The door pushed open, and Old Zhang walked in carrying a stack of printed test reports.
"Lao Fu, the clipping bugs are fixed. The QA team ran through the sequence three times, and no more errors were reported. The frame rate is stable at 60fps, and it doesn't drop even with twenty enemies on screen." Old Zhang slapped the report onto the desk and let out a long sigh of relief.
"Good work." Fu Zhan handed Old Zhang the printed copy of the North American research report. "Take a look at this."
Old Zhang took it, flipped through a few pages, and his brow furrowed.
"Online games? We haven't even sold The Legend of Nezha yet, and you're already trying to pull some new stunt?"
"It's called preparing for the future." Fu Zhan stood up and walked to the window, looking down at the street below. "Sega's vision is sharper than ours. In North America, people are already connecting computers to play games online. While we're lagging behind domestically, we won't stay behind forever. The Nine-Tattooed Dragon is coming in mid-August, and we need to do our homework in advance."
Old Zhang scratched his head. "The technical barrier for online gaming is no joke. Server capacity, data synchronization, anti-cheat... We haven't even figured out a local area network yet."
"That's why we need to learn," Fu Zhan said, turning around. "Wrap up The Legend of Nezha and get ready to press the disc. I want you to pull a few people from the project team to form a preliminary research group. Start by studying LAN multiplayer."
Old Zhang rolled the report into a tube and tapped it against his palm. "Alright, I'll follow your lead. But you'll need to pull some strings at City Hall. The cost of laying broadband isn't small change. Without policy subsidies, a small outfit like ours can't shoulder it."
"Leave that to me," Fu Zhan said, straightening his collar. "I'll head to the Municipal Government tomorrow. We're a major foreign exchange earner now, after all. They'll give us some face."
Fuzhou in August was stiflingly hot.
Yet, inside Mercury Technology's office, a new storm was brewing.
From single-player to network, from consoles to PCs.
This was a path no one had walked before.
Fu Zhan knew that as long as they timed it right with the era's rhythm, Mercury Technology could truly transform from a contract manufacturer into a gaming giant with a real voice in the industry.
The distribution network of the Nine-Tattooed Dragon, the policy support of the Municipal Government, the technical foundation of Sega.
The game had only just begun.
Fu Zhan sat back down at his computer and created a new document.
He typed a few words for the title: Preliminary Proposal for Mercury Technology's Next Phase of Network Strategy.
The clatter of the keyboard resumed, blending into the noisy street sounds outside the window.
Two weeks later in Fuzhou, the weather remained stiflingly hot.
Nine-Tattooed Dragon arrived punctually at Mercury Technology's office building, accompanied by an assistant carrying a briefcase. He was a man of efficiency, and knowing the "tech bro" style of the Mercury Technology team, he skipped booking a grand hotel private room and had Fu Zhan lead him straight into the conference room.
The air conditioner's vent blasted cold air, dispelling the summer heat from outside.
Nine-Tattooed Dragon tossed a thick market research report onto the conference table, then pulled out a chair and sat down.
"We spent half a month running the gauntlet—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and several provincial capitals. We've covered them all," Nine-Tattooed Dragon said, taking a sip of water from a paper cup. "The situation isn't looking good."
Fu Zhan opened the report.
"The places that have computers you can play on are generally called 'computer rooms' or 'computer labs' now. Their numbers are pitifully low," Nine-Tattooed Dragon said, pointing to the data in the report. "The vast majority aren't connected to the internet. At best, they've set up a LAN for a few people to play Doom or Dune II together. The latest Quake is even rarer. Single-player games are just starting to show some promise, but they're still far from going mainstream."
Old Zhang, who was flipping through a few pages of paper nearby, chimed in, "What about the internet cafe model? The data Sega sent says the Silicon Valley Online cafes in the US are packed every day."
"No way," Nine-Tattooed Dragon waved his hand dismissively. He picked up a marker and started scribbling calculations on the whiteboard. "I've looked into it. The American internet cafe model is built on their network infrastructure. Over here, the cost of pulling a single dedicated broadband line is enough to buy dozens of Little Tyrant consoles. Standard dial-up over phone lines is as slow as a snail crawling—you can't even load a single picture, let alone play games. If we charge by the hour, charging too little won't even cover the electricity and internet bills. Charge too much, and who's going to play?"
Nine-Tattooed Dragon tapped the whiteboard. "Let me run the numbers for you. A computer with a Pentium processor and a 14-inch color monitor costs 12,000 yuan. Ten machines would be 120,000 yuan. And that's not even counting rent and renovations. What about the network? Right now, the telecom bureau charges twenty to thirty thousand yuan just for the initial installation of a 64K DDN dedicated line, with a monthly fee of several thousand more. Do the math—how huge is the initial investment? And that's before you even consider the daily electricity and hardware wear and tear."
Nine-Tattooed Dragon tossed his pen aside. "At current market rates, an internet cafe can charge ten yuan an hour at most. Even if a machine runs at full capacity for ten hours a day, it only earns a hundred yuan. With a 120,000-yuan investment in hardware, plus the exorbitant cost of a dedicated line, the payback period would be terrifyingly long. In contrast, our game console rental shop—a Mega Drive and a second-hand color TV—costs less than two thousand yuan per setup. Sega is pushing the Jupiter now, and we can even buy second-hand Mega Drives through Sega's own channels, which is even cheaper. At two yuan an hour, and with game cartridges shared and swapped across our locations, the investment is much smaller. We'd break even in just a few months. Any fool can do this math."
Fu Zhan pushed the documents he had obtained from the city office across the table.
"I've already dealt with the Post and Telecommunications Bureau," Fu Zhan said, pointing to several photocopies stamped with red official seals. "The city's stance is clear. The state is currently focusing on the Golden Bridge Project, which is primarily a state-led economic information network. As for the public internet, only a few major cities are running pilot programs. Dial-up internet in Fuzhou is just starting out—it's slow and disconnects all the time. As for a dedicated line, those are reserved for large enterprises and research institutes. The approval process is a nightmare, and the costs are astronomical."
Fu Zhan took a sip of water and continued, "The city leaders hold Mercury Technology in high regard, after all, we are now a Major Foreign Exchange Earner. But infrastructure isn't something the city can solve with a single word. The backbone network's bandwidth is just too limited; it simply can't support large-scale commercial applications. If we launch an online game now, where would we host the servers? How would players connect? These are all unsolvable deadlocks."
Nine-Tattooed Dragon nodded in agreement.
"This business can only enter the fast lane once network costs drop and hardware prices are driven down," Nine-Tattooed Dragon concluded. "Before then, developing online games is like throwing money into the water without even making a splash. Niche products can't sustain an operation as large as ours."
With the information from both sides now on the table, the conclusion was clear.
The trend was sweeping across the United States, but the soil on this side of the Pacific wasn't ready yet.
"Single-player games remain our foundation," Fu Zhan said, closing the report. "The progress on The Legend of Nezha must not be affected; we need to secure the food already on our plates. But we can't fall behind on the technical side. Old Zhang, the pre-research team should focus on LAN battles. We need to figure out what the Americans have developed. When the wind finally blows, we don't want to be the ones who can't even manage to be the pig."
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