Shanghai Softstar was disbanded

Someone posted on Sina Blog titled 'Shanghai Softstar confirmed to be disbanded on September 14th! The article about "The Future of Fairy Sword is Uncertain", the address is /s/blog_4b41bb3201000cx4.html (Note: eNet cannot guarantee its authenticity, it is for reference only)

Today, according to former Ubisoft employee and NetEase editor Shi Yihua (transliteration) ) reported that Shanghai Software has announced that it will shut down this Friday, and no specific reason has been announced.

I asked about this issue this morning about the PR of Oneworld Star, which has a close cooperative relationship with Shanghai Softstar, but she did not give a positive reply, but she also admitted that Shanghai Softstar has some problems. Everything will be concluded before November.

Of course, there is some contrary news. The author also asked a staff member of Shanghai Softstar, but got a negative reply on this issue, saying that it was a rumor and that the forum was simply closed due to policy reasons. That’s all.

In addition, the management of another large domestic game development and publisher revealed to the author that they have plans to acquire Shanghai Softstar, but the specific acquisition method is unknown, and it is not known whether it will acquire Shanghai at the same time. Softstar develops IP for a series of games.

Shanghai Softstar, which has developed classic games such as Fairy Sword, Xuanyuan Sword, Monopoly, and Cat and Dog, may be disbanded in the near future, and the future of the game series it developed is also uncertain. Here we, the fans of Softstar, sincerely hope they can go well all the way.

The helpless foreman is helpless.

After a rough and eventful year, Shanghai Softstar focused its research and development in 2005 on "Cats and Dogs 2" and "Legend of Sword and Fairy IV". This year, the plan was to revise the originally planned plot of "Sword and Sword IV" to be more complete, and the program also began to learn the RenderWare engine that it had never been exposed to before. After the completion of "Cat and Dog 2", most of the R&D personnel who are good at making RPGs were transferred to the "Fairy of Sword and Fairy" project, and "Fairy of Sword and Fairy" entered a period of rapid development and production.

On August 1, 2007, after two years of hard development, "Sword and Sword IV" was officially released. This was originally something worth celebrating, but I didn’t expect that it would be hard-working. On the day of launch, due to the large influx of authenticated users, the authentication server was congested, making it impossible for players to complete the launch authentication of the game in the first time. After finally entering the game, players found that no matter what the machine configuration was, the game screen would freeze or become unsmooth.

"When some players reported that the game was lagging at the beginning, our first reaction was that it was impossible. Did the players deliberately cause trouble? We used the ancient GeForce 3 graphics card, CPU and memory, which were also very bad. The machine was tested and found that it would be very laggy in the later stages of the game, but it would not lag at all in the early stages. Later, when more and more players complained, we felt vaguely that something was wrong.”

Zhang Yijun immediately reported to Universal Star. I asked for the game disk. After the disk arrived, the company employees had a set and started testing. As a result, the game reported a large number of errors during the installation process. After uninstalling Kaspersky and Rising Kaka, I finally entered the game smoothly. But when I played it, I found that it was indeed as the player said, when encountering strange cards, killing strange cards, and scoring points. Experience cards, scene changing cards. "We didn't expect StarForce to be so violent. When we saw this, we felt cold all over and thought it was over."

Zhang Yijun immediately contacted the Taipei headquarters and with the help of Wu Dongxing, the main programmer of "Xuanyuan Sword" , the 1.1 patch was made overnight and released the next day, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

On August 3, the first autograph signing event for "Xian Si" was held in Beijing, and Zhang Yijun was present as scheduled. During the event, a player expressed his willingness to donate money to Shanghai Softstar to support the research and development of "Fairy Sword". After being declined, he enthusiastically said, "Then I will buy more sets of genuine Fairy Sword." Zhang Yijun wanted to stop him and told him that "making money is not easy." Back at his residence, Zhang Yijun turned on his computer and logged on to the Taiwan Bahamut game website. He found that the forum was full of scoldings. It turned out that the hardcover version of "Sword and Sword IV" in Taiwan was already on the market, but the quality was very poor, the incense fan was broken, and the guide was missing. page, causing players to complain. "There has never been such a bad hardcover version in the history of Fairy Sword. It can be said to be unprecedented. They did not ask for or respect our opinions. Over the years, we have been insisting on making Fairy Sword better and better. As a result, the A hardcover version is like this." Zhang Yijun said angrily, "Thinking about the enthusiasm of the player just now, and looking at the behavior of the headquarters, I said to myself: It's time to leave."

Talking about the reasons for his resignation, Zhang Yijun made no secret of the conflict between him and the Taiwan headquarters on the concept of "Sword and Sword". "I have been preparing for five years to resign. Many times I feel that I have had enough." Zhang Yijun feels that over the years, the headquarters has not given due support to Shanghai Software, and the marketing in Taiwan has been very inactive, and even more Importantly, although the "Sword of Sword" series has been independently developed by Shanghai Softstar since the third generation, Shanghai Softstar can only receive sales revenue from mainland China, while revenue from Taiwan is collected by the headquarters. The sales volume of the "Sword of Immortal" series in mainland China is generally four times higher than that in Taiwan. However, because the selling price in Taiwan is higher than in the mainland, Taiwan's revenue often accounts for more than one-third of the total sales revenue of "Sword of Immortal".

The expected revenue of "Four of Swords and Swords" is NT$200 million to NT$300 million (approximately RMB 45 million to 70 million yuan). After deducting channel and other costs, it will bring about RMB 10 million to Daewoo. of income, of which only about 6 million yuan can be retained in Shanghai Softstar. When Shangruang developed "Sword and Sword III" six years ago, it started with 5.4 million yuan, and in the end it almost ran out of ammunition and food. After all these years, I still only have 6 million on hand, but I have to face masterpieces like "Five of Sword" and "Sword of Sword Online II". Zhang Yijun believes that the head office actually diverted the income from "Sword and Fairy" to other projects, regardless of the future of "Sword and Fairy". "The gap between the level of Fairy Sword and foreign countries is getting bigger and bigger. Now the next generation of games has come out, and the piracy environment has not been solved. If the development funds are still so high, if a "Fairy Sword" is developed in two years, it will definitely be popular among players. The scolding was terrible. So, I think leaving now is a better decision."

Yao Zhuangxian does not feel that the departure of his former comrade is sudden. He understood Zhang Yijun's proposition. If Shansoft could keep all the money it earned from "Sword of Immortal", it could buy better 3D engines, recruit more and better talents, and do more projects. Otherwise, Zhang Yijun's cautious personality , will not be willing to risk expansion. But he also understands the approach of the headquarters. Daewoo has always adhered to the "centralized" financial concept for so many years. Although legally speaking, Beijing Softstar and Shanghai Softstar are subsidiaries, they have never had independent financial rights. The headquarters only regards Softstar as its R&D division in mainland China, rather than an independently operated company. Therefore, Softstar is not required to be responsible for its own profits and losses. Their shortfalls will be filled by the headquarters, and the excess profits will also be taken by the headquarters. Walk.

Now that the departure of Zhang Yijun and Zhang Xiaoquan is a foregone conclusion, will Shanghai Softstar’s R&D team be disbanded? Where will the "Sword of Immortal" series go from here? Yao Zhuangxian, who is based in Beijing, did not give a clear answer. He said that the initial plan is to select a new director from the existing team of Shanghai Software. If a suitable candidate cannot be found, he will have to airborne. "If it doesn't work, I'll take it myself." He said half-jokingly.

On August 22, Yao Zhuangxian arrived in Shanghai and began to deal with the matter. In his view, the best outcome is to retain most of the backbone, and the worst outcome is to reorganize. But the progress didn't seem to be going well. "Shallow water can't keep the big dragon." He sighed.