2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 353 Lawyer's Letter Warning!
Wednesday, September 11th.

Luo Xiaowei is 24 years old and works at a foreign trade company in Ningbo. His work hours start at 8:30 in the morning.

Unlike a few weeks ago when he would arrive at work right on time, Luo Xiaowei seems to be much more diligent lately, clocking in just after 7:30 every morning, very punctual.

This morning was no different. Luo Xiaowei, carrying two steamed buns and a bag of soy milk, clocked in and sat down in front of his computer screen at his workstation.

"Xiao Luo, don't steal my crops! If you steal my crops again, I'll get mad at you!"

The computer had just been turned on when Luo Xiaowei heard the voice of his colleague Li Jinglan behind him; indeed, the company Luo Xiaowei worked for was formerly Jinpeng Trading, now Jinpeng Industry.

After Jinpeng Trading was reorganized into Jinpeng Industry and merged into Shanchi Group, the original trading staff became employees of the company's trading department, with no change in their job duties.

The original first employee, Li Yanning, became the head of the trade department and took on a management role.

Besides being Li Yanning's younger sister, Li Jinglan was also the second employee of Jinpeng Trading. She originally had the opportunity to take over Li Yanning's job, but this girl was rather laid-back and didn't have much ambition.

Zhang Xupeng arranged a relatively easy administrative position for her, where the work was easy and the pay was good.

"Hehe, Sister Jinglan, you'd better hurry up, I can't guarantee I'll be able to finish packing your vegetables too once I get into the swing of things." Luo Xiaowei said while munching on a steamed bun and clicking the mouse.

Although Luo Xiaowei is a bit older than Li Jinglan, the latter has more seniority, so Luo Xiaowei can only respectfully call her "sister." However, they usually have a good relationship in private, especially after they started playing the game "Stealing Vegetables."

The act of everyone stealing vegetables together has inadvertently brought office colleagues closer together, and the distinction between social classes seems to have become less pronounced.

The office work environment of the entire Flash Group, including Jinpeng Industrial, is actually quite relaxed. As long as it does not affect work, they do not mind people playing games to relax.

"Huh? The version has been updated." After opening the webpage, Luo Xiaowei found that a new friends ranking list had been added.

He has more than 60 friends, and he manages his farm quite meticulously, spending a lot of time on it. Now that the ranking system has been updated, Luo Xiaowei finds himself in the top 10 of his friends.

"Haha, awesome! Sister Jinglan, the ranking system for stealing vegetables has been updated. I'm in the top 10 among my friends. Check where you are!"

Luo Xiaowei arrived at the company early because they had set a time to steal vegetables online, and Li Jinglan did the same. These two were the most addicted to stealing vegetables in the trade department, making them good partners for the game.

Around 8 o'clock, Li Yanning also arrived at the company.

Li Yanning, who is 26 years old this year, still doesn't have a boyfriend, which makes her family very anxious. However, she herself is no longer in a hurry, perhaps because she has passed the anxiety period.

Wearing a thin black blazer, Li Yanning was serious and tried her best to act like a leader.

Several months have passed since the reorganization, but Li Yanning is still not quite used to the leadership position. She used to be managed by others and never thought she would have a day when she was in charge of others.

"Hello, Manager Li." Luo Xiaowei quickly minimized the window when he saw Li Yanning enter.

It's not during working hours now, and the company doesn't really care, but it's not good if the boss sees me playing games.

"Sister," Li Jinglan called out.

Li Yanning smiled slightly. The two of them still lived together, so she knew exactly why her sister was coming to the company so early. If it were any other game, Li Yanning would definitely be keeping an eye on Li Jinglan.

However, since Happy Farm was developed by Boss Tan, and Li Jinglan and other people in the department liked it, Li Yanning turned a blind eye.

Actually, she also plays it, but she is more restrained and not as addicted as Li Jinglan, so her level is not high.

Scenes like this have occurred in countless companies since Happy Farm was launched a month ago. Countless game enthusiasts, like Luo Xiaowei, have become so engrossed in the game that they set alarms for it in the middle of the night.

Ms. Liu, who works in a public institution in Hangzhou, has been quite happy lately.

Her daughter, who is in junior high school, is particularly rebellious during puberty. She always does the opposite of what her parents say and is a good student who never listens to advice, so the relationship between mother and daughter is very bad.

Recently, her daughter has been chatting enthusiastically with her about the popular game Happy Farm. Ms. Liu keenly noticed this and instead of scolding her daughter for secretly playing the game, she guided the communication to improve their mother-daughter relationship.

Ms. Liu made an agreement with her daughter that they could steal vegetables together, but it couldn't interfere with her homework or studies. Her daughter, of course, had no objection to this.

Through this little game, her daughter shares many of her worries with her. Ms. Liu never expected that this little game could bridge the generation gap and enable communication between the two generations, which explains its popularity.

It's said that a 20-year-old college student and her boyfriend developed it?

Ms. Liu is a relatively open-minded parent. Of course, there are also parents who scold and beat their children when they find them secretly playing games. These parents deeply resent Happy Farm.

Similarly, these parents often scolded Gu Qingqing and Tan Jincheng.
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"Boss, we've received a lawyer's letter."

"What the heck? A lawyer's letter? What does that mean?" "It means we've been sued by Orange Technology."

"No, how could I be sued?"

"They said we infringed on their trademark and are forcing us to change our name."

The young man, referred to as the leader, took the lawyer's letter and glanced at it; sure enough, it was true.

I couldn't help but feel nervous when I saw the lawyer's letter.

"Seriously? Are they crazy? It's one thing to have them register all the Happy series, but to register the FarmVille trademark? Is it really necessary?" Liu Wenxuan was speechless.

This leaves no room for latecomers trying to ride the wave of popularity.

The success of Kaixin.com and Kaixin Farm has shown many young programmers an opportunity. The gameplay is not complicated, and Orange Technology has already built the basic framework. By copying their game, they can quickly create a Flash game.

You can find another social media platform to affiliate with, or create your own homepage to go online and make money. You don't need to have as many users as Kaixin.com; 10 or even tens of thousands of registered users are enough.

The main goal was to capitalize on the popularity of Kaixin.com, but after searching, it was found that all the domains starting with KAIXIN were already owned, so the only option was to work on the game's name.

The idea for Kaikai Farm came from Liu Wenxuan and his small team of five.

All the domain names for the Happy series have been registered by Orange Technology. Although there are still many imitators, there has never been such a fierce commercial attack as in the previous life.

Kaikai Farm is one of the more successful imitators. By flooding various forums, QQ groups, MSN and other social platforms with messages to attract users, Kaikai Farm has attracted a considerable number of users.

Just as they were preparing to make their mark, they received a lawyer's letter.

Meanwhile, other imitators, such as those with the game name "Happy Farmer," also received lawyer's letters of warning. Their respective founding teams were also completely bewildered, wondering if Orange Technology was really this reckless.

Orange Technology simply doesn't have the energy to litigate against each and every client. Sending lawyer's letters is the easiest way; they can scare some people into not daring to do it anymore.

Happy Farm pioneered a new model for monetization on social networking sites, and its innovative gameplay was refreshing, attracting many programmers to start their own businesses and making the social networking site industry more active.

Within a month, countless imitators flocked to the platform, with Renren.com and QQ Zone also creating their own versions of "Happy Farm".

Their speed is not slow either. The reason they didn't launch as quickly as the smaller teams is simply because they wanted to make it more exquisite. Smaller teams often have limited funds, so their production is relatively rough, and they are also eager to make money, so they will launch it to the market earlier.

On the other hand, well-known companies still have some sense of shame. Even Tencent, more than 10 years later, is no exception. They will initially seek cooperation, and only release what they have already copied if cooperation fails, or immediately start copying.

Tencent is already contacting Orange Technology, and the first person they can reach is Kuang Ping. As the only investor Orange Technology has brought in so far, Kuang Ping is playing the role of an intermediary.

Tan Jincheng is not opposed to cooperating with Tencent. Tencent's style is much better than Ali's. Tencent will drive traffic to its partners and will not interfere with their operations.

Although this guy doesn't have a great reputation, he's incredibly good at making money, and he's also very good at helping his partners make money.

Dong Ge (Liu Qiangdong) and Pinduoduo (a popular online retailer) were able to break through because of his traffic support.

"What do we do, boss?" The young man was a little unaccustomed to this situation, as it was his first time encountering something like this.

Liu Wenxuan frowned. He hadn't expected Orange Technology to pull this stunt. Orange Technology had upgraded the game today and added a leaderboard system. They had been planning to follow suit, but now they didn't know what to do.

After a moment of contemplation, Liu Wenxuan said, "We definitely have to keep doing it. We have quite a few users already. If we don't charge for the items, we'll be losing money. Let's change the name and keep going."

In the past few days, KaiKai Farm has already generated some revenue, and the momentum is quite good. It's impossible for it to stop just because of a name.

The other partners shared the same idea.

"Why change the name? Damn it, I didn't expect the boss of Orange Technology to be such a scoundrel."

At this point, one of the partners said, "I think we should call it Sunshine Ranch. We can raise chickens and ducks there and differentiate it from Happy Farm. That way, they won't be able to sue us."

They were completely unaware that this was plagiarism, but even if it was plagiarism, there was nothing they could do because of the copyright system; they simply couldn't sue them. All Tan Jincheng could do was register some related trademarks as much as possible.

This person does have some copyright awareness, knowing to differentiate themselves from Happy Farm.

"Okay, the name is good, and the idea is good too, but we need to check if the trademark is registered first, so that we don't get a second lawyer's letter."

Thank you so much for the generous tip from the lazybones!

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(End of this chapter)