bioinnovel Chapter 502 North American Market
Chapter 502 North American Market
When the project leader left, many people in the office were secretly looking down from the window.
He carried a cardboard box across the parking lot. The box wasn't big; it contained only a few old notebooks and a ceramic mug. His coat was draped over the edge of the box, and he walked quickly and hurriedly, never looking back once.
No one saw him off; all that was seen was pity.
Most employees at TUTU are actually quite satisfied with their work there.
Now, in many places, working in a TUTU is a source of pride.
Zhao Yiming stood by the window of the tea room, holding a freshly poured cup of coffee, and looked down at the figure walking further and further away, sighing, "Old Xu is actually a decent worker, but he's just too cunning."
Old Wang was peeling a milk candy next to him. After a couple of tries without tearing the wrapper open, he simply bit a hole in it with his teeth and mumbled, "Being cunning isn't the problem; the problem is that he used all that cunning to scheme against his own people. If he were really capable and made a name for himself at Tencent, I'd respect him. He just left like that, without even a harsh word, like he'd been kicked out."
"What else can he say? Say, 'I was wrong, Mr. Lu, please give me another chance'? He might as well just leave."
The two watched for a while longer, but the figure downstairs had already turned the corner and disappeared from sight completely.
Zhao Yiming looked away, took a sip of his coffee, and said, "Don't you think President Lu was a bit too harsh the other day? Saying things like 'Go to Tencent' is kind of creepy."
Old Wang finally unwrapped the candy, popped it into his mouth, and chewed it a couple of times: "What's so ruthless about him? Didn't you see his expression during those meetings the other day? It was no different from usual, he just talked less, but his thinking was still as clear as ever. He thought things through before he spoke, it wasn't impulsive."
The effect of this small matter was much stronger than Lu Ran had expected.
After that, until the eve of the wedding, no one at TUTU submitted a resignation application.
After Lao Xu's name was added to the resignation registration form on the HR department wall, no new name has been added since.
The gossip in the break room has changed from "I heard so-and-so is in contact with headhunters" to "They just restocked the snack section today, go grab some Tang Monk meat!" and "How do you adjust the camera angle on that new racing simulator in the arcade?"
While chatting at their workstations, someone suddenly lowered their voice and said, "Hey, what do you guys think? If Tencent offered me double the salary to poach me, should I be tempted?" The person next to them replied without looking up, "You're dreaming. That team leader last time thought he was someone important before he left."
The person who spoke chuckled and didn't continue the topic.
That day, Lu Ran was at the company, sitting at his desk looking through the second-quarter data report sent by the European agent.
The three European companies have been operating for several months, and the data is steadily increasing. The number of new users in the French-speaking region is already close to half that of the German-speaking region, indicating that there is still considerable potential to be tapped in the French market.
Just as he was about to turn to the last page of the report, his phone vibrated. On the screen was a message from Chen Mo, containing only one line.
"Do you have time to take a call about what's going on in North America? Good news."
Lu Ran closed the report, picked up his phone, and dialed back.
The phone rang once and then connected. Chen Mo's voice came through the receiver, carrying an unusual, barely suppressed joy: "The North American market is open. China and the United States have officially signed an agreement, and the trade war is over. The approval process for games going global has been reopened."
Lu Ran leaned back in his chair, his fingers pausing on the table for a moment: "Confirmed?"
"It's confirmed. Brother Zhou has seen the official document. The Department of International Relations of the Ministry of Culture issued a notice this morning that all game publishing approvals involving the North American market will resume. Zhao Yiming has already started investigating network latency and server setup costs in North America. All the technical reserves we made before can be used this time. We can directly reuse the Frankfurt cluster configuration in North America, only needing to change a few node parameters at most."
Lu Ran felt a weight lifted off her shoulders.
North America has the world's largest gaming market, with a size and spending power significantly exceeding that of Europe.
If TUTU can establish a foothold in North America, its overseas business will truly form a three-way balance between Europe, Asia, and America.
He immediately arranged for Zhou Mingzhe and Chen Mo to select a few people to fly to North America as soon as possible to conduct an on-site investigation of the network environment and user habits there.
Chen Mo replied on the other end of the phone, "I've already had the administration book the tickets. Zhou and I will go, along with one tech person and one business person. Five people will be enough. We'll leave on Friday, first to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles, and finally to New York. We'll cover the three main destinations in about ten days."
"Okay. Once you arrive, update us on your progress daily. You don't need to write long reports; just clearly state who you met today, what you talked about, and your next steps."
The following afternoon, Zhou Mingzhe also sent a message saying that he had contacted several veterans in game publishing and server hosting in North America through the local Chinese community and arranged a meeting time.
Lu Ran crossed out this item in the weekly report and wrote a small note next to it: "North American assessment - Zhou Mingzhe is leading the team, and preliminary conclusions are expected in a week."
As he put down his pen, the bright afternoon sunlight of June shone through the window.
The chirping of cicadas drifted up from the canopy of the sycamore trees downstairs. Two people pushed a newly arrived snack cart through the corridor, the wheels rolling crisply and steadily across the floor.
Lu Ran was staring out the window in a daze when his phone screen lit up again. This time, the caller ID displayed on the screen was one he hadn't saved, but the location was marked as "USA, California".
He looked at it for two seconds and then answered.
The voice on the other end of the phone was a man with an American accent but clearly fluent in Chinese. His tone was polite and warm. He introduced himself as someone from EA's Global Business Development Department, specifically responsible for liaison and coordination between China and the Southeast Asian markets.
The other party spoke very directly. He first briefly talked about EA's understanding of TUTU Technology and praised the achievements of the European server. Then, he changed his tone and asked Lu Ran if he was interested in discussing cooperation opportunities in the North American market.
Lu Ran chuckled as he held up his phone.
He thought to himself, "That's fast enough."
Just two days after the news of the trade war's end hit, EA called.
This shows that EA had already made preparations before the trade war ended. Negotiation plans, contact persons, and cooperation frameworks were definitely locked away in a drawer, ready to be pulled out and used as soon as the approval was issued.
He didn't give a clear answer over the phone, only saying, "We welcome EA's initiative to contact us. But the specifics of how and in what form we'll cooperate need to be discussed in detail. If EA has a preliminary proposal, they can send it over for us to review."
The other party readily agreed on the phone: "Of course, of course. I'll have someone prepare a preliminary framework right away, and I'll send it to your email as early as tomorrow. If it's convenient later, we'd also like to have the opportunity to visit you in person and have a more in-depth discussion with you and your team."
"Okay. We'll schedule a time after we have the plan."
After hanging up the phone, Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.
EA was defeated head-on by TUTU in the Chinese market, and they know all too well the strength of TUTU's products.
They're extending an olive branch now not because they've become more friendly, but because they've realized one thing—TUTU's entry into the North American market is inevitable and can't be stopped.
Instead of waiting for TUTU to set up its own servers and steal all the players, it's better to establish a partnership before TUTU officially launches.
That evening, Chen Mo sent a message from the airport saying that he and Zhou Mingzhe had boarded the plane.
Lu Ran replied, "Report back after a safe journey," placed his phone on the bedside table, and turned off the light.
He lay in bed staring at the patch of light from the streetlights on the ceiling, thinking for a while about the North American market strategy, and then he fell asleep.
A few days later, one afternoon, three people were sitting in a small conference room in the TUTU office building.
Lu Ran sat at one end of the long table, next to Lin Zhiheng from the legal department.
Sitting opposite me were two people from EA. One was the contact who introduced himself on the phone, whose Chinese name was Matthew, and he was wearing a dark blue suit. The other was Morrison, the vice president of EA's North American business development department, whose surname was Morrison, and whose hair was gray but who was very energetic.
As Matthew flipped through the thin paper proposal in front of him, he analyzed the complementarity of the EA and TUTU partnership from a business perspective: "TUTU's products are indeed very strong in terms of competitiveness and user stickiness, as evidenced by the data from the European market. However, the approach in the North American market is not entirely the same as in Europe. Users there have more specific requirements for localized services and are less tolerant of server stability. If EA handles the local publishing, we can further reduce the response time by ten to fifteen milliseconds, and the localization of the customer service team will also be higher. When players call in, they hear American English, not British English, and this detail has a significant impact on building user trust."
Lu Ran didn't immediately respond after listening. He first reviewed the proposal, which listed several key terms: EA wanted exclusive distribution rights for TUTU's three main products in the North American market, with a near 50/50 revenue split, and a minimum three-year distribution period. Morrison added that if the cooperation went smoothly, EA could also invest additional resources in joint brand promotion and esports event co-creation.
"Exclusive distribution rights." Lu Ran closed the proposal and placed it on the table, tapping his fingers lightly twice. "The North American market is huge, and I can't just package all three products and give them to one company for exclusive distribution from the start. In the European market, I split it into three companies, each responsible for different regions and product categories. I'm inclined to take a similar approach for North America."
Morrison's eyebrows twitched slightly. He whispered a few words to Matthew in English, which Matthew translated, saying that Mr. Morrison's opinion was that the channel ecosystem in the North American market was different from that in Europe, and that decentralized agents might lead to inconsistent brand image, and that data isolation between servers would also affect the user experience across regions.
"Brand consistency is a content-level issue, not an agency-level one. TUTU will uniformly control the content standards and visual specifications for all version updates, while the agency will only be responsible for localized operations and user services. The server architecture is also unified, and there is no issue of cross-regional isolation of user data; it's just that different operating companies are dealing with different user groups."
Having said that, the other party should go back and discuss it internally again.
Lu Ran didn't rush them. He poured them a cup of tea and made it clear to both sides that his bottom line was set.
The two sides then discussed some details regarding the server setup timeline and the progress of building the North American localization team.
The atmosphere was much more relaxed than when they first sat down, but the real negotiation on the terms had only just begun, and both sides knew that this was just an appetizer.
That evening, Lu Ran compiled the afternoon's events into several messages and sent them to Zhou Mingzhe and Chen Mo, who were still in the United States, so that they could also get a sense of EA's reputation and actual operational capabilities in the North American game market from their local perspective.
Zhou Mingzhe replied that he happens to know the founder of a small game publishing company in San Francisco. They had talked about EA's operating style in North America when they had dinner together a couple of days ago. He will share more details later.
After reading the messages, Lu Ran put his phone aside, leaned back in his chair, and began to plan his next move.
Since EA is willing to talk, it means they genuinely want to cooperate.
The initiative is now in his own hands. He definitely wants a piece of the North American market, but how and by what means to do so must be determined by him. He cannot let EA dictate the pace.
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