Shanda Games has finally become history, but for the 80-90 generation, this game company carries the memories of their youth and is an unforgettable memory.

Shanda Games - a giant game company that once occupied 70% of the market share of the Chinese game industry. On March 31, 2019, a document was issued stating that the company would rename its brand to " Shengqu Games ", which means that Shanda Games, which was once very popular in China, has disappeared. Shanda Games has finally become history, but for the 80-90 generation, this game company carries the memories of their youth and is an unforgettable memory.

Shanda in the millennium, together with Tencent , Baidu , Alibaba , NetEase, Sina , Sohu , are also known as the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period of the Chinese Internet. Shanda , who was the "big brother" in the past, is no longer in Among the Seven Heroes , Shanda Games and Shanda Literature, two smash-hit IPs, have slowly disappeared over time. This makes people wonder, what happened to Shanda Network? Abandoned by today's era.

1. Origin

In 1999, the craze of Internet technology stocks swept China. At that time, Chen Tianqiao, who was still working in a securities trading company, easily earned his first 500,000 in this year. Chen Tianqiao, who has made money, thinks that Internet companies are so popular, why don't he open a related company? So he, his brother Chen Danian , and his wife Luo Qianqian founded Shanda Interactive Entertainment Company in Shanghai. This was the origin of Shanda Network.

The original Shanda Network was not a gaming company. According to founder Chen Tianqiao, Shanda Network’s goal was to create a “Disneyland” in the Internet world. However, the network environment at that time could not support the maintenance costs of genuine animations. Naturally, Shanda Network's life was not satisfactory. It wanted money but no money, and no one needed people.

Days are unpredictable. Just like the United States before, the domestic Internet bubble has also been punctured. Shanda failed to make a profit and was about to burn out all its money. If there was no other way out, it would just go bankrupt. At this time, Chen Tianqiao made an astonishing move - entering the online game industry. In 2001, Chen Tianqiao used 300,000 US dollars in gambling to represent the online game " Legend " developed by South Korea's Actoz Company.

In September of the same year, "Legend of Blood" was launched in China. What is unexpected is that legend swept the country as soon as it was launched, and countless players were addicted to it. At that time, people surfing the Internet in Internet cafes basically went for this game. Game terms such as mage, Taoist priest, warrior, PK, and Sabak became the symbols of game players of that era. According to statistics, in just half a year of operation, "Legend of Hot Blood" has more than 100,000 online game players at the same time; in just one year, "Legend of Hot Blood" has brought Shanda Network more than RMB 100 million in game net profit income. With this gamble, Chen Tianqiao's Shanda Network came back to life and became a legend in the history of China's Internet.

Shanda Network, which made a lot of money through Legend, continued to increase its investment in the game market. It has launched a number of online games such as "Bubble Hall", " MapleStory ", " Legend World ", " Hot-Blooded Heroes ", etc. to expand the game audience. In 2003, Shanda Network, which had been established for 5 years, was listed on NASDAQ in the United States. 31-year-old Chen Tianqiao has become China's richest man with a net worth of 9 billion. Chen Tianqiao and his Shanda Network have become the "leading brother" of China's Internet, with unparalleled glory. It can be said that the debut is the peak.

2. Decline

Some people say: If Chen Tianqiao concentrated on running online games, there would be no Tencent or NetEase. This sentence may seem a bit one-sided now, but it also reflected Chen Tianqiao's attitude towards online games at that time. Chen Tianqiao has said in public many times that ""Legend" is a bad game and Shanda is a good company." For Chen Tianqiao, Shanda can only have one future, and that is to create a "Disney" in the Internet industry. paradise".

However, Chen Tianqiao's remarks are really harsh to the gamers who are the bread and butter of Shanda Games. To this day, you can still see players' abuse of Chen Tianqiao's remarks online. For game companies, losing the trust of users is equivalent to having one foot in a deep hole.

In order to get rid of the shackles of the game business as soon as possible, Shanda Network has made many attempts. In 2004, Shanda Network acquired the largest online literature website at the time - and Qidian Chinese website . Later, it merged Xiaoxiang Academy, Hongxiu Tianxiang, Novel Network and other websites into it to form Shanda Literature Network. However, the development of Shanda Literature did not go as smoothly as expected. In 2012, Shanda Literature planned to go public, but it failed to go public due to the low estimated market value. After the listing was stranded, due to internal strife, the founding team of Qidian.com led a group of well-known authors to leave Tencent Literature . After experiencing a stranded listing and internal strife, Shanda Literature Network was in a precarious situation.

Not only that, Chen Tianqiao, who has the dream of "Internet Disney", in order to transform Shanda Network from a game company into a full-platform entertainment company, pioneered the concept of " Shanda Box ", which is a TV that can be upgraded to The network terminal provides set-top box that integrates film and television, games, music, news and other leisure functions, allowing every family to have its own entertainment center. There is nothing remarkable about this product today, but at the time, this product was a product that transcended that era. In 2005, the "Shanda Box" was finally born after many hardships. Unfortunately, it was limited by a series of problems such as the environment, technology, content and copyright at the time. In addition, the per capita broadband at the time was only 100KB/S. Various problems made Shanda Box inexperienced. The feeling, coupled with the extremely high price - 6850 yuan, makes users even more prohibitive.

To make matters worse, in April 2006, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued the "Notice of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on the Suspension of IPTV", naming Shanda Box for license and copyright violations. At this point, Shanda Network's US$450 million project completely collapsed and became China's The laughingstock of internet companies.

Just when Shanda was eager to get rid of the shackles of the game business and want to become a full-platform entertainment company. The game business, which he regarded as cash cow , encountered more and more competitors. From 2003 to 2008, NetEase, one of the Seven Heroes of the Internet Warring States Period, released a series of games such as "Westward Journey", " Fantasy Westward Journey ", and "Tianxia 2", which became popular on the entire Internet. Tencent has also transformed from a pure social platform to vigorously developing the game industry. In addition to its "self-developed" games such as "QQ Dance " and "QQ Hall ", Tencent has also successfully won " CrossFire " and " Underground". Agency rights for Korean games such as "City and Warriors ".

During this period, Shanda did not launch any hit games, but continued to make money from games such as "Legend of Hot Blood", "Bubble Hall", and "MapleStory". What makes Shanda even more helpless is that in the past few years, the private servers of "Legend of Hot Blood" have also continued to develop. There are so many legends that Shanda cannot manage them, so they simply charge protection fees to large private servers. So there is a popular saying on the Internet called "Private servers prosper and die."

In addition to the legendary private server, Shanda’s handling of game plug-ins is also very perfunctory, and various game plug-ins are rampant. Every child born in the 90s has a childhood memory of MapleStory, which is nicknamed the "plug-in island" by players. Shanda's inaction on plug-ins has made players increasingly stay away from Shanda games.

In 2009, Shanda Network was determined to change its past and spent huge sums of money to acquire two popular Korean PC games, " Aion " and " Dragon Nest ". In terms of quality, these two games are both Excellent work. However, Shanda could not change its damn operating attitude, which resulted in slow updates of these two games, widespread cheats, and extremely poor game experience for players. Shanda Games' reputation and revenue declined year by year in the following years.

In November 2014, Shanda Network announced the overall sale of Shanda Literature, and Tencent funded the takeover. In January 2015, Shanda Literature and Tencent Literature were merged into the " China Literature Group " that we are familiar with today. At the end of the same year, Chen Tianqiao announced his resignation as a director of Shanda Games, and Shanda Interactive Entertainment Group also sold out all Shanda Games stocks. Since then, Shanda Network has ceased to exist and Shanda Group has become a private investment company.In just a few years, the huge territory of Shanda Internet Empire has been dismantled and sold. It can be said that there is no operational business left for itself. Shanda Network, once the largest gaming company in China, sadly left the market.

Shanda Network's decline ultimately stems from its lack of attention to users and CEO Chen Tianqiao's disdain for games. But Chen Tianqiao's groundbreaking thinking and foresight are something that Internet companies in this era do not possess. As a gamer, it has been a long time since I have encountered such addictive games as "Legend" and "MapleStory". I hope that today's Internet companies can come up with another "Chen Tianqiao" to let me experience this kind of addictive game again. a feeling of.