Pei Qian could not wait for the settlement 11 days later where his System Funds’ loss would be converted to his Personal Wealth entirely. That would be amazing.
The System Funds was still at 0 because the profits of the gaming platform hadn’t been shared to the company’s accounts yet.
ESRO’s game platform processes payment weekly using its intelligent system automatically – the creators and the platform split the profits evenly.
If one wishes to check on their income and the download figures before payment day, they could inquire at the back end of the game editor.
During the first two days when the game was uploaded, Pei Qian was sneaking peeks at the back end all the time only to find out that there were dozens of unlucky fools who had bought and downloaded the game.
Since it was a new game after all and there were occasional recommendation spots every now and then, it was only normal that some stupid gamers would download and try it.
A dozen of downloads… after splitting profits with the platform, it would just be a couple of yuan earned and wouldn’t affect the big picture.
Besides, all of those gamers had naturally given it a 1 star review as well. With that, The Lonely Desert Road’s ratings were absolutely horrendous and there shouldn’t be more stupid gamers who would download it.
After being affirmed that his game was bound to fail, Pei Qian spent his day in joy and hadn’t checked the game editor anymore.
Even though he was certain that checking the game editor today wouldn’t make any difference, he still did it instinctively.
He was approaching it with an attitude of curiosity.
While other creators would always be hoping for greater results for their games and even wish that there could be tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads with every refresh, Pei Qian on the other hand was hoping for atrocious results and even a big, fat zero as the best possible outcome.
“If I’m not wrong, the downloads should still be in two digits…”
“Holy f*ck?!”
“What happened?!”
Pei Qian was dumbfounded.
He was shocked at the download volume – it had reached four digits and was even climbing towards five!
Piak!
Slapping his forehead with his right hand, Pei Qian nearly thought that he was seeing things.
“How could there be 8,000 plus downloads?!”
“It’s about to break through 10,000 soon!”
“There’s still 10 days to the settlement date!”
Pei Qian was flustered, completely panicked.
Things had gone far beyond his expectations!
This was a math problem that even an elementary school kid could solve. A download volume of over 8,000 means an equivalent gross of over 8,000 yuan as well. After the 50% deduction from the platform, he would have a net profit of over 4,000!
ESRO stipulates that most of the games would have to pay a tax rate of around 5%. However, indie games as such on their platform would receive a tax rebate such that it was almost negligible.
That means to say that the amount of money paid out by the platform to the company’s accounts this week would increase the System Funds to over 4,000!
What would that imply?
That Pei Qian earned an additional 4,000?
No!
On the contrary, he would have made a loss of 4,000!
Initially, Pei Qian would have made a clean profit of 50,000 to his Personal Wealth from the System Funds that he had spent.
With the additional 4,000 gained, he would have only made a net loss of 46,000 – that would shrink his possible earnings from 50,000 to 46,000!
And that’s the least of his worries – the download volume was still climbing steadily!
Each time Pei Qian refreshed the platform, the numbers would jump once more; dozens at times, hundreds at others.
Every increment was akin to rubbing salt on Pei Qian’s wounds!
That’s because however much he earned equates to a shrinking of his Personal Wealth gained!
Furthermore, there were still 10 days to the next settlement date. If the download volume was to climb by 10 fold during this week…
Tss…!
This is bad!
Pei Qian could no longer sit still.
“What’s the meaning of this? Is the editor’s back end bugged?”
“How could such a trashy game get a couple thousands of downloads? Are you bloody messing with me?”
He was in disbelief as he hurriedly opened the official games platform and searched for the comments section of The Lonely Desert Road.
To his astonishment, while the ratings had not changed much, the comments section had exploded with additional hundreds of new ones!
“Teacher Qiao’s sightseeing group!”
“Teacher Qiao’s sightseeing group +1”
“I’m dying of laughter. To think that such an anti-mankind game would actually exist. This has truly widened my perspective!”
“I downloaded, I challenged and I left in defeat after five minutes.”
“1 yuan isn’t even worth my effort of asking for a refund. Let me leave a ball of spit before going, poo… tui!”
“I recommended this game to my friend and told him he had to persevere to the end for an enormous surprise and easter egg. Now, my friend wants to cut off all ties with me. What should I do?”
“The person who made the comment above, are you even human? I told my friend with absolute honesty that there’s nothing at the end of the game but a black screen and a single statement. In fact, I told him word for word what the statement said but guess what? He thought that I was lying to him and insisted on checking it out for himself! He still hasn’t cleared the game but he’s already smashed three controllers. I think we’re close to cutting off ties soon as well.”
“Anyone knows the address of the creator? I’m just asking for fun so that I can mail him some special local products of mine.”
“I suggest all of you should stop playing it and just check out Teacher Qiao’s walkthrough. He recorded the entire eight hours…”
“Fu, I’m telling you, this game can truly invoke some realizations about how. That’s something you won’t experience through watching a video.”
“Lie more, lie more.”
“For real! Tripitaka had to go through 81 tribulations to obtain the sutras, isn’t it? Do you think you can become a Buddha like Tripitaka just by watching Journey to the West alone?”
Pei Qian was completely dazed.
What the hell were all these?
Where did these comments come from?
“Teacher Qiao’s sightseeing group???
Could some Big V1 have taken a liking to him?!
Absolutely befuddled, Pei Qian ran a search for Teacher Qiao online.
Before long, he found Teacher Qiao’s personal page on Potato Web and discovered a video that was posted a day earlier.
The number of views had already broken through 200,000.
Pei Qian was speechless.
He seemed to have found the culprit.
Chapter 7
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Pei Qian opened the video.
Speaking with a dialect in his draggy and hoarsely unique voice, Teacher Qiao left a deep impression for Pei Qian.
“My dear daddies, greetings. I’m the same old Godfather of Games you guys know me as, Teacher Qiao.”
“I had many requests to update new videos by fans, telling me they miss watching me diss lame games. Now, the reason why I delayed the update wasn’t because I was lazy, it was because most of the lame games I found were too low class in their lameness…”
“And finally, the Heavens do not give up on those who work hard. After my arduous journey of digging for a true gem amongst the dumps, I found this piece of shi- no, gold. That’
s right, I present to you, The Lonely Desert Road.”
“This is an extremely interesting game where you can enjoy a philosophical journey that lasts eight hours real-time!”
“This is an extremely rudimentary driving simulator. Not only do you get to drive, you can even press the horn, listen to music while enjoying the ever-changing scenery of the desert!”
“That’s right, even though it’s filled with sand all over and there isn’t much to see, trust me – the moving sands would cause the scenery to seem different every single moment. You might even catch a mirage after a long time…”
“What? You didn’t see it? Don’t worry, as long as you persevere through the eight hours of journey, you will definitely see it!”
“Other than that, the game has an extremely sophisticated ranking system that can actually track the number of completions and effective game time!”
“Oh my, what a noble function it is to remind me constantly of how much of my life I’ve wasted in this game…”
“C-Cough. Alright, everyone should be able to tell that I was being sarcastic. In truth, this game can completely be called the most boring game in history, hands down.”
“That’s right, you haven’t heard wrongly. Be it in the past or the future, domestically or abroad, there shouldn’t be another driving simulator more boring than this.”
“You have to look ahead for the entire eight hours of journey for there is a turn every now and then. If you miss the turn… I’m sorry, you’ve failed and you’ll have to start the game from scratch!”
“Don’t ask me why there’s no pause or saving available. That’s because… This! Game! Has! No! Pause! Function! At! All!”
“The only enjoyment you derive from this game would be by pressing the horn and listening to music. However, the problem is that not only can you not listen to music that you want to, you can’t even change the radio channel! All you can listen to are some unknown, niche or antique tunes! Not only that, you can’t even skip the songs you don’t like!”
“And the most shocking revelation came at the end where it actually mocked me with a single statement — Congratulations for wasting eight precious hours of your life!”
“That’s right! This is truly a game that has one contemplating life; that’s what it did for me!”
“It had me realize how important my time was and how games were such a waste of time!”
“If I could grade this game in terms of its boringness out of 10, it would get a full 100!”
“But of course, even a game as such isn’t perfect.”
“As the first Hardcore Mode player who cleared this game (You can verify it through the rankings), I strongly suggest the game to add the following features!”
“Firstly, why end the game after the car reaches the endpoint? I highly suggest that the car can make a U-turn upon reaching the endpoint and drive back to the start point! That would be a logical way of inventing an Endless Mode!”
“Can anyone truly claim to have conquered a game like this without going for a full 10 loops or so?”
“Other than that, I highly suggest adding a multiplayer function where other players can enter the room and sit in the car to enjoy the scenery or chat with the driver!”
“I hope that the creator of the game can take my advice and update the current version of the game. That would ensure that it’s a huge hit!”
“…”
“Now, that concludes the end of this week’s dissing! The next eight hours would be the full recording of the gameplay. Anyone who’s that bored can feel free to watch the entire journey without fast-forwarding.”
“Trust me, after that, you will definitely gain some realizations about life too!”
Pei Qian scrolled ahead of the video and discovered that Teacher Qiao had truly recorded his entire eight hours of gameplay.
The comments section was practically exploding with enthusiastic fans.
“I’ve truly watched the full eight hours without fast-forwarding. Now, I feel as though I’m starting to contemplate the meaning of life…”
“Teacher Qiao has made such a huge sacrifice! He’s practically living on the edge for this!”
“Teacher Qiao, please stop! Your hairline can’t take this anymore!”
“Do people have to risk their lives to create a video these days?!”
“I’ve already downloaded it. I’m sure I can find the meaning of life within the desert!”
“The guy who made the previous comment, count me in!”
“The game’s full name is called The Lonely Desert Road. You can find it on the official games platform. Don’t rush to thank me, I’m just a Samaritan!”
“Count me in +1”
“Sightseeing group, let’s go!”
…
Pei Qian was completely stumped as he looked at the comments left behind.
Something must be wrong with this world!
I made such a trashy game and it was used as material by some content creator to such a roaring response?!
Even though he was confounded, Pei Qian more or less understood how everything happened.
Of all things, his game had to be found by this Teacher Qiao who specialized in making videos to diss games who then created an episode out of it through a stroke of inspiration.
With his exceptional synopsis and huge fan base coupled with some shrewd editing, the video went viral!
Before long, a sightseeing group was attracted to the video as people were interested in the game’s extent of lousiness.
Amongst them, most of the people stopped playing after a while as the game was truly boring. However, to the majority of them, that 1 yuan was so negligible that they weren’t even bothered with asking for a refund…
A minority of them got competitive because of the ranking system while there were some gamers who had even started spreading lies intentionally!
Some claimed that at the fourth hour, there would be a really fun easter egg that appears if they look towards the desert.
Others claimed that if one were to clear the game three times, a hidden stage would be unlocked!
There were even many who were asking in the comments section if they could share this video…
Pei Qian realized that things didn’t seem to be going well.
Why did it suddenly seem as though this game was going to be hot?!
Could it be… that this game is not going to lose money?!
“No, that can’t be. I’ve got to do something…”
Pei Qian was not intending to sit by idly and wait – he was going to save himself!
If this game ends up becoming hot, he would be making a huge loss!
He thought that the issue may have stemmed from the summary he wrote.
It was too vague and hence the gamers misunderstood him!
It was time to be truthful to the gamers – he had to dissuade the newcomers from spending money on it!
Chapter 8
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
But, how should he dissuade the gamers?
Pei Qian was a nobody to begin with. Even if he were to declare his identity as the creator of The Lonely Desert Road, how was he going to spread the news quickly?
After pondering about it, he decided that it would be better for him to explain things right in the details of his game’s page on the official games platform.
That way, the gamers who enter to download the game would be able to read his message directly and that would be the best method of dissuasion!
At that thought, Pei Qian opened the back end and started editing the game’s summary.
“My sincere apologies!”
“I’m sorry, this is truly an extremely and downright trashy game!”
“It’s boring to the max and isn’t worth playing at all!”
“Please stop playing it! Gamers who bought it please seize the chance to ask for a refund! Thank you!”
Pei Qian changed the summary and w
aited.
In the end, even after an hour passed, the hourly download volume of the game did not show any signs of dropping!
Not only that, there were some new comments.
“Eh? The summary of the game changed?”
“Did the creator of the game undergo some trauma?”
“On account of you saying sorry, I forgive you. However, it’s too cumbersome to ask for a refund of a mere 1 yuan. Take it that I’m treating you to ice cream, creator!”
“This creator’s making me burst with laughter. Do you really think we don’t know that it’s a trash game? It’s precisely because it’s trash that we’re playing it!”
“This creator really knows his own worth. On account of your honesty, I’ll tip you with an additional 5 yuan!”
“I’ll send this game to my friend as a gift!”
Pei Qian was almost on the brink of tears upon reading the comments.
What must I say in the summary to persuade you guys to ask for a refund?!
Pei Qian had finally realized that setting the sale price at 1 yuan was a huge mistake – it was so cheap that people who bought it weren’t even bothered with going through the refund process!
However, the main point was that Pei Qian didn’t dare to set it too high as well – this was an indie game after all. If he had set it at 100 yuan, not only would it be difficult to get through ESRO’s vetting process, the system would definitely warn him for it too!
Pei Qian was despondent as he looked at the popularity of the game soar rapidly – he could barely take it anymore.
…
Monday.
“Brother Qian, you’re skipping this afternoon’s classes again?”
Ma Yang had already packed his stuff. He asked puzzledly as he looked at Pei Qian who was clearly awake but lying on his bed and contemplating about life with widened eyes like a dead fish.
Pei Qian waved it off; he didn’t even have the strength to reply.
“You’re really something.”
Ma Yang left with his books.
This was year one after all. Most students would only cultivate the habit of skipping classes and sleeping till noon by the time they were in year two or three.
Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883 Page 6