A Bowl or a Pot

By Bao Gu

Yao Xiaoguang, vice president of Tencent, is regarded as one of the top ten leaders in China’s online gaming industry.The representative PC games developed under his leadership include QQ Speed, Craz3 Match, X-Game, etc.

One day, Yao Xiaoguang went to Beijing to attend a dinner party.Between toasts, people at the table took out their mobile phones to play games or send messages on WeChat—the dinner was boring.With an unfinished bottle of red wine in his hand, Yao Xiaoguang walked to the window of the private dining room.Looking at the brightly lit city of Beijing, he suddenly realized that life was not a game—but games could become a lifestyle.Urban life needed a good mobile game that would connect people together.

That night, Yao Xiaoguang made an important decision to develop a game called “Yingxiong Zhanji (meaning Heroes’ Warfare).”

Hearing this news, a colleague of Yao Xiaoguang asked him, “Are you crazy?” At that time, X-Game’s user numbers were on the rise.Choosing to invest manpower and resources to develop another game at this point would not be a good thing for Yao Xiaoguang, whether it was successful or not.If the new game succeeded, it was bound to have a negative impact on the X-Game market, which was another work of Yao.If it failed, his reputation would be ruined.

Yao Xiaoguang did not care what others thought.He asked Ma Huateng, Chairman of Tencent, “If a PC game is a bowl and a mobile game is a pot, which one do you want?”

Ma Huateng answered firmly, “I want the pot.Let’s smash the bowl.Now that a new era is coming sooner or later, why not give up the old era earlier?”

Yao Xiaoguang was encouraged.Under his leadership, Wolong Studio spent more than a month changing the platform of Yingxiong Zhanji from 3V3 to 5V5.The game’s name was also changed.Unexpectedly, as soon as this mobile game was launched, it captured 95% of the Chinese MOBA mobile game market, the number of daily active users quickly jumped to 80 million.Later, the whole country became crazy about the game, which ultimately became Wangzhe Rongyao (or King of Glory).

In the first quarter of 2017, Tencent’s net profit reached a record high of nearly RMB 14.5 billion, of which 12.9 billion was from mobile games.Among the games, Wangzhe Rongyao was the most profitable.Yao Xiaoguang has now become known as the “father of Wangzhe Rongyao.”

Previously, a colleague of Yao Xiaoguang asked him, “Do you really want to lay aside the promising X-Game?”

Yao Xiaoguang answered, “Between vested interest and unfulfilled dream, I choose the latter.”

(FromThinking and Wisdom, December 2017.Translation: Chen Jiani)

要碗還是要鍋

文/寶谷

騰訊公司副總裁姚曉光被譽為中國網游行業十大領軍人物之一，他牽頭開發的PC端游戲代表作有“QQ飛車”“天天愛消除”“御龍在天”等。

一天，姚曉光去北京參加一個飯局。觥籌交錯之間，飯桌上的人紛紛拿出手機，搶紅包，發微信，飯局冷稀。姚曉光拎著一瓶還未喝完的紅酒，站到包間的窗口。望著燈火通明的北京城，他突然明白：生活不是游戲，但游戲可以是一種生活。城市缺少一款好的移動手游，讓人和人通過游戲的方式連接在一起。

那一夜，姚曉光做出一個重要決定：開發“英雄戰跡”。

聽到這個消息，有同事問姚曉光：“你是不是瘋了？”“御龍在天”這款游戲正值上升期，選擇在這個時間點花費人力物力去研發其他游戲，無論成或不成，對姚曉光來說都不是好事。新游戲成了，勢必會沖擊“御龍在天”，自己打自己；如果不成，自己一世英名就毀了。

姚曉光不在乎別人怎么看，他找到董事長馬化騰，問道：“如果PC端游戲是個碗，移動端游戲是口鍋，那咱是要碗還是要鍋？”

馬化騰很堅定地說：“要鍋，咱們把碗給砸了吧。既然一個新的時代遲早要到來，那為什么不早點舍棄舊的時代？”

姚曉光備受鼓舞。在他的帶領下，臥龍工作室花了一個多月時間，把“英雄戰跡”的3V3模式改成5V5，順便把游戲名稱改了。沒想到，這款手游剛上線，日活躍用戶數量就沖到了8000萬，壟斷國內95%的MOBA手游市場。這就是后來全民為之瘋狂的“王者榮耀”。

2017年，騰訊一季度凈利創下近145億元紀錄，手游占了129億。其中，“王者榮耀”當仁不讓，成為吸金王。姚曉光也因此被稱為“王者榮耀之父”。

此前，有同事曾問姚曉光：“你真舍得丟下形勢一片大好的‘御龍在天’？”

姚曉光說：“在既得利益和未實現的夢想之間，我選擇后者。”

（摘自《思維與智慧》2017年第12期）