Original yanye AI lanmeihui

Author | Yan Ye Editor | Wei Xiao

When I saw the tag of # Netease Blizzard Composite # rushing to the hot search, Dong Fang, a player of Warcraft for ten years, had no waves in his heart.

After all, she has experienced too many "wolves coming" this year.

According to her rough calculation, in the year when Netease Blizzard broke up in China, there were more than a dozen domestic game manufacturers, large and small, who had an affair with Blizzard. For example, in November, it was reported that Tencent would take over Blizzard, but before the players rubbed their hands and expected it, Tencent’s rumors came. Similarly, before Blizzard, China represented Jiucheng, ByteDance, Perfect World and other game manufacturers.

(Screenshot of Dong Fang’s circle of friends)

"The most outrageous thing is that even the Oriental Pearl Group has heard that it will pick up Blizzard, which is the company of Shanghai Tower!" She said angrily, "It seems that our players are a group of fools who are easy to fool."

Dong Fang said that although players have already been trained to distinguish between true and false information, they will still expect the return of Blizzard in rounds of news.

At the beginning of December, Lvge, a well-known anchor in Hearthstone District, said that Blizzard would officially return to China on December 15th, and Huang Xudong, an e-sports anchor, also revealed relevant information. The voice of several authoritative KOL made players think they saw hope, but it was finally proved to be false by time, and Lvge’s live broadcast room was besieged by players who hoped to be shattered again.

After all, these sticky players still miss Blizzard.

In addition, according to the science and technology innovation board Daily, Blizzard also tried to return to Chinese mainland many times during this year, but it failed to negotiate with many manufacturers.

Blizzard undoubtedly regrets leaving the China market.

According to the data of Activision Blizzard’s 2023 financial report, the revenue of Blizzard Division in the first quarter was only $443 million, which was significantly lower than the $794 million in the previous quarter. At the same time, the number of active players in the world in the first quarter of 2023 was 27 million, compared with 45 million in the previous quarter. Although the latest revenue data of the second quarter of 2023 is very eye-catching, it is almost entirely due to the launch of Diablo IV.

Blizzard, which has left China, is facing difficulties and challenges.

It can be seen that although the players are eagerly looking forward to it, the agent Blizzard is still a hot potato for game manufacturers.

It is precisely because of this that after being reported by many media, the news that Netease and Blizzard had the experience and financial resources to join hands again made Dong Fangge look forward to it.

Of course, the premise is that both sides can pull their faces down.

Everyone remembers that after the storm in January, Netease removed the blizzard axe live on its official website and replaced it with its own horse-chopping knife, which attracted tens of thousands of people to watch. It also put a number of yin and yang drinks such as "Blizzard Green Tea" and "Blizzard Without Heart" on the coffee shop of Netease Building, and the connotation overflowed the screen.

However, Blizzard also gave "sincerity". On the 29th, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, who directly promoted the breakup of the two companies, officially resigned, which also made players more convinced that if Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard wants to enter the game field, it must be laid out in the China market, and Netease is the best receiver.

"Blizzard, which once abandoned Netease, is like a love rat. Now we only feel that it is the turn of Blizzard to beg Netease to get back together!"

After a year

Players still miss the national costume.

Unlike Dong Fang, Li Ting couldn’t resist one’s fingers itch as early as the beginning of February 2023, that is, a week after Blizzard officially withdrew from China, and moved to Yafu with his friends.

As a veteran fan of Warcraft for 14 years, Li Ting’s hobby of playing Warcraft has continued from high school to this day, and he has spent tens of thousands of yuan on this game. Because he loves it enough, even if he moves to Yafu itself, he needs to read a lot of tutorials, and he has to spend an extra hundred yuan for the accelerator every month. He needs to start from scratch to create a new account in Yafu, and he is also happy.

"To put it bluntly, anyone who plays blizzard games doesn’t pay for youth."

However, in his view, Asian clothing can never be compared with national clothing.

"Take the simplest example. If you want to find manual customer service, you will only find AI robots. People who are doing customer service in Asian clothing are all beautiful people, but there is a time difference with you." Li Wei said. He also gave an example to AI Blue Media Exchange. For example, in Yafu, there are many players advertising in the main city. If the brush is too frequent, it will be judged by the system to be a plug-in behavior and other outrageous operations frequently appear, which greatly affects the game experience.

Even so, there are still a large number of "game refugees" flooding into Yafu. Li Ting also set up a special WeChat group, which attracted more than 300 players from the national service to the Asian service. As in the national service, a group of people went black every day. Many of them opened accounts in Yafu a few years ago, and the opportunity at that time was the breakup between Blizzard and the former agent Ninetowns.

In addition to Warcraft, Li Ting also tried to move to the Asian clothing of the games such as Watching the Pioneer and Hearthstone and start from scratch, but due to problems such as time and atmosphere, he finally failed to persist.

But in any case, there is no doubt that it is expected that Blizzard will return.

In fact, this time, well-informed players know that Netease Blizzard will be reunited for several days earlier than the outside world.

"Netease Thunder Fire Studio, which developed Diablo: Immortality, recently resumed recruitment. The position is MMO game user operation-loss recall data analysis post, which is located in Guangzhou. It is hard not to think that it is related to the restart of Blizzard games." Dong Fang said.

At the same time, the players also pulled out. Just a few days ago, Netease withdrew five of the six complaints against Blizzard. Netease Great God APP also updated the content of the existing version of World of Warcraft and built a new version of the chat room. The latest news shows that the IP address of "Blizzard Game Service Center" in WeChat official account is displayed in Guangdong …

In the player community of Netease Great God APP, players have created a jubilant atmosphere. In the investigation, a player told AI Blue Media that he sold the account of Yafu the first time after hearing the news and earned hundreds of dollars. "I didn’t want to play Asian clothes. After two days, the Asian clothes will return, and the Asian clothes account will be worthless. Take it early." He said.

During this period, Netease and Blizzard did not refute this rumor, which became one of the most important reasons for players to have illusions.

All this fine evidence seems to point to the fact that Netease and Blizzard are going to get back together.

If you take over blizzard,

Netease also has a plan.

However, the player’s expectation is not the only lubricant that turns into the reunion of the two sides’ capital.

In the past year, blizzard can be said to have ups and downs.

First, it was disclosed in Q1 financial report that the number of active users in the world dropped from 45 million to 27 million, and the revenue directly dropped from 794 million dollars in the previous quarter to 443 million dollars, both of which were almost halved. Later, in Q2, the net revenue of Diablo IV released in the current quarter exceeded $1 billion, achieving a breakthrough.

On the one hand, the fluctuation of these data is not unrelated to the decline in the revision quality of classic games such as Watching Pioneer, Storm Hero and Call of Duty. On the other hand, the loss of China market has also become the direct reason for the data shock in all aspects.

According to the financial report, after withdrawing from the China market in January 2023, the revenue of Activision Blizzard in Asia in this quarter was 306 million yuan, which was 24.5% lower than that in the fourth quarter of 2022, which was 381 million dollars.

According to media reports, in 2022, Activision Blizzard generated a total revenue of 480 million US dollars in China, and Blizzard shared a profit of 264 million US dollars, and the remaining 216 million US dollars went to Netease.

The China market is fertile enough, as Blizzard naturally understands.

The reason why Diablo 4 can bring extremely high revenue figures to Blizzard is bound to be related to this IP being refurbished again after 11 years, and whether it can have such a high heat as the heat drops is still unknown.

According to multi-dimensional data, Blizzard wants to return to China and needs to return to China.

In the Blizzard 2023 Carnival in November 2023, Blizzard President Mike ibarra once again raised the issue of the return of the national costume: "There are millions of players in China who love Blizzard games, and everyone in Blizzard wants to make sure that they can play our games."

The attitude is very clear, only the other party who is willing to lend a helping hand.

In fact, after careful study, it is not difficult to find that among many China game manufacturers, Netease’s takeover is a more cost-effective choice for both parties. On the one hand, Netease’s servers and player data are readily available. On the other hand, there are not many China manufacturers who are willing to pick up PC games again in the mobile game era. Netease is one of them.

Compared with Blizzard, Netease had a fairly comfortable year.

Netease once said in the financial report of the third quarter of 2022 that the expiration of the authorization with Blizzard will not have a significant impact on Netease’s financial performance. The revenue from games and related value-added services in the quarter was 18.7 billion yuan. In the fourth quarter, the data was 19.1 billion yuan, and it also reached 20.1 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2023, and the data increased steadily.

Obviously, the shock brought by Blizzard’s withdrawal to Netease is not obvious, and Netease has also found "Egg Party" as a new growth point.

Snowball shows that Netease’s share price has risen significantly in the past year.

Until a few days ago, the draft of the new rules of the game was launched. According to the new regulations, daily check-in and initial benefits will no longer be allowed, which caused Netease’s share price to drop from HK$ 159.8 to HK$ 122.6, with obvious shocks. After Netease’s scandal with Blizzard, the share price has a tendency to rebound.

This means that the capital market is looking forward to the two holding hands again.

On the other hand, as we all know, Blizzard games can gain many loyal fans around the world, and its irreplaceability is the most important reason. Recently, Tallis World, which was launched by Tencent in January, 2023, is in a frenzied business, and some players began to regard it as a meal replacement for World of Warcraft. Similarly, it began to be regarded as The Battle of the Golden Shovel as a meal replacement for Hearthstone.

This is undoubtedly a situation that Netease does not want to see.

It is precisely because of this that Netease’s disclosure of this news is extremely ambiguous, and it does not admit or deny it, giving the capital market and the majority of players unlimited reverie.

Once the real news is true, both Netease and Blizzard will be profitable, and the ceremonial AFK in January will only be gradually forgotten over time.

However, all this has not been confirmed.

What is waiting for the player is the popular hope, or another "wolf coming", but also wait for the answer given by time.

(Li Ting and Dong Fang are pseudonyms in the text)

Lanmeih/ Today’s Topic

Do you think Netease and Blizzard will get back together?

Let’s talk in the comment area ~

Original title: "Ten years of Warcraft players shouted: It’s Blizzard’s turn to kneel down and ask Netease to get back together! 》

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　　Businessmen in China in the Southern Weekend have long known that it is necessary to seize business opportunities before it is too late. On November 11th, 2005, less than an hour after the announcement of Fuwa, the mascot of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, mascots began to be sold in the Beijing subway. Now, with the approaching of the Olympic Games, enterprises are playing Fuwa cards one after another, and Fuwa’s business is getting louder and louder.

　　Five little dolls set off a big wave. At the sales point of the Olympic mascots of Gongmei Mansion in Wangfujing, Beijing, the commodities with the theme of "Fuwa", the mascot of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, can reach more than one million yuan a day on weekends when business is hot. One set of plush "Fuwa" is the best seller, although its price is not cheap, and it is priced in 390 yuan. Clothes, pens, schoolbags and key chains with Fuwa logo are also very popular.

　　Across the country, there are hundreds of special sales outlets selling Fuwa goods. There are more than 300 kinds of goods.

　　It is estimated that by 2008, the number of overseas tourists in Beijing will increase to 4.6 million, and during the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008 alone, the number of foreign tourists may reach about 600,000, and the number of domestic tourists may reach 1.1 million. "Although tourists can’t say that everyone buys mascots, it is very sure that there is more than one per capita." An Olympic mascot marketing research expert said. The "Olympic Fuwa" is composed of five creative images: fish, panda, Olympic flame, Tibetan antelope and Jingyan. Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini, which are homonyms for "Welcome to Beijing". This is the largest number of mascots in Olympic history.

　　According to the experience of previous Olympic Games, the income of mascots generally accounts for about 10% of the income of Olympic Games. Huang Wei, a marketing expert who participated in the market development of Atlanta Olympic Games and a senior consultant of Beijing Olympic economy, made a bold prediction in an interview with reporters earlier that due to the large number of Beijing mascots, its income will account for 15% or even higher of the total income of the Olympic Games. The direct sales of Fuwa goods may reach more than 4 billion RMB. "I have participated in the market development in Barcelona and Sydney, and there is no Olympic Games as enthusiastic as our China and Beijing." Huang Wei said.

　　抓福娃商机的快手

　　中国的商家已经懂得抓住商机要趁早的道理了。2005年11月11日，在北京2008年奥运会吉祥物福娃公布不到1个小时后，北京地铁就有吉祥物商品开始销售，速度之快令消费者吃惊。

　　就在福娃公布当天，可口可乐公司同步推出了5款奥运吉祥物纪念罐，160多万罐印有吉祥物形象的可口可乐纪念罐在全国21个城市同步上市。可口可乐(中国)饮料有限公司总裁包逸秋说，历届奥运会中，吉祥物都是最受民众欢迎的奥运元素之一。“可口可乐积极作为，在于看好奥运吉祥物独特感召力和影响力。”

　　上海均瑶集团下属的派瑞文化公司是奥运会的特许生产商。早在奥运会吉祥物揭晓的半年前，2005年6月份的时候，派瑞文化就获得了搪胶福娃和长绒福娃以及延伸产品的特许经营权，并很快进入产品的设计及生产阶段。“那几个月实在忙得不可开交。”派瑞文化副总经理倪庆丰告诉南方周末记者。

　　设计、生产、包装等一切环节都是在严格保密的情况下进行的，直到2005年11月11日福娃揭幕，派瑞文化生产的福娃商品，迅速在各个特许销售点面市。

　　As soon as Perry’s Fuwa products went on the market, they caused a wave of buying. "We didn’t expect to sell such a fire. This is a big test for our logistics. " Ni Qingfeng said that now their daily sales are about 200,000 yuan, of which more than 50% are toys.

　　After the first wave of sales boom, Perry Culture successively launched a series of Fuwa products, from "air-conditioned Fuwa" and "technical Fuwa" to more popular Fuwa building blocks, Fuwa puzzles and Fuwa jigsaw puzzles. While increasing the variety of products, Fuwa’s sales outlets are also gradually increasing, all of which are to prepare for the climax of Fuwa’s sales in 2008. At present, among all Fuwa products, the long-staple Fuwa of Perry culture is the best-selling one.

　　Since November 11th, 2005, more than 500,000 licensed products of Olympic mascots have been rapidly sold in licensed Olympic products all over the country. From the mascot highlighter, which is aimed at children’s consumption groups and costs only one in 8 yuan, to the global limited edition Jade Fuwa, which is priced at 290,000 RMB and made of Hetian jade in Xinjiang, the mascot products are rich in variety and cater to all types of consumers.

　　There are many kinds of mascots, including plush toys, plastic dolls and stationery, which are deeply loved by children. T-shirts, hats, bags, mobile phone chains and key chains that young people like; Precious metal commemorative medals and badges of interest to middle-aged people; Chinese knots, collar buttons, etc. that the elderly are keen on. It is understood that there are six categories and nearly 300 kinds of goods licensed for mascots, such as toys, clothing, bags, stationery, precious metal medals and badges.

　　At present, there are 18 Olympic retailers and nearly 200 licensed retail stores nationwide. According to industry sources, according to the plan of the Olympic Organizing Committee, a scale of 10,000 retail stores in China will be built before 2008.

　　Fuwa business chain

　　The industrial chain of Olympic products is mainly divided into three levels: BOCOG; Manufacturers of Olympic licensed products-under the authorization of the Olympic Organizing Committee, produce relevant Olympic products according to the requirements of relevant institutions and markets, and earn production and processing profits; Retailers of Olympic licensed products-selling Olympic products to consumers through these channels.

　　"The Olympic franchise project is our first big franchise project." Ni Qingfeng, deputy general manager of Shanghai Perry Culture Company, said. Through the production and sales of Fuwa, Juneyao Group formally intervened in the toy industry.

　　Shuguang Printing Group is supporting the production of Fuwa of Perry Culture. They are responsible for the packaging of Fuwa-related products. Their orders come from Perry Culture. They obtained the printing right and the first batch of 15,000 packaging orders half a month before the mascot was announced, and they were also required to keep it strictly confidential. Fuwa’s packaging may not be more profitable than other products, but for Shuguang, it is more an honor to produce such products. Zhu Shili, president of Shuguang Printing Group, said: "By 2008, undertaking the outer packaging of Olympic gifts will bring the company nearly 300 million yuan in orders." From the previous sales momentum, the final order may be far more than that.

　　As the Olympic mascot belongs to the core area of the Olympic economy, the Olympic Organizing Committee has set a high entry threshold for production enterprises, and it also requires certain competitiveness. So far, Zhejiang Junyao Group has won the production qualification of Fuwa plastic toys, Zhejiang Beifa Group has obtained the production materials of Fuwa pen products, Wenzhou Shuguang Printing Group has obtained the designated printing right of Fuwa, and Zhejiang Wanshili Group has obtained the exclusive production qualification of silk mascots. From the scale of these enterprises, we can know that their entry threshold is high.

　　Finally, the sale of Olympic mascots. As for the sales management of Olympic mascots, BOCOG has adopted a special scheme: on the basis of 28 licensed retail stores nationwide, more than 160 temporary sales outlets will be added, covering nearly 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, cities with separate plans and other key consumer goods cities. For these temporary sales points, BOCOG issued temporary sales authorization certificates, and each authorization period was 3 months. Although three months is a short time, it also provides more opportunities.

　　Because the Olympic franchise will be opened to individuals only after 2008, many Wenzhou people who are eager to taste the Olympic business opportunities choose to become dealers of Olympic franchisees. For example, Ji Hongbao, a Wenzhou native who is doing business in Beijing, negotiated with Wangfujing Group in 2005 to win the right to operate the Olympic mascot counters of Wangfujing Department Store outside Beijing, and successively opened nine counters in Wangfujing Department Store in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Changsha, Chongqing and Xining.

　　The registration fever caused by the "Fuwa" effect also brought the derivative value of the "Fuwa" brand to a climax. In 2005, less than a day after the mascot of the Olympic Games was unveiled, the Chinese (English) domain name and universal website of "fu wa" were registered. The "Fuwa" trademark was registered seven years ago, among which five companies registered 11 Fuwa trademarks, including more than 100 items, of which the brand value of one Fuwa has reached 200 million yuan. According to Hubei Yinxin Company, which first registered the trademark of Fuwa, after the release of the Olympic mascot Fuwa, its product sales increased by at least 20%.

　　A well-known example is Panpan Group, which used the mascot of the 1990 Beijing Asian Games as its trademark. It was with its popularity that it developed into the largest manufacturer of steel doors and windows in Asia in just four years.

　　The BOCOG has taken full precautions against trademark registration. According to the person in charge of the legal affairs department of the BOCOG, the mascot of the Beijing Olympic Games has been patented in most countries and regions in the world, and it has kept close contact with industry and commerce, customs, urban management and other units, and measures will be taken immediately in case of counterfeit mascots.

　　However, this still can’t stop piracy. In Beijing’s overpasses, near stations and other places where people’s traffic is concentrated, Fuwa plush toys on the street stalls are only sold in 10 yuan, which is far cheaper than similar genuine toys. Whether this can impact the sales potential of 4 billion yuan of Fuwa goods predicted by experts is still unknown.

　　Get rid of "making money at a loss"

　　Mascots first appeared in the 20th Olympic Games held in Munich in 1972. At that time, artists from the Federal Republic of Germany carefully designed a design of a small hunting dog as a symbol of the Games.

　　Since then, with the Olympic Games gradually changing the situation of "losing money to earn money", the Olympic economy has gradually been discovered, and the commercial value behind any industry related to the Olympic Games has attracted more and more attention. As a result, mascots have become an indispensable product of the Olympic Games.

　　In 1984, when the business-minded Americans held the 23rd Olympic Games in Los Angeles, they began to dig the first pot of gold in the mascot. Ueberroth, the main person in charge of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, authorized Los Angeles garment manufacturers to produce garments with Olympic symbols and mascots, which made these manufacturers earn nearly 10 million dollars.

　　The Spanish are not to be outdone. During the Barcelona Olympic Games held in 1992, the Spanish government provided a full set of packaging for the mascot of the Olympic Games, including making several Cobi books and TV series specially for it, and even letting it visit Hollywood, and its value soared from the initial few dollars to several thousand dollars. From this point on, the commercial influence of mascots began to break away from pure competition activities and mascot sales, and entered the media industry.

　　In recent Olympic Games, the trend of setting up multiple mascots has intensified. In the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, three mascots were designed: Aoli, Said and Millie, and the sales reached 213 million US dollars. Athena and Fevos, the mascots of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, brought Athens a profit of $201 million.

　　How much will the mascot of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games benefit China’s economy? As soon as the licensed goods plan of Beijing Olympic Games was launched, mascots became a protagonist of this plan. In the coming year of Beijing Olympic Games and in the next few years, mascots will be widely used in various souvenirs, and the economic benefits of mascots will gradually become prominent.

Editor: Xu Guimei

　　CCTV News:On July 21st, the Emergency Management Department held a regular press conference in July.

　　The reporter from CCTV Financial Channel at Headquarters asked: What are the main objectives and tasks set by the National Comprehensive Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Plan during the Tenth Five-Year Plan? What are the highlights? Thank you!

　　Chen Sheng, Director of the Monitoring and Disaster Reduction Department of the Emergency Management Department, responded that the overall goal of the Plan anchored the 14th Five-Year Plan for China’s national economic and social development and the outline of the long-term goal in 2035. From the first stage to 2025, a natural disaster prevention and control system with overall planning and high efficiency, clear responsibilities, combination of prevention and control, social participation and coordination with high-quality economic and social development will be basically established; In the second stage, we will strive to basically modernize the natural disaster prevention and control system and prevention and control capacity by 2035, and the prevention and response to major disasters will be more powerful, orderly and effective.

　　Under the overall goal, the Plan defines 6 sub-goals and 2 major sections and 12 major tasks.

　　First, around the improvement of institutional mechanisms, on the one hand, we will strengthen standardization, revise and improve laws and regulations on disaster prevention and mitigation, establish and improve the investigation and evaluation system for major and extraordinary disasters, improve all kinds of disaster emergency plans and standards and norms in various fields, on the other hand, we will strengthen mechanism construction, establish and improve the comprehensive coordination mechanism for natural disaster prevention and control, and improve the work pattern of joint management and coordination.

　　Second, focus on disaster risk reduction, highlight source control, incorporate disaster risk assessment into the requirements of national spatial planning, build a national comprehensive risk database of natural disasters, and prepare a comprehensive risk map and a prevention and control zoning map. The public coverage of early warning information will reach 90%, and the average annual death rate per million people will be controlled within 1, and the average number of people affected by disasters per 100,000 people will be less than 15,000, so as to minimize disaster risks.

　　Third, focus on efficient disaster relief, set up a central disaster relief material reserve, improve the emergency response mechanism and various rescue policies, strengthen the linkage between early warning and emergency response, effectively help the basic livelihood of the affected people within 10 hours of the disaster, and effectively ensure the safety of the people’s lives in the first place.

　　Fourth, focus on consolidating the foundation of disaster prevention and mitigation, deploy major projects to build scientific and technological support capacity for disaster prevention and mitigation, encourage the development of disaster prevention and mitigation industries, consolidate the grass-roots organization system for disaster prevention and mitigation, and extensively carry out popular science education on disaster prevention and mitigation. Every village (community) in urban and rural areas throughout the country has at least one disaster information officer.