April, Netease's "Waterloo" moment

文|刘勇

NetEase is afraid that he did not expect that this year in April, he will be so much concerned, and the monks and the beggars will come to the scene, so it is not lively.

April crisis

On April 1st, April Fool's Day, Netease Cloud Music was sent to the hot search, not because they are awesome. The night before, many users received push information from the platform, and suggested that users immediately purchase the "Jay Chou Hot Song Collection" which includes 200 songs. Netease Cloud Music did not tell the user that after 24 o'clock on the same day, the copyright of Jay Chou song expired and has not been renewed.

So on the April Fool's Day, the user blew up. There was a feeling that the card had just been opened in the barbershop, and the boss ran away after a few hours. The key is that the barber shop owner is still selling cards while he is packing things. Netease Cloud Music is still selling for 7 hours after the copyright expires. After the incident, Wang Shimu, vice president of Netease Cloud Music, explained the storm with a sentence that “ignored the implementation problem”.

"One wave has not subsided, and one wave has come again."

On April 3, Beijing time, PUBG sued Netease's "Wild Action" and "Terminator 2" two chicken eating games in violation of its intellectual property rights. The 155-page document details these two hands. Travel in the construction, vehicles, weapons, equipment and other aspects of the "Jesus Survival" infringement. And asked NetEase to stop the infringement and get off the shelf globally.

However, Netease did not respond publicly at that time. Until April 6, the foreign media kicked off the matter. Netease reluctantly issued a statement of rights and responded to the PUGB155 page indictment with less than a thousand words.

On the same day, Netease did one more thing, even at the expense of dragging another game, "The Fifth Personality," into the whirlpool of the public opinion. Netease clearly accused Tencent of banned the broadcast in the controlled fighting fish and tiger tooth live platform. Personality, and as everyone knows, Tencent is the domestic agent of "Jesus Survival", quite a bit "wei Wei save Zhao".

Unexpectedly, this behavior quickly set fire to the body. On the one hand, netizens turned out the Netease v. YY game live broadcast case in November last year. At that time, Netease cried and even sue YY live broadcast infringement of its game screen, and now is not satisfied with YY's tiger teeth does not recommend "Fifth Personality." On the other hand, "Fifth Personality" was found to be suspected of copying "Dawn Killing Machine".

The news that the game broadcast platform was accused is still fermented in the future. On April 7, Netease game official had to issue a statement on the fifth personality that was suspected of plagiarism. And on April 10, 3 days later, I received a response from the copyright party of "Dawn Killer", which clearly stated that it did not authorize Netease.

The matter has not ended yet, and half a month has passed. The above-mentioned disputes have not seen NetEase announce more progress. On the other hand, the paradox of the self-study mobile game "FortCraft", which was put into the US and Canadian markets last month, was suspected of copying "Fortress Night", and it has not been officially responded by NetEase.

"Waterloo" moment

In the past, Netease was still a respectable company. Even though the “April crisis” that Netease is still experiencing today is still hot, there are still some iron powders for Netease.

Perhaps because of the beautiful performance and accumulated reputation, Netease began to show an arrogant style until the sword went astray. Recently in the game circle, "National Master Nintendo" has become a buzzword. In response to the "April Crisis", we also saw the breeding of NetEase's inconsistencies, evasiveness and avoiding substantive problems.

Towards a small, the embankment of a thousand miles was destroyed by the ant colony; the big one said that Netease’s April crisis has placed it at the “Waterloo” moment.

Before June 1815, Napoleon levied a north war and included most of the land in Western Europe and Central Europe. The Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 became a classic case in military history. Napoleon commanded 73,000 people to defeat the coalition of 86,000 Russian and Austrian, which caused the anti-French alliance to collapse.

Netease also had a brilliant moment. At the end of the last century, with the mailbox and website business, it became a pole of China's Internet world. Even after the global Internet bubble burst, NetEase re-started, and with the game open, a "Fantasy Westward Journey" not only surpassed The forerunner of the game industry will send Ding Lei to the throne of China's richest man. Like Napoleon and France in 1805, it was NetEase's highlight moment.

Napoleon's turning point appeared in June of 1815, when Napoleon, who was proud of the spring breeze, had already been stunned by consecutive victories, and his ability to judge and command began to decline. On the night before the launch of the charge, I was not thinking about how to beat Wellington, but whether the British and Dutch coalition commander Wellington would continue to run away; on the morning of the operation, Napoleon said at breakfast that our chance of winning was at least 100. Ninety percent, and the probability of failure is less than 10 percent. Looking back now, this judgment led to a series of mistakes, such as ignoring the generals led by Blücher, which directly led to the final defeat.

How similar history is, Netease is experiencing such a crisis in April 2018. Netease's self-confidence can be seen in the news reports that have been raging in the near future. Ding Lei said, "We have already achieved one of the best mobile game developers in the world. But we must admit that the experts are in the private sector, and there are many countries that have done a very good job. For example, Nintendo of Japan. We very much hope to invest in the way. They form alliances and work together to develop products."

This is also the origin of the "civilian master Nintendo" stem, "the world is one of the best", also implies that the god-level company in the minds of hard-core players like Nintendo is a folk, really comparable to Napoleon in the Internet.

People, especially a leader, often make wrong judgments and decisions once they are self-sufficient. An obvious case is that when Tencent quickly cut into the subcategories, Netease made a wrong judgment and choice, ignoring the original, and only staring at the popular models. For example, in 2012, "Sword Spirit" was represented by Tencent, but the market responded well before the test. NetEase immediately took a "Dragon Sword" in the cottage, trying to get the opportunity in time, and finally ended in failure; The same is true of the prosecution of Wilderness Action.

Such a strategic decision, like Napoleon, does not consider how to confront the enemy positively, but thinks about how to intercept the enemy after the shang escape (mian) run (shi), the final result will only be due to "Command mistakes" and defeated.

What is even more terrible is that the wrong strategic decision brings tactical path dependence, and when the external environment changes, it still does not change. In the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon repelled the generals with the usual smashing tactics, but based on past experience, he did not win the battle and was eventually encircled.

Netease's path dependence is manifested as “secondary innovation”, which is to make secondary innovation according to the popular market. The earliest is Yixin, following WeChat to enter the market, but the entire product design is only added to the existing functions of WeChat to send text messages to any phone number for free. After that, e-commerce, Netease strict selection is to some extent imitated a lot. Designers and MUJI and other big-name designs; in the Netease cloud music field, outside the content, a large number of users in a community mode.

Seemingly innovative, in essence, it is still a shortcut strategy that is opportunistic and moves in some gray areas. A little careless in this way will bring great hidden dangers, such as cloud music. The platform only focuses on the community, and ignores the copyright. Only when the intellectual property rights are paid more and more attention, the copyright incident of Jay Chou has occurred.

This "secondary innovation" is a master of the Mo Nete game, this year's "April crisis" can be said to be a concentrated outbreak. There are countless such cases, including the "War of the Town", which was launched earlier this year. It is also the "Traveling Frog" that borrowed from the fire at that time. Obviously, NetEase has degenerated from an early leader to a follower, from the creator to "making fast money," which is what we say, what fire does, and what copyright does not copyright. This somewhat shames the Slogan of "Game Lovers".

Ding Lei also said in an interview in April that the creativity of a company is limited. It seems to acknowledge the lack of innovation in Netease, but even if this is a normal phenomenon, it cannot be used as an excuse for constant “plagiarism”.

Regardless of the government, industry or the public, the value of intellectual property has become more and more recognized. The “second innovation” strategy of Netease’s copyright has been ineffective, and the setbacks of the game business will quickly spread to other fields like dominoes.

The trend has gone

After the defeat of Napoleon, there were also many supporters. The 100,000 "fans" of France requested another battle, but the general trend has gone. Napoleon was again exiled and eventually died in the Atlantic Ocean at 600558, on the island of St. Helena. France, on the other hand, faces 700 million francs indemnity, redefines the borders, and penalizes the territory. After that, France experienced a constant change of dynasty, chaos, and its international status plummeted.

Let's compare with today's NetEase, and there are also hardcore fans to support, but the lost "land" is more and more, connecting the right to miss the head game, the market is constantly being seized; even the proud "Yin Yang Shi", It also plunged rapidly after reaching its peak in the first quarter of last year; other games such as "Guangming Continental" and "Hunting Awakening" were also faltering in the plagiarism dispute; now, they have provoked so many lawsuits.

I don't know the friends of NetEase games. I don't understand the story of Waterloo. After watching it, I will not be surprised by a cold sweat. This hot and cold April is actually similar to the story of the battlefield in Europe 200 years ago. Of course, as a player in the game, they may not think so. They still think that the Jay Chou song incident is only an implementation mistake, and the tiger tooth is banned. It is the ghost of Tencent. Of course, I believe that there will be awake people. The NetEase game that I know is not the Netease game of the year. For the sake of traffic, for the sake of running water, I have forgotten my initial heart. Is it time to change places?

If the "second innovation" of the business can bring temporary income and users, then in the long run, it is even more terrible that this accumulation will eventually destroy the brand of NetEase games and even the entire Netease, leading to brand collapse and ultimately Users choose to vote with their feet, and then the income will not be discussed.

Unlike Tencent's cosmic-grade traffic platforms such as WeChat and QQ, Netease lacks such a large source of traffic. Therefore, branding is particularly important for drainage. The development of previous years has indeed confirmed this logic. The brand appeal has attracted a large number of hardcore users and helped them break through in the areas of strict selection and music.

Once the biggest nuclear weapon is lost, it is no different from the bottom. Some people say that it is obviously a bad idea not to rely on brands to save money.

How high is the traffic cost? We look at NetEase's financial report data for the fourth quarter of last year. The operating expenses were 4.318 billion yuan, which was 3.398 billion yuan and 2.597 billion yuan in the previous quarter and the same period of 2016. One of the main reasons for the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter increase is the increase in marketing expenses. Although it includes the cost of e-commerce, it still dominates the game's advertising and revenue growth last year.

In the future, Netease will burn money to support e-commerce, while also paying for the game users when the brand is unattractive. The pressure is conceivable. And, if you have money, you may not be able to go out. A large number of plagiarism and imitation are themselves an act of enemies against the industry. No big traffic owner is willing to cooperate with the "public enemy." What's more, when moral hazard and legal risks are improving, they will be extremely cautious when choosing partners.

When the earliest suspected plagiarism, the people who eat melon still hate iron and steel, "Netease began to engage in this," and "Netease also began to fall", "Netease also began to learn Tencent"; and with continuous continuous When the plagiarism of the scale came, the netizens were also a lot lighter. "Netease is not like this today." Netease is no longer NetEase.

From "hate the iron to steel" to "taken for the usual", it is time for NetEase to reflect. However, from the current point of view, Netease is like Napoleon in St. Helena's time. It seems that it has deeply reflected on his life. In fact, he did not essentially reflect on the justice of his own war. He believed that it was mainly tactics. The problem, and at the beginning, still hopes that the political situation in Europe will change and attempt to make a comeback.

Netease and Napoleon made the same mistake, and then superb tactics. If the strategic direction itself is wrong, failure is the only ending.

The "April Crisis" is exposed by its "second innovation" strategy that is guiding Netease to slip into the abyss. From a higher perspective, it is the loss of Netease as a whole. A sentimental and attitude-oriented company is rapidly falling to the dust. in. It is not an alarmist. This is a systematic imbalance. In the highest program, NetEase lost the initial heart of the "game lover" and fell into the whirlpool of "everything to see the money."

In the writing process of the article, Netease's plagiarism questionnaire incident was exposed again. Some netizens thought that in this questionnaire, "all the questions are directed to a guide: the game is fun, plagiarism is unnecessary," Netease The attitude reflected in this questionnaire made me quite surprised - Netease did not think that her behavior was plagiarism, and even felt that the external reaction was excessive.

Today is April 26th, which is the International Copyright Day. In this day, NetEase may have to relive the meaning and value of "copyright".

This article first appeared on WeChat public number: technology talk. The content of the article belongs to the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of Hexun.com. Investors should act accordingly, at their own risk.

(Editor: Yue Right HN152)