"Giant" Shi Yuzhu, set himself on fire

Across China, few business tycoons walk between the two extremes of controversy and legend like Shi Yuzhu.

From Giant Hanka to Giant Mansion, from Brain Platinum to "Journey", Shi Yuzhu, founder of Giant Network, has ranked 8th on the wealth list in five years; He also went into debt of 250 million yuan overnight and almost died on Mount Everest because he had no money to buy equipment. His path of success and failure has been repeatedly measured by market, business, and moral scales. Shi Yuzhu's every move is also particularly eye-catching.

Even today, it is no exception. At present, what stirs the public's nerves is Shi Yuzhu's new information about the executor. On October 7 and 8, the news that "Shi Yuzhu, Beihai Hongtai Investment Co., Ltd., the execution target is about 1.765 billion yuan" appeared on the hot search list for two consecutive days.

This is not the first time Shi Yuzhu has been plagued by debt.

"Made more than 100 male friends and lost a lot of money"

Everything stems from Shi Yuzhu's careless dating?

In February this year, Shi Yuzhu frankly admitted at an internal meeting that he did not do business in the years of his retirement, made more than 100 male friends, and often borrowed money and helped friends as guarantees. "I'll drink at the wine table, okay, lend money to this person, vouch for that person."

"Shi Yuzhu, who vouched for his friends, set himself on fire." Some netizens commented on social platforms.

▲ (The person in red is Shi Yuzhu)

On October 7, Tianyan investigation showed that recently, Shi Yuzhu, founder of Giant Network, and Beihai Hongtai Investment Co., Ltd. added a new piece of information about the enforcee, with an enforcement target of more than 1.76 billion yuan, and the enforcement court was the Beijing Financial Court. According to the civil judgment of the case, Shi Yuzhu's enforcement was mainly due to the joint and several liability guarantee provided by Beihai Hongtai Investment Company, including investment principal, investment income, liquidated damages, etc.

The subject matter of Shi Yuzhu's execution is not small, including the principal amount of more than 990 million yuan, interest of more than 100 million yuan and corresponding liquidated damages. In fact, this is not the first time Shi Yuzhu has been involved in financial disputes. On September 21 this year, Giant Investment Group, with a registered capital of 117 million yuan, also added an equity freezing information. Shi Yuzhu's equity was frozen, amounting to 114 million yuan.

At that time, a relevant spokesperson of Giant Network once posted on Weibo to explain that the "114 million yuan equity freeze" was caused by Lao Shi's guarantee by a friend, and would be properly handled. After Shi Yuzhu was exposed by the outside world on October 7 to become the executor, Giant Network still responded the same, "The enforcement that the outside world is concerned about today is caused by the personal guarantee of Lao Shi and has nothing to do with the listed company." He will handle it properly and will not affect the listed company. ”

Regarding the two questions of "how to properly deal with it in the future" and "who is the guaranteed friend", the relevant person of Giant Network replied to the "city boundary" that it should first understand and see, and then synchronize if there is a reply.

Is Shi Yuzhu keen to "help friends vouch" as his family said? This can be seen from the court court between Shi Yuzhu and Oceanwide founder Lu Zhiqiang last year.

Shi Yuzhu is the controlling shareholder of Giant Investment Group. From 2021 to June 2022, Giant Investment Group filed a lawsuit in court over a pledge contract dispute with Minsheng Trust. The first instance ruled that Minsheng Trust should release the 20% equity of Shanghai Jiante Life Science and Technology that Giant Investment Group had pledged to it in accordance with the contract. Giant Investment Group appealed, and the second instance upheld the original judgment.

According to Times Weekly, the fundamental reason for the "release of equity pledge" between Lu Zhiqiang's Oceanwide Company Minsheng Trust and Shi Yuzhu's Giant Investment Group was that Shi Yuzhu guaranteed "Xiaoyanzi" and Huang Youlong's related enterprises, which in turn caused Shi Yuzhu to owe debts to Minsheng Trust. Here's what happened: Shi Yuzhu provided a guarantee for Guangzhou Hot Wheels Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in 2017, and the actual controller of this company was Huang Youlong. Hot Wheels signed a trust contract with Minsheng Trust, and Shi Yuzhu acted as a guarantor to provide joint and several liability guarantee for its performance of obligations.

However, the failure of Hot Wheels to repay the loan on time due to breach of contract led Minsheng Trust to file a lawsuit in court, demanding that Shi Yuzhu bear the guarantee liability. As a result, Shi Yuzhu's equity was frozen.

In the eyes of the outside world, Shi Yuzhu and "Little Swallow" are friends. In 2013, Shi Yuzhu Weibo said he was going to go to her winery in Bordeaux, France, to "steal grapes to eat." Subsequently, Shi Yuzhu also bought a Bordeaux winery.

Now, Shi Yuzhu, who has become the executor, can no longer consume high. Not only that, Shi Yuzhu's already controversial reputation has also been made worse by these financial disputes. In addition to this one in September this year, on August 25, 2021 and December 23, 2021, Shi Yuzhu's equity in Giant Investment Group was frozen twice, both with an amount of 114 million yuan. When Shi Yuzhu's equity was first frozen, the freezing period was from August 25, 2021 to August 23, 2024. This also means that as of now, Shi Yuzhu has not yet reached the period of equity unfreezing.

Equity freezing is a compulsory measure taken by the court to restrict the owner of equity from withdrawing or transferring his own equity, in order to prevent improper loss of equity. In response to the freezing of equity caused by Shi Yuzhu's guarantee for friends, Giant Network responded many times that this guarantee was made by Shi Zong (Shi Yuzhu) personally, and had nothing to do with Giant Investment Group's companies such as Giant Network and Golden Partner. But that doesn't mean there isn't a ripple effect at all.

The logic of this lies in the fact that Giant Investment Group is a very key foreign investment platform for Shi Yuzhu, and many tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of investments are carried out through this platform. Giant Investment Group is also an important platform for Shi Yuzhu to directly or indirectly hold the listed company Giant Network.

"Make fewer friends, play more games"

Getting to this point today is not unrelated to Shi Yuzhu's past experience.

His success is inseparable from the help of friends along the way. The most impressive is Shi Yuzhu's bankruptcy in 1997. At that time, he was building the Giant Building in Zhuhai, which caused the giant capital chain of the Giant Investment Group to break, and many friends thought about how to help him.

Wu Mingyu, former deputy director of the State Science and Technology Commission, once recalled to the media that Hua Yifang, then secretary general of the China People's Association, personally approached him, who was still in office at the time, to discuss "how to save Shi Yuzhu", and Hua Yifang also "looked for connections everywhere and thought of a way". Duan Yongji, the founder of Sightstone Holdings, also helped Shi Yuzhu, and he supported Shi Yuzhu to get a new life from brain platinum. In January 2004, Sight Holdings spent 1.2 billion yuan to buy Brain Platinum and gave Shi Yuzhu more than 20% of the equity of Sightstone Holdings.

Later, Shi Yuzhu, who made a comeback, also spared no effort to help Sightstone Holdings transform from IT electronics to a health care product company, he once said: "As the CEO of Spotong, the annual salary is only one yuan." ”

Shi Yuzhu, who has achieved fame and achievement, has made a wide range of friends. Perhaps out of trust in his friends, he did not skimp on wealth and frequently borrowed money abroad. Since taking a back seat in 2007, he has "lost a lot of money for more than a decade" because of lending money to people and guaranteeing people. Shi Yuzhu complained to himself. In the New Year of 2022, Shi Yuzhu also posted a Weibo, saying, "I wish everyone a happy new year... Do not vouch for friends. ”

At that time, Shi Yuzhu was still behind the scenes, until August 2022, when he suddenly returned to the front line. According to Shi Yuzhu, it was Liu Wei, CEO of Giant Network, who saw that he was causing losses outside and advised him to "play more games and make fewer friends." So, Shi Yuzhu came back to play the game.

However, in the eyes of the outside world, the timing of Shi Yuzhu's return is somewhat delicate. Just two months before Shi Yuzhu came out again, Wu Meng, then CEO of Giant Network, announced his departure, and Giant Network fell into a situation where no one was at the helm.

In fact, in the many years before Shi Yuzhu's return, the operation of the giant network has deteriorated. From 2019 to 2022, the company's operating income will be 2.571 billion yuan, 2.217 billion yuan, 2.124 billion yuan and 2.038 billion yuan, respectively, down 31.96%, 13.77%, 4.20% and 4.07% year-on-year. Shi Yuzhu, who quickly returned to the front line, tried to re-find the direction of the giant network. What he values most is the gaming sector, a career that has made him prosperous.

In 2006, Shi Yuzhu led a team of 10 people to develop the online game "Journey", creating a free experience and prop charging model, which also became the trump card of the giant network in the next decade. However, by 2015, "Journey" had entered a period of decline, and the quarterly recharge turnover shrank from 218 million yuan in the first quarter of 2012 to 136 million yuan in the third quarter of 2015. After the trend of page games and terminal games declining and mobile games becoming a gathering place for users is becoming more and more obvious, although Giant Network has also developed some new games over the years, such as the mobile game "Ball Wars" that came out in 2015, none of these works can compare with the "Journey" of the past.

This time, the returned Shi Yuzhu brought "The Original Journey", which is a new work in the "Journey" series. Getting rid of the dependence of "Journey" has always been Shi Yuzhu's heart disease. According to Giant Network, Shi Yuzhu, who personally led the team for research and development, spent half a year to propose more than 400 revisions to the team. After four to five months of revision, the mobile game Original Journey was launched in March 2023.

Golden sauce wine is also Shi Yuzhu's second most important career in addition to games. Giant Investment Group took advantage of the liquor industry to launch golden sauce wine in 2020, with gold ingots, golden mantang series and other products. Shi Yuzhu's first five-year plan for Golden Sauce Wine is: five years, 5 billion (sales), and listing. In June 2022, Golden Sauce announced that it will officially launch cross-border cooperation with Zhengtu IP to help the development of Golden Sauce by integrating the advantages and resources of both sectors. Shi Yuzhu wants to connect these two products that are far away.

Giant Network has revealed a combination of the two gameplay: online, players can do tasks in the game, and after completion, the prop "Golden Sauce Wine" is rewarded, and the lottery tickets obtained in the game can also be exchanged offline for Golden Sauce Wine to taste. At present, whether this combination can make players buy it will have to wait for time to test.

The new product "Original Journey", re-produced by Shi Yuzhu, did not disappoint him and his team. Shi Yuzhu personally served as the game producer, gave enough product budget, and launched it on a large scale in major channels. As a result, the game's turnover exceeded 300 million in the first month. The launch of "Original Journey" also enabled Giant Network to achieve operating income of 936 million yuan in the second quarter of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 93.58% and a month-on-month increase of 84.41%.

Shi Yuzhu, who has been out of the mountain for more than a year, has indeed brought some surprises to the Giant Network, but in the long run, how to attract more players in "Original Journey" is a new problem in front of Shi Yuzhu.

"We can't just rely on the players in their 40s and 20s in the future, we must let the new generation come in, and gradually they can become the main force in our future game." Shi Yuzhu has admitted in public.

This also means that if the threshold of new problems is not crossed, the performance rejuvenation brought by Giant Network with "Original Journey" may not last long. Because, there is one game that can achieve long-term performance.

"Backyard fire"

Everything has cycles, and games are no exception.

"The ball is not the same ball anymore." Wang Li complained on social platforms. The "ball ball" he said was referring to the mobile game "Ball War" launched by Giant Network in 2016, which is a game that focuses on in-game socialization. When this game first came out, Wang Li fell into the pit, which can be regarded as accompanying him throughout his youthful years. "Although the original technique is not as expensive as it is now, only those simple korfballs, but happiness is real happiness." Wang Li said that the prop race at that time was also very fun, playing with teammates, grabbing props and card props.

That is, under the favor of players like Wang Li, "Ball Wars" became another popular game of the Giant Network in 2018, and the number of players of this game even exceeded "Glory of Kings" for a while.

But gradually, Wang Li stopped playing this game. When did this start? Maybe it's after playing the social adventure game "Light Encounter" and the open-world adventure game "Genshin", or maybe he discovered that "Ball Wars" has various slots.

"In order to make money for the sake of making money, various krypton gold systems have emerged one after another. Do not optimize the mechanism, environment, improve the game system, blindly produce some bells and whistles. The game is full of all kinds of flying sky, accelerators, computer modifiers, pointers and so on. The official also turned a blind eye, and even acquiesced to other well-known anchors to open and hang to increase their popularity. All I can say is that the Giant Network personally destroyed this original beautiful game. Wang Li's disappointment in "Ball Wars" is overflowing.

The account on Feng Xing's "Ball War" was logged on in an unknown way. This person emptied all of Feng Xing's gifts, all game props such as star cards, super candies, golden mushrooms, etc., everything that could be used, were destroyed or exchanged for gifts to his account. The angry Feng Xing looked for the customer service of "Ball Wars", but the other party ignored him, "Occasionally reply to me, but the bull's head is not right for the horse's mouth, and there is no mind and attitude to solve the problem for the player." In a fit of anger, Feng Xing unloaded "Ball Battle".

It is also in such a quietly changing environment that this mobile game, which has been on the market for 7 years, has not contributed a lot of turnover to the giant network like another popular "Journey". For so many years, the main source of revenue for Giant Network is still the IP of "Journey", for example, the operating income of "Journey" in 2021 accounts for 80% of the total revenue of Giant Network. Although the 2023 half-year report does not mention the operating income of "Ball Wars", the data shows that in August this year, the estimated turnover of the domestic IOS (Apple system) channel of "Ball Wars" only exceeded 10 million yuan.

The reason is that in mid-2021, Wu Meng, then CEO of Giant Network and producer of "Ball Wars", bluntly said that the biggest problem within the company was that after Shi Yuzhu retired and did not make products, no one in the entire company would make products, and no one could assume the responsibility of the boss to lead the team to make products. Wu Meng, who saw the problem, in the first two years of his tenure, he made drastic reforms, adjusted the organizational structure, established a track system, and established an industry committee within the giant network. At the same time, he also established a technical middle platform and established a management structure of "big middle platform, small project".

However, until Wu Meng left the company in June 2022, this adjustment had little effect. The Giant Network has not created a blockbuster game that surpasses "Journey": "Ball Wars" is not a hit, the military game "Glorious Mission" is high and low, and the new game "Dragons and the Edge of the World" is yet to be verified. After Shi Yuzhu returned to the front line, under his leadership, the game business of Giant Network seemed to have improved a little. In the first half of this year, Shi Yuzhu strongly launched "Original Journey", which contributed more than 1 billion yuan to the Giant Network.

"Original Journey" uses the advertising slogan "Thousands of people on the same screen, ten thousand countries fight, find the feeling of the journey of the year", with a retro picture and gameplay than the "Journey 2" in the public beta in 2018, and attracts many male players aged 30-50 with the classic theme song of "Journey IP". This group of people has played legendary games when they are young, and has a high ability to pay, and the requirements for the game are refreshing and lively. But for the younger generation, Primordial Journey is not their battleground.

One day, Ren Feng, who was very bored after 95, opened a new area at ten o'clock in the morning, and after charging 6 yuan and 30 yuan one after another, he found that his combat effectiveness was not bad. In the middle of the night, Ren Feng, who was upset and couldn't sleep, opened "Original Journey" again. He found that at this time, "Original Journey" updated the recharge activity. Ren Feng wanted a cute mount very much, "36 yuan was spent, and I didn't draw it." When Ren Feng was about to continue recharging, he suddenly reacted, "This game is not suitable for me, a poor person. They often recharge tens of thousands of yuan, even millions of yuan, and I don't even have a deposit of 100,000 yuan. I shouldn't be in the same world as them. In the end, Ren Feng chose to escape from "Original Journey".

On March 14, 2002, Yang Haipeng, author of the long report "The Truth About Brain Platinum", raised academic questions about the function of melatonin in brain platinum. At the end of the article, Yang Haipeng wrote: "The faces of Cerebral Platinum and Shi Yuzhu are in front of us, they are becoming more and more blurred, and we can't find the right words to describe them." ”

Today, Shi Yuzhu, whose equity has been frozen, Shi Yuzhu, who has returned to the front line, Shi Yuzhu, who guarantees friends, Shi Yuzhu, who has launched new games, and Shi Yuzhu, who wants to pull more young people into the game... Multiple faces intertwined, which is the real Shi Yuzhu? That fuzzy feeling is back.

(In the text, Ren Feng, Feng Xing, and Wang Li are pseudonyms.) ）

Author | Tao Ting

Edit | Sun Chunfang

Operations | Liu Shan