Suddenly, a question arises: how does Ding Lei's NetEase make money?

Today, I saw the latest Forbes China ranking, where Ding Lei is ranked sixth. Then I looked through the rankings over the years, and Ding Lei has never dropped out of the top ten. However, I haven't heard of any significant moves from NetEase in these years. Look at Liu Qiangdong and Lei Jun, who are so hot right now, yet their net worth is not as high as Ding Lei's. I used to know that Ding Lei's company was into gaming, but now gaming is basically dominated by Tencent. What are they relying on for revenue? So I went online to find answers and got educated by netizens.

Netizens said: Tencent's games get a thousand people to each spend six yuan. NetEase's games get one person to spend sixty thousand. The underlying logic of NetEase games and Tencent games is completely different. Tencent's games are nurturing types; you can play with small investments and minimal effort, and they don't support item trading, making account value low, and you don't even truly own them. NetEase games are management types; you need to pay to work, and both accounts and items can be easily converted to cash, which can be used for investment, trading, or even money laundering. The average NetEase player is not as happy as a Tencent player, but top-tier NetEase players definitely laugh at Tencent players as being big spenders. A treasure chest differentiates NetEase completely from other gaming companies.

In 'Dream of Dreams', there are 6 million online players at the same time, with a card cost of 0.6 yuan per hour, but that's just the minimum. The in-game trading platform 'Treasure Chest' has daily transactions worth tens of billions, and NetEase takes a 5% transaction fee. Do you think it's profitable? Not to mention the in-game 'Immortal Jade' system, which has substantial profits. A game account can sell for hundreds of thousands, and each transaction incurs a fee of over ten percent.

In 'Journey to the West', a double ultimate holy monkey is priced at 1.3 million. You can carry 20 of such pets, and store 10 more at home. Spending hundreds of thousands to play 'Dream of Dreams' won't even make a sound; you can get killed in an instant. If you want to survive, you have to invest a few hundred to a thousand; otherwise, it's simply impossible.

The key point is that Ding Lei truly loves his company. He hasn't sold shares for cash until he made money. To this day, Ding Lei holds 46% of NetEase's shares, and NetEase has a net profit of over 30 billion each year. Excluding stock market value, no one else in mainland China can produce as much cash as Ding Lei.

Among the original three major portals—NetEase, Sohu, and Sina—only NetEase is still thriving.

Looking at Ding Lei's success, could it provide some insights for entrepreneurs in the crypto space and GameFi?