Black Myth Investors Talk about Web3 Games: It’s impossible to make good games without love

Source: Zhen Fund

Mihayou Daviagra commented under a circle of friends, “I’m just talking nonsense here. Daniel, the strongest investor in the Chinese gaming industry in the past five years, no one.”

The person who posted this message is Daniel, who is the first to invest in “Black Myth: Wukong”.Seven years ago, Hero Games, which he served as president, invested in Game Science for 60 million, accounting for 20% of the shares.Until Tencent acquired a stake in 2021, Hero Games was its only investor and largest external shareholder.

What everyone doesn’t know is,In addition to the 60 million equity investment, Hero Games has at least the project “Black Myth: Wukong”AdditionalInvested 100 million.This 100 million yuan also makes the hero game the only co-producer of “Black Myth: Wukong”.

Daniel’s circle of friends

In fact, from the perspective of investment, the Kulo game that released “Mingchao” in the first half of the year may be a more successful investment case for Daniel.He once held a 49% stake since his first investment in 2017.

He is a strategist with unique vision and a true friend who is with the founder.Game science project “Black Myth: Wukong”, he followed up 100 million at the first time and helped the Black Myth project team move to Hangzhou., found a secluded workplace in the mountains in Hangzhou.He even borrowed a car from his father in Hangzhou for the founder Yocar to facilitate his travel in Hangzhou.

The Black Myth is online, Daniel wrote in his circle of friends: Many people ask how to vote for the Black Myth and how to vote for the Ming Tide.”I can’t answer, because the methodology here is so simple that there is nothing to say (I’m just pretending to say more), that is: things are made by humans… Just be right. If there is really any methodology, I’ll still take me in.The teacher in the investment industry,Teacher Xu, Teacher Wang, and Anna have given me some feelings and trust in people that are deeply embedded in my heart.Whenever I get some small results, I miss the real old wizards.”

In 2012, Daniel, who was doing audit at Deloitte, met Anna (Fang Aizhi, founding partner and CEO of Zhenge Fund) at a dinner party.

Anna said, “After dinner, he said he wanted to come seriously and wanted to talk to me. I felt that we had no budget and had to pay the rent. What is this handsome guy doing here? But we are doing watches every day and lackI can still afford the salary in finance. OK, let’s do some report for us.”

At that time, Daniel liked to work in big shorts and slippers, and was obsessed with playing games every day, and didn’t write memo.Teacher Xu (Teacher Xu Xiaoping, founder of Zhenge Fund) told Anna, then don’t let him do those finances, just let him watch the game.He can become the best gaming investor in China.

After one and a half years of employment, Daniel was promoted to the youngest vice president in the history of Zhen Fund.During his three years in the real world, he invested in “Superhero”, “National Gunfight” and “Vanity”, which once accounted for 70% of the mobile games of successful entrepreneurial teams in the entire market.Later, he transformed from an investor to an entrepreneur and founded the Hero Game with Ying Shuling.

Last week, Daniel returned to Zhen and talked to us about the investment philosophy in investment decisions in Black Myth: Wukong and Mingchao.After being in the game industry for so many years, the key is to “start from the people themselves.”

The following is an excerpt from the interview.

Daniel (left) is cooking breakfast at Airbnb

During the summer vacation of his freshman year, he studied in a hotel kitchen in Hangzhou.

Teacher Wang (right) said,

“Daniel’s scallion noodles are a must-eat for watching projects in the early stages.”

01“Putting all business conditions, I think he will be.”

Q: Back to that point in time, Yocar came out of Tencent’s “God of Fighting War”.Is this a white horse project that everyone is scrambling for?

Daniel:To be honest, they were a team that someone must have liked, but someone must have looked down on (laughs).Comparing bipolar evaluation team.Objectively looking back, there should have been other companies giving offers at that time, but the valuation and the speed of giving money were not as good as mine, which made the team more moved.Of course, my decision-making speed and the speed of giving money must have been seriously affected.When I was serious, Teacher Xu pushed a reform called One-page Paper TS (Term Sheet), which had a profound impact on my investment style.

Looking back now, many people say that the Black Myth team is very powerful and has done “The God of Fighting War”.But if you understand the game industry, “Fighting God” is a project that spent so much money in the past but had not had good business returns.At that time, everyone checked whether a game team was powerful or not.There is only one indicator called “Can you make money and whether you have strong commercialization capabilities.”This must have been questioned by many people.But at the same time, their content ability and production experience have moved many people.

Q: Why is it the hero’s turn to pitch?”The God of Fighting War” was very famous in the industry at that time, but Tencent did not invest, and NetEase did not invest.

Daniel:I think it is a two-way choice.If the two big companies don’t invest, they either make slow decisions, don’t want to invest, or they can’t give me the valuation. There are possibilities behind it.

I believe many people will think that this team is not commercialized and is too idealistic.But in the end, it does not rely on commercialization capabilities to make money, it depends on idealism to a certain extent.Or what the founder said is pragmatic idealism.

butAfter I finished chatting, I was determined and determined to sign a contract with the team immediately and in the second second.The hero was not very famous at the time, and we were just a startup company, which was a bit like Zhen’s early state as a new fund.But the training I gave me in the past,Let me know at that moment that I can only achieve what I want if I am fast enough, “ruthless” enough and sincere enough..

Q: What was the reason for the investment “resolutely and resolutely” decision?

Daniel:It was so rare that Yocar and I finished talking.Such a talent.

First of all, I was already a hero at that time. During the process, I would develop in depth. In-depth research and development would understand the “industrialization level” ability, which is how to enable many people to play a good enough coupling ability in a project and arrange the assembly line.Make production capacity very efficient.

I had a simple judgment at that time.Assuming the game goes backwards, the level of industrialization is the most important.The level of industrialization must be based on project experience.If you have not experienced a project of two or three hundred people, you will not have such industrial experience.This is very complicated, with an understanding of pipelines, an understanding of tools, and so on.

There are very few people in China who can have such large projects experience, such as Tencent’s “God of Fighting War” and “The Moon Sword of the World”, NetEase’s “Against the Cold”, and only these three or four large MMO projects.Such project experience is 100% scarce.

Secondly, the first feeling after chatting was that he was a versatile talent.The production of the game industry includes technology, art, planning and operation.To some extent, there will be shortcomings.But Yocar really understands it.He has a strong aesthetic, a good plan, and some techniques, and has a strong understanding.

Then he was very knowledgeable.Speaking to him is a feeling of talking to a biologist, and in theory he is a person who can study for a Ph.D. in biology.But at the same time, he is very humanistic and can talk about mathematics, philosophy, creative expression, and macro environment with you. Just like Teacher Wang (Teacher Wang Qiang, co-founder of Zhenge Fund), you can read any book.

I don’t know what these things will eventually turn into.At that time, you would not have imagined that all of his would eventually be discounted in the product “Black Myth: Wukong”.But I was attracted at that moment.It’s a genius, an all-rounder.

Q: What did you talk about when you first met?It is said that they only talked for less than half an hour.

Daniel:When I first met in Shenzhen, Yocar talked to me about the history of the team and the idea of ”The Art of War: Red Tide” at that time.His chat style is very strategic, you don’t think he is a game producer.He will always talk first, let me give you an example, there is a “Wandering Earth” today, what does this prove?What kind of market should China have in theory?A way to talk about things from macro to micro.

There is also a very interesting chat detail.The promotional films of “The God of Fighting War” and “The Hundred Generals” are of high quality, just like movies.I asked him why these films can be shot so well?He said, do you know what I do in college?Every day in my dormitory, I am addicted to watching commercials in my dormitory and watched hundreds of them.

He is such a person.What kind of person is Yocar?Look at his circle of friends, he recommends an animation every few days, a movie every few days, and a book every few days.He always travels in various content works.All his recommendations are described in rhyme lilac poems. If one day the circle of friends suddenly stops rhyming, there will be a lot of doubts below. Why don’t you rhyme today?

Q: In 2017, the hero invested 60 million, accounting for 20%.It was also very expensive in that era.

Daniel:After all, this guy is still a famous person.I thought about it at that time and had to vote no matter what.Such talents are too scarce, such teams are too scarce, and such project experience is too scarce.

In fact, when you suddenly encounter a project worth 60 million, you still have to grit your teeth.It turns out that the deals that are made in real life are all worth millions…It is equivalent to always doing angel investment, and suddenly encountered an angel project but the amount of round B financing was at that time.

Q: Actually, when the hero invested, he went to “The Art of War: Red Tide”, and the team has not started to do “Black Myth: Wukong”.I am sure to establish a project and make a stand-alone machine. How did this decision be made?Why was it given another 100 million?

Daniel:By 2018, before the team officially made “Black Myth: Wukong”, they had made 3 products, from “The God of Fighting War”, to “Hundred Generals”, and then to “Art of War: Red Tide”.Simply put, it will be about 12 years, each product will last three or four years, and it may be longer (the actual development time of Dou Zhan God is unknown).

In fact, the situation was that after the Red Tide was completed, the team was in a relatively confused state, and there was not much money in the account at that time.We were talking at the Hunan-Jiangxi Farm in Shenzhen. This place is very delicious, Amway.I asked him what to do in the future?

After careful discussion at that time, Yocar said what he thought.That is what he said in the Xinhua News Agency interview, they are actually real and objective situations.How does he view the stand-alone market, how does he view this opportunity, etc.For me, what touched me the most at that time was the state he showed.It is the ability to reflect on yourself at all times, face difficulties or failures, and look for causes inward.

The roughly meaning is that he said: We must first understand ourselves.My team cannot make pure commercial games.We have our own aesthetic persistence and our own way of playing.Our love and experience of many pure commercial games is not enough, and we should make products that impress ourselves more.

For me, since this team can’t make commercial games and doesn’t want to do it so much, I’d better do what I like and try it.

Actually, I was mainly based on several judgments at that time, that isThis matter needs to be established several major assumptions.1) Assuming that the stand-alone market really exists, there is such a big opportunity.2) Suppose that telling a good story of China will bring great dividends to the times.3) Suppose the team can really do a good job in Chinese stories and have the ability to produce 3A-level games.

Among them, 1) and 2) the film industry has already taken the lead, verifying the establishment of such a big story.

And 3) is actually what I value the most.That is, I deeply believe that this team has the ability to tell Chinese stories well and the ability to produce 3A games.I rememberYocar’s original words at that time,“People must bind their careers to the rise of the country and nation to obtain the greatest momentum. This is the simplest sentiment and the most basic rationality.”, this is his attitude towards this matter.

The understanding of Chinese culture, love of Chinese culture, and the ability to productize Chinese culture in their past game works also make me firmly believe that although 3A gamesIt’s hard to make, but they have the ability to achieve it.

Telling a good Chinese story is a big proposition.Many people are fake, but he is real.

Q: What do you think about the hero?

Daniel:Most of the company still objected to me.In fact, after doing Chichao, there are still voices of opposition to this team within the company, at least the team involved in the Chichao project…Most of them left the hero…

And to a certain extent, investing in projects of this level is also a competition with the company’s internal project team. After all, the company’s money is limited resources.

Q: But from your perspective, there are so many games with better business models in the world, and there are so many ways to make money.Even if he can make the first stand-alone game like “The Wandering Earth”, why not invest in other projects that can bring higher returns?

Daniel:To some extent, you want him to succeed.For Yocar, I put aside all business conditions, I think he will succeed.

If he fails, I will not give up on him.Actually, there is such an emotion.This is also what the real humanistic part brings to me. I also want a Chinese cultural thing to come out in this form at a certain point in time.I also want to play such a game, and I firmly believe that this team can do it.

02“The most difficult thing is his nature.”

Q: Many people say that the success of black myth is a good time, place and people.

Daniel:His time is too critical.The starting point of our project establishment at that time was the popularity of “Wolf Warrior” and “The Wandering Earth”.We judge that if there are works that break through the technical and quality ceiling, Chinese people will be proud of them to bring great business achievements.

Journey to the West is a Chinese story.This team has done “The God of Fighting War”, and it is a group of Journey to the West. The word Journey to the West is also a word that the team taught me.When making an IP, what takes the most time is actually the world view and the setting of art monsters.For example, if I draw a monster today, what does it look like?A lot of research is required.So in theory, they will keep making a style of game and it will be smoother and smoother.

At that time, the most sold stand-alone sets in the Chinese market were 100,000 sets. At that time, we judged that “Black Myth: Wukong” was 10 million sets (it was only three days after it was launched, and the sales volume of Black Myth on the entire platform exceeded 10 million).

The most difficult thing is that if you really can make “The Wandering Earth”, that is the strength of the team.But we judge that he has strength.

Afterwards, it will be a process of walking and trying, constantly enduring hardships, and exploring the path in the unmanned land.When the first movie goes out, there are more than 50 million views on B station, which is very good.

Q: Have you ever thought about the worst results after release?

Daniel:The worst thing is dullness. You sold it, for example, one or two million copies.

What I worry most is that from the perspective of investors, if you sell 100,000 copies, it doesn’t matter, you know that this market does not exist.If you sell one or two million copies, you will not be able to get up or down, you will not have enough money to make the next game, and your results will not be enough to raise money to make the next one, so you will be stuck here.This is actually the most uncomfortable.

Q: What is the most critical trait of Yocar as the founder?

Daniel:On the one hand, he is really patriotic, this is also mentioned above.If you want to do this, and be able to do this product well, you cannot do without the fact that you deeply love all aspects of your motherland.On the other hand, from my perspective, the most difficult thing about the founder’s characteristics is actually not how good R&D strength is.The most difficult thing is his nature.

Many people will be able to float when the traffic that is pouring in.After the first film went out, more than 50 million were broadcast, and many people began to come to him.He said to me, Daniel, please help me block it all.We now want to block all external interference.

At that time, they moved from Shenzhen to Hangzhou specifically. Why?It is because of judgment that the team’s character is also very important.I can’t be in Shenzhen today, and I’ll be here alone to dig you.Hangzhou is a quiet and suitable city.Secondly, it is actually very “hard” to retreat in a mountain in Hangzhou.Once I went to Hangzhou to see him and took his car. He said he could drive for three months with a barrel of oil.You think I can finish a barrel of oil in a few days.

Game Science Hangzhou Studio

There is always a saying within them that completing is more important than being outstanding.It is also a sentence that Yocar keeps emphasizing to me every time I go to see them.

During the game, you must constantly do subtraction and must have a sense of boundaries of the project.Many times, a project takes ten years to do it, or it takes endless budgets when it is done.In fact, from the perspective of professional games today, this game may still have many problems, and players also have many picky points.But we are very clear that completing itself is a breakthrough.

“Black Myth: Wukong” has 7 partners in its organizational structure.All interviews say that these 7 partners endure hardships together.After so many years of hardship, it never goes away.The final large amount of content is the result of everyone working together.

He even leveraged all the hero’s abilities.Before it went online, dozens of people from the entire distribution team of Heroes lived voluntarily in Hangzhou and distributed it with him.It’s hard for you to live alone in another city for a month or two, but “Black Myth: Goku” has the ability to unite you.It makes you feel that you are striving for an ideal, which is part of this ideal, and it has a very exciting feeling..

I also remembered what Teacher Xu said to the team back then and forgot what occasion it was.He said that he has invested in so many companies, and often those entrepreneurs who really do well are grateful to him.

Today, after the game “Black Myth: Wukong” is finished, players will see a long list.There are many heroic people on the list, all of whom were helped by the hero team when he was doing “Art of War: Red Tide”. Some of these people did not work during the launch of “Black Myth: Wukong”.But he is grateful to these people.This may also be part of his nature, which makes people very warm.

03“I’m concerned with self-consistent talent”

Q: What questions do you ask when you judge whether to vote for a game team?

Daniel:Well, that’s it, (I smiled at me and drank water tactically) It turns out that when I was serious, I was also very curious about what other investors would ask.The happiest thing at that time was to meet the boss with Anna, and I also went to listen to what the bosses were talking about, and it felt like it was a good absorption.

But when I really started to be a hero myself, I found that investors and team value two things.So I think it is not in the end what I will ask, but in the end you have already achieved your level.

Your level must come from being with the founder and you understand what he is thinking.What he is thinking is what you are asking.When you don’t understand what he is thinking, everything you ask is wrong.

Because I am only in the gaming industry, I know too much about what everyone in this industry thinks.I also manage hero R&D, distribution, investment, and theoretically I also manage all directions covered by the game.When making investment decisions, this can truly drive you a lot of things.

Q: What are the criteria for judging a game producer’s abilities?

Daniel:The ability that a game producer needs most is macro thinking.Whether it is a stand-alone or an online game.

There are many ways to play the game, including systems and values, which are nested and coupled to each other.You have to think about how to couple, whether my target users are big or small, and all ideas, art, and technology will be extended around this center.The most perfect state is that I made a project planning project today and listed one, two, three, four and five goals.After three years of work, I went back to see these goals, but these goals have not changed.This is the most amazing thing, and I think it very clearly from the beginning.

Most people will only stay on the first level, “I want to make something fun.”But if he cannot explain the user group and system structure clearly, it means that he is incomplete and cannot make money.The most fear of reworking is not clear about the game.

Then look at his game aesthetics.The aesthetics of the game will be similar to the direction of the game he wants to do.Because his game aesthetic is the type of game he likes to play, the experience of the game type determines his tendency to make games to a certain extent.You read Wang Shuo all day long, and the things you write are in this style.To some extent, you think it is niche in soul games, but its growth rate is fast enough to support your investment logic.

I invested in Kuro because I discovered that the producer of “Mingchao” is a genius.His 90 years of experience in game production was very, very shallow at that time.But I found that his aesthetic and picture feel are very suitable for cool 2D games.

If you understand this field, most of the two-dimensional games that were successfully verified at that time were Japanese celluloid.But relatively hardcore and a little realistic style is also a big track in the second dimension.No one did it at that time.Although this producer is young and has never made a complete game, he is very familiar with this culture and is obsessed with it.More importantly, his way of thinking about problems is also complete in macroscopicity and amazing in microscopicity, so he decided to invest.

Q: What are some things that can be determined when you meet the first time?

Daniel:To some extent, it is still process contact.Actually, I later thought, if you talk about investment with someone today, I would suddenly come to his company without knowing it, and say that I would smoke a cigarette or have a cup of tea.You have to chat inadvertently, in informal occasions.This will bring out more.

Q: During the long-term process of contact with the founder, what are good and what are bad for you?

Daniel:What I really observe is whether they focus on what they are good at and persist.

The first priority is to be very confident at the strategic level and not change blindly.The game industry has the biggest feature, and a strategy affects you for at least three years.Today I am sure to make this game. Suppose the cost of 1 billion yuan a year and the strategic direction is changed the second year, and the 1 billion yuan will be in vain.This process must remind yourself that you cannot change due to any situation and cannot pursue hot topics.

The second priority is to look at the organizational structure, and the organizational structure must conform to your production factors.The second thing is to look at the founder and management, because what is going on?Because what’s upset?Many small things are hidden in your heart, and it will be bad if you suppress them for a long time.I pay great attention to this kind of thing because it directly affects organizational stability.

Q: From the beginning of the game investment and more than ten years of hard work in Zhenjie, do you see that the perspective of a game team has changed?

Daniel:It turns out that in the real world, the thing I focus most on is the talent of the team.Things are caused by humans, so at that time I only think about people.

What I am now focusing on is self-consistent talent.This self-consistent is very important.It comes from many levels, such as your recognition of this matter, the coupling between you and investors, the organizational structure, such as this project requires a lot of people, so management ability must keep up.It is still necessary to make a thing happen, and there must be several elements behind it.Decompose the elements clearly and see if he can handle them.

Q: For game producers, what is the last mile from good to great?

Daniel:The last mile is your ambition.The last mile must not be for money, but for your vision and product ambitions.The energy behind this is extremely large.

You must have such strong ambitions.Because the process is very hard and hard, the game industry is the most overtime industry in the world. It is really always working overtime, always trying and making mistakes, and always iterating in the no-man’s land.

Q: How do you identify whether a person has such energy?

Daniel:Just chatting with him.Who would he want to be when he was nothing, for example.

Q: What are your investment principles?

Daniel:Must be particularly early, this may have something to do with being honest.

I will give the first product to the issuance rights.ThenContinue to increase bets,Deep foundation is crucial.Only when these three points are combined can you maximize your profits.

Q: Everyone is not saying it well, only the project you think is good VS If everyone is saying it well, do you prefer the former?

Daniel:One thing is very dialectical.Suppose you asked a lot of people and everyone said it was not good, but you just thought it was good.You can eat it to death.

What I often worry about the most is that everyone says yes.You will think why is this opportunity you?Why does this project belong to you?Once a strong competitive relationship is formed, I will definitely retreat.

Basically, every investment I have to ask others, I have a lot of doubts, which makes me feel more secure.Of course, the premise is that I have had real experience and I have confidence and logic in the investment decisions I make.

Q: It sounds like you only hit the dark horse.Is it established to invest in the game industry?

Daniel:Not many completely white horses have emerged in the game industry.

Because assuming you are a white horse means you must have strong successful works.If you have strong successful works, it means you must have path dependence.If you have path dependence, it means you must be competing with the areas that traditional major manufacturers are good at.

What does an industry develop to a mature stage mean?It means that all the things you want to roll out will be spent ten thousand times the time or resources on rolling out with you.

Q: When you enter the industry from VC, what advice will you give to pure VC institutional investors now?

Daniel:Investing is a process of removing ego (self).You must be a blank piece of paper to truly understand others.My advantage is that I am naturally a piece of white paper, and this is my personality.

Sometimes you have thought that one direction is unreliable a hundred times, it may be just that the direction he is thinking is unreliable, but the person is reliable.We must avoid making mistakes because of ego.

There are three perspectives to look at people.You can look up at people, look down at people, look straight at people.I personally prefer to always keep looking straight at people at first.If you slowly start looking up at the person, this may be the time for you to raise the bet.

Q: You said that you actually don’t have much time to play games now, just play a little bit as a pastime.When you use yourself as a ruler to measure the team, how do you maintain the acuity of this ruler?

Daniel:The refined ruler is actually not a ruler for the product, but also a ruler for people.Once this ruler is formed, it is formed.I rarely spend time refining this ruler now.

The premise of good product aesthetics is human aesthetics.You still need to understand many dimensions for people.

04“The next era of game investment opportunities,It will take two or three years to judge.”

Q: What have you done the biggest hits in the gaming industry for so many years?

Daniel:I think the biggest hit is because you do things that others can’t do.This was the case in “Genshin Impact” back then, and the same is true in “Black Myth: Wukong” today.

Because the gaming industry is not rocket science, it can be made after many years. The difficulty is whether you have the courage and patience to do it.

Q: Can the investment in “Black Myth: Wukong” be replicated successfully?

Daniel:I don’t think it’s replicable.It is also difficult for the creative team to replicate.This team of people can do it, but others can’t do it.The game industry is very talented, just like a director.

From my personal judgment, it is difficult for younger developers to make such stand-alone games today.Why?

Games like Black Myth have very high requirements for a person’s overall humanistic level.A relatively older developer has experienced more changes in the times, more life things have been experienced, and more precipitation.The growth environment of the younger generation is relatively smooth and happy, and they cannot make such a heavy game.Going back, in another ten years, I see that the younger generation inspired by “Black Myth: Wukong” today may be only fifteen or sixteen years old. He said I want to do something like this.That’s possible.

The game investment opportunities in the next era are actually easy to judge after two or three years.I basically don’t vote for everything in front of me.

Q: You are not investing in (external game startups) now, so what are you doing?

Daniel:I’m very focused on making hero games now.I have been working on my own projects and now I have over 2000 people.

Because you have great positive feedback in your investment, you will think that there is a work you made by yourself.Of course, this is also related to objective laws.The stages of the hero game may be the same as those of the Black Myth team when they were doing “The God of Fighting War”.The rules that the game industry cannot break away from are that it requires accumulation and precipitation.I will now spend more time for the hero team to accumulate and settle in the right things.

Q: What have you been waiting for in the past two or three years?

Daniel:In two or three years, AIGC will become a big variable, by then, it should bring about a new round of changes in investment ideas.But the AIGC in front of us has not been formed in a real sense. It improves a certain amount of efficiency, but it is not enough.

Q: When we see a new technology emerging, there is often a trend of “technology + games”, such as Web3 games and AI games, but it seems that it is difficult to come out in the end.

Daniel:I thinkIt’s all about the game.

Any time.I just said that you should pay attention to the team and not be deceived by some new directions.I have seen a large number of game industry entrepreneurs doing Web3 after Web3 comes out, and I will never vote for those people.First of all, he doesn’t love games, so how can he make good games?Very simple truth.

Many people asked me if I wanted to make a Vision Pro game?I said we don’t have to make Vision Pro games because the ability we exercise hard every day is the production capacity of content production.It is quality on the one hand and efficiency on the other.

Assuming that Vision Pro is really popular, relying on my quality and efficiency itself, it provides the best content.It’s not that you can provide good enough content if you do it early.It is two kinds of logic.Like in the early years, everyone said they would invest in a mobile game company and would subvert Tencent in the future.No.In the end, Tencent crushed the market because its production quality and efficiency were there, but this market was mature.

What you want to seize is something that big companies cannot do.Either the big companies cannot attract such talents, such as the second-dimensional talents do not like to enter large companies, or the big companies do not have the efficiency of the organization. In fact, you only need to pay attention to these.

05“I am suffering enough, but I have to give everyone hope”

Teacher Wang: In the past, we thought you were a person with a temperament, a very gentle and shining child.But it was just such a person who later became a hero, and now he manages more than 2,000 people, becoming the number one position that stands alone.From becoming a game investor in real life to starting a company and becoming a CEO, what is your greatest growth?

Daniel:The greatest growth is actually enough pain.

I turned out to be a very easy-going person. I just cross my legs when I have a meeting together, so the team doesn’t feel stressed.Now I am not in this state, I will force myself to try not to laugh.

You will realize that there are a lot of things that need to be done cruelly.When the company was transforming, I opened hundreds of people.During that time, my phone was turned off later.The pain is that someone’s wife in the team will send you a text message saying how old my child is, why are you treating me like this?

If you continue to transform, you will gradually find some feelings.You can only have one knife to start someone, not just today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, which will keep the morale of the entire company down.With one knife, the person who stayed will know that it would not be me.

In the entire company management process, the most difficult thing you finally find is actually finding your own weakness.In other words, the most difficult thing is always how to understand yourself better and how to cooperate with yourself.For example, although I am relatively strict on the surface today, I am not a person who can put pressure on the team in my heart, so I will leave it to the person who can push it.

Suppose I am a Liu Bei in this company, and the people who cooperate with me must be Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun who whip them.The strategist doesn’t care about me at all, you must be a military general.In addition, because I am not a strict person, I will not whip it. This means that someone who has gone far with me for a long time must have a strong self-motivation.I don’t like spending too much time teaching people to take people.

In recent years, I have experienced a great cycle of transition in heroes.A lot of internal adjustments and mindset adjustments.For me, we must first determine the specific direction, then adjust our thinking mode, so that a small number of people will get rich first, and then use a small number of people to collect the remaining people.Slowly form this feeling and positive and positive volume within the company.For me, my investment is to let a small number of people get rich first to drive the internal team. It is a benchmark. Of course, these benchmarks are very big now, and may be benchmarks for the industry…

I now write an internal letter to the company every year.I won’t go out during the Spring Festival. I will write internal letters when I go to seclusion at home, and I will gradually feel the changes in my thinking.

Actually, this is what I really learned.Didn’t Teacher Xu write a letter too?The power of words is much greater than that of mouth.After writing too much, I found that I was OK and could really write.

I wrote about why we can’t be publishers today, we want to transform.Why do we have to make certain types of games in 2018? How do we do it?In 2019, I wrote about how our organization went from a small team to an industrial management team.After 20 years of writing, what we need to pay attention to during the transformation process, as well as the changes in the external world, and so on.Always write every year.

Why are big companies particularly easy to manage?Everyone in Honor of Kings works overtime every day?No one in the gaming industry can join big companies because it has a clear effect of wealth first leading to wealth later.Everyone in Tencent knows that a project team makes so much money, and everyone is working as hard as him.

The entrepreneurial team does not have this ability because if you don’t have one of them to be rich first, you have to create one yourself to be rich first.For me, I rely on investment and the power of ecology.In fact, to a certain extent, Tencent may be the same. They also made good use of investment first. The four little dragons, League of Legends, DNF, and CrossFire were all invested.It has once again driven the internal R&D transformation and achieved its current hegemony.In fact, when I first started to be a hero, I studied a lot of their strategies and ideas.

We must go down like this layer by layer, first of all, we cannot be anxious.You have to find the rules of the development of this thing and be very patient.You have to observe them and accompany them, so that they can develop.

Q: What impact will “Black Myth: Wukong” have on the heroes afterwards?

Daniel:No impact.We have refined our strong distribution capabilities in the process. As a joint producer, we are doing a lot of the distribution work.For example, how to choose KOL or KOC?How to connect with other industries?After doing these things, we actually have strong experience and improve.

This process has learned a lot.For example, we now have a set of algorithms for the entire KOL management, forming our own algorithms. Based on the logic behind the number of views, number of people, etc., we can accurately calculate which KOLs have the best live streaming effect. This is actually for us to do later.All the games are very helpful.You must try it through the online release of such a game product before you can try it out and polish your algorithm.

Q: What is the way you grow yourself?Some people are studying, some are thinking, and some are chatting.

Daniel:My way is to find more people to chat.Try every means to talk to the most powerful people.Of course, I love reading too.

Q: What is your greatest talent?

Daniel:I think my greatest talent is shameless.

I’ll tell a story.No one knows this story, I will tell it for the first time today.It turns out that I just came here really, and the business card I gave me was an analyst.But the game industry was already emerging at that time, and my difficulty was that I wanted to meet the big bosses in the industry and sell the games to them.I went to print a business card by myself, called Zhen Partner.I still have this business card, haha.You still have to find a way yourself.

For example, when I first met Anna, I took the initiative to ask if you can recruit me?Selling himself to Anna with a stern face.

Teacher Wang: I know about business cards, do you know why?Once you took me to Shanghai to meet an international student, and you showed me this business card.I said you just use it quietly, haha.Teacher Xu didn’t know either.

Anna:?(I looked shocked and turned to everyone) Don’t learn bad things!

Daniel:Yes, I met Zhou Yahui in this way at that time.So you still have to think of some tricks yourself, it is difficult to teach it personally.Ha ha.

Teacher Wang: Daniel himself is also a case of true philosophy.So Anna, you pulled Daniel in at that time, how did you judge at that time?

Anna: I keep joking because he is cheap.

But it’s certainly not because of this.First of all, I really feel that at that time, I would be willing to do anything if I want to enter the real world.Until now, all of us still have the truth in our eyes and will definitely not apply for other jobs.If you say you want to make money, you can go to a large institution.You must love this matter and love angel investment.

Daniel always played games after coming to Zhen Ge, and he didn’t write memo.Teacher Xu asked Daniel to invest in games. I learned to see people through Teacher Xu and learned to follow talent to find the bright spots of everyone.Don’t do what you don’t want to do at all.

Teacher Xu really changed Daniel’s direction.What I regret is that he was poached by Lao Ying to do what he is really good at: starting a game company.

(Daniel then continued to share undisclosed content for two hours)