Chinese entertainment: What's wrong with actresses wanting to improve?

Chapter 135 Nebula Video and Star Dream Digital Entertainment

In late September, the casting process for "My Love from the Star" was fully launched.

Wang Peng and Lin Wei are stationed at Chenxi, receiving more than a dozen groups of people from brokerage companies every day.

The pile of actor brochures was half a person high, and the two of them, along with several assistants, worked around the clock to sift through hundreds of brochures to find suitable candidates.

Meanwhile, casting for "Brotherhood of Blades" is also underway.

This was the first time Lu Yang, as a director, had truly participated in the casting process.

Every day, I sit in the conference room, watching unfamiliar faces come in for auditions and leave, while I write down dense comments in my notebook.

Nebula Video is located downstairs from Lieyang Investment, sharing the same floor as Xingmeng Digital Entertainment.

The two companies together have fewer than fifty employees, of whom more than thirty are top-notch technical experts.

Fu Yibai made a special trip to the two companies today to meet with these tech experts.

It has been more than half a year since Qi Yuan recruited them.

Fu Yibai hasn't had much time to come over.

For the past six months, both companies have been working according to the instructions conveyed by Qi Yuan.

However, the information conveyed could only provide these experts with a general direction for their work; it certainly wasn't as detailed as what Fu Yibai would personally explain.

Fu Yibai first went to Nebula Video.

He first reviewed the progress made in building Nebula Video over the past six months.

Overall, it met Fu Yibai's expectations. Although the number of daily active users did not reach the industry-leading level, it was still among the top.

Fu Yibai performed a few simple operations on the computer, and then offered several suggestions for modifying the page layout of the Nebula Video Platform to resemble the page layout of Tencent Video in later years.

He then proposed two new features: [Categories] and [Bullet Screen].

He wasn't sure if adding the "bullet screen" feature would be useful at this point, but he decided to bring it up first and let the technical team assess its feasibility.

After all, bullet screen culture has become an important part of video platform interaction in later generations. If we can plan ahead, it may become a unique advantage for Nebula Video.

Nebula Video is currently in a money-burning phase, spending tens of millions of yuan annually on broadband purchases.

There's also the purchase of film and television copyrights. Although domestic production companies don't pay much attention to online copyrights for films and television shows now, the sheer number of films and television shows means that the cost of purchasing copyrights is still considerable.

Online video platforms and cinemas are the most important moats protecting his entertainment empire.

One is a distribution channel that allows him to rival television stations, and the other is the core platform for monetizing his content.

Fu Yibai was well aware of the strategic significance of these two tracks, so even if it meant burning money, he had to lay out plans for these two tracks.

After leaving Nebula Video, Fu Yibai turned around and walked into Xingmeng Digital Entertainment next door.

For some time now, Xingmeng Digital Entertainment has been developing the company's first project, Three Kingdoms Kill, according to Fu Yibai's instructions.

This game later became incredibly popular throughout China.

He not only created amazing user engagement and revenue on the online version.

It has also secured a place in the offline board game market.

The profits from selling the cards each year are at least tens of millions or even hundreds of millions.

It is definitely one of the biggest cash cows for the future Morning Light Entertainment Empire.

At the beginning of the company's establishment, Fu Yibai compiled a general guide to the gameplay and information on generals based on his memories from later generations and handed it over to Xingmeng Digital Entertainment.

According to information provided by Fu Yibai, the first generation of Three Kingdoms Kill was developed in four months and is currently in the testing phase.

Fu Yibai walked into Xingmeng Digital Entertainment's office area, where dozens of people were crammed into an open space, with computer screens filled with various codes and UI interfaces.

Project manager Liu Yongqiang came up to him and led him around the workstations, finally stopping in front of the technical director's computer.

"Mr. Fu, take a look, this is the test version that has been set up so far."

The technical director brought up the game interface, and the interaction logic of the general cards, skill descriptions, basic cards, and strategy cards had all been tested and were working correctly.

Fu Yibai took the mouse and operated it a few times. The interface was responsive, but the art style was still in its primitive stage.

"The art direction still needs polishing."

Fu Yibai pointed to the card on the screen.

"The character portraits of the generals need to be redesigned by a good artist. They need to be distinctive and exquisite."

The cards also need to have a realistic texture; they can't look like a PowerPoint presentation.

The CTO nodded and took notes.

When will the online version be available?

"The beta version could be released as early as the end of the year."

The project manager added from the side.

"There are no major issues at the code level; the main problems are the server architecture and anti-cheating mechanisms, which require repeated testing."

Fu Yibai leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers twice on the table.

"No rush, polish it thoroughly before applying. Quality comes first."

"Once the beta version is released, the team will prepare to dedicate a portion of its members to developing new projects."

Here are the details of the new project; please keep them safe.

Fu Yibai took out a document and handed it to Liu Yongqiang.

"League of Legends? A 5v5 MOBA game?"

Liu Yongqiang glanced at the document briefly, and immediately became captivated by its contents.

The document not only details the gameplay rules, map design, and hero skill framework of League of Legends, but also includes a preliminary business model concept—free to play, with paid heroes and skins.

This model was considered cutting-edge in the domestic game market at the time.

"Mr. Fu, this...this game is quite large in scale, and the development cycle and investment will probably be very large."

Liu Yongqiang felt both excited and pressured.

"I know."

Fu Yibai nodded, his gaze sweeping over the focused engineers in the office area.

"Therefore, Three Kingdoms Kill must be successful. It must bring us a continuous and stable cash flow in order to support the development of League of Legends."

You should first establish a preliminary preparation team to conduct technical research and verify the core gameplay. Once the Three Kingdoms Kill game is launched and operating stably, then you can fully commit to it.

After explaining these things, Fu Yibai did not linger.

He knows that both video platforms and game development are long-term endeavors that require time and patience to cultivate.

Right now, he has more pressing matters to attend to.