the last straw that broke Ninetowns's back.

Analyzed from the current perspective, most of the reason for the failure of "Firefall" is that the game concept is too advanced, and it wants to build an open world hardcore group version in PVE gameplay, and also wants to play in PVP. On the one hand, they launched a competitive mode similar to Overwatch, but the result was that it failed to please both players.

In addition, Qifei International, the teammate The9 hired this time, was also a bit tricked. They agreed to invest US$10 million each in Red 5 Studio to develop the game. But as a result, Qifei International withdrew its investment midway, and Lin Zongzong only invested 6 million US dollars. As a result, the development progress of "Firefall" was slowed down. Many of the core gameplays behind it were only half-understood, and the legacy of this Blizzard Titan was abruptly made. The work was ruined.

To be honest, whether it is an open world group version or an Overwatch-style competitive gameplay, after "Firefall" has been idle for three or five years, it has been confirmed that both It has the potential to be a phenomenal hit.

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