Chapter 193 191. Conspiracy? Open Conspiracy?!

The next day, Bomi and others arrived as promised and had an interview on the acquisition intention in Epic's conference room.

Epic's founder Tim Sweeney is a handsome middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses and a tall hairline.

His image is very friendly, reminding Cao Yang of Mr. Liu Guangran, Bomi's number one technical engineer.

Tim himself is also a world-class programmer. Epic is committed to the development of game engines. The games they make are generally used to show how useful the engine is.

In my previous life, most game companies in the world used Epic's engine. Even if you don't know the name of this game company or who Tim Swinney is, you must have heard of the game engine they made-

Unreal Engine!

Especially since the third generation of Unreal Engine, it has established the position of Epic engine as the dominant position. The good performance of Unreal 4 engine, especially the processing of material rendering, has reached a very high level. In addition, the engine is free, many companies will directly use Unreal Engine as a development tool in order to save time in developing game engines.

It is no exaggeration to say that Epic changed the world with Unreal Engine.

Epic Games' core members include the aforementioned chief programmer, founder Tim Swinney, game planner Cliff, Jerry O'Neal, who was appointed as the company's artistic director in 2003, and Laurent Delaney, a top programmer at Epic Games's Cary headquarters.

In July 2012, Penguin acquired 48.4% of EpicGames' issued share capital for US$330 million, becoming its major shareholder.

So now Epic is just a small boat that has just set sail for Yang Fan.

In the industry, it is only a corner of the game engine.

The company's revenue is not very high. According to Cao Yang's estimate, Epic's current valuation is about less than US$20 million.

Perhaps it will be even lower.

Even if the premium is 50%, you can still get it 30 million.

Penguin was able to successfully talk about it in the past life. This time, as the boss of the penguin, Cao Yang was also confident that he could get it.

What's more, this is Epic in 2003, and it is just a small company that is not well-known.

...

After the meeting began, everyone made some simple blending on the ideas of both parties, and then explained the details of each item in detail.

This negotiation was obviously much easier and more pleasant than talking to Vivendi before.

Mainly because this time the situation is reversed, Bomi is the strong, while Epic is weak.

They had heard about Bomi, a company that Bomi had long been contacted by Bomi.

The main reason is that Bomi's acquisition of Vivendi Games Division was a buzzing and amazing thing.

There are even rumors recently that Blizzard in the North collective resignation is Bomi Company.

It is said that they will set up a company independently in the future, and the big boss behind them is Bomi.

So when Bomi sent a letter of intent to acquire a month ago, several Epic leaders were very concerned about Bomi and seriously investigated Bomi's information. Later, when they learned that the company's monthly income was stable to have 20 million US dollars, they were shocked.

You should know that since its establishment, Epic has not even made half of it.

Just think about it, Epic basically didn't make much money before Penguin acquired the company, otherwise it wouldn't have sold 48.4% of its shares for US$330 million.

You should know that in 2007, Blizzard's valuation had exceeded US$10 billion.

So after investigating Bomi background, everyone at Epic was actually very happy and excited, which shows that there will be a large game manufacturer in the future, and China is the largest market in the world.

The game market is now expanding, and according to the upper limit of China's population, the future is promising.

...

The meeting lasted for more than an hour. Bomi also gave a detailed introduction to the situation of its company, telling the company's technology, the company's multiple game products, the market share occupied, and the annual revenue...

These things made Tim and others who heard it were dumbfounded.

Epic staff looked at each other, and it seemed difficult to believe that a Chinese company could do this.

In terms of revenue, Bomi is at least equivalent to 10 Blizzards.

No wonder they are so confident that they dare to negotiate with Vivendi.

Cao Yang also gave a detailed explanation of the intention and future plans for acquiring Epic.

However, Cao Yang has not disclosed a word about the X engine developed by the company itself so far.

Cao Yang thought about this for a long time. The X engine developed by Bomi now actually has many design elements for the future Unreal 4. After all, Cao Yang used Unreal 4 the most.

Although the current hardware is still very behind, and the X engine is far from reaching the height of Unreal 4, many basic functions have been quite perfect. It is no exaggeration to say that it can at least lead all engines in the world for at least 3 years.

This means that the X engine is better than Epic's Unreal Engine.

If the X engine is displayed at the meeting, it may play a certain role in hitting the opponent's price.

For example: You see, our company has such awesome engines. We want to acquire you not because we like the engine you are most proud of, but because we want a game company in the United States. That's all, in order to add American game publishers to our games, we have acquired your company.

If this can be done, it will have a large degree of reverse effect.

If our company only has the value of issuance for you, then this will hurt your self-esteem and may not be able to be sold to you.

Therefore, Cao Yang must first affirm the value of Epic, that is, the value of people.

At the meeting, he also praised Epic's technology as much as possible, and also gave considerable recognition to the abilities of relevant personnel.

In terms of programmer technology, Epic's group of people is definitely second to none. Although they are not necessarily stronger than Liu Guangran and Deng Peiqiang, the reason why X engine is leading so far mainly depends on Cao Yang's advanced design.

If this company is acquired and the future is upholding the design given by Cao Yang, the things that Epic people may not be worse than Deng Peiqiang and others.

According to Cao Yang's idea, since the company has the X engine, it is better to concentrate on developing and researching X, and the future Unreal series can be discarded first.

Otherwise, if we form a competition with each other, it will actually be more than worth the loss.

Cao Yang praised them carefully, and the Americans looked very happy and their cheeks were red.

Both sides have a good impression of each other.

The atmosphere in the conference room is good.

After that, everyone had enough understanding of each other and entered the core topic of this interview-

Regarding how much Bomi spent and how much equity it acquired in Epic.

Since Cao Yang has done his homework, he naturally has no ambiguity and directly offered a price code:

$15 million, 70% equity.

Based on the valuation of them of 20 million and a little premium, it is actually a better start.

The price tags that were first opened will generally be retracted in the end, so you should reach the maximum value within the evaluation range as much as possible, so that there is room for recycling negotiations.

Tim discussed with others and felt that the offer was a bit unacceptable, "We have to guarantee our autonomy, so 70% is definitely unacceptable...

We can sell 30% or 10 million. I wonder if you can accept it?"

Cao Yang smiled slightly.

30% is definitely not possible, at least you have to get more than 50%. And according to Cao Yang's idea, he wants Epic not only to have a shell company, but in the future, it will conflict with Unreal Engine and X Engine development in the future, so he has to kill this no matter what.

This is the only way to ensure the X engine's dominance in the world.

In fact, money is not very important. The main core of the competition between the two sides is how much equity they can get...

So we then entered the common tug-of-war.

The little secretary next to him looked at the two of them verbally, and time was lost every minute and second, and he couldn't help feeling uncomfortable again.

It was over, Zhuang Yurou thought to herself that this time it was protracted and it was not necessarily possible to achieve the unification intention in the end.

About half an hour later, Cao Yang's phone rang.

He picked it up and took a look, and said to the Epic staff, "Sorry, I have an emergency call, otherwise how many minutes will everyone take a break?"

Everyone was also feeling a little tired, so everyone agreed with Cao Yang's proposal to [temporary truce].

...

Tim and Cliff went to the balcony to smoke.

It happened that Cao Yang was calling from a distance.

Anyway, Cao Yang spoke Chinese, so they couldn't understand it. And it was as breathable as the balcony, so the two of them chatted around the ashtray.

The translator Epic asked himself also came out, and the three of them were smoking and chatting outside, breathing in fresh air.

After a while, Cao Yang's voice became louder and louder:

"What? Vivendi invites us to go over for negotiations this Friday?"

“Don’t they don’t want to sell the game division anymore?”

"You tell them that I happen to have an American game company to talk to, and I don't need Blizzard anymore."

"Hmm? They agreed to lower the price? How much is it now?"

...

Hearing this, the only American translator on the field who could understand the Mandarin spoken by Cao Yang felt a little embarrassed.

He was going to leave to avoid suspicion, but when he heard Cao Yang say he wanted to acquire Blizzard, he suddenly stopped.

The translator approached Tim and lowered his voice, "This Chinese just said that Vivendi was willing to sell Blizzard to him at a lower price. I don't know how much the price."
To be continued...