Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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So this time, when the HR department received Lin Li's order to set up a handheld game studio...

Chen Hongzhang then stepped forward.

Lin Li actually gave two tasks.

One option is to find the D9VK project team and complete the acquisition.

D9VK is a tool written by enthusiasts for converting DX9 calls to Vulkan.

Vulkan, like DX12, is a modern graphics interface with excellent performance.

Therefore, this set of tools has a very good conversion effect, which is comparable to the performance of the native tool.

In its previous life, this project was announced at exactly this time, and it was later integrated into DXVK, which was led by Steam.

DXVK is a similar project.

The reason for acquiring this is...

The reason is that if you're making a PC handheld console, you have to bypass the Windows system, but almost all PC games are based on the Windows system.

Therefore, a transpile that can run on Linux is especially important.

In short, if you want to create a gaming system that is more efficient than Windows and makes better use of hardware, you must use this prerequisite technology.

This pre-processing technology was quite complex a few years ago.

However, with the development of technology in the past two years, it has become less difficult to achieve.

Especially before PC handhelds had proven their market value, most of these Linux-based tools for transferring PCs were made by small studios or purely individual users.

The project itself is also an open-source project. If you invest a certain amount of capital, you can acquire or collaborate with these people.

That's exactly what STEAM does.

Lin Li naturally did the same.

However, the difference is that STEAM adopts a cooperative relationship for the sake of easier management and cost savings.

Lin Li prefers direct acquisition.

We assembled a studio of industry leaders, motivated them through a profit-sharing model, and satisfied their ideals and vanity by promising to open-source some of our research results.

For these big names, Xinghuo already has a reputation in the gaming industry.

Furthermore, they were very satisfied with Spark's attitude towards open source.

For Xinghuo, success is simply getting these big shots into their studio.

As for open source projects?

Yes, it is open source, but after it is open source, it must be licensed by Spark for commercial use, and that's fine.

This logic is simpler than Lin Li imagined.

In just one week, Chen Hongzhang flew to the United States and solved most of the problems.

The second question is the one that's more relevant.

This stumped Chen Hongzhang.

Who should be the product manager for the handheld console? Or rather, the head of the studio?

this problem.

It took her a long time; for the past two weeks, she was almost constantly looking for people, screening people, making phone calls, and meeting with them.

In the end, three documents were left behind.

Lin Li first looked at the first two.

One is Gionee's former engineering director, who has extensive hardware experience, but that's all he has.

The second is the former project manager of the Tomahawk F1.

These two people.

Lin Li didn't even think about it and quickly passed on it.

Chen Hongzhang felt a pang of anxiety when he saw that Lin Li had quickly eliminated two people.

Lin Li was fine.

He is very clear.

Finding a project manager isn't easy.

Moreover, there was no reference answer to this question in my previous life.

However, when he opened the third resume...

Lin Li's expression changed slightly.

Chapter 113 The People Are Still Here, But the Project Is Gone

"Xu Dengke, former product manager of Meizu, presided over the development of many Meizu flagship products. In 16, he jumped ship to Lenovo and was in charge of Lenovo's TV game box product line. He left Lenovo because Lenovo canceled the game box product line."

"This experience was quite interesting."

After reviewing the resumes of the three people.

Lin Li thought that this Xu Dengke's resume looked pretty good.

Project manager and game producer.

These are two different concepts.

Students like Hai Mao and Chen Anyu, who are somewhat unbalanced in their studies, can still be competent as game producers with Lin Li's guidance.

But if you ask them to do projects or make handheld consoles, their abilities are far too lacking.

After all, game developers only need to master one key technology that is circulating in the market, plus some internal communication skills, to push the game development process forward.

The project manager is an all-rounder who not only needs to understand the technology, but also needs to communicate internally and externally, assess costs, and liaise with the factory.

In addition, regarding game development.

Lin Li can provide a lot of help, but for individual projects, such as the peripheral departments of Xinghuo, the support he can provide is actually quite limited.

Therefore, he needs to find a relatively independent and experienced person in charge.

"How did the conversation with this person go? What are his requirements?"

"We have reached a preliminary agreement, but he still wants to work in the mobile phone industry. I heard that Xiaomi is also inviting him. My suggestion is that you go and meet him in person."

As a human resources professional, Chen Hongzhang's style of doing things is more like that of a headhunter or a search engine.

When the boss makes a request, she helps him find the right person.

However, even after finding the right person, the boss still needs to conduct a face-to-face meeting with them.

Lin Li also had this intention.

nodded.

"Let's arrange to meet directly."

Lin Li's style has always been like this: decisive and efficient.

The next day at 12:30 pm.

A business restaurant across from Xinghuo.

Xu Dengke, dressed in a suit and wearing black-rimmed glasses, walked in. However, his expression was not good as he entered the restaurant; he looked serious and had no smile.

The front desk staff thought he was there to collect a debt.

Actually, this is not Xu Dengke's fault.

In recent years, his career has been plagued by misfortune, as if cursed.

When I was at Meizu.

Office politics, internal whistleblowing, and palace intrigue dramas—a series of worries outside of work made it impossible for him to work normally.

I don't want to take sides, and I don't know how to take sides.

He was gradually marginalized and eventually left the scene in disgrace.

He joined Lenovo in 16, but he was also very unhappy there.

Upon joining Lenovo, he was assigned to a new project: a TV box focused on gaming.

This box is the Lenovo miniStation, a collaboration between Lenovo and Tencent.

At first, Xu Dengke thought it was a good project, and he himself enjoyed playing games.

TV game boxes actually had a promising future during the feasibility study phase in 16.

With the lifting of the game console ban, a large number of domestic manufacturers took advantage of the fact that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo had not yet entered the market.

Everyone's rushing to make "hosts"

Huawei, 360, and many other manufacturers have tried this approach.

Penguins naturally wanted to get involved too.

Lenovo chose to partner with Tencent for this very reason.

However, during the project approval process, Xu Dengke had a question: making a game console requires content.

"Can Tencent's games encourage players to order this hardware?"

The response from Lenovo executives at the time was...

"Of course they can! If penguins can't do it, who can?"

Xu Dengke thought it made sense at the time, so he took over the project.

He then spent a year completing the product and launching it to the market.

Then, unsurprisingly, an accident occurred.

Like many products that Lenovo came up with on a whim, the Lenovo Lemon miniStation was immediately criticized upon its release.

With a price tag of 699, users who need a TV box will not even consider it.

At the product level, the continuous cost-cutting measures have rendered its performance incapable of running large-scale Android games.

Even with the ingenious addition of a game casting function.

The problem is, if my phone is powerful enough, why would I need this crappy box to project my screen?

Given this series of problems, it's no surprise that sales were dismal.

Even though the first generation of products didn't work, Lenovo didn't give up.

Because at this time, in this timeline, the domestic game industry underwent a major change due to the emergence of Spark.

In particular, the performance of Spark Games on the PS console has led many manufacturers to conclude that there is a demand for playing Android games on a large screen.

So Lenovo's top management thought, if Tencent is unreliable, then they'll invest in Spark.

However, as the project progressed, Lenovo executives discovered that one thing was not going to work.

That's the profit model.

You definitely won't make money making Android game consoles by relying solely on hardware.

We need to get a share of the revenue from the distribution channels.

The best way is to have all the games on the game consoles be distributed through their own channels; that's how you make money.

This is not difficult.

Because many game developers have distribution channels.

However, Xinghuo's games are the only ones without channel versions; even Bilibili cannot obtain channel versions.

Because Bilibili's eggs are still being held by Xinghuo.

Other mobile phone manufacturers don't have it either.

Initially, these manufacturers would approach Xinghuo to discuss channel services. Some manufacturers even stated explicitly that if they did not provide channel services, they would not promote Xinghuo in app stores.

Lin Li's response was no reply.