Less than a year after his comeback, Shi Yuzhu's wealth rose by 10 billion yuan.There is only one fundamental reason for the surge in wealth: the wind

Less than a year after his comeback, Shi Yuzhu's wealth rose by 10 billion yuan.

There is only one fundamental reason for the surge in wealth: the wind. Previously, it was brain platinum and games, but this time it was artificial intelligence.

At the 2023 Journey Carnival held in the middle of June, Shi Yuzhu dressed in red and said frankly that among Chinese bosses, he was most connected with AI. "Why? That's what I learned in college." Shi Yuzhu said, "The company is not only a senior manager, middle level leaders of various projects, but also the most junior managers and most employees. Their pores already have the smell of artificial intelligence, which we should continue to move forward firmly."

In an internal speech in April this year, Shi Yuzhu had a good idea of AI: "AI, in plain words, is two activities. The first algorithm, the second data." "AI will have a great impact on the future of games, which is my experience." "Game+AI is the trend of the times, and also a key direction of Giant Group."

According to a previous record of investor relations activities by Giant Network, the term AI has appeared more than 30 times.

Taking the AIGC express, the stock price of Giant Network slowly rose.

Starting with Shi Yuzhu's official microblog last year, the share price of Giant Network rose from the closing price of 8.31 yuan/share on September 13 last year to the high of 22.65 yuan/share on June 20 this year, up 172.5%.

Shi Yuzhu holds 36.17% shares of Giant Network and is the actual controller of Giant Network. Roughly calculated, within a year of his comeback, his wealth had risen by over 10 billion yuan.

10 billion is expected for the capital market. For the giant and Shi Yuzhu, it is a big cake in a picture. The value of this cake depends on how much real gold and silver the giant and Shi Yuzhu can show to prove themselves in the air of AI.

Trying to catch the wind of AIGC

Shi Yuzhu is not alone in breaking into AI.

Since Wang Huiwen, co-founder of Meituan, released a hero post late at night in early February, saying "$50 million, bring capital into the group, pay no attention to the position, salary and title, and seek to form a team", Kai-Fu Lee, Wang Xiaochuan, Zhou Hongyi and others have also disclosed their plans in the field of AI big models.

Zhang Yongfang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, said that all industries are worth redoing based on artificial intelligence technology.

The industry generally believes that the rapid development of AIGC technology behind ChatGPT is expected to help game manufacturers achieve low-cost, high-quality mass production of scenes and original paintings, empowering the industry.

According to Shenwan's secondary industry data, the gaming sector has increased by 93.77% since the beginning of this year.

Shi Yuzhu, who likes to wear red clothes as much as Zhou Hongyi, is also eyeing AI.

At the beginning of April, Shi Yuzhu said in the Giant Network that the first project that the team is preparing now is "Game+AI", because AI is easier to play in the game. In the game development stage, AI can serve as an auxiliary tool to improve efficiency and save manpower in art, programming, and other aspects; In the operational phase, AI can subdivide players into hundreds of categories, each of which can match different gameplay and numerical values.

Seeing the huge "money" power of AI, Shi Yuzhu took Playtika, an Israeli game company, as an example, "they do not develop games, but optimize them with AI by acquiring other people's games. In the seven games they have acquired in the past few years, the average number of players in a game has increased 2 to 3 times a year, and the revenue has increased 10 times."

Shi Yuzhu also wants to copy the success of Playtika. According to a recent investor relations activity record from Giant Network, the company is exploring the use of AI tools to help users create good maps and game assets for the leisure and competitive game "Ball Battle"; In the "Space Operations" launched in January this year, AI attempted to play different roles; In multiple MMORPG (role-playing) games of Journey IP, intelligent NPC exploration has been launched.

To this end, Shi Yuzhu has formed an AI team of more than ten people. Meng Wei, CFO and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Giant Network, also publicly stated that AI is the company's number one project.

It can be seen that Shi Yuzhu regards AI as a new way out for himself and the giant network.

However, compared with Zhou Hongyi's 360GPT physical products, Shi Yuzhu still stays at the stage of "mouth greeting" more.

After announcing its involvement in AI, the stock price of Giant Network also slowly rose. On June 21st, the closing price of Giant Network was 20.51 yuan per share, which has doubled compared to the beginning of the year.

Shi Yuzhu won't lose his way in the wind.

Chasing the Wind "and" Eating Old Capital "

Shi Yuzhu has done this for many times.

Around 2015, Shi Yuzhu's giant venture capital participated in the early A round and B round financing of Groupon, deeply involved in the hot P2P industry; In 2017, Giant Network invested in the parent company of P2P Investment Network, Wangjin Finance, Rosa Holdings Co., Ltd., which features supply chain finance, and the internet rental platform "Mushroom Rental". In 2018, Shi Yuzhu also indirectly participated in Ant Financial.

However, the sudden regulatory storm has cooled the entire P2P industry. Group loan network and Wangjin Finance exploded one after another, and Shi Yuzhu also fell into the vortex of public opinion.

Shi Yuzhu was not reconciled to the hot Baijiu market, launched the golden sauce liquor that was the benchmark of Maotai Feitian, and "repeated the old tricks". The golden sauce liquor advertisements were broadcast circularly in the prime time of CCTV1, 2, 7, 10 and 13 sets.

But after all, gold sauce wine will not become the next "brain platinum". PhoenixWEEKLYAccording to Caijing, three types of golden sauce wines - eight aged, ten aged, and fifteen aged - were listed on the flagship store of our golden partner Tmall, with prices of 499 yuan, 699 yuan, and 1199 yuan, respectively. The monthly sales were shown as 3, 0, and 4 yuan.

Shortly after joining Baijiu, Shi Yuzhu began to frequently express his concern for Metaverse. Giant Network also said on the investor interaction platform that it has identified Metaverse games as the direction of long-term layout, and games will be one of the most important application scenarios and entrances of Metaverse.

In July 2022, Shi Yuzhu made a rare appearance to participate in the strategic cooperation conference between Journey and Golden Sauce Wine, and launched "cloud brewing" in Journey game. However, it is worth noting that what is presented to users this time is just the experience of edging the Metaverse, and it also depends on Journey, which has been a debut for many years, to bring heat.

Journey: Co creation Journey Expansion Film 2018

Chasing the wind has not yielded much results, and the true gold and silver profits of giants still rely on their "old capital". Although some new games have been launched from time to time, they have not become phenomenal products like Glory of the King and Genshin Impact after all. The only one that can be considered a hit is' Ballball Battle ', whose producer Wu Meng also gave up her annual salary of 4.6 million yuan in the middle of last year and chose to leave.

During this period, Tencent and NetEase stepped on the wave of mobile internet and launched popular mobile games such as "King of Glory" and "Yin Yang Master". Afterwards, they even looked globally and went global. A group of new players such as Miha You and Lilith have also risen strongly with innovative products and concepts.

At an internal communication meeting before leaving, Wu Meng bluntly stated, "In the past 17 years, we have invested almost 10 billion yuan in research and development, only producing two products," Journey "and" Battle of the Ball ". The key is that these two products did not spend much resources on the company. In other words, these 10 billion yuan foundations have been wasted. This is extremely harmful and insulting

How much real gold and silver are the giants willing to throw out while driving in reverse?

From Metaverse to AIGC, games seem to be the industry that benefits. In theory, AI can help developers achieve rapid content and storyline generation, promoting the intelligence and diversity of NPCs. From planning, development, design to operation, "empowering the upgrading of the entire industrial chain".

However, behind seemingly transformative experiences, there are actually significant costs involved.

In 2018, Spielberg's film "The Number One Player" profoundly demonstrated the concept and scene of the Metaverse, followed by a high cost of up to 175 million dollars, equivalent to 1.2 billion yuan.

So many game professionals say that for AI technology, competitive products with large DAUs and high flow like "King of Glory" can definitely give it a try. But for medium-sized products, it is often not cost-effective.

Wang Yanfeng, the head of AILab under NIO Era, bluntly stated that if new technologies are more radical and uncertain, traditional companies will also act conservatively due to financial and operational stability. These factors will ultimately affect the use of new technologies in the industry.

On the other hand, Giant Network achieved a total revenue of 2.038 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year decrease of 4.07%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 851 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.43%.

Prior to this, its revenue and net profit were also reversed for several consecutive years. From 2017 to 2021, Giant Network's operating revenue was 2.907 billion yuan, 3.78 billion yuan, 2.571 billion yuan, 2.217 billion yuan, and 2.124 billion yuan, respectively; The net profits were 1.290 billion yuan, 1.078 billion yuan, 820 million yuan, 1.029 billion yuan, and 995 million yuan, respectively.

The two main product lines of Giant Network are the "Journey" series and the "Ball Battle", among which Journey is still the main revenue force. According to its 2022 annual report, the cumulative revenue of the entire series of computer and mobile online games of "Journey" exceeded 20 billion yuan.

The gambler like character has constructed the ups and downs of Shi Yuzhu's life. Whether it's Hanka, Brain Platinum, or Journey, he always puts all his eggs in one basket, accurately hitting the time point of industry explosion. At the same time, he also has moments of arrogance and misjudgment, otherwise he wouldn't have fallen into trouble in his investments due to a huge debt of 250 million yuan due to building a giant building.

The 10 billion yuan cake is still waiting for Shi Yuzhu and the giant to take out real gold and silver to realize it.

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