"I believe we can build our own mobile game platform. It's not a difficult task!" Edward Zamp declared passionately from the stage. "We have the capital, the technology, and the platforms. Why should we let a bunch of Chinese people profit from this?"
"Everyone gathered here today holds 90% of the global mobile market and user base. If we all collaborate to create a mobile game platform and deploy it on every one of our phones, we will possess a user experience and revenue far superior to that of that 'oo game center'!"
"As for game development, we can also commission game developers. But the most crucial point is that only we and the game developers are stakeholders. Therefore, we can split the profits evenly."
"We take 50%, and the game developers take 50%. The game developers earn the same amount, but we gain an additional 30% profit. Why should this 'Huang He' person, whoever they are, get this 30% for free?"
"So, my proposal is very simple, ladies and gentlemen: we develop the game platform ourselves. Everyone can use it, and we will all earn more profit!"
"Oh, and we have friends from Sony Ericsson here. Sony is currently the world's number one game manufacturer, and their platform is the world's number one gaming console platform, holding countless games. If Sony is willing to help us build this platform, we will be invincible. I truly don't understand what reason we have to lose to those Chinese!"
"But then again, this Huang He is also a good person for pointing out such a profitable venture. If he hadn't said anything, we wouldn't have known we could make money through this game platform. We should thank them!" Edward Zamp said with a grin, and the entire conference hall erupted in laughter.
Edward Zamp's proposal was a resounding success. Almost all the mobile manufacturers present agreed with his suggestion to work together to create their own game platform, thereby cutting out the third-party intermediary, Jiangnan Group, from profiting from the price difference.
Of course, this news quickly reached Mr. Huang's ears, and even the full transcript of the meeting was placed before him.
"This is to increase the difficulty for me!" Mr. Huang sighed after reading everything. "The major game companies here don't think highly of our 'oo mobile game platform,' and the major mobile companies here think they can go it alone!"
"Sigh, why is it so difficult to accomplish something good and let everyone prosper together?"
"Brother-in-law, what are your plans?" Leng Zhimeng asked with a smile, playing on her phone in the office. She loved seeing her brother-in-law being challenged, even though her brother-in-law always seemed to bounce back quickly.
"Regarding this, I actually have a very simple solution," Mr. Huang said with a smile.
"What solution?" Leng Zhimeng asked curiously.
"Just take them all down!" Mr. Huang said, tapping the list of mobile manufacturers who attended the meeting on his desk, and then narrowing his eyes. "Remember the names of these mobile manufacturers. I guarantee that within ten years, I will take down every single one of them, and they will no longer be able to be in the mobile industry!"
"Really?" Leng Zhimeng picked up the list from Mr. Huang's hand and read aloud: "Nokia, Motorola, BlackBerry, Sony Ericsson, HTC..."
"Brother-in-law! These phones hold 90% of the global market. Are you sure you want to take them all down? Do you really have that much capability? Do you know how difficult that would be?" Leng Zhimeng asked with wide eyes.
"It's actually not that difficult!" Huang He shook his head, then threw the entire list into the shredder and said with a smile, "You might not believe it, but even if I do nothing, they will self-destruct!"
"Then what about these game manufacturers who are ignoring us?" Leng Zhimeng asked, holding another list of game manufacturers.
"As for that!" Mr. Huang touched his nose. "I'll be merciful and won't take them down. However, they will eventually kneel before me and sing of conquest. I guarantee it!"
—
September 1st, 2004. Two major events happened on this day. One was the sales launch of the third phase of the Western Mustang Foundation's $30 billion fund.
This was perhaps the most magical day in the history of the US fund industry. A colossal fund worth $30 billion, with such a massive scale, would normally take three months to sell out.
However, in reality, all the funds were snapped up within a mere two minutes of the sales opening.
Yes, that's right, all the funds were sold out in just two minutes.
The most significant reason, naturally, was the astonishing profit margins of the first two phases of the fund.
The 400% profit margin in the first phase is not even worth mentioning. The second phase also achieved a profit margin exceeding 100%. Although it was a significant drop from the first phase, the amount in the second phase was ten times larger than the first! To maintain a profit margin above 100% with such a colossal sum was an astronomical difficulty, achievable only a handful of times worldwide.
The Western Mustang Foundation had achieved this for two consecutive years, which was unprecedented and pushed everyone's desire to the extreme.
According to statistics, before the fund went on sale, over $100 billion in capital had already inquired about purchasing this fund, including some investment institutions themselves.
Yes, that's right, some investment institutions intended to directly purchase Western Mustang's funds for investment. After all, if they lost, it was the customer's money, but if they won, it would be their own achievement. They could then promote their own funds as having astonishing profit margins like Western Mustang. They were undoubtedly business geniuses.
It was precisely because of this that the third phase fund, originally scheduled for sale in early August, was delayed by a full month. Due to the overwhelming number of people wanting to purchase, and the fear of causing trouble, they announced that they would do their best to ensure a fair purchasing opportunity for everyone. Thus, they delayed the sale by a month to develop a tool that would guarantee absolute fairness in sales.
One month later, this tool was ready and named "Pay Wallet."
Ahem, its actual name was paywallet. The direct translation is "payment wallet," but when the Chinese media wrote news reports, they felt that "payment wallet" didn't sound good, so they shortened "wallet" to "bag." Thus, the Chinese translated name became "Pay Bag."
It is said that this Pay Bag was developed by oo Network, commissioned by the Western Mustang Foundation. This was because oo Network already had the experience of successfully developing a payment tool like "Jiangnan Wallet." More importantly, they had successfully operated it for two full years, possessing rich operational experience. Therefore, they directly paid oo Network to develop this Pay Bag.
This Pay Bag could directly transfer funds with major US banks. Users could download the Pay Bag software on their computers and then transfer money to the Pay Bag from their bank or online banking, depositing cash into the Pay Bag's balance account, and then selecting to purchase the third phase of the Western Mustang fund.
However, it was not a direct purchase but a pre-lottery status.
The pre-lottery status would open 10 days before the official purchase. Users could choose any integer amount of US dollars to purchase pre-lottery tickets for the Western Mustang fund. The third phase fund of $30 billion, at a price of $100 per ticket, was divided into 300 million tickets.
The pre-lottery sales would stop the day before the lottery results were announced. All pre-purchased tickets would be counted, and then the total number of tickets would be divided by 300 million to determine the winning proportion.
Then, the tickets would be allocated to all buyers according to the winning proportion. If there were any cases where the division was not exact, it would be rounded up automatically, and the remainder would enter a second round of random selection, meaning purchasers would be randomly selected from all buyers.
This explanation might seem a bit complicated, so let's use a specific example.
For instance, this time, pre-lottery sales opened on August 21st and closed on August 30th. A total of $125,425,4724 in pre-lottery funds were raised, which translated to 12,542,54724 tickets. The winning proportion was 23.91%.
Someone spent $100,000 to purchase 1000 pre-lottery tickets. Multiplied by the winning proportion, this would be 239.18 tickets.
Therefore, this customer would directly receive 239 tickets, meaning they purchased $23,900 worth of the third phase of the Western Mustang fund.
However, as everyone can see, there was still 0.18 of a ticket remaining.
Simultaneously, almost everyone would have a fraction of a ticket left over.
These remaining funds would then be used for a lottery. According to statistics, 23,541 tickets were left over this time, and these tickets would be randomly distributed to all purchasers. However, it wasn't a random distribution of one ticket per person, but rather a proportional draw based on the number of pre-lottery tickets purchased by each individual.
This is roughly the idea.
Once the lottery concluded, the Pay Wallet would automatically settle the accounts. The winning dollars would be automatically transferred to the Western Mustang fund's account, while the non-winning dollars would be returned to the user's Pay Wallet account.
Well, many A-share investors might be very familiar with this model. It's pretty much the same concept.
So, when these results were announced, many people realized that this was not a game of luck, but an opportunity to compete in financial strength. The more money you spent on pre-lottery tickets, the higher your investment allocation would be. Thus, many people simply took out all their assets and used them to purchase pre-lottery tickets, which is why it was possible to raise a terrifying figure of over $120 billion in just 10 days.
What was even more terrifying was that many funds were reportedly directly withdrawn from the stock market, leading to the mythical legend of all three major US stock indices falling and then rising again within ten days.