Chapter 15: Negotiations with Nintendo

  Eat beans, a classic casual and cute game, Zhao Yongping controls the big-mouthed bean, in the sound of police whistles, frantically escaping and hiding from monsters' pursuit, swallowing small beans one by one.

  After successfully eating all the small beans to pass the level, having played two levels, the speed of the little monsters' pursuit became faster and faster. After dying twice, Director Zhao handed over the controller to Su Xiuyun, who was excited beyond measure.

  Ma Liang quickly grabbed the second handle and said with a smile: "Xiuyun, let's play doubles!"

  He thought he could fight together with both 1pyer and 2pyer after seeing their options.

  "This version can only be played by one person at a time. Mainly because the time is too tight, Shen Gong's speed is too fast, I don't have time to debug the program..."

  Just then Shen Jun, who had just caught up, was completely bewildered, while the others were secretly laughing. What does debugging a program have to do with Shen Jun's speed? Director Yang is really sinister.

  Although the bean-eating interface is simple, the game code is to some extent as difficult as Tetris, and the most difficult part lies in the action algorithm of the intelligent computer.

  Tetris has human-computer competition and human-computer cooperation, which involves very complex action algorithms.

  Human-computer battle, the computer needs to have a complete landing algorithm design. In human-computer cooperation, sometimes humans intentionally take a step ahead and occupy the position predicted by the computer. At this time, the computer must quickly execute the algorithm program and change to a better position. Yang Yun has done such things many times. When playing human-computer cooperation as a child, his favorite thing was to block the computer's way and watch it make mistakes.

  Eating beans is the same, full screen only five little monsters, big bean bean is controlled by the player to walk around the screen, little monsters have to follow the player to kill, and the trajectory of movement must have a certain regularity, can follow the player, and encircle.

  If there isn't a perfect AI algorithm, it can't control five monsters at the same time, and then playability will be greatly reduced.

  Yang Yun is not a computer expert, and he can't even be considered a programming master. The initial version of Tetris he came up with only had a single-player mode, where the player controlled the falling blocks, and the program code was very simple.

  Later, the model of human-computer confrontation and human-computer cooperation was jointly developed by him and Alexei. He was responsible for providing creativity, while Alexei was responsible for specific intelligent algorithm programming.

  Alexey is gone now, although the code remains, but Yang Yun needs to thoroughly absorb and digest it into his own thing, still need some time.

  So he said that time is tight, but others who heard it just thought Yang Yun was mocking Shen Jun again, and they couldn't help but laugh secretly.

  Zhao Yongping stepped out of the crowd and stood behind Yang Yun, lost in thought.

  "This game is quite simple!"

  "Ah, Director Zhao, casual games are meant for both adults and children to play, so we can't make it too difficult, or else it will lose its casual meaning."

  "Hmm... that's right, let's do it this way. This bean-eating game, you revise it again, remove the ear-piercing alarm sound, it's annoying to listen to, and replace it with some more upbeat music. Then integrate it into a cartridge, I'll take it to Beijing to apply for a patent."

  "Alright, I'll arrange it then. Director Zhao, can I go with you to Beijing?"

  "Ah, right! Your home is in Beijing and you're from the state-run 938 Electronics Factory. Alright, get your documents in order and come find me, we'll head to Beijing together!"

  The two men settled the matter, and Zhao Yongping didn't linger any longer. He was busy, and even when Shen Jun approached him to curry favor, he would impatiently wave his hand, as if shooing away a fly, leaving Shen feeling inexplicably bewildered.

  Yang Yun this time had the confidence: "Little Su, trouble you to beautify the interface a bit, try to make it more cute. Zhang Gong, take some time to look at the game's source code and give Little Su some guidance on how to use the three primary color codes. I'll help Zhu Gong and Xiao Ma deal with the cassette tape matters."

  Everyone took orders and left Yang Yun's testing machine, walking towards their own workstations.

  Yang Yun suddenly looked up and saw Shen Jun standing not far away, staring blankly. He slapped his forehead: "Ah! How could I forget about Expert Shen? Does Expert Shen have any plans now? Why don't we do it this way? As long as Director Zhao passes the production line improvement process you wrote, you can discuss with Department Head Ma of the Production Department to re-optimize the production line in the workshop and produce the main engine ahead of schedule!"

  His face was pale and blue, he was a big expert in the middle of the science, but he was actually forced to become a workshop technician!

  "Hmm!" Shen Jun turned around and left with the documents in hand. He had made up his mind that if Director Zhao didn't approve, he would go directly to Huang Zong of the group! He was here to take charge of the overall situation, not to be a small worker!

  "Yang Kezhang is really domineering!" Ma Liang whispered as he leaned in.

  "Director Yang is so majestic!" Su Xiuyun's eyes turned into hearts.

  Others also felt very pleased, it seems like no one can stand Shen Jun anymore.

  Yang Yun smiled: "You guys hurry up too, the integration speed of the cassette tapes needs to be faster, and this game program needs to be thoroughly understood. When the timing is ripe, we'll jointly design a new game together, and I'll put your names on the design list!"

  "Really?"

  "As classic as Tetris?"

  "Awesome!"

  "Long live Director Yang!"

  ……

  ……

  Stepping back onto the land of Beijing, Yang Yun felt a wave of dizziness, as if he had been transported to another world.

  Zhao Yongping had a friend come pick him up, he was carrying a box of documents, treasured it like a precious thing, never leaving his side.

  Applying for a patent is something Zhao Yongping can do by himself, Yang Yun said a place, the driver was surprised and said: "Edward Building? That's all the way to the Second Ring Road, what are you going there for in such a remote location?"

  The Second Ring Road is still a bit remote. Thinking about it in later generations, buying houses will all be bought to Hebei, and it's still considered the big capital city.

  Yang Yun weakly retorted: "My home is just there! Director Zhao, after I finish my work, I'll go to the patent office entrance tomorrow by myself and wait for you, guaranteed not to be late!"

  Zhao Yongping nodded and then asked his friend to drive him to the patent office, where he had some serious business to attend to.

  Edward Building is a foreign-related building, Yang Yun came here to find Aleksey.

  After four or five days of tug-of-war negotiations, Alexey and Nintendo had almost reached a stalemate, with neither side giving in.

  Nintendo saw Alexey as a lion's mouth open, the patent fee for a game card was collected 5 dollars, which is an act of robbery.

  Their Game Boy came with a 2.6-inch LCD display, resolution of 160 * 144, powered by dry batteries, can play for at least 30 hours, high machine configuration, but the price is only $48.

  The Game Boy was priced far lower than Nintendo's own Famicom console, which cost $100. The goal was to capture the market with a low price, first taking control of the North American handheld market share and then profiting from sales of other game software.

  If Russia takes away 5 dollars for one copy of Tetris, Nintendo won't have much profit.

  To know that in Nintendo FC game software, any other third-party game developers' games must be released through them, and 60% of the game's profits are to be given to Nintendo. They have always been so powerful, how could they be strangled by a small Russian block?

  They are the absolute overlords of the global video game industry, saying one thing and having the final say! Even Sony, Sega, Nintendos, and even Philips have to beg for mercy with their noses pinched. What is an independent game patent holder? Still dare to mention a $5 condition?

  Alex insisted on a bottom line of $5, and he also had his own difficulties.

  The patent owner is him and Yang Yun, according to the agreement, 70% of the profit belongs to Yang Yun, he only has 30%, if calculated at $5, he can get $1.5, Yang Yun gets $3.5, but if Nintendo's proposal is adopted, it would be $100,000 to buy out the patent, he can get $30,000, which is equivalent to selling 20,000 GameBoys.

  It's clear to anyone that since Nintendo's Famicom was a huge success in the North American market, selling millions of units, why would Game Boy only plan to sell 200,000? If it sells 10 million units, the patent fees would be $50 million, and Alexey's share would be $15 million. Which is more, $15 million or $300,000? Alexey did his math very clearly.

  Both sides are very tough, one is $5 per copy, and the other is $1 million for a full buyout. To be fair, neither side has good intentions, one is diamond price, and the other is cabbage price.

  Luckily, Alexey was a Soviet citizen, so the Japanese didn't dare to make any sudden moves and didn't push too hard, but they were already getting anxious. The negotiations with Nintendo were about to begin, and if they couldn't come to an agreement on the Tetris patent, they wouldn't be able to report back to headquarters.

  If it were Yang Yun negotiating with them, the Japanese would probably have disdained to even consider it and directly used it for free. As for patents and lawsuits, let's wait until China eradicates piracy first!

  Yang Yun did not enter the Edward Building, but instead found a contact in a small restaurant nearby, a little girl with freckles on her face, the daughter of the restaurant owner. He only mentioned Alexei's name and the little girl skipped and jumped towards the Edward Building.

  Before long, Alexei hurried over, like an underground party comrade making contact, and the two of them began talking in the grocery store warehouse.

  Yang Yun listened for a while and asked: "Does the Japanese know I'm coming?"

  Aleksey shook his head: "I'm very careful when I walk. I come here to eat every day, they shouldn't be following me."

  Yang Yun thought for a moment and handed over a piece of paper: "OK! After you go back, sign the contract with them like this. Say we're making a concession, these conditions are our bottom line."