Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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His conversation with Gabe Newell is still ongoing, as the media continues to follow him.

During the conversation, Lin Li was also trying to get some information out of Newell.

Since Steam and Spark had a real fight in February.

After that, the other party basically stopped making any moves.

Although announcements were also made regarding Half-Life: Alyx and several remakes, as well as future development plans.

But these things don't look like an attack.

It's more like a defensive move.

After the two met, Newell didn't mention anything about the platform, but instead talked about games.

When we talked about this...

It wasn't just Lin Li who wanted to find out Steam's strategy.

Newell also wanted to find out Spark's logic.

When he heard that Spark Future still planned to focus on dual-platform products, Newell couldn't help but ask further questions.

"You're not very optimistic about the single-player game market?"

Lin Li shook his head.

"We are very optimistic about the market, but the single-player game market is already a mature and large market. We still hope to make service-based games to explore more of the market."

Lin Li's statement was half true and half false.

In the next two or three years, service-based games will indeed be a hot trend, but for a longer period of time, single-player games, or rather, buy-to-play games, will still dominate the mainstream market.

This is Xinghuo's weak point.

Therefore, Lin Li is also laying the groundwork for single-player games.

However, these things obviously don't need to be discussed here.

Newell was clearly skeptical of whether Lin Li was telling the truth or not, but he quickly convinced himself otherwise.

Here, Lin Li seemed to have no reason to lie to him.

The two were talking about something.

After going around and around, we still ended up on the platform.

Newell also proactively discussed Steam's strategy of focusing on high-quality content.

They even mentioned hardware.

The fact that Spark is making a handheld console is still a secret among gamers.

But in the gaming industry...

This is something that everyone already knows.

Since the Spark handheld console uses an independent system, it is necessary to inform the manufacturer in advance to seek software and hardware compatibility.

Before the hardware is available.

Spark is already using development machines and working with various manufacturers to optimize software.

Newell, of course, knew this as well.

So when he talked about this, he was quite emotional.

"Are you really planning to get into hardware? We've been down this path before, and it's not an easy one."

Newell also stated that they had internally abandoned the hardware approach.

Upon hearing this, Lin Li almost laughed.

Is Steam abandoning hardware?

What is Steam Deck, which was launched in 21?

Of course, Lin Li didn't expose him.

Just smiled.

“Games are products, and hardware is also a product. In the past, these two products were supplied by different vendors, so there was bound to be performance loss when they interacted.”

"What we want to achieve is to enable players to experience more games at a lower hardware price."

"A virtual gaming platform also needs a real-world platform."

Newell asked a question.

"Didn't you consider the possibility of failure?"

"What's the big deal about failure? Just keep iterating, and you'll eventually succeed."

Chapter 323 Summer Games Festival

Lin Li's tone was relaxed.

Newell nodded.

On the surface, he showed no change in expression, but deep down, he sensed the sharp edge emanating from Lin Li.

People who have never worked in hardware don't know how difficult it is.

Even Steam itself struggled internally for a long time when it was considering initiating the Steam Deck project.

Moreover, no one on Steam dares to say that this project will definitely succeed.

Yet Lin Li is able to so resolutely walk this path.

This still surprised Newell somewhat.

these things.

This is something that cannot be seen in the report.

Dealing with such an opponent requires constant vigilance.

Just like today.

If he hadn't come in person, then this summer game festival organized by Spark would have had nothing to do with Steam.

although.

Even if Steam doesn't participate, there won't be much loss in the short term, since they can still participate in E3 even if they don't participate in the Summer Games Festival.

That's what EPIC plans to do.

Before I arrived, some people within Steam had expressed similar views.

but.

As Newell observed today, he immediately realized that the summer game festival organized by Spark in collaboration with these manufacturers would definitely replace E3, and might even have a greater impact than E3.

This is based on the framework of the Summer Games Festival.

This is also based on Lin Li's abilities.

Fortunately, he came in person today. If he hadn't come, Steam would have fallen behind again.

This also served as a warning to Newell.

The competition with Xinghuo will only intensify in the future.

"President Lin is truly a young man of great talent and spirit."

Newell sighed and ended the conversation.

After finishing his conversation with Lin Li.

Newell immediately turned around and called Aldridge.

First, they agreed to Aldrich's plan to hold a Steam offline carnival at the end of this year, which is Steam's imitation of the Spark Carnival.

Furthermore, the budget for the upcoming Steam Summer Sale has been further increased.

Besides.

Gabe Newell (GabeN) also agreed to Aldridge's plan to expand the Steam operations team.

Finally, there's Aldrich's 1+1+1 plan.

A strong first-party developer means Steam needs to increase its game development efforts; games like Left 1 Dead 3 and Half-Life 3 are essential.

With a powerful partner, Spark has secured Ubisoft. In the future, Steam will need to be tied to at least one major company, such as EA, Blizzard, or Rockstar.

A powerful event requires not only a strong lineup of games, but also a strong lineup of games.

This is a series of things that Aldridge compiled after February.

It can be said that Aldridge's series of plans were quite well-organized.

As for why Steam made so many plans, it has been silent since February.

The reason is also very simple.

Because of money.

Each project, each and every one of them, is easy to write down on paper.

But in practice, all of that costs money.

If it's in Xinghuo.

If Lin Li were to make the decision.

These decisions can be made in less than a minute.

For Lin Li, he was willing to spend any amount of money as long as he could seize the market.

As long as there's no loss, or even if there is a loss, as long as the market can be regained, Lin Li never hesitates to applaud.

But on Steam, this means a budget that was never spent before has suddenly been added in.

Earning less is a loss.

The key issue is that even after spending the money, Aldridge isn't sure if he'll get anything back.

They are not even sure if they can maintain their current market share.

In addition, thanks to the marketing campaign in February in the first half of this year, although there were some minor flaws in the end of the campaign, and we also suffered losses due to the clash with Spark.

But in the end...

Steam's market share hasn't dropped too much.

therefore.

Before today, Newell had been very conflicted.

Newell is fifty-seven years old this year.

This age isn't considered very old.

In the internet industry, many business leaders are around this age.

However, he also has a similar problem: he is somewhat slow to accept and judge new things.

The so-called three laws of science and technology:

Any technology that existed when I was born was commonplace.

Any technology that is invented between the ages of 15 and 35 will be a revolutionary product that changes the world.

Any technology that comes into being after I turn 35 is against the laws of nature and will be condemned by the heavens.

Often, the sluggishness of large companies is certainly related to the large number of departments and businesses, but it is also inseparable from the misjudgment of technological development by senior management.

The older you get, the rarer it becomes to keep up with the times.

From this perspective, it's already quite remarkable that Steam was able to steadily advance PC handhelds, VR, and even maintain a very slow pace in developing new game projects in its previous life.

However, everything should be viewed in comparison.

Even without sparks, Steam continues to move forward.

But when the world has Spark, because Spark runs faster, it seems like Steam is going backward.