Chapter 258: Mei Fang’s Three Open Cards
In his previous life, Mei Fang did not possess particularly outstanding commercial talent. He only had a basic understanding of the fundamental development rules of the gaming industry, which led him to invest so much money in maintaining C Station instead of B Station.
Many people might think that if he simply wanted to layout the gaming industry, he could have directly established a platform related to games, such as creating something akin to TABTAB or STEAM to make a splash. Why go through the trouble of creating the troublesome C Station?
In reality, this would be almost meaningless.
Building a platform was not a realization that came about ten years later; before then, all the platforms that could be created were already monopolized.
As everyone knows, Penguin managed to ultimately defeat the once-dominant domestic giant Shengda Games. Apart from the strategic decision-making errors made by Chen Tianqiao, the owner of Shengda, even if they had introduced more outstanding games from abroad, their cost for user acquisition would have been extremely high, completely unable to match the massive traffic platform provided by QQ.
Relying on the QQ platform, whether it was the games developed or those released, Penguin could easily harvest a large number of potential users, and the advantage brought by this was almost immeasurable.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the gaming industry grew wildly. Each company represented itself with its own flagship game, and the game platforms were limited to card game halls and various pirated game websites. Later, with the promotion of smartphones, different mobile phone brands became new channel distributors, providing their own application platforms to load games.
Only during this period were some truly original game platforms born, or game platforms made using mobile emulators. However, most of them did not last long. Either they were absorbed and swallowed by the channel distributors, or they turned niche, becoming havens for retro and cracked games.
The true success of TABTAB actually relied not on its own strength but on the backing of its main sponsor, Qin Dong Games, which was also its parent company. V社 itself had many world-renowned masterpieces, and Qin Dong Games made a fortune during the era of page games and online games, thanks to the foresight of its boss, Huang Er Meng.
Just like how Steam is to V社, TABTAB is to Qin Dong. To build a good game platform, having a first-party game with a good reputation is essential.
Mei Fang was still too young and lacked such conditions, so he chose an alternative path, utilizing C Station as a huge traffic gateway.
In fact, C Station still relied on Mei Fang’s income from games to sustain itself. Due to another increase in bandwidth and the official establishment of the company, with increased investments, the company began showing signs of loss every month.
Although Mei Fang had millions in assets and BitCoin as an invincible trump card, as he had emphasized before, there was no need to reveal his cards prematurely.
One should play with open cards when one has them, especially since the effects of Mei Fang’s open cards were already very exaggerated.
These three cards were named “Xi Fang Yuan” by Mei Fang, representing the three major business lines he planned.
Firstly, the “Xi” card, which represents the C Station associated with Lin Xi Technology.
The “Xi” card is the foundation, regardless of whether Lin You Xi reveals her identity.
As a platform, C Station is where all IPs and cultural developments are incubated. Even if it means burning money, it must be firmly controlled.
The second card Mei Fang played was the “Yuan” card, which is the music card.
Xia Yuan’s music career benefits from Mei Fang’s literary support and can quickly gain popularity through the C Station’s traffic.
Xia Yuan’s songs are not purely in the anime style, which can also indirectly bring new users to C Station.
However, despite the surge in user visits, Mei Fang did not relax the difficulty of becoming a formal member. He even optimized several versions over time.
Back then, the biggest regret of B Station was that Uncle relied on anime culture to rise but tried to promote a non-anime direction to make B Station more mainstream. While this was indeed the trend of capital development, it also left a batch of true anime fans homeless.
Mei Fang does not want his C Station to become mainstream like B Station. He only needs the scale of C Station to be sufficient to cover his gaming users.
As for promoting cultural pioneers and so on, let A Station in this lifetime bear this responsibility. His ambition is not big; he wants to leave a pure land for anime.
To Mei Fang, the “Yuan” card is not just a music card but also a mascot card.
C Station will never degenerate, and Yuan Yuan will never enter the entertainment industry, meaning she has nothing to do with endorsements, packaging, and talent agencies. Mei Fang does not need Yuan Yuan to do these things.
Under these circumstances, making the “Yuan” card profitable is not easy. It can only slightly replenish blood through concerts and albums. Xia Yuan’s popularity will move forward with C Station.
The third card Mei Fang played was the “Fang” card, which is the Ximilu game card.
Mei Fang’s current financial chain entirely relies on the “Fang” card for maintenance. The strong引流ability of C Station can also reverse-boost the game, attracting more potential users. Currently, the “Yuan” card is temporarily serving this function.
The results even exceeded expectations.
Currently, “Cloud Journey” has only developed a PC version, sold on both C Station and STEAM. Mei Fang’s promotional video attracted a wave of STEAM players, but sales were low. At a price of 36 yuan, after one week of release, total sales were less than 1000 copies. Considering that smartphones and Alipay are still in the early stages of popularization, this is understandable.
The influence of C Station and Ximilu overseas is limited. Mei Fang can only wait to earn big money on STEAM.
But C Station’s first-week sales were far more appealing than STEAM’s. Because users could pay with C Coins, the process was much more convenient, selling 20,000 copies in a week.
It’s worth noting that this was in 2012 in China. The true golden age of independent Chinese games was still years away, with titles like “Axie” and “Lost City” not emerging until 2016. At this point, Mei Fang had already become a pioneer of the ancient era, marking a milestone in the history of independent Chinese games.
People generally have a high tolerance for games made by high school students. They initially thought that Mei Fang would create another simple fun game, but instead, they found a work that was distinctive in music, storytelling, and artistry. How could game enthusiasts not be excited?
Aside from praising “Cloud Journey” as a masterpiece of independent Chinese games, Mei Fang was even given the nickname “Son of Light,” receiving widespread anticipation.
Those young people who were arguing whether Fangbao was worthy of being Yuanbao, especially the male group, instantly became supporters of Mei Fang after playing his game. No cute girl could compare, and they all started following Mei Fang’s account.
Currently, Mei Fang’s personal account “Reversing Heaven Xiao Fang Fang” has 30,000 followers on C Station. Although it is far behind Xia Yuan’s 300,000 followers in 2012, it still counts as a minor celebrity.
In summary, Mei Fang’s decision to play these three open cards at this moment was not a random move but rather a consideration for the future grand plan of the “Xi” card.
Because this weekend, he will officially represent Lin Xi Technology and negotiate with the mysterious strategic investment department of Penguin—CVC (Penguin Industry Co-Profit Fund)—about the A-round financing issue of C Station.
I’m sorry it’s late, but this is still a transitional chapter! After all, watching too many sci-fi movies has made my teeth sweet. Let’s review what Mei Fang has accomplished in the past ten years together? From the next chapter, we’ll start with daily narrative. That’s it for now.
(End of Chapter)
