The next afternoon, Blizzard convened a shareholder meeting. At the meeting, everyone unanimously agreed that Huang He would serve as the new chairman of Blizzard. Huang He also elaborated on his plans for Blizzard's future development at this meeting.
From a capital perspective, this plan was undoubtedly terrible because it cut off numerous profit-generating avenues for Blizzard, confining it to the role of a game developer. All games they developed would likely be published by Jiangnan Group, using internal pricing. It was highly unlikely Blizzard could make substantial profits this way.
However, everyone at Blizzard was ecstatic. Huang He had promised that regardless of whether Blizzard's games generated significant profits, Jiangnan Group would heavily subsidize Blizzard's dedicated game development budget.
This would free Blizzard from the constraints of development funding, allowing them to focus entirely on creating games, which was more than enough for Blizzard.
Immediately after the meeting, Huang He injected $50 million into Blizzard, a move that undeniably conveyed to everyone at Blizzard that by obeying their "father," they would be well taken care of.
With the board meeting concluded, morale at Blizzard quickly stabilized. Those who remained unsettled chose to leave. To Huang He's relief, the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Blizzard North did not defect this time, unlike in historical accounts.
They explicitly stated that as long as Huang He's promised conditions remained unchanged, they would at least ensure that Diablo 3 was completed, developed by the original team. Huang He himself eagerly anticipated Diablo 3.
Following the board meeting, Allen Adham proactively submitted his resignation. However, Huang He did not approve it. While Allen Adham's earlier maneuvering was indeed problematic, it was for the benefit of his boss, not himself. Such a diligent employee attitude was acceptable.
Furthermore, Blizzard would fully transition into a pure game development company. What the company needed was a technically oriented president, not a market-oriented one. In this regard, Allen Adham was the optimal choice for the company.
Moreover, with Blizzard undergoing a period of turmoil, abruptly dismissing the former president, Allen Adham, could potentially lead to further fragmentation within the company. Therefore, Allen Adham ultimately retained his position as the president of Blizzard.
After the board meeting concluded, Huang He kept Allen Adham behind to ask a question that had long puzzled him and piqued his curiosity: "Allen, why didn't you follow suit and sell game blind boxes in the United States?"
This was a question that had somewhat troubled Huang He. In his opinion, if Allen Adham wanted to achieve higher profits, he didn't need to do anything else. He just needed to emulate Huang He and sell various in-game cosmetic blind boxes in the American market. This would have made Blizzard incredibly wealthy, much faster than selling publishing rights.
Moreover, if Blizzard had done so, it would not have been a company that Huang He could have acquired for $350 million. Vidiwan would likely have demanded over $500 million.
However, Allen Adham had never implemented this policy at Blizzard USA, which was a source of great confusion for Huang He.
"What? You're saying you didn't have the funds to purchase servers and upgrade Battle.net, which is why you could only watch us sell blind boxes?" Huang He felt a mixture of amusement and exasperation upon learning the truth from Allen Adham.
It turned out that Allen Adham was not foolish. He had indeed considered doing what Jiangnan Group was doing. However, this involved upgrading Battle.net.
While Battle.net was pioneered by Blizzard, anyone who had the chance to experience Battle.net in the United States in the early 21st century knew how terrible it was, with frequent disconnections.
It was quite common for your opponent to freeze mid-game, or for the game to crash entirely. This was why many American players preferred to play on the Chinese servers.
Despite the high latency on the Chinese servers, their stability far surpassed Blizzard's.
The reason for this abysmal performance was that Blizzard was unwilling to increase Battle.net's server capacity, relying on the same servers that were in place when Battle.net was first created.
When the number of players was small, the user experience was acceptable. However, as soon as the player count surged, Battle.net's servers couldn't cope.
The best solution was naturally to increase the number of Battle.net servers.
Concurrently, if Blizzard were to adopt Jiangnan Group's blind box strategy, it would necessitate a comprehensive upgrade and replacement of the entire Battle.net system. After all, the original Battle.net was merely a simple matchmaking platform. Now, it needed to incorporate various functions such as modifying in-game files, resetting models, and recording data. Battle.net required an overhaul.
Furthermore, selling blind boxes also required establishing offline sales channels. In summary, this would involve significant expenditure. Allen Adham had his subordinates prepare a budget report, estimating that the entire plan would cost approximately $12 million.
Allen Adham presented this budget report to Vidiwan, hoping for approval. Vidiwan neither approved nor rejected it, only stating that the funds would need to be borne by Blizzard itself.
This meant that if Allen Adham spent $12 million on this initiative, he would absolutely not be able to meet Blizzard's profit remittance quota to Vidiwan.
Therefore, Allen Adham was forced to postpone the plan, intending to generate substantial agency fees from Huang He or Shi Yuzhu before initiating it.
"Didn't Vidiwan see the potential of these blind boxes? Don't they know how much money they could make?" Huang He asked in surprise.
"How would I know? However, based on my experience, Vidiwan is a person who cannot foresee the future and only focuses on immediate profits. Especially their joint venture management department, they only consider current performance and not the impact of these decisions on the company's future!" Allen Adham said indignantly, his resentment towards Vidiwan clearly reaching its peak.
"Now you can tell those people what a foolish decision they made!" Huang He smiled slightly. "I will establish servers in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia, all connected to the oo game platform. In the future, all Blizzard game users, anywhere on Earth, will be able to play Blizzard games directly on the oo game platform!"
"This is a truly insane plan!" Allen Adham's mouth dropped open. Establishing servers worldwide and gradually becoming a global gaming platform, such immense ambition truly stunned Allen Adham.
"For such a massive plan, just the servers alone would likely cost over a hundred million dollars!" Allen Adham exclaimed.
"No problem, the servers are our own; they don't cost us anything!" Huang He chuckled.
"Our own... Huang, has your Jiangnan Group already ventured into the server business?" Allen Adham looked at Huang He in disbelief. He hadn't been paying much attention to server industry news recently, otherwise, he would have known the significant undertakings Jiangnan Group had been involved in lately.
"Of course. In the future, Jiangnan Group will expand into more industries, forming a formidable force that will shock the world!" Huang He showcased his ambition to Allen Adham, then continued, "Therefore, your Warcraft III will have to be delayed for a few more months. Once our global network is fully established, we can leverage Warcraft III to create a massive global impact!"
"Delayed again?" Allen Adham rolled his eyes. "Warcraft III was originally scheduled to be released a week ago, but it was delayed for a month. Now it's going to be delayed for a few more months. Boss, won't this be bad for the players, too cruel?"
"It's fine; players are already used to your company's delays!" Huang He said cheerfully.
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In mid-July 2003, Huang He, after spending nearly two months in the United States, successfully returned to China. This time, there were no unexpected reporters, and everything went smoothly.
While Huang He was away, no major events occurred in China. If anything significant had to be mentioned, it was probably that