Chapter 9 A Classic Marketing Case

  At night, Jester and his family of three gathered at home to discuss something.

  Li Chongyang, also known as Iris Lee in English, did not blame Jester at all.

  According to the terms of the Schwerin Group, even a good-tempered person like Jester's father would have refused outright, because the price they offered was simply too insulting.

  As for Jester's mother, she of course supported her son without hesitation.

  "The current situation is very unfavorable to us. Although I have confidence in Tetris and believe it's a good enough game, without a salesperson to sell it for us, we can't do it ourselves." Jestr's father was at a loss, he just felt sorry for Tetris, such a great game was rejected by several shortsighted people.

  He didn't consider at all how harsh the conditions his son had set were.

  No seller would accept such an extortionate condition.

  In his view, "American Block" is a great game, and a great game must have strict conditions.

  If you want to get gold, you must pay the price of gold. If you use the price of buying bananas and want to get gold, then all I can say is that you'd better go buy from a monkey.

  "It's okay."

  Jest's face still had a faint smile on it, he never doubted the charm of "American Blocks", he clearly knew that this small game of only a few kb in size would be astonishingly successful in the future.

  "Those four dealers only occupy sixty percent of the sales network in Southern California, and we still have forty percent left... Father, I don't know if you've heard a quote from that great red leader, 'The countryside surrounds the city?' He also said, 'A single spark can start a prairie fire.'"

  Apparently not understanding Jester's idea, Jester's father furrowed his brow in some confusion.

  What does an old man have to do with video games? Although he is great, it's impossible for him to help us sell the console, right?

  Was it sold to distant China? Even Jester's father had such an unrealistic idea in his mind, fortunately Jester couldn't see his father's thoughts at this time, otherwise he would probably laugh out loud.

  Actually, Jester didn't think of Taizu's saying 'the countryside surrounding the city'.

  But I thought of one of the most famous marketing cases in Chinese online game history, and this marketing was carried out in line with Taizu's idea of 'rural areas surrounding cities'.

  The final result is that this marketing campaign successfully pushed a mediocre online game, which may not even be considered second-rate, directly to the top of China's online gaming history, leaving many people speechless.

  Then China's game industry entered an era where quality was ignored and only marketing was considered.

  Because quality is completely useless in China's gaming industry, players don't care if your game is good or not, they only care about how much promotion you've done.

  To some extent, this game ruined Chinese online gaming.

  That's right, the game Jester thought of is Legend.

  The legendary success is more of a marketing success than the excellence of this game.

  Is legendary good? All I can say is that this game is mediocre.

  Jest even bluntly said that this legendary game is outdated in any aspect that an MMORPG should have.

  In terms of screen, sound effects, gameplay, equipment, skills, character growth and so on, it is far behind the ancestor of this type of game, Diablo II, for twenty years.

  As for those who say Diablo 2 is a single-player game, they basically haven't played Diablo 2 at all. Even if they haven't played on the official Battle.net, shouldn't they have at least touched domestic private servers like Impk?

  What? You haven't even touched private server Battle.net? From childhood to adulthood, you've only played single-player? How dare you say you've played Diablo 2?

  The sentence above is a joke, don't take it seriously.

  Although it is said that the vast dark player group in China, who have accessed both official Battle.net and private servers, may only account for a very small part of this population.

  So many people simply think of Diablo 2 as a single-player game, at most a single-player game that can be played on a local area network.

  This is actually a big mistake.

  The Battle.net version of Diablo 2 and the single-player version of Diablo 2 are, to be honest, two completely different games that can't even be mentioned in the same breath.

  But why are Chinese players who have been accustomed to playing Diablo 2, a masterpiece, still flocking to Legend?

  Firstly, although the game is a very unsuccessful copy of Diablo, it is still an action RPG at its core, and this genre has a huge following in China.

  The characteristics of dark games have the most moving essence for players.

  This is exactly what the legendary figure in the later electronic game industry, Shigeru Miyamoto, proposed at a high-level meeting of Hell's Gate in '97. The four basic elements that an excellent game should have are: collection, cultivation, exchange, and addition.

  Don't you think these four elements look familiar and can make you think of a game in the first place?

  That's right, these elements are what Shigeru Miyamoto summarized from the legendary success of Pokémon.

  Secondly, and most importantly, it relies on abandoning the first-tier cities and central cities, concentrating firepower to conduct viral online marketing in internet cafes of second- and third-tier small cities.

  Why focus on second and third tier small cities?

  Firstly, it is less investment.

  Secondly, players in small cities have a lower chance of playing high-quality games compared to those in big cities. To put it bluntly, in the era when the internet was not well-developed, the vision and experience of people in small cities were inferior to those in big cities to some extent.

  After bringing up the momentum of small cities, big cities will naturally collapse by themselves.

  It's still the old saying, people all have a from-the-crowd psychology, blindly following things are regardless of China or foreign countries, past or present.

  What is ground promotion? As the name suggests, it means to directly promote in local internet cafes, making promises and offering benefits to the owners of the internet cafes, so that they will install the client software of Legend on their computers.

  It's called pre-emptive loading afterwards.

  Think about it, at that time when the game selection was scarce, when someone accidentally clicked on the client of Legend, he would be surprised to find, wow, there's actually a Dark Diablo that can be played online!

  Don't underestimate the influence of Diablo at home, it's a game that has influenced an entire generation.

  Which player from that era dares say they haven't been influenced by Dark?

  And when all second- and third-tier small cities are occupied, can first-tier cities still survive on their own after losing their foundation?

  Just like a tree with its roots cut off, no matter how sturdy and lush it is, it can't escape death.

  That's how the legend achieved unprecedented success.

  Jester thought of this case and his plan was about to be put into action.

  Of course, it can't be completely copied, after all, China and the US are different, and the charm of Tetris itself is enough to lead the trend, without needing a legendary foundation that needs to be laid down by dark horses.

  But the overall plan is still roughly the same.

  With the quality of "American Blocks" that completely transcends this era, he took his arcade to major cities throughout California, first-tier cities, and central cities. He believed in the quality of "American Blocks", even without advertising, relying solely on its charm, it could sweep the land.

  Because these Americans are just country bumpkins, they haven't even seen Super Mario, what do they know about video games, they only know by pa or bat?

  Stop kidding, Super Mario is hailed as the starting point of modern electronic games. He not only saved the video game industry but also set all the rules.

  "It's just like what Hideo Kojima, the creator of Metal Gear and founder of Kojima Productions, said: 'Gameplay, story, game objectives, puzzle settings, boss battles, hidden elements... all these rules were set for games, and now all games are derived from them.'"

  This is what Superman means.

  It's like this, even the "tu bie" crowd who have never seen modern electronic games should immediately kneel down and worship when they see a masterpiece like "Minecraft" that transcends time and spans generations.

  This is similar to how the iPhone surpassed non-smart phones, and MP3s surpassed portable CD players, with a design concept that completely surpasses the times, and technical standards, launching a crushing attack on this era.

  This offensive is irresistible.

  Can you use a Tiger tank to counter a Type 99A? Can you use a P-51 Mustang to counter an F-22 Raptor?

  This is not a battle on the level of dimensions at all.

  Victory is inevitable.

  When the momentum of "American Blocks" rises and forms a prairie fire, the situation will be set. These salesmen will naturally come running to negotiate with themselves, this is called forcing people with momentum.

  I was indeed too self-satisfied before, and in the future I can just rely on a "United States card" to get what I want from others.

  I know that the total sales of the block is 1.2 billion, and the single-platform sales are over 30 million. I know that the price I offered to the block is not high, even cheap compared to its true value, but these people don't know.

  Put yourself in the shoes of a salesperson, being blackmailed by a small, unknown designer with just one seemingly decent game, under such harsh conditions. You would also be furious and humiliated.

  He's too ignorant of social norms.

  But how can these people's eyes penetrate countless times to see the greatness of this game? I put gold in front of him, but he thought I was deceiving him with dog shit and blamed me for it. This world has never had such a reason.

  I'd rather lose with dignity and take a beating standing up. Who made them so blind to reason?

  Why didn't they choose small cities like legendary marketing, wouldn't that save a lot of money?

  This is actually a very simple question, the legend is because of its own poor quality that it would choose to adopt the "countryside surrounding the city" strategy of Taizu, but "American Block" is completely different, this is one of the best games of this era, and it doesn't need to go to small towns to create momentum, if you want to create momentum, with this game, you can easily do it in any city on earth, going to a small town to do it would be like gilding the lily.

  The most correct method for "American Square" is to learn from the methods of the Soviet October Revolution, using the city to lead the countryside.

  When all major cities and central cities are captured, those affiliated satellite cities naturally collapse without a fight.

  This is actually the same principle as 'the countryside surrounding the city', just two extremes with different approaches.

  Jester didn't bother explaining to his father either, but instead pulled out a map of California and with his father's help, picked out the most suitable city.

  He finally set his sights on Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose, the four largest cities in California.

  They are the core of this Jester marketing plan.