Memoirs of a hand-visiting veteran: a start-up in the post-SP era

As a technology-born entrepreneur, I do not understand the so-called industry unspoken rules, this article is just a memory of the essay, the narrative if there is any harm to anyone or the company also hope to forgive!

1) with the hand tour

Open the calendar, from I began to make the first hand tour so far, has been over 10 years. During the period witnessed countless companies rise and fall, hand-travel industry many changes. Today I asked myself if I should write something to pay tribute to the dog's blood in general youth.

2003, I was stationed in Singapore because of working relationship for half a year, boring company to dormitory 2.1 line life let me have a lot of spare time to splurge. At that time I bought a Nokia's latest and most mobile phone 3650, through Bluetooth peripherals can be connected to the computer, out of interest, I searched the internet for technical information, and began its own mobile phone game development trip. At that time to do mobile phone software development is rare, the relevant site is only a few move2008,cnjm. Most of the technical issues need to be logged into the Nokia Developer forum for answers.

And I myself because love three games, in particular, the glory of the company's Yingjie biography series, so the first idea is to put the Three Kingdoms story mobile phone, out of a strong interest, things will become very efficient, and soon began their own hands, humble art, simple planning case, and then quickly encoded. Because the story of the whole Three Kingdoms is too long to intercept their favorite piece, Guandu battle. After a few all-night hours, the game was done.

In fact, starting from the first mobile phone game, my life seems to have started a dream. The dream is very simple, in the subway, airport or other occasions, an encounter, the side of the one she is addicted to the game of their own design, and I smiled and watched as the best-selling novel author or film director general. It happened that Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson all held their first developer contest, and I submitted the work to the competition, winning one by one and winning three mobile phones. That era, mobile phone is still very rare objects, not to mention three. And this thing also let me dark determination, began to mobile phone game development as a way of life. No one knows this is ten years ... Someone once said, stick to one thing for ten years, you are legendary. I said, my world is still an ordinary world, I love mobile games.

2 The career path of the former SP era

October 2003, China Mobile Dream Network treasure first trial run. Give me the impression is very deep, because of my self-directed self-acting small game has become the first batch of online works. After returning home, I immediately resigned and began to seek a job related to the development of hand travel. In Shanghai, when the hand-travel industry had just sprung up, several resumes quickly responded. In the end, I chose a Japanese company, just because of the interview to see the other side brought over the Japanese 3G mobile phone show me the above game and application, and told me, look, the future of the mobile phone is purple.

This quickly touched my heart, into the company's original intention is also to transplant Japan's exquisite game works to the Chinese market, but the ideal is very plump, the reality is very bony feeling. Really do but find difficulties, Japan was the mainstream of the mobile phone is docomo,vodafone, and most of the domestic users are still using the Nokia 7210 series of the old 40 mobile phones, this is a 128x128 screen resolution and 64k storage of the best configuration. Great disparity between the two sides, each transplant game I have a kind of let the elephant through the needle of the feeling. The Japanese side of the game's quality requirements are similar to the harsh, and every time to repair almost collapse, the RG.

Later, the company slowly turned to original works, I began to use microdevices technology to develop some "simulated city 2004""Trojan massacre" and other games have been praised. At that time there was no wireless internet like today, which is called wireless value-added services. I remember the main SP was Sina, the aerial network and the MiG in the palm. The pattern was simple, we are the hands of the development company known as CP, we provide hand tour products, to the SP by their operators to declare, the operator audit in Mobile dream Network hundred treasure Box channel online, there are game classification, there are boutique recommendations, there are new shelves, the basic is by the amount of download to decide. Finally the operator is divided into the SP, and the SP cents to the CP, together to establish an industry value chain. At that time, we are very simple, we try to 59k (mobile regulations to set aside 5k) in the narrow space to realize their dreams. Nokia, Siemens, Motorola, Sony Ericsson testing machine is so few, happy and simple.

2005, I began to drift north. In Beijing joined an internet company with SP business, and participated in the establishment of the mobile gaming department. From that point on, I began to shift from a technician to management, and I was exposed to declarations, operations and various other aspects. I can say without hesitation that excessive greed destroys a thriving industry. With the increasing popularity of mobile phones and large-scale replacement, the wireless value-added industry generated by the huge cash flow of the temptation, so many practitioners began to go crazy.

The mobile phone screen is still very small so the load content is limited, so how to put their products into the first 10 hundred treasure box is the focus of the chase. Some smart people are starting to get their heads up and they're going to drive a lot of cash. Operators in some second-tier cities buy only 30 percent of phone cards (these local operators have the internal price of KPI sold a lot of phone cards, the decision is only in the hands of one or two bosses) Then put a few sacks of phone cassette back to the company with a special machine to start downloading their own game from the Dream Network, the machine can connect the computer, there are 16 slots, one can brush 16 cards, until the brush to the arrears and then replace a batch. In this way the day and night, people do not rest machine.

As the SP and operator signed the split agreement is 85:15, and the cost of the card is only 30 percent, plus millions of downloads brought by the high rankings and generated more natural downloads to obtain a generous return. At the same time, because of such operations, the monthly payment from the operator is very substantial, from the objective cause of bad debts. We call this method from consumption, at the beginning only a few secretly taste later but intensified, this familiar scene let me feel and Apple store the status quo how similar, the terrible group effect is to destroy the people who tried to clean up, when the bad currency disperse good currency, Everyone is thinking that they do not enough fast enough and no longer think this is the right time, many companies began in their own 06 years very Happy singing Hi swish Celebration, but the extinction has come quietly.

The most direct and adverse consequence of this is that the mobile dream network treasure the top more than 10 best positions for a long time by several deep pockets of monopoly control, and the quality of the game content has begun to plummet. A lot of good games just online if not brush will immediately sink to the bottom, never the light of the daylight. No one is willing to spend yinianbanzai time and energy to polish the real fun game, more are trying to do since the consumer brush rankings. And the cost of game development is getting lower and therefore produced a lot of shoddy work, all this eventually caused the loss of real users, we have to treasure as a garbage bin and away from, a long time to download users are new users and no retention.

Then operators are aware of the serious crisis, but under the monopoly system is difficult to come up with a proper solution, can only batch of punishment under the frame, and even forced to suspend treasure business for some time. Mandatory administrative means are difficult to achieve the desired effect, the interests of the people will be motivated to go crazy to pursue greater interests. Although every suspension will result in the death of a large number of small companies, there are still more companies choosing thirst to continue to brush the list. Because all of us are doing what you don't do and you will never stand. Life may be a dream, but wake up you have to return to reality. I am in the company day after day doing these business, gradually lost to do mobile phone game originally fun and distressed.

3 The post-SP ERA of entrepreneurship

In 2007, the company was separated, and the wireless and cable departments were like a couple of bedfellows, blaming each other and eventually feeling broken. So I chose to leave, with two friends started the journey of entrepreneurship. The story of my first venture was simple, with three like-minded partners looking for new opportunities and new solutions. Although the situation was not optimistic, but we always believe that the direction of mobile games and opportunities, with the user's needs and hardware development will be more valuable. And the industry has slowly changed.

The contradictions between the user's exuberant game demand and the operator's single monopoly download and billing channels are beginning to intensify. And the previous has been silent Freewap (non-operator official website) began to surface, traffic slowly began to overtake mobile dream network. QQ,3G portals are among the best, and more users are choosing to download more premium and free pictures, ringtones and games here. After the problem of the entrance has been solved, it has been plagued by billing. But this is also hard to find breakthrough practitioners, based on SMS billing method quickly became the best choice. We also made a number of flight shooting, role-playing games, with a built-in short generation of props and limit the charges have received good results. More Hand Tour CP Company began to use this approach to circumvent the monopoly channels, while the entire industry ushered in the small spring.

Unfortunately, the interests of the chain at the same time be destroyed by greed, some have a huge flow of channels to resist the temptation to start using billing vulnerabilities to set traps bundled user charges even monthly, due to the audit mechanism of the unsound and greedy drive, soon flooded with such a large number of malicious products, Thus causing a huge number of complaints and mobile phone users panic. Mastered the flow of channels also gradually become arrogant up, they began to control rankings, set the Overlord clause and man-made obstacles, the chaos between the regulation of the channel and the complexity of the billing interface also brings endless trouble to the development team. My deepest impression is that I've been playing hundreds of packages a day. For different models and billing codes, this is just a channel. In the face of more than 10 channels, I often have the feeling of tears running. Looking at the current Android phone application market often makes me think back to the dilemma. Countless late-night city, silently walked just overtime programmer dragged long figure.