Discovering a niche

In retrospect, Wu summed up his career of starting businesses as “one of constant efforts to try, correct and retry.”

Trying, correcting and trying again eventually paid off for Wu. After leaving Xiangtong Digital, Wu finally found his niche-the online gaming business.

Once, in an interview with Chinese Venture, Wu stressed how influential text-based multi-user dungeon, or MUD (a kind of multiplayer game mode), was on him. “I was so obsessed with virtual online games that I spent almost every day writing and maintaining Eastern Stories 2-Celestial Empire and other text-based MUD games when I first got connected to the Internet at the end of 1995,” he said.

Starting Tianxia Studio marks the turning point of his career. In August 1999, Wu began to write a prospectus for the online game Tian Xia with Liang Yuchong, who was then in Canada. When the investment was ready in 2000, Wu and Liang co-founded the first ever online gaming company in Guangzhou, Tianxia Technology Co. Ltd.

“I was so motivated then by the idea that I was able to witness my dream coming true,” recalled Wu.

After a six-month development period, Tianxia successfully introduced China’s first open source online game engine and launched the online game Tian Xia. The game, simulating tales of ancient swordsmen, was China’s first graphic-based MUD game. It attracted hundreds of thousands of players within the first few months and often had several thousand simultaneous online gamers at once. Compared to text-based MUD, Tian Xia made a breakthrough in terms of its interface and the number of players it could handle.

“But Tian Xia wasn’t launched at the right time,” Wu said regretfully. “We couldn’t make a penny since the online gaming industrial chain hadn’t been developed at that time and there were no fee-charging modes, no distributors and no dealers.”

In 2000, the Internet was so popular that huge sums of money were poured in. But for Tianxia Technology, money remained a problem.

“We tried in vain to discuss investment with ourgame.com and sina.com,” said Wu. While he was increasingly worried about money, Wu accidentally became acquainted with Ding, whose NetEase had just raised $90 million on the Nasdaq.

Wu grasped at this life-saving straw. He introduced Ding to the market prospects of online gaming and presented Tian Xia to him. Though Ding gave no immediate response to Wu, he made a speech about Tianxia Studio and online gaming at the NetEase general meeting a couple of days later. His reply to Wu after that meeting was that he wanted to “buy out Tianxia Studio and its Tian Xia instead of investing in it.”

NetEase officially acquired Tianxia Techonology and its game Tian Xia in March 2001 and later developed the game Fantasy Westward Journey, which helped the game portal survive a bitterly cold Internet winter.

With a half-year of CEO lessons at NetEase’s Tianxia, Wu decided to head into the business wilderness on his own for a third time. “I wanted to make my ideas a reality,” said the hard-nosed former programmer.

Sudden success

Wu, who had made a pretty penny off the sale of Tianxia Technology to NetEase, invested the money he’d made in two companies successively-Yibang Technology and Huoshi Software-both of which were later acquired by CITIC Pacific.

Huoshi Software is currently controlled by and functions as a research organ of Optisp Communication Co. Ltd., one of CITIC Pacific’s filial companies. Wu, who had always been a lover of classic Chinese literature, was the CEO of Huoshi in 2004 when he decided to develop Shui Hu Q Zhuan.

“Among the four greatest classic Chinese works, we had already developed a game base on the plot of The Journey to the West,” said Wu. “We decided to develop Shui Hu Q Zhuan since nobody had touched upon Heroes of the Marshes, or Shuihu. We encountered many difficulties and a great deal of pressure in the first two years of development.”

At the time, Optisp was negotiating with major foreign game developer EA to establish a joint venture. During the negotiations, Optisp was asked to give up Wu’s new project many times. “Our developers didn’t take one day off during the two-year development,” Wu said.

On July 11, 2006, Wu sold the proxy rights of Shuihu Q Zhuan to Kingsoft Software Co. Ltd. “I had faith in Kingsoft’s management team and was confident in the company’s future,” said Wu.

Reality proved Wu was right to believe in his project. Due to the successful operation of Kingsoft, the number of gamers has reached nearly 300,000 for the game. Every month, Wu and his team see several million yuan flood into their accounts.

Wu highlighted the factors that go into making a successful online game.

“A game may take two years to develop and nobody can predict the result,” Wu said. “Game operators, the game’s acceptability, as well as the competence of your rivals, are factors you must consider before you launch a game.”

Rivals and partners

Talking about what he learned from founding businesses one after another, Wu emphasized that he’s gotten the most from his rivals and partners.

“Ding is a man of vision,” said Wu. “With keen insight and a razor sharp wit, he is capable of steering the dotcom business to the right direction.”

Another friend of Wu’s, Zhou Hongyi, not only gave him spiritual support but also concrete financing of $10 million, allied with D-hui Investment. This $10 million may change Wu’s cashing-in habits, and maybe his nickname. “I’m not going to sell my company this time,” said Wu. “I want it to go public.”

“We were always good friends, from riding bicycles to driving a BMW,” said Wu. “I appreciate his perseverance and determination.”

During the interview, Wu repeatedly opened and closed his laptop. Some Huoshi Software employees said that Wu has the habit of recording his inspiration for frameworks, characters and pictures in games, at any time.

“I’m the producer of Shui Hu Q Zhuan, but I would have done some of the programming if I had the time,” explained Wu. “I love and enjoy developing my own thoughts.”