Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883
Page 14
Pondering, he replied, “I don’t know what’s the exact situation. Perhaps I should ask Boss Pei about it. Maybe there’s some special considerations or this might not even be the final version?”
Ruan Guangjian was puzzled as well as he left a message for Pei Qian through the resource website’s contact options.
“Boss Pei, I’ve seen that there’s no premium system or other in-game purchasable items. Is it because the game is still in a testing stage? These options would be added in the final version, right?”
Before long, Pei Qian replied.
“This is the final version.”
Ruan Guangjian was shocked. “What… about in-game purchasable items?”
Pei Qian: “The permanent card is the only thing our game will be selling and we have no intention of releasing any other new products either.”
Ruan Guangjian: “Why?!”
Pei Qian: “Why? There’s no why! Our game’s pricing strategy is to have a single fixed price. The players would have already spent 10 yuan just to purchase our game, how could we implement even more in-game purchases?”
“In fact, my original plan was to not even have that 30 yuan permanent membership card! However, I decided to add it eventually based on the needs of certain groups of players.”
Ruan Guangjian was thoroughly stumped and did not know what to reply for the longest time.
Boss Pei was so compassionate!
The paywall of Qute Three Kingdoms was around 1,000 yuan and only paying whales could obtain the extremely rare cards. As for normal gamers, they had to slog for a long time before they could even get a single purple card.
However, everyone was almost equal in Ghost General! The only difference was a mere 30 yuan permanent membership card!
If this was Qute Three Kingdoms, that amount of money would not even be enough for a single 10 draw!
Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt that he had gauged Pei Qian’s gentlemanly heart with his own mean measure.
He thought that the reason why there was no paywall was because the game was incomplete or due to other reasons.
However, it was only after asking that he realized – Pei Qian had not intended to create a paywall at all! he wanted to make this an extremely fair mobile card game!
He wanted the normal players to be able to enjoy the pleasure of drawing rare cards as well!
Ruan Guangjian’s eyes were brimming with tears as he felt that he had gone overboard for charging Pei Qian 3,000 yuan per set for the original arts.
He should have given a discount for a creator with such ideals and character!
Suddenly, another question struck Ruan Guangjian as he asked hurriedly, “Boss Pei, another thing. The game’s not getting many downloads yet. Is it because you haven’t started the marketing campaigns?”
Pei Qian: “Marketing? Fu, there’s not going to be marketing.”
Ruan Guangjian was stunned. “Why not?!”
What was the reason for creating a game to not market it?!
Even a good restaurant fears being situated at the far end of the street – how would gamers know about this game without any marketing?
Pei Qian: “Because I’ve got no money! I spent a total of 300,000 on this game to purchase the template, art resources, music, sound effects and cloud rental service equipment… basically, there’s no money left.”
Ruan Guangjian was moved to tears.
What sort of a spirit did this man possess?!
Ruan Guangjian recalled how generous Pei Qian was when it came to the original arts job.
Initially, Ruan Guangjian had suggested a price of 2,000 yuan for a set of four. However, Pei Qian said that 2,000 yuan was too low for their hard work at designing and insisted on raising the price to 3,000 yuan.
At that time, Ruan Guangjian thought that Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. was an extremely wealthy company that did not care about that bit of money.
With the looks of things now, that wasn’t the case!
Tengda wasn’t that rich at all! The investment fund merely had a total of 300,000 to spend on the game entirely with nothing left for marketing!
When he thought about it, while surprised, Ruan Guangjian could understand why it happened.
Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. had previously only produced a single game – The Lonely Desert Road. While it got some hype, how much could they have earned with a sales price of merely 1 yuan?
It was only natural that they would be cash-strapped now for their second game’s investment fund.
Despite the tight budget, Boss Pei could not even bear to exploit them and instead offered a price which both parties would find fair and acceptable…
Righteous! This man was too righteous!
Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt miserable – perhaps, Boss Pei might have had money left for marketing if he had asked for less previously?
However, he knew that he must not raise this topic either; after all, Boss Pei would definitely not want the money given his character. Besides, this man was the boss of a company – he would definitely want to save some face for himself.
The thought of that had Ruan Guangjian’s heart stuffing up dismally.
A game with this much conscience was about to be buried into oblivion just because there wasn’t enough money for marketing.
How heart-wrenching was that?!
“Guys, I think Ghost General needs us right now.”
Ruan Guangjian shared his thoughts with his friends of the dormitory.
Old Huang and the others were equally stunned.
“This game has so much conscience! Is it not intending to earn any money at all?”
“No company would create a game to not earn money. In my opinion, Boss Pei is someone with such upright morals that he doesn’t want to earn money wickedly!”
“That’s right. If he didn’t want to earn money, he would have set the entire game to be free! I think he’s depending on earning money through that fixed 10 yuan price!”
“But that sounds really difficult. No matter how much conscience the game has, it’ll be difficult for it to get popular without any marketing!”
“How about we be the ones advertising it?”
“We could, but there’s just so many of us… what’s the use? If we have some Big V or popular UP Masters, we might be able to get some attention to it. However, we don’t have such resources!”
All of them fell into deep thoughts.
Old Huang and the others were moved by Ruan Guangjian as well, convinced that a game as great as Ghost General must not be overlooked or it’ll be a huge loss for the domestic mobile games market!
However, they could not come up with many ideas no matter how they brainstormed.
There’s no way they could just go online and post ‘Ghost General is a good game’ repeatedly. That would be extremely inefficient and they may very well just be wasting their efforts.
Suddenly, Ruan Guangjian slapped his thigh. “I’ve got it! I’m in a group where there are some famous hotshot artists inside. Perhaps I could go ask them to see if they could be of help?”
Old Huang was stunned. “You’re in such a group? How did I not know of it?”
“Sigh, it’s a long story.”
Ruan Guangjian turned on his computer and explained, “Remember how I was doing a part time job at a concept art competition last year? Back then, I got acquainted with Teacher Chen Qi and I showed him my art. He was appreciative of it and encouraged me to develop it along the lines further while even adding me into a group.”
Pausing for a moment, he continued, “It’s a pity that the group’s full of our industry’s big shots. I’m too embarrassed to say anything inside and so I’ve just been lurking around till now.”
Chapter 23
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Old Huang was worried. “Would it work? Even though Teacher Chen Qi is a big shot within our industry, he might have forgotten something from a year ago. Are you sur
e he even remembers you?”
“Besides, all of these industry veterans would usually charge a fixed and high price for advertising and they wouldn’t lower their personal values. If we ask them for help in advertising Ghost General without offering anything in return…”
Ruan Guangjian shook his head. “That’s not for sure. Based on my observations, these veterans are usually easygoing. Even though they take on a lot of paid advertising deals, it’s also common for them to help one another advertise on Weibo.”
“The important thing is whether or not they would like our work.”
“If they do, someone would definitely be willing to share it. But if they don’t, there’s nothing we can do about that.”
Old Huang nodded his head. “Seems like we can only try.”
Ruan Guangjian opened the group chat and Old Huang took a look – indeed, there were all sorts of talents in it.
The owner of the group was called Chen Qi. He was someone who had already made a name for himself within the domestic games original arts artist circle a couple of years back. He was always invited for various concept art competitions for games, typically as a judge.
As for the other admins within the group, they were all famous characters.
Some of them were famous within the domestic animation circle.
Some of them specialized in concept designing.
There were even game designers, producers and novelists et cetera.
These were all people from Chen Qi’s network with the majority being artists while the rest were in the games, animations or other sectors.
Ruan Guangjian felt a mountainous pressure crushing on him just by even leaving a single message in such a group chat with this many big shots.
He thought it through. If he were to just state that he was asking for their help in advertising the game outright, no one would do it and it would seem rude of him as well.
“Hi, everyone. I am an arts student in my fourth year. I’ve recently produced a set of original arts and would like to seek all the opinions of you veterans on the flaws of it and how I could improve further. Could I do that?”
Ruan Guangjian had an extremely polite tone.
Even though he was confident in his own skills, he was a junior at the end of the day and he had to be humble when there was a need for it.
The group wasn’t particularly active and most of the big shots were mindful of conversing or advertising overly.
As such, Ruan Guangjian’s message was not pushed up right away and it lingered in the group chat for some time.
After two minutes, someone called Painter Old Liu replied, “Sure, send it over.”
Ruan Guangjian posted some of his works that he was particularly fond of in it. “Thank you for your esteemed guidance, veteran!”
Painter Old Liu: “Don’t worry about it, we’re all in the same trade. Interaction helps us to grow together. I’ve only entered the trade a couple of years before you.”
A few minutes later.
Painter Old Liu: “!!!”
“… I take back what I said earlier, you’re the veteran! Those shadows, that style, the details! Are you sure you’re really only a fourth year student?”
Before long, the other lurkers were lured out by these images.
“Yet another veteran who’s pretending to be a rookie? This guy’s calling himself a rookie with such skilled techniques? If you’re a rookie, what am I?!”
“His foundation is so solid!”
“The presentation style is really unique! That dragon is Guan Yu? Even though the style seems really overhauled, it doesn’t come across as glaring and it’s really natural!”
“This is a really epic feeling! Be it the character or the background, everything looks so grand!”
“Are all rookies so monstrous?!”
“I can’t even give any opinions in terms of technique for an original art of this level. This is just gifted!”
“This gave me the feeling of an overseas veteran’s art! Even Fantasy World’s original arts aren’t as stellar as these!”
“Well, it’s not exactly perfect. There’s still room for improvement in certain details… but of course, it’s more than enough to win me in a fight…”
The few images that were sent had caused the entire group to explode!
Since these were all professionals, it was only natural that they could spot the merits that laymen would not be able to.
Most people would only look out for whether it resembled anything or how specific it was. At best, they were constrained to their own subjective point of view.
However, professionals would instead spot the shadows, details and style of the art…
In other words, for laymen, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between two similar pieces of art. However, professionals would be able to spot the skill level of the artists right away.
Right now, the art that Ruan Guangjian had sent was at a peak level according to these veterans of the industry!
“Amazing! The main point is about imagination!”
“One must possess a bold imagination in order to create something out of a framework that has already bypassed traditional characters while one must also possess an extremely skillful foundation along with innate talent in order to turn that imagination into a concrete image.”
“If this original art could be made into a game, that would be amazing!”
The person who had sent that message was none other than the owner of the group chat and renowned concept artist in the domestic games circle – Chen Qi.
He paused for a moment before asking, “Friend, when did you enter the group? I don’t seem to recall…”
Ruan Guangjian’s mouth twitched – indeed, Chen Qi had forgotten about him.
After all, he was pulled into the group by chance a year ago and he had not sent any messages since then. Given that there were quite a number of people who were added after, Chen Qi had long forgotten about Ruan Guangjian.
However, that did not matter. To an artist, the most important thing was for his work to speak in his place!
The moment these images were sent out, everyone in the group now knew of this talented rookie artist, Ruan Guangjian!
“Brother, would you consider joining my company after you graduate? I’ll definitely give you a higher pay and better benefits than the national average!”
“You should come to my side! You’ll get further with us since we have many games projects and higher bonuses!”
People in the group were starting to scout him out!
Naturally, Ruan Guangjian was elated. The fact that his work was recognized by veterans of the industry was something he should be overjoyed about!
In truth, he wasn’t exactly confident about whether or not his creative style would be recognized or popular before this set of original arts were produced.
This was the same for similar fields – no one could predict whether or not a book or movie would be popular before they were released.
It was even more so for something such as original arts where its beauty definition was subjective.
Yet, the feedback from these veterans had affirmed Ruan Guangjian of his skills!
However, he had not forgotten what his intention of being here was.
“Actually, these original arts were created for a game, Ghost General.”
Ruan Guangjian continued typing. “But, there’s some issues with the game right now and that’s the reason why I wanted to come seek you guys for help.”
Chen Qi: “What’s wrong?”
Ruan Guangjian: “Sigh. This game was created by a small company with a heart. They don’t have much money and spent all of it on the game’s quality. In the end, they didn’t even manage to save up any advertising budget!”
“Therefore, I hope that all of you veterans could help to promote this game. Perhaps just a casual share on Weibo will do!”
Chen Qi: “Just sharing on Weibo? Sure thing, that’s easy.
What’s the name of the game and the company that produced it?”
Ruan Guangjian: “Ghost General. It’s created by Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd.”
“Tengda? Tengda… why does it sound so familiar?” Chen Qi was curious.
Chapter 24
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
A moment later…
The group chat exploded!
“Isn’t Tengda the company that created The Lonely Desert Road?!”
“!!!… They’re not making any messed up games anymore and have changed to mobile games?”
“To think that company could be said to have a heart! Is this for real?”
All of those people made a quick search and naturally found out that the game was created by the same company which made the messed up game that had gotten popular for a little – The Lonely Desert Road!
How was it possible that this company had a heart?
Ruan Guangjian explained hurriedly, “It’s for real. If you guys don’t believe it, you can download the game and try it for yourselves. The game’s extremely fair and you can play it all you want for just the fixed price of 10 yuan! The only in-game purchasable item is a 30 yuan permanent membership card that only gives you an additional 10 draw chance daily. Other than that, there’s no other paywalls!”
“Are you serious?”
Chen Qi was skeptical.
A mobile card game that did not have any in-game purchasable items?
How were they expecting to make money?
Were they hoping to recoup their cost with just 10 yuan from every player?
Wouldn’t that make this a game that was destined to lose money?!
Everyone were doubtful about it and purchased the game to check it out.
After they tried it, they found out that the game really did have conscience!
While there was indeed an in-game market, the only item on sale was a permanent membership card fixed at 30 yuan!
Most other card games would include purchase options for energy, stage challenge counts and card draws et cetera, but Ghost General did not have that!
Which meant to say that the gamers would be going through an almost identical gameplay experience without any distinction between the free gamers and the whales!