Global Monopoly of Technology

"Up to 475 million US dollars, refuse to bargain, I don't care how to buy back, your company's management team will solve it, I will give you the money, you will give the equity, it's that simple."

Luo Sheng was obviously prepared and thoughtful. When the other party asked for a price, he did not hesitate and immediately made an offer.

This price leaves Ryan Blunt speechless. It is worth mentioning that, according to Take-Two's current market value of $1.276 billion, a 55% stake is equivalent to $700 million. Initiating mergers and acquisitions can basically be said to be carried out from the inside, and he did not even go to the secondary market to buy heavily.

"Is it cash?" Ryan Blunt asked again.

"Cash, of course, I have nothing but cash." Luo Sheng said without hesitation, the other party was worried that he would complete the acquisition with a cross-shareholding of Bluestar Technology's shares. Even if the other party wanted to, Luo Sheng would definitely not do it.

In fact, Ryan Blunt doesn't want to do this either, because the company is also in desperate need of cash.

Immediately after thinking about it, Luo Sheng provided $475 million in cash, and 55% of the equity would definitely not be enough, so he would have to buy it back from the market, and the news of the acquisition would definitely not be concealed, the shareholders were not stupid , once the news is released, it is no surprise that Take-Two's stock price will stop falling and rebound strongly.

That means a back and forth, the company has to spend more money to buy back, and finally this money must be $475 million to pay for the bill, so the actual cash flow will be less than half.

But even so is acceptable. For the current Take-Two, more than 200 million US dollars is also a huge amount of money. It can fully revitalize the company's current predicament, and it can even be enough to make three AAA game masterpieces. $200 million in 2005 is still very valuable.

Ryan Blunt put away his thoughts, looked at Luo Sheng and said, "OK, I will try to convince the board of directors, but I will not make an absolute guarantee."

Luo Sheng nodded, and the two sides communicated again for about 20 minutes before ending the meeting.

Obviously, at least Ryan Blunt has accepted it, but it will take about five days to a week for a formal agreement to be reached at the earliest. He still needs to convince the Take-Two board of directors that Ryan Blunt is conservative on this matter. Promise to Luo Sheng, but in fact full of confidence.

Comparatively speaking, it is better to sell yourself to Bluestar Technology than to be scourged by capital like Vivendi who are purely sucking blood in the game industry. Luo Sheng's sincerity surprised him. He can truly love the game and devote himself to promoting it. The capital for the development of this industry is really rare.

On Take-Two's side, Luo Sheng also left a few people for follow-up contract drafting negotiations. Naturally, these people were directly transferred from the legal team of the North American branch. He went out to negotiate, and the general direction was negotiated. The following questions are left to professional legal personnel to deal with.

Two days later, Luo Sheng had just arrived in Seattle, and the news that Bluestar Technology was going to acquire Take-Two and the two parties had reached an agreement finally came to light.

Sure enough, the company's stock rose sharply, and the market's reaction was phenomenal.

Luo Sheng's operation once again made the industry and Wall Street incomprehensible.

As an Internet company, what does it mean to be inexplicably involved in the game industry?

However, even if the investors of Bluestar Technology don't understand what he is doing, no one has come out to object. Sheng has never overturned.

...

"I've heard, it seems that Take-Two has accepted your company's acquisition offer. Although Valve is not as large as Take-Two, I will definitely not accept your acquisition offer, Mr. Luo.

"

In a reception room, 42-year-old Gabe Logan Newell swore to the young man in front of him that this young man would not be anyone other than Luo Sheng,

At this time, Luo Sheng was interviewing with the famous "G Fatty" in his previous life, Valve software company (Valve), which was later commonly known as Valve by players.

Gabe Newell is definitely a unique talent. Coincidentally, he is also a member of the "dropout club". He dropped out of Harvard to work at Microsoft and became a programmer for 13 years. Jin Er, always felt that the game is his life, and then left to set up the Valve company.

The FPS masterpiece "Half-Life" was born from this company eight years ago. At that time, the FPS game was basically holding a gun, and at most a few cutscenes were added.

And "Half-Life" can actually be like a movie, the plot happens in real time, and it is super immersive. Gamers at the time had never experienced such a game. G Fat and Valve became famous in this battle, and "Half-Life" also It has become one of the most memorable works in the history of gaming.

"Rion Blunt also strongly resisted at first." Luo Sheng smiled: "In the end, he was willing to follow me."

"He may be involuntarily, but Valve is different, I am different, we are small but healthy, and Valve is not a public company, and I am not planning to go public. So you can't take my company. "Gabe Newell said firmly, speaking of which, the current G is not fat at all.

Luo Sheng naturally used his unique skills. Fat G is a tough master, which is even better than that of Ryan Blunt, especially when he cares about Valve's control.

However, the more fat G is like this, Luo Sheng feels that this thing can be successful, because no one in this world can escape the "law of true fragrance", but it is worth mentioning that the "law of true fragrance" has not been discovered yet. But this kind of law does exist, because many people swear not to do something but do it in the end. This is the true fragrance law.

To settle G Fatty, Luo Sheng only needs two tricks to do it.

As usual, Luo Sheng started the game by raising his hand first, saying that the way of making an online game store is a genius idea.

At the beginning, G Fatty was a little embarrassed, because the current scale and popularity of Steam are not as exaggerated as Luo Sheng said, after all, they are in their forties.

But this person, he will never be angry if he is praised even if he doesn't accept it. When he was praised for the first time, Fat G felt that Luo Sheng was flattering. next time...

Under the continuous bombardment, everyone will feel in their hearts that maybe it is really possible that this is the case, and even the most humble person will float up.

At this moment, the fat G feels more and more that Steam is indeed his own genius idea.

"Steam is definitely something that only geniuses can think of. It is no exaggeration to say that the emergence of Steam is a subversive innovation for the game industry, and it will bring new changes to the game industry. Especially for small and medium-sized independent game companies, They no longer have to search for hair dealers, Steam is the best digital distribution platform, uploading the game to Steam can easily handle everything." Luo Sheng continued to boast without hesitation.

Gradually, the two sides chatted like this, and before they knew it, more than half an hour had passed.

At this moment, G Fatty's heart was moved, not because of Luo Sheng's all kinds of bragging, but because there was finally someone who could understand how he created Steam.

Friends are hard to find.

Gabe Newell became more talkative, and he said: "In fact, the birth of Steam did not go smoothly. I have found my old club Microsoft, and I have also found giants such as Yahoo, hoping to cooperate with them to develop, But the reply I received was only two letters... NO! Because no one has heard of it, and no one has even thought about the 'online game store' model, the game industry was not so optimistic at that time, of course, it is still not optimistic now. ."

It's a little embarrassing to say that G is fat.

The Steam platform was released in 2002. In the early days, I didn’t know what the hell it was. No one understood G-fat’s products, and no one knew about it. There was no popularity. The current reputation is still in 2003. The CS1.6 in the annals of history was released when it was bundled online.

Up to now, although third-party games have been stationed on the Steam platform one after another, there are no big-name third-parties. As for super-brand third-parties such as Ubisoft, Take-Two, and Square, it is not necessary to think about it.

Compared with these third-party game developer giants, the current Valve company is still a younger brother, and anyone can acquire Valve company.

"Maybe others don't like it, but I like it, and that's why I came here." Luo Sheng said with a very positive tone: "If you think I came here this time because I liked Valve or its "Banjou" "Fate" is a big mistake. What I really like is the Steam platform. This idea is not only a subversion of the game industry, but will even have a huge impact on the global Internet in the future. "

Gabe Newell never imagined that Luo Sheng would have such a high evaluation of the Steam platform. He originally believed that this model was very promising, but now he is undoubtedly more convinced.

This time, Luo Sheng didn't say these words as a fudge, but thought so from the bottom of his heart.

You must know that before Steam, Apple's App-Store, Google's Google-App Store, and even Tencent's later We-Game, all had to call Steam "Dad".

Because both Apple's app store and Google's app store are in the same model as Steam, the game company Valve is the forerunner of the online app store model.

Gabe Newell said sternly: "But I still don't want to be acquired by you. Since Steam is very promising, why should I sell it to you?"

Luo Sheng leaned back on the sofa, crossed Erlang's legs and said slowly: "If this is the case, from the perspective of business competition, you will face the strangulation of a powerful enemy, I will do my best, I swear, and you and I know it all. Steam isn't a thing right now, but it's an easy thing to kill for me."

If the soft one is not enough, then come to the hard one. It is a two-pronged approach, grasping with both hands, and hard with both hands.

...

(Ps: The fourth shift is over, ask for tickets. The game industry’s pit is basically dug, and a pit has been successfully occupied. In order to lay the foundation for the future virtual game platform, the protagonist will definitely not play the legend of 999 in the game industry, there is no force. It has also been written down by other commercial science and technology articles. It is also forced to play "Cyberpunk 2077", immersive virtual games and other high-level and high-tech elements. It is more of a technology company.)