“Next up, we’re going to enter the development phase officially which would be extremely intense. I hope that everyone will be able to work hard together to create a great game!”
“Starting tomorrow, we’ll start work officially!”
The moment Pei Qian ended his sentence, Xin Hailu had already started leading with claps.
Stunned for a moment, the others followed suit and clapped thereafter.
Huang Sibo was the most enthusiastic in clapping.
He had waited for such a long time! Finally, it was arriving!
They were about to reach the most intense development phase!
‘Come on, 9961! Whip me!’
Huang Sibo was extremely negative towards 996 and that was especially the case back in his previous company.
He felt that it was a merciless oppression of the employees and was an extremely vile thing to have.
But at this place, with such an exceptional working environment and wonderful salary alongside a boss that recognized his talents and hardworking colleagues…
He suddenly felt that 996 was something that was absolutely acceptable!
996? Bring it on!
I can endure it!
With a stoic expression, Pei Qian made a fist in the air and instantly, the applause came to an end.
Everyone looked at him expectantly, waiting for his next command.
“Alright, in order to celebrate us starting work tomorrow, that’s it for today. Everyone, you can knock off!”
Pei Qian led the charge to leave!
He had only taken two steps when he turned back as though he had forgotten about something.
“Today’s Friday and we’re knocking off early. The next two days are weekends. Come Monday… eh? Monday’s Singles Day! We’ve got to have a holiday for that too!”
“Do whatever you want for this three days leave. Those who have a partner, spend time with them. Those who don’t, go find one. Just go do anything you want!”
“Don’t let me catch any of you guys turning up at work! Whoever dares to do overtime will have their salary deducted! Knock off, go on! Knock off!”
Huang Sibo: “???”
He took a look at his watch.
It was 3pm in the afternoon.
Chapter 40
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
When he returned to his rented apartment, Pei Qian changed into his home clothes and laid down on the sofa, enjoying the afternoon sun with an indescribable joy.
Back when he was working, he wanted to experience the feeling of having a holiday whenever he felt like it. Finally, he did it!
It was a pity that this was something he couldn’t experience constantly or the system would deem it as a violation.
He took out a can of cold cola from the fridge and after taking two sips, began to contemplate on his plans for the future.
His plan of losing money for this period of time had been progressing rather smoothly.
Be it for rental of office space, hiring of employees or purchasing of office equipment, the entire process had indeed helped him spend quite a sum from the System Funds.
Not just that, those were fixed monthly expenses where he could continue to spend money on.
That had Pei Qian feeling extremely confident!
From the perspective of spending money quickly, he had achieved his aim.
However, the company had to operate normally and the system stated that they must not be excessively slack.
Now that he had more employees, Pei Qian was faced with a new problem.
He had to decide on a wrong direction to steer the company so that they could lose money legitimately without the employees being able to tell that he had done it intentionally!
“Now, that’s going to be difficult…”
Pei Qian thought about it.
The main idea was to choose the correct game genre.
He was not going to touch mobile games anymore – that’s a huge scam!
After the lesson learnt from Ghost General, Pei Qian understood that mobile games were actually the trend thanks to the early advancement of smartphones.
Even if he could produce a trash game, there was a chance that it could excel just with the trend alone!
If that was the case, client-side games were the way to go!
The current market for client-side games could be considered to be on a downhill phase.
The biggest MMORPG in the market, Fantasy World, was similar to World of Warcraft in his previous world.
If he wanted to die, pitting himself against Fantasy World was a decent option.
However, Pei Qian realized that there was still a risk to it.
Wouldn’t it be awkward if he managed to produce something like Eastward Legend 1?
And the main thing about MMORPGs was that their playstyles were extremely similar. Even if there was something perfect like Fantasy World, there would still be people playing it if they were to create another MMORPG 90% similar.
That no longer sounded like a steady plan!
What other games could he create with a 90% similarity level that would still end up dying?
Should he try to copy Gods Rising?
They must not let that happen!
If he were to end up creating another League of Legends, he would be doomed!
In truth, Pei Qian was not certain about the type of games that would cause him to lose money as well – he could only make a decision based on his previous life’s experience.
He would just try not to lay his hands on the games that had succeeded before in his past life.
After much contemplation, Pei Qian thought of a decent genre.
In the market, there was a game that was extremely successful for that genre.
No matter how hard his employees were to work to produce it, Pei Qian was certain that their game would never reach the level of that game.
Even though there was also a successful case of a game succeeding in that genre in his previous life, the main reason for its success was largely due to the environment.
However, there was a huge change to that environment in this parallel world!
Pei Qian felt that it was a rather decent option!
Coupled with a few more modifications that were bound to fail, he would definitely be able to lose money this time round!
The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more perfect it seemed – he had already considered all the various aspects.
Now, he was left with the only problem of having to deceive his hired employees (dunces) slightly.
But of course, even if he did not deceive them, it would be fine as well. As the boss, the employees would have to obey Pei Qian’s orders – that power was still his.
However, Pei Qian was a reasonable man.
There were two risks involved in forcing the employees to produce a game they did not like. First, most people might not commit to it properly and as such, the game would not be produced. If they failed to produce a game that could pass the vetting process, that would be equivalent to excessive slacking and it would be deemed as a violation.
The other case would be for the employees to suspect that Pei Qian was sabotaging the project on purpose and that would be a violation as well.
Therefore, for safety’s sake, Pei Qian still preferred to have everyone convinced so that they would complete the task. Besides, all he had to do was to tweak the key parts of the planning process so that the entire development would be steered in the wrong direction!
…
Tuesday.
Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd., Meeting Room.
Huang Sibo and the rest were seated as they looked at Pei Qian expectantly.
It was November 12 and the previous day was Singles Day where everyone had a forced holiday because of Pei Qian’s order.
Huang Sibo felt as though he was in heaven for the three days leave!
However, after the leave, he was only more convinced of a single
notion.
‘Boss Pei is a good boss and I’m going to give it my all for him!’
It was the same for everyone else.
A wonderful boss as such was almost extinct!
Giving everyone a holiday for Singles Day so that those with partners could spend it with them and those without could look for one? What sort of spirit was that?
Where else could they find another boss that would take such care of their employee welfare?
Therefore, everyone was thoroughly rejuvenated and motivated after the three days of leave.
That was the case even for Bao Xu such that his bald head seemed as though it was reflecting off a sense of optimism and positivity.
Pei Qian coughed gently and looked at everyone present. “The next project we’re working on will be a FPS.”
The moment everyone heard that, they were stunned.
That was especially so for Huang Sibo.
He knew that Pei Qian’s previous work of success was Ghost General, a mobile card game.
In theory, the new project should have been a new mobile card game on a larger scale or at the very least, another mobile game!
The sudden jump in genre – especially to an FPS – was somewhat drastic and most companies would not want to do it!
After all, it was too much of a risk to take for a company that had not tried it before.
Furthermore, the trend out there indicated that mobile games would continue to grow – wouldn’t it be a waste to give up on it?
As though he already knew what Huang Sibo wanted to say, Pei Qian continued, “We’re not going to work on a mobile game project.”
“Tengda’s aim is to become a leader in the games industry. We must not let ourselves be blinded by an insignificant mobile games project. Resting in our comfort zone after earning a little? That’s not the spirit of Tengda and nor is it mine!”
“At Tengda, we’d rather go big or go home!”
When Pei Qian said that phrase, he was filled with righteousness, looking as though he was a tycoon that was overseeing his entire empire with everything under his control.
Enlightened all of a sudden, Huang Sibo nodded his head furiously.
So, that was why!
They were on different levels entirely!
Huang Sibo was only thinking about doing a safe job and keeping the company afloat.
However, Boss Pei’s ambitions were totally different!
Go big or go home… those words had Huang Sibo’s blood burning!
That was the difference in their frame of minds!
In his previous company, they spent their time thinking about how to squeeze more money out of the gamers – that was just shameless at best!
Yet, compared to Tengda… that was the difference between companies!
Pei Qian looked at everyone’s reactions and was extremely satisfied.
“Now, I’ll continue with the demands I have of this project. For this project… Huang Sibo and Bao Xu will take charge.”
“Bao Xu’s in charge of coming up with the concept design and Huang Sibo is the chief planner to execute it.”
Bao Xu and Huang Sibo were both stunned as though they had misheard him.
‘Holy shit! Such an important task?!’
Concept design could be considered as the soul of a game.
As for executing the main plan, one would be responsible for the progress and ensure that the game was smoothly produced.
Basically, Pei Qian had just casually assigned the two most important positions of the design team!
It wasn’t so bad for Bao Xu. After all, he did not have much clue about the structure of a gaming company and did not realize that he had taken on such an important role.
However, Huang Sibo was completely stumped.
Executing the plan? He was going to be the chief planner in a single leap?
That was equivalent to a six year progression of his career!
Chapter 41
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Pei Qian did not give the two much time to react as he continued.
“For this game, I only have three demands.”
“First, I hope that the game would be able to have a story mode and not just purely be for gamers to pit against one another. Our game must have depth and substance!”
“Second, we must take into account the feelings of new gamers best as we can. The simpler the game, the better!”
“Third, we must create epic weapons. As for their prices… the price to be able to use them permanently will be 888 apiece. You guys can decide on the price for the time limited trial period.”
Everyone was completely stumped while Pei Qian snickered internally.
That was the ease of destroying a game!
Pei Qian had already decided on creating an FPS for a long time.
The fact that he was sending a completely inexperienced team to create a FPS was a pitfall to begin with.
That was because compared to other games, FPS games had a much higher requirement towards hand sensitivity!
The most mature FPS game in the world – Counter Strike – was one that could be considered to be at full marks in regards to hand sensitivity.
Even if there was another game in the market that could reach 99 marks, it would still fail.
The reason was that the single 1 mark difference would be magnified indefinitely in the eyes of hardcore FPS gamers!
With the existence of Counter Strike, who would go and play another inferior product?
That was one aspect that was entirely different compared to mobile games and MMORPGs. Those two genres of games could be heavily repackaged to seem different from others. Even minor flaws would make them seem as though they were an entirely new game.
However, for FPS games, nothing could compensate for a single difference in hand sensitivity!
To pit themselves against Counter Strike was to court death!
Furthermore, Pei Qian’s three demands were nefarious!
While a story mode may seem good, it was in truth way beyond the capabilities of this team.
A story mode was a classic example of a high risk low reward investment where the end result was often less than satisfactory – even after the team spent much effort and time to it, gamers might not buy into it!
With more resources such as time and manpower spent on the story mode, the other parts of the game were bound to be affected.
As for the new gamers experience portion where the game should be made as simple as possible, it would definitely stir the ire of their targeted group of gamers since FPS games often leaned towards elite gamers!
Most importantly, there was the third point.
Paywall equipment!
That was a lesson that Pei Qian had learnt from Ghost General previously.
In his previous life, the game, Crossfire, had managed to overtake Counter Strike despite its inferior hand sensitivity element.
However, there was no Crossfire in this world nor similar games.
Why was that?
Pei Qian felt that it was because the games ecosystem in this world did not allow for similar games to exist!
On the surface, what Pei Qian was doing resembled Crossfire where there were a large number of paywalls. However, the achieved effects would be different because the ecosystem was thoroughly different too!
In 2009 of his previous life, free to play games with paywalls were the rage.
However, in this current world, the trend was for a fixed purchase price as well as paying to play. Even a game like Qute Three Kingdoms was dissed by the gamers for having a 1,000 yuan paywall.
Back when he was creating Ghost General, Pei Qian had committed an error – he gave the game too much heart! With that, the gamers were extremely positive towards it and that created an incredible word of mouth effect that Pei Qian had not anticipated.
In a certain sense, Pei Qian became a progenitor of evil where he had intentionally sold items way below
their worth…
But of course, there was no time for Pei Qian to consider the sort of chain effects that event would continue to cause for him – his main goal now was to lose money on his next game.
Perhaps, the best way to do it was to make the paywall extremely high such that the game would be faced with a bad word of mouth!
It was true.
A FPS game which had a worse control sensitivity than Counter Strike coupled with an average quality and a lot of money spent on resources to create useless story elements. Not just that, the in-game guns could not be used casually and it would cost a lot to purchase them…
There were no pros to playing the game at all!
The game would definitely be doomed for sure!
Right now, what Pei Qian did was to create a thesis assignment with three restrictive conditions for Huang Sibo and Bao Xu to complete.
As long as they were to satisfy the three conditions, they could do anything they wanted to the game and Pei Qian would not be bothered at all!
The best they could wish for of a FPS game created by an inexperienced team was for it to pass the vetting process. Earn money? No way!
Indeed, after they heard Pei Qian’s demands, Huang Sibo and Bao Xu fell into deep thought.
Huang Sibo was shocked at the level of freedom as well as difficulty.
Initially, he had thought that an experienced creator such as Boss Pei would micromanage the entire project. In the end, all he did was to throw in a generic direction for them to steer in!
A FPS game with story elements, paywall and friendly to new gamers to boot…
That would be extremely difficult!
However, Huang Sibo was not going to reject it outright. He had just decided on spilling his guts for Boss Pei right before the meeting, there was no way he was going to quit just like that.
The higher the difficulty, the more he was going to work!
How else would he be able to repay Boss Pei for the wonderful benefits and trust?
As for Bao Xu, he had not thought as much as Huang Sibo.
He was merely recalling his experience in FPS games and was considering how he should complete the mission that Pei Qian had set.
“Any questions?” Pei Qian asked.
Huang Sibo had wanted to reply when Pei Qian had already continued, “No questions? Very well!”
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