Founded in September 2005, Shanghai ZLONG GAMES is dedicated to the development of Flash games. In just over two years, a development team of more than 50 people has been established. Zhenlong, as a subsidiary of the Dutch Spill Group, has become the most important Flash game development force of Spill. As the founder of ZLONG GAMES, Mr. Hao Ying, CEO of Zlong Games, what is his understanding of entrepreneurship and the future development of the company? The following is an interview with Mr Hao Ying.
Q: When did you start to have the idea of starting a business?
In 2005, I just left an online game company and served as the art director. A colleague came to me and asked me if I was interested in starting a business. At that time, I felt that I had been working in the game industry for a long time and I could consider starting my own business. In fact, I am not a very radical person in my career. It was not so much that I had the idea of starting a business as that the opportunity of starting a business came to me. I believe that there will be pies in the sky, provided that you are ready.
Q: Why did you finally choose Flash games as your entrepreneurial direction?
First of all, Flash games will be the new hot spot of Internet digital entertainment. Most of the Flash games we see are personal works. Although some ideas are good, the overall quality is rough, and it consumes a lot of system resources and lacks the quality that commercial products should have. In fact, a few years ago, I didn't think Flash would do much in the game field. After working with Spill, I came into contact with many overseas works. Although most of them are personal works, their creativity, pictures and coding are excellent. At the same time, with the rapid development of computer hardware and the enhancement of Flash's own functions and efficiency, the problem that Flash programs used to bother developers and players occupy system resources has also been solved. Now you can use Flash to develop products that are as good as excellent downloaded games.
Moreover, in today's era of experience economy, compared with the traditional casual games that need to be installed, page-based Flash games have more convenient and fast advantages, and the Flash games enjoyed by players are free, which is very important! More data shows that the number of users of Flash games in Europe and America is increasing significantly. We played a racing game, named Rushing uphill, which was launched in March this year. So far, 25 million people have experienced this game, and even European players have uploaded video raiders to YouTube, which is unique in Flash games. In this year's game industry conferences or activities, including GDC08, Flash games have become the focus of attention, and even industry veterans exclaimed that "Flash games are challenging host games".
At the same time, I like to do things that make me feel interesting and make others feel happy. Engaged in the design and development of Flash games, let me find the feeling of doing Playstation, Gameboy and other platforms in the past. Speer Group has provided us with extensive distribution channels and strong financial support. What Zhenlong developers need to do is how to make interesting and happy games. Just as the former president of Nintendo, Yamauchi Pu, advocated, we should return to the origin of the game and pursue pure game fun.
Q: Did you encounter any difficulties at the beginning of your business? If so, what are the difficulties?
Of course there are difficulties. First of all, find out what you want. Zhenlong's initial positioning is to undertake game outsourcing projects, but in the process of starting a business, what we want to do is not necessarily what we can do, and there is always a gap between reality and expectation. In order to make the company survive, we have done various projects, such as stand-alone games, online games, game art outsourcing, and even education and training software, and finally decided to design and develop Flash games as our main business.
Then there is the question of funds. Zhenlong has also encountered cash flow pressure in the past, and I think most enterprises will encounter it in the early stage of their business.
Q: What kind of opportunity brought Zlong and Spill Group together? When you finally decided to cooperate with the leak group, what was your initial consideration?
This is a very simple combination. At the beginning of 2006, Spill was looking for a game development studio in China and happened to find Zhenlong. We have the ability to design and develop excellent game products, and Spill Group is a powerful enterprise, the third largest game portal operator in the world after Yahoo and MSN, and has extensive distribution channels in Europe. After contact, they found that their respective advantages were needed by the other party and immediately hit it off. The cooperation between Zhenlong and Yicai Group is a typical cooperation between game developers, publishers and operators.
Q: At present, the most successful enterprises in the domestic game industry are almost all online game companies. As an entrepreneur with a different approach, how do you judge the strategic pattern of the domestic game industry in the future?
I think the road of domestic game industry is too narrow, and online games have almost become the whole industry. Looking overseas, we can see that there are actually many things to do in and around the industry. Just like the Flash game business that Zhenlong is engaged in, as long as we focus on a certain field, we can create value by doing it in depth and scale.
In the next five years, compared with now, the strategic pattern of the domestic game industry will not change much. I'm more concerned about overseas markets.
Q: At present, Zlong has entered a steady rising stage with a good development trend. What do you think is the biggest key to further accelerate the pace of development? (Focus on talents, hehe, the following article is easy to do. )
Undoubtedly, talent is the primary factor to accelerate the further development of Zhenlong. As far as the production goal in 2008 is concerned, we will complete the development of 70-80 different types of games. I don't think any Flash game production team in the world has such a plan. We plan to expand the team to 1 00 to 120 in about1year. Next year, our game development plan is expected to be around 65,438+050 models, making it the largest and most productive Flash game developer in the world. Because Yicai Group has dozens of Flash game portals and a large number of game websites that cooperate with other companies, and the recent industry forums including GDC08 are generally optimistic about the prospects of Flash games, we almost put all our energy into the development of Flash games.
Q: So what kind of requirements do you have for talents?
Quite simply, we need people with passion and creativity. I want to introduce how we work first: every employee of Zhenlong can put forward ideas. After discussion, if this idea is interesting and technically feasible, we will incorporate it into the development plan. Because our work has a high degree of freedom and autonomy, we will only follow the script, and people who lack creativity will find it difficult to adapt to our working methods.
Q: What are your plans for attracting and cultivating talents?
The first is to create an attractive corporate atmosphere. My colleagues and I have been committed to making Zhenlong a paradise for game developers. In domestic game enterprises, some salaries are too low, and some can offer high salaries, but the creativity of employees is suppressed because of business positioning. Some of our employees used to work for some well-known game companies. The biggest reason why they joined Zhenlong is that Zhenlong can not only provide wages and benefits that are not lost to other companies, but also provide great creative freedom and space for everyone. At Zhenlong, we have no restrictions on interesting ideas.
At the same time, recently, we made a very important move, that is, we cooperated with Shanghai Game Academy, a well-known domestic game talent training institution, to build a day class for Flash game production. We put a lot of energy into this. The best producer of Zhenlong is a lecturer, and all the tutorials are based on project examples. If students complete their studies and pass the exam, they can join Zhenlong directly to get stable and growing job opportunities. We promise to refund the tuition fees in full to the students who become employees of the company.