Chapter 283 A Bonus
To be honest, Su Yuanshan didn't think the two men sitting in front of him truly understood the concept of "cultural export" — they probably weren't even fully aware of the idea yet.
After all, what era were they living in?
This was a time when everything was measured by money, when scar literature and reflective literature were thriving, when traditional culture — even civilization itself — was being questioned and denied.
For example, a documentary just a few years earlier had reflected on history and civilization and concluded that the only way forward was to embrace the vast blue seas.
Given that context, Su Yuanshan was deeply curious why these two would think of using an Eastern setting — something that obviously wouldn't resonate easily with Western audiences.
...
Facing Su Yuanshan's question, Shi Dazhu smiled confidently. "Most current games are built on Western medieval fantasy — knights, dragons, that whole thing.
We believe that for players, novelty is a universal attraction.
If we can build a coherent system rooted in Eastern culture, it would satisfy that craving for something exotic and mysterious, and bring diversity to the gaming world."
"You're saying it would be a bonus?" Su Yuanshan asked.
"Yeah," Shi nodded. "We see it as a bonus.
The only uncertainty is whether we should base it on the martial arts world — the Jin Yong, Gu Long, Liang Yusheng kind — or go full-on into the immortal cultivation genre like Shu Mountain."
Su Yuanshan took a deep breath, thinking it over carefully for a few seconds before speaking cautiously.
"In terms of pure market acceptance... I honestly can't judge.
But if you manage to create the world's first graphical MMORPG — the first massive multiplayer online game with innovative gameplay — it will definitely achieve some success."
He wasn't being modest — he genuinely couldn't predict the outcome.
In his past life, he'd dabbled lightly in games like World of Warcraft, but he was never a hardcore gamer. He wasn't really passionate about games.
Still, he knew one thing:
When it came to MMOs, Eastern and Western cultures had a serious gap.
No Chinese MMORPG had ever truly broken into Western markets.
Sure, a few titles had briefly made appearances in nearby countries that shared Confucian cultural roots, but that was it.
Meanwhile, among Western MMOs, only World of Warcraft had achieved lasting success internationally — most others had tried and failed.
Given that reality, Su Yuanshan couldn't give a confident prediction.
Especially because right now, in this timeline, even PC single-player games were just entering their explosive growth phase.
The next five years would define the legendary status of many game companies.
Westwood would release Command & Conquer next year, and Red Alert the year after.
Blizzard would soon follow with Warcraft 2, Diablo, and Starcraft.
Valve's Half-Life and CS were just a few years away.
Compared to that historical backdrop, today's gaming world had one huge difference:
Thanks to Su Yuanshan's interventions, the domestic gaming industry had been pushed forward by at least five years.
Seeing that Su Yuanshan couldn't give a definitive answer, Shi Dazhu and Qiu Bojun weren't too disappointed.
They knew Su Yuanshan's focus had always been on semiconductors.
Anyway, they mainly came this time to meet Davidson — who happened to be visiting Zhiyuan today.
The three of them shifted the conversation to the current state and future of China's software industry.
Everyone agreed that China's domestic market would eventually become huge.
And as computer science education expanded into technical colleges, there would soon be a flood of new programmers.
But given the current state of computer ownership and usage in China, it would be hard to fully harness all that programming talent.
Without widespread computer access, a thriving software development market couldn't emerge.
Not every company had the strength to "go abroad."
"Doesn't matter," Su Yuanshan said with a smile. "As long as there's talent, we'll find a way to use it."
"How?" Shi asked.
"Set up outsourcing companies," Su Yuanshan said simply.
"Do contract work for foreigners."
The thought of it immediately made Su Yuanshan think of India.
Even though India still had a pre-modern social structure by 2020, and most of its population lived in poverty, it had nevertheless managed to build a world-class software outsourcing industry.
Why?
Because back in the 90s, they had focused early on providing outsourced software services.
"Going forward," Su Yuanshan said, "whether it's Yuanxin or you guys, as long as you stay connected with Silicon Valley and the West, you'll always find work.
Keep programmers alive, keep them coding — when China's economy finally takes off, these programmers will be the trump card for the domestic software industry."
"Awesome! That's a brilliant idea!" Qiu Bojun said, clapping his hands with a big grin.
"You know, neighboring countries are already doing that."
"You mean India?" Su Yuanshan asked.
"Yeah. I added a few foreigners on EM, chatted a bit," Qiu said, laughing.
"And honestly, EM is a game-changer.
The whole 'global village' thing — people have talked about it for decades, the Internet's been around for decades, but it wasn't until EM that I truly felt like the world was a village.
With EM, you can just open it up and immediately make friends with someone on the other side of the world.
Email doesn't even come close."
"That's why it's called instant messaging," Shi Dazhu added with a grin.
"By the way, President Shan, is Yuanxin only going to focus on internet tools going forward?"
"Not entirely," Su Yuanshan said, shaking his head. "Yuanxin still has a few labs working on professional tools and low-level system development.
It's just that in terms of commercial software, we probably won't get too involved."
That afternoon, Davidson finished his visit to Jiang Wanchao and returned to Yuanxin, just as Ding Lei and Pony arrived in the provincial capital.
Ding Lei had traveled back with Xinghai's team on the same flight, but after a quick stop in Hong Kong, he had spent a couple of extra days in the SEZ before joining them.
...
"President Shan, I hear your tea is pretty legendary?" Pony said as he flopped down on the guest sofa in Su Yuanshan's office.
He was relaxed but still a little formal — meanwhile, Ding Lei wasn't shy at all.
Standing at the filing cabinet, he was peeking at the labels, trying to spot the most expensive tea leaves and watching Su Yuanshan's face for any sign of distress.
Since he'd been constantly pestered for good tea, Su Yuanshan had torn off all the labels from his tea tins — now only Zhou Xiaohui knew which tins held the premium leaves.
"Each of you can pick a tin at random," Su Yuanshan said with a laugh. "Treat it like a lottery."
"Now that you put it that way, it feels like you're hiding cheap junk in these tins," Ding Lei muttered suspiciously, sniffing one of them.
Su Yuanshan chuckled.
In just one month of running around the West, Ding Lei had slimmed down dramatically — from a chubby little ball to a lean young man.
Even Pony had lost a noticeable amount of weight.
Given how hard they had both been working, Su Yuanshan certainly wasn't going to begrudge them a few tins of good tea.
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