Original author: Michael Tong, founder of Xterio
Since I was a kid, I realized that I was not good at being a rational person. In my opinion, rationality is almost equivalent to boring. Although this word is positive in the eyes of many people, I prefer to pursue an irrational attitude towards life. In fact, it was those seemingly irrational moments that ignited the spark of my entrepreneurial journey.
In my entrepreneurial experience, I have deeply experienced the words of George Bernard Shaw: A rational person should change himself to adapt to the environment. Only those irrational people will want to change the environment to adapt to themselves. What I want to share with you is that it is those crazy ideas and firm beliefs that allow me to move forward on the road of entrepreneurship.
I believe that only those who have a strong belief in their pursuit can create real change. Every struggle and adventure is a bet on the future. This is not blind arrogance, but a brave challenge to the inherent rules. Those who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world may actually do it in the end.
Catalyst for change
I am not willing to become a person who goes with the flow. My life should be interesting, happy and meaningful, which also means that I am destined to be an irrational person. After work, I always try to jump out of the conventional path and find different solutions. The emergence of Lotus 1-2-3 is like a key that opens the door to change deep in my heart.
Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading electronic spreadsheet application at the time. You can simply think of it as a pioneer version of Excel. In that era when data entry still relied on manual labor, proficient use of Lotus 1-2-3 would greatly improve work efficiency. By writing a few lines of code, I simplified the workflow that originally required each department to manually enter financial reports, saving hundreds of hours of work for my superiors. This method seems simple today, but it was revolutionary in my work environment at the time.
Interestingly, my salary was calculated by the hour at that time, and this small innovation caused my income to decrease instead of increase, but it made me excited because I saw the greater value behind it - a future led by irrational people. This innovative and transformative force made my heart boil, and I was eager to find the next breakthrough.
The birth of Openrice (http://Openrice.com) is a bold challenge to the traditional restaurant review model. It also has a more down-to-earth Chinese name 开饭啦. In those days, people chose restaurants mainly based on the reviews of food critics, and only those prestigious restaurants were qualified to invite food critics.
The restaurants that surprise me are usually unknown small shops recommended to me by friends during chats, such as The barbecued pork at the shop next to my house is delicious and The afternoon tea snacks at that shop have small flags with Come on written on them. I believe that the judgment of food should not be in the hands of only a few people, but should be heard by every taste bud, which gave me the initial concept of Openrice.
It is like Dianping that focuses on the food industry, a food online community for Hong Kong people. On this platform, everyone can become a food critic and every small shop can shine. This insistence on democratizing food reviews has also made Openrice a leader among local apps in Hong Kong.
Identify untapped markets
Online Gaming
Some people say that games and mechas are the romance of men. As a game player, I know very well how far-reaching a good game can be on a generation. Speaking of the history of games in China, lets turn the clock back to the early 2000s. At that time, the most popular games in China were not the current mobile games or stand-alone games, but online games. You could walk into any Internet cafe and they were full. Familiar names such as Legend, Stone Age, and Xiaowang carry the youth and memories of a generation of Chinese players, and I am no exception.
At that time, piracy was rampant in the Chinese game market. Buying a legitimate game would even be ridiculed by pirated players around as a foolish act of wasting money. But in this chaos, I realized that the online game market was growing rapidly, and the increase in Internet penetration created excellent conditions for the rise of online games. Although many people around me thought that it was a rash move for me to devote myself to this industry that seemed to have little profit and was supported only by passion, I still saw it as an opportunity full of possibilities.
That was the starting point of my gaming career and the biggest pride in my heart. From investment to full-time joining NetEase, in those 21 years, I worked with NetEase to build the worlds leading gaming empire. NetEase did not start with games. After I joined, NetEase Games started its journey from zero to one.
Looking back at the days when I first entered the game industry, despite the doubts from all around me, I always had the desire and passion to explore games and new things. At that time, the Chinese game market had huge potential, which was far more exciting than the risks brought about by rampant piracy and undervalued game values at that time.
Today we see the rise of Chinese games, which is the result of the efforts of many explorers at that time. My vision coincides with NetEases philosophy, and Ding Lei and I explored markets that most people did not believe in. In the next 20 years, I grew up with NetEase and witnessed the glorious moments of online games. Every challenge became the motivation for me to pursue my dream, and every success made me more determined.
Coming from an investment background, I am more focused on the future and more like an explorer. Even after entering the gaming industry, this DNA has always been with me, allowing me to always be extremely sensitive to the market. Past successful experiences have also allowed me to gain more trust and accumulate more resources. It is this trust that makes me hope to once again show a future full of miracles to all those who trust me.
FunPlus
When the iPhone first entered the market, mobile games were still in their infancy, and the main battlefield of games was still online games and stand-alone games. Although games such as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja were popular, many mobile games, including them, had a hard time on the road to commercialization. At that time, the investment community was almost entirely focused on PC game and console game developers, and few people noticed that smartphones were becoming popular at an astonishing speed.
After realizing this trend, I had an in-depth discussion with a friend from a well-known venture capital company and turned my attention to mobile games. Among the companies to be evaluated, FunPlus was the first one I paid attention to. They are not only making games, but also creating an IP world that can transcend time and be remembered by players. The concept sounds bold and advanced. At the invitation of my friend, I invested in FunPlus and fought side by side with it. Today, FunPlus has become one of the worlds leading mobile 4X strategy game companies, and my intuition has once again been verified.
Developing games for women
Challenging stereotypes in the gaming industry has become another driving force for my entrepreneurship. In the publics impression, games are more attractive to men, and men are generally more willing to spend more money and time on games. However, when I came into contact with the female game market in Japan by chance, I found that the female player group was so huge. The gaming needs of female users have not been met for many years. Women also have the need for games, and are becoming more and more independent from men in terms of economy and preferences. These phenomena all point to the booming female game market. This made me begin to question the stereotypes of female players in traditional games. Do women not need games, or has no one ever really considered how to make a game for women?
This insight prompted me to set up a company, get to know this group that is not valued by the traditional game industry, and invest in the development of high-quality female-oriented games. This experience even made my relationship with my wife better. We are always used to considering issues from our own gender and perspective. If we step out, it will be a different world. The discovery of the female player market made me realize that there are many possibilities in the game world.
Reshaping the gaming world with Web3
My fascination with blockchain technology and decentralized applications began in 2016, and has only grown over the years. While there has been widespread skepticism about Web3 and its potential use cases in game design, I remain a firm believer that these innovations will fundamentally change the way we interact with our digital environment.
Currently, most games are limited to mainstream platforms. Although players can express their emotions and suggestions to game developers to influence game development, the control still belongs to the developers. This creates a one-way relationship in the game, and players can only experience it according to the settings of the developers. In other words, the economic relationship between players and developers and platforms is not balanced, and players contributions often do not receive due recognition and feedback. Even in the Web3 era, some developers and platforms have not yet achieved a win-win situation for developers and players.
But now, the combination of Web3 and artificial intelligence agents (AI Agents) has given the gaming industry a new dawn. As an intelligent entity that can independently learn and perform complex tasks, AI agents can improve the accuracy and efficiency of task execution when dealing with complex and dynamic Web3 environments. For example, AI agents can automatically execute smart contracts, manage digital assets, and even participate in the decision-making process of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), enabling Web3 applications to be decentralized on a broader level. This coincides with our original intention of developing Xterio, which is to provide players with a transparent and secure gaming environment and create new economic opportunities in games.
In the field of Web3 games, the lack of fun and short lifespan have always been the focus of criticism. I am determined to break these stereotypes and launch our first game Age of Dino, which combines mobile game mechanics with the theme of weaponized dinosaurs to create a new and attractive game world for players.
An irrational future: change and leadership
The combination of Web3 and AI Agent is becoming an important driving force for the development of the blockchain industry. In this emerging field, many traditional game companies choose to wait and see. However, those teams that dare to try and innovate are exploring the combination of blockchain technology and game design with irrational courage, and are committed to creating a fairer, more creative, more interesting and surprising game world, bringing a new experience to players.
As a game creator, I am extremely excited about this. The leap in technology has lowered the cost and threshold of the creative process, and provided creators with additional imagination, allowing more talented and creative developers, whether professionally trained or not, to participate. This not only enriches the ranks of game makers and brings in diverse perspectives, but also inspires unprecedented game creativity.
Our goal is to make AI a true partner for users, providing a unique and personalized gaming experience. Imagine that players will have an intelligent partner who can understand their emotions and needs, helping them make better decisions in the game and enjoy deeper interactions. This irrational pursuit not only promotes the advancement of technology, but also allows us to find real satisfaction in creation. Our vision is to make every game full of emotions and interactive experiences, so that technology can not only stay at the tool level, but also become a real companion and supporter in the virtual world.
Some people say that I should take building the Tencent or NetEase of the web3 industry as Xterios future goal. I think, if this is the only goal, how can I be worthy of myself who decided to start a business again, and the team and you who believed in me again without hesitation?
In this era full of challenges and opportunities, let us move towards a future full of possibilities together. I believe that through continuous innovation and persistence, we can work together to create a better digital world - just like my motto when I founded Xterio, to create a better world - Better Worlds. Let us become those crazy people who dare to pursue their dreams and write the legend of this era together.
