Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

The original title: "Why are all roadside Internet cafes dead?" Can only gang up at e-sports Hotel: 25 years of rise and fall of Internet cafes in China. "

The emergence of e-sports Hotel is very much in line with the development path of China's Internet bar industry in the past 20 years: "net" is becoming less and less important, but the attribute of "bar" is getting stronger and stronger.

Before the epidemic, my friend just opened an e-sports hotel in Wuhan, which was in full swing.

When I was decorating, I went to have a look. It was an occupational disease. I kept asking him: isn't that how many beds have been added to the Internet cafe? Does this thing really make money? Do people really open a room just to play games?

He smiled and said, you are old, young people's world, you do not understand.

When EDG won the championship last year, I couldn't help asking him, "is the business of your e-sports Hotel good now?"

He smiled and said, you are old, young people's world, you do not understand.

He told me that the emergence of e-sports Hotel is actually very much in line with the development path of China's Internet bar industry in the past 20 years:

"net" is becoming less and less important, but the attribute of "bar" is getting stronger and stronger.

Therefore, to understand the logic of e-sports hotel, we should start from the history of Internet cafes.

With regard to the first Internet cafe in China, Beijingers think it is in Beijing, Shanghainese think it is in Shanghai, each has its own views.

In May 1996, several students of Shanghai University of Science and Technology founded the "Shanghai Wigate computer Room".

Shanghai Wigate computer Room in November of the same year, Beijing also opened an Internet cafe called "Shihuakai Internet Cafe".

Many people prefer that Shihuakai is the first Internet cafe in China. The reason is also very simple, Wigate only local area network, strictly speaking, can only be regarded as a computer room. Second, it does not have a "bar", the so-called bar and beverage service.

And Shihuakai from decoration to service are full of petty bourgeoisie atmosphere, the scale is not large. And after surfing the Internet for more than an hour, the store also provides a cup of American coffee for free.

But in any case, the two families have a common feature, that is, "expensive".

The billing price of Wigate reached 40 yuan per hour. The price of Shihuakai was even more explosive in the early days, 50 yuan an hour, and then slowly dropped to 20 yuan an hour.

In 1996, when the per capita monthly salary was only 500 yuan, the price was basically the level of Jay Chou's Internet cafes. If you spend half a day on the Internet, your monthly salary will be gone.

It is precisely because of the high cost that the consumers of Internet cafes are mainly a small number of foreigners, social elites and white-collar workers, and play a major role in academic exchanges, information inquiries or e-mails.

Shihuakai is the transliteration of Sparkice, ice and spark, sounds like some kind of e-sports peripheral brand, very youthful.

And the founder Zeng Qiang, can be called the beloved son of heaven, high achiever in the battle hegemony.

Zeng Qiang was admitted to the Department of Applied Mathematics in Tsinghua University at the age of 17. His undergraduate thesis won the first prize in Tsinghua University, and his master degree in economic management. His graduation thesis also won the National Award of the International far East Economic Conference. His first job was in the National Information Research Center. His thesis won the special prize of the thesis of the State Council. Later, he went to Canada to study abroad. In ten years of academic time, he published more than 50 papers and four books.

Moreover, he became a ten thousand yuan household by starting a business on campus before graduating from college, and later became a business of helping Chinese enterprises to do mergers and acquisitions and listing in Canada.

In a word, it is the child of someone else in the real sense.

Opening this Internet bar is just a small episode in his business life. Later, he turned his main business to e-commerce and later became an investor. the most famous project he has ever invested in is called Letv.

Interestingly, the location where Shihua opened this Internet bar was once the location of the most famous billboard in the history of the Internet in China: Ying Haiwei's sentence, "how far are the Chinese people from the information superhighway?" It's 1500 meters north. It is considered to be the first phrase of the Internet era in China.

However, the people who really make a lot of money by opening Internet cafes are the second batch of players who enter the Internet bar market.

02 Wang Yuesheng is only one year stronger than Zeng, but his fate is completely different. He came from a poor background, failed the college entrance examination twice, worked as a coal miner, worked in the cement business, and sold oil.

Wang Yuesheng was a self-made man. By 1997, the Shanxi native had 12 gas stations and became a multimillionaire.

With the scale of the enterprise, Wang Yuesheng gradually felt the pressure of management. This year he accidentally introduced a set of computer management system to solve the problem of management efficiency of gas stations.

This accident made him have a strong interest in computers.

He decided to build a computer and take a high-tech route.

So he came to Zhongguancun in search of high technology with 1 million yuan in cash. As a result, no high-tech was found, and he accidentally walked into an Internet bar called "Rogain". The college students surfing the Internet in the Internet bar gave him an idea:

"it is impossible to engage in high technology without talents. How can I, as a native boss, know talents?" Or open an Internet bar, so that you can get to know a group of college students, which can help me enter into high technology in the future. "

After some investigation, Wang Yuesheng found a treasure land of fengshui-- the south gate of Peking University.

It has been a commercial street since 1993, not only near the dormitory of Peking University, but also the best college students in China, as well as Zhongguancun Electronic Street and Haidian Book City, all potential netizens.

Moreover, at that time, there were only a few hundred old-fashioned computers in the school of Peking University, but tens of thousands of students cried out for the Internet.

As a result, Wang Yuesheng spent 800000 yuan to rent a 128square-meter underground shop, renovated, bought 25 Pentium 166computers, and laid an advanced 64K DDN line, named Feiyu Internet Bar.

On Valentine's Day in 1998, Feiyu Internet Bar opened.

From the first day of opening, Wang Yuesheng showed what the power of capital is.

Feiyu announced that it would surf the Internet free of charge in the first three days. At that time, the mainstream Internet bar Internet rate was 8-15 yuan per hour, Wang Yuesheng lowered the price to less than 10 yuan, and implemented a flexible rate.

10 yuan in the afternoon and evening, 9: 00 to 12: 5 yuan, and direct free from 7: 00 to 9: 00 in the morning. If you have your student ID card, you can give a 20% discount. People who do not know how to surf the Internet can also get guidance from on-site staff.

After all, it is worth tens of millions of dollars, and this wave of operation will make the pattern bigger. Soon, a long queue formed at the door of Feiyu Internet bar.

A few months later, Wang Yuesheng won several stores in the South Gate Commercial Street of Peking University and transformed them into Internet cafes. From 1998 to 2001, Feiyu opened 18 stores with more than 1800 computers, with 12000 customers per day and an average daily net profit of more than 10, 000 yuan. It has also attracted a total of 355 Internet cafes across the country.

Talent did not catch, but made a lot of money, can only say that life is not as expected.

In June 2000, the place name of "Feiyu Internet Caf é a Street" appeared on the new edition of Beijing City Map published by China Map Publishing House. The Xinhua News Agency also reported that it was "the number one Internet bar in China" and "the largest Internet bar in the country."

Today, people of Peking University who are a little older will still remember the grand occasion of the south gate of Peking University. Surfing the Internet, playing games, checking materials, and Feiyu Internet cafes have become the common memories of many people in Peking University.

From 1998 to 2001, is the golden age of Internet cafes, network fees gradually decline, 2 yuan per hour has gradually become the mainstream price. But the hardware is not yet popular, the Internet industry is trying to cry for the first time, and a large number of young people want to try the taste of surfing the Internet.

The key point is that the policy and supervision of Internet cafes are still being explored.

Therefore, this gives the Internet bar industry room for barbaric growth.

At that time, 10 computers could open Internet cafes, and each computer could bring income ranging from 300 yuan to 600 yuan every month. On average, you can get your money back in less than a year. With low threshold and high profits, Internet cafes will soon be opened all over the country.

At that time, many Internet cafes, with a name called "black bar", have gradually become as troublesome as the game hall in the eyes of parents.

In fact, at that time, many black bars were run by game halls, and arcade halls might be a little less, but in addition to 10 small computers, black bars often had several PS for people to play Boxing King 97, and the price was a little higher. If I remember correctly, it would cost 4-5 yuan an hour.

In order to save costs, many of these black bars are simply opened in residential buildings. Most of the people who go to the black bar go to play "Age of Empire" and "StarCraft".

In October 1998, a 20-year-old man named Huang Feng, on the outskirts of Songjiang, Shanghai, bought six computers with 30,000 yuan given by his mother and 6,000 yuan borrowed, and opened a 10-square-meter computer room that could only play games and could not surf the Internet.

Huang Feng's reason for starting a business was even more interesting. His mother found that her son spent 5 yuan an hour playing with the computer every day and asked him, "Why don't you open a computer room by yourself?"

Huang Feng is also right. I open a computer room with five machines. No more than five people come to play at the same time every day, so I can still play with the rest of the machine.

No one thought that this seemingly unambitious young man would later become the founder of China's largest chain of Internet cafes.

Huang Feng, the founder of Internet Fish Internet Cafe, was born in 2001, which affected the pattern of Internet bar industry.

This online game is legendary.

In July 2001, Shanda won the exclusive right to operate online game Legend in Chinese mainland from South Koreans with a share of US $300000 and 27% of the income.

For the Internet cafes at that time, the Internet infrastructure has been built, and what is missing is to solve the content of "what to do after getting on the Internet". Isn't a cracked game the best solution?

In September, Legend was launched, and the number of simultaneous online users exceeded 400000 within two months.

As a paid game, Legend quickly ran into a problem: players have to pay for online time, game time needs to buy cards to recharge, but where does the channel to buy cards come from?

In 2001, when Alipay didn't even exist, buying offline cards became the only option.

At that time, Chen Tianqiao, Shanda's boss, hired Shanghai Ubisoft as a distributor. Although Ubisoft has a lot of experience in the release of stand-alone games, Ayu's channel is not very good in the release of point cards, and it has been the state of defect cards in the market for a long time.

Shanda has a bit of a card, players have demand, but can not be sent to the hands of players.

This is the case. What about Chen Tianqiao?

As a result, Shanda said, do not use your potato channel, or I will do it myself.

Shanda found that "legendary" players rarely play games at home, no one has computers, and Internet cafes are the stronghold of players. As long as the Internet bar is developed into a direct distributor of point cards, players will not be worried about getting the point cards.

Soon, Shanda organized a ground force to promote Internet cafes.

Through hooking up with local Internet bar associations, Shanda absorbed a large number of Internet cafes, which was called "ten thousand people sweeping bar" by people in the industry at that time.

By 2005, Shanda's sales network had 250000 Internet cafes. The point of sale card has also become one of the important profit models of Internet cafes. It can be seen that ground push is definitely the core competitiveness of Chinese Internet companies.

Internet cafes also successfully solved the grand card problem. At the end of 2002, Legend had more than 750000 people online at the same time, with 75 million registered users.

In his heyday, when he walked into an Internet bar, the whole row was playing "Legend".

Also in 2002, a tragedy interrupted the rapid development of Chinese Internet cafes.

At about 02:40 on June 16, a fire broke out in an Internet cafe at 20 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing.

The fire eventually claimed 25 young lives, including 15 students, and 12 others were injured. It became the deadliest fire in Beijing since the founding of the people's Republic of China.

After the fire, when people began to pay attention to what caused the tragedy, Internet cafes became the target of public criticism.

This Internet cafe, called Lanji Speed, is an illegal black Internet cafe. Because he is worried about the industrial and commercial surprise inspection, when the boss leaves, he will lock people who surf the Internet all night in the Internet bar.

And this lock, cut off the Internet bar customers in the escape channel.

What is even more surprising is that the fire was arson, and the two arsonists were only 13 and 14 years old, respectively.

The reason for arson is also very simple. The two went to the "Blue extreme Speed" Internet bar to surf the Internet. Because they didn't have enough money, they were ridiculed by the waiter of the Internet bar, and they were not allowed to play again.

In retaliation for the Internet bar, the two filled more than 1 liter of gasoline with a Sprite bottle, igniting the carpet at the corner of the stairs of the Internet bar.

In 2002, the game's "electronic heroin" theory has become very popular.

Internet cafes, unlicensed business, juvenile crime, these three key words beat people's nerves hard.

Soon, the whole city of Beijing announced the closure of Internet cafes for rectification, and Internet cafes were also carried out all over the country.

In September 2002, the State Council promulgated the regulations on the Administration of Business places of Internet access Services, which focuses on prohibiting minors from entering Internet cafes. At the end of the year, the state suspended the examination and approval of new Internet cafes. Next, there is the attack of SARS.

In 2003 and 2004, the notice on strengthening the chain Operation and Management of Internet Internet Service Business sites and the opinions on carrying out Special renovation of Internet Internet Service Business sites such as Internet cafes were issued one after another. Encourage the establishment of a national chain of Internet cafes and suspend the examination and approval of individual Internet cafes.

According to the proportion of the Ministry of Culture, the number of Internet cafes is limited to "one Internet cafe for every 10, 000 people." for example, in Shanghai, there can be no more than 1624 Internet cafes with business licenses for a long time, because the official population of Shanghai is about 16 million.

This means that the individual Internet cafes that have sprung up everywhere in the past have gradually withdrawn from the stage of history, and gone are the days when small bosses can open Internet cafes to make a lot of money by buying a few machines.

During this period, Wang Yuesheng and Zeng Qiang shut down their Internet cafes and switched to other businesses.

Many people believe that the Black Swan incident from 2002 to 2004, and the subsequent series of policies, directly led to the end of the golden era of Internet cafes.

But I personally think that the main impact of this storm is actually all kinds of black bars, some large stores have been retained, and many are opened near the school.

In fact, Internet cafes have made great progress during this period, mainly due to computer software and online games.

First of all, the popularity of QQ, and the birth of QQ Show around QQ, has become the social currency of middle school students. My first QQ account was probably available around 2004.

In addition to legends, magic babies, miracles, especially Fantasy Journey to the West have become very popular. Therefore, Internet cafes have also become offline virtual goods trading centers, selling all kinds of point cards, Q coins and so on.

All kinds of account transactions were also carried out in Internet cafes. At that time, some people in our class spent hundreds or thousands to buy an account for Fantasy Journey to the West, which really made me aware of the class gap at an early age.

At that time, online games, the common feature is the liver, on-hook brush level is not too common, more and more people begin to play games, chat and watch movies at night.

People who stay up late want to eat and drink, so Internet cafes simply take a part-time job as a non-staple food shop, including drinks, instant noodles, and even cigarettes and betel nuts.

By the time they were in high school, Chenghai 3C, footman and DOTA based on Warcraft were becoming more and more popular, and a group of boys climbed over the wall to surf the Internet, which was no longer news.

Fortunately, I am not addicted to games. I occasionally go to Internet cafes to watch animations and cartoons with the consent of my family. When Lu Lu Xiu ended up, I sat in an Internet bar in Baidu Lu Lu Xiu Bar and analyzed the logic loopholes of the rickshaw puller party until he was hit in the face many years later.

The turning point in 2005 probably occurred around 2008.

First of all, the implementation of the real-name system of Internet cafes is becoming more and more stringent, the Internet must bring identity cards, the police check from time to time, which makes many Internet cafes lose the most important source of visitors-students.

At the same time, desktop computers have dropped from tens of thousands of yuan to thousands of yuan, and broadband charges have been reduced again and again, and the broadband charges of thousands of yuan in the previous month have dropped to hundreds or even dozens of yuan before and after 2008.

Office workers can surf the Internet at home, minors can not go to Internet cafes, college students have almost become the only source of tourists, the industry finally felt great pressure.

Since customers have more and more choices in the "net" matter, it is also a way out to do a good job of "bar" and experience and service.

And strengthen the experience and service, and encourage chain Internet cafes, are essentially the same, to promote the standardization and quality of Internet cafes.

And Huang Feng is the protagonist of this chain generation.

Huang Feng, who only wanted to play games and make some money by himself, found that the situation was stronger than people, and the business of Internet cafes was getting bigger and bigger, so it was impossible to play games well.

In 2000, he got the business license of Internet cafe and became a regular business. By 2004, his "Fengyu" Internet bar had seven or eight branches.

This wave of chaining seems to be for him.

In 2006, Huang Feng registered the Internet Fish Company, and in 2007, Internet Fish became the first Internet bar enterprise with chain operation qualification in China.

In the face of the Internet bar industry gradually falling into crisis, Huang Feng is also thinking about the way out.

In early 2008, Huang Feng rented a store on Tianyaoqiao Road in Shanghai for 1.2 million a year.

He believes that in the past, the environment of Internet cafes was poor, the service level was low, and the grade was not high. None of this was a problem in 1998, but a decade later, high levels of spending power have long since emerged.

The Internet cafe in the future should be a place for consumption and entertainment and a gathering of friends, rather than a simple computer room game hall.

At the beginning of 2009, Huang Feng made a lot of money to build the first online fish Internet cafe, focusing on the concept of "Internet cafe + coffee". It not only improved the decoration and environment, but also equipped with 180 high-end computers to provide services such as coffee, milk and tea. Even smoking is not allowed in Internet cafes.

The price, of course, is worthy of facilities and services, from one or two yuan an hour to more than 4 yuan an hour, and the price of private rooms is even higher.

The first online fish can be called an adventure.

For the first half of the year, the store continued to lose money, and even lowering the rate back to 2 yuan and offering free drinks could not save the business.

During this period, Huang Feng also asked himself whether the space for consumption and entertainment made by Internet cafes is feasible in the end. Finally, I convince myself every time: to play games, or to play with friends is the happiest.

The continuous loss lasted for 10 months, and it was not until the 11th month that queues began to appear at the door of the Internet cafe.

Later, some guests even thought that there were too many people and asked for an increase in the price of net fish.

Since then, Huang Feng continued to expand by joining the model, although the concept of Internet cafes is not difficult to imitate, but relying on iterative upgrading, the introduction of cafes, film and television, board games bar, e-sports hall and other compound formats, Internet fish is still in the forefront of the Internet cafe industry.

However, the rise of Internet fish has not stopped the decline of the Internet bar industry as a whole.

In 2006 and 2012, the total number of Internet cafes in China declined for the first time.

Statistics show that the total number of Internet cafes in China was 136000 in 2012, about 10, 000 fewer than in 2011. This is the first time that the total number of Internet cafes in China has declined since 2000.

And this phenomenon is also easy to understand.

Even if the format is constantly updated and various elements loved by young people are added, the core of Internet cafes is still games.

Whether it is "Legend", "Fantasy Journey to the West", "World of Warcraft" such online games, or the previous generation of e-sports games "CS", "Warcraft 3", or later "League of Legends".

A dominant game can drive the entire Internet bar industry.

What kind of game is the best hegemonic game for Internet cafes?

A study of rice mentioned in a report on Internet cafes:

First of all, such a game had better be PC online games, with high online duration, social attributes, and slightly higher requirements for hardware and network speed, but not too high.

But in the past ten years, the only one who can really tie players in Internet cafes is League of Legends.

Judging from the launch data in the past three years, the top five most popular Internet cafes are still "League of Legends", "crossing the line of fire", "DNF", "Jianling", "QQ Speed" and "DOTA2", exactly the same as the top five in 2012.

As for PUBG, although it is also popular, the problem is that the cost of hardware and software needed to adapt to the game is so high that many Internet cafes fail to make enough money from the popularity of the game.

Even many people come to Internet cafes to play mobile games.

According to Shun.com data, the start-up rate of PC online games in Internet cafes fell by 6% to 74% in 2019, while mobile game simulators increased by 4% to 26%.

Why the EDG championship has become a carnival comparable to the qualification of Chinese football comes from the strong vitality of "League of Legends".

But on PC, so far there has not been a game, influence and coverage can take over "League of Legends".

In the past few years, when I went home and was dragged into an Internet cafe, it was true that the environment was several times better than before, but in the face of the spacious curved screen, I was at a loss as to what to do, and finally picked up my cell phone.

There is no national-level PC online games, perhaps it is the Achilles' heel of Internet cafes.

So, e-sports Hotel, as another form of Internet cafes, will also have the same dead point?

My friend told me that you are right, e-sports Hotel is indeed an Internet cafe with a few extra beds. No matter how hard the capital blows now, in fact, e-sports Hotel is in the form of an Internet cafe where you can sleep.

However, you should note that although the Internet bar business has declined, it is not dead.

In fact, since every family has a computer, the argument about the fate of Internet cafes has never stopped. Everyone is thinking, since there is a computer at home, why should I go to the Internet bar?

The fact is that even if the computer configuration at home is higher than that of Internet cafes, many people still choose to go to Internet cafes to surf the Internet. Because even online games have offline social needs.

You gang up online, and with friends, offline gang up, the experience is completely different. Even if you play mobile games, several people get together to play happy, is not their own nest in bed can be compared.

In the final analysis, all we need is a place to get together with friends, independent of home, school and office. It doesn't matter what you do. It can be playing basketball, shopping or playing games.

As I said in the history of the decline and fall of KTV, young people may not like singing, but they pour into the script to kill. The needs of the party have never changed, but only the way we communicate.

The automatic mahjong machine didn't kill the mahjong parlor, but more people chose to play mahjong in the teahouse. The industry is just driving in a more personalized and private direction as users get older.

Or many years later, even e-sports Hotel has entered a period of burnout. And the new generation of players will certainly open up new places.

The audience of e-sports Hotel looked at this new place, just like when we grew up in Internet cafes, we looked at e-sports Hotel and asked: will anyone really come to play?

And they will smile and say, you are old, young people's world, you do not understand.

A generation will grow old, but there will always be people who are young.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: IC Lab (ID:InsightPlusClub)

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