“Fufu, there’s no need.”
Pei Qian was relieved.
Since they were staying overtime to play games, that would be completely fine.
They could eat more snacks and waste more electricity – that would help him with losing more System Funds!
How great was that!
Besides… that seemed to have given him an additional legitimate excuse to spend System Funds?
Suddenly, Pei Qian thought of a great idea through a stroke of inspiration.
“Old Ma, since we’re a gaming company, employees are actually playing games for the sake of learning and gaining experience through other stellar overseas games. That’s a part of work at the same time. Do you understand?” Pei Qian explained sternly.
Ma Yang was half baked. “Oh… so what you mean is that we’re just going to ignore this?”
“Ignore? No, no! Of course not!” Pei Qian continued righteously. “These employees are working overtime for the company at the expense of their health! How could we ignore that? Tengda is a company that has its employees’ welfare at heart!”
“Our country states that anyone who does overtime must be paid. At Tengda, we have to adhere to our national policies! Payment for weekday overtimes would be at 1.5x of their hourly salary while weekends would be 2x! Not a single cent less!”
“Old Ma, I’ll hand you an extremely important task. Help me to take note of how long they’re overtiming daily. By then, report to me their overtime pay based on their hourly rates! Remember, not a single cent less!”
Ma Yang nodded. “Yes, yes! Understood! Leave it to me!”
As he sent off Ma Yang, Pei Qian could not help but want to burst out into laughter.
Why had he forgotten about the existence of overtime pay previously?
With that, wouldn’t he be able to spend even more of the System Funds every month?
I’m a bloody genius!
Chapter 46
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
November 18th, Monday.
A new Monday, a new set of worries for Pei Qian.
He summoned the system and checked on the System Funds.
Pei Qian always felt as though he had to rethink life each time he saw the difference between the huge figure of his System Funds and the miserable 1,000 odd yuan on his Personal Wealth.
Why were things as such?!
The last he checked, he had already reduced the System Funds to a mere 20,000 yuan or so.
Why had it increased once again?
His gross income for the two weeks ranged around 900,000. After it was topped up into the System Funds, Pei Qian could not manage to spend much of it despite massive purchases of snacks, coffee, useful and useless office stuff!
That gave him a headache.
Was it truly so difficult to lose money?
He wished that he could take Ghost General off the market so that it could stop earning him money!
However, there was no way he could do that due to the existence of system violations. As such, he could only suck it up.
Thankfully, there were still two more months till the next settlement date – there were many ways for him to spend money in the two months.
Come month end, he would have to pay off his apartment rental as well as employee salary and overtime pay – that would cut off another chunk from the System Funds.
Other than that, starting that week, they would be embarking on massive purchase of resources for Ocean Stronghold.
That included art resources, programming functions and sound effects et cetera – all of them would be c.
Since this was a client-side game unlike Ghost General which was a mobile game, they had to follow the strict requirements of client-side games!
Pei Qian could not want more than to have higher requirements so that he could spend more money!
He wondered how much resources they would have to purchase based on Huang Sibo’s requirements and how much money they would get to spend.
The thought had him brimming with excitement.
…
“Boss Pei, this is the current list of resources that we have to purchase. Please take a look.”
Huang Sibo handed the long list over to Pei Qian.
Reaching over, he browsed through it briefly before eyeing the final price.
670,000.
He could not help but frown.
That frown caused Huang Sibo to feel nervous from head to toe.
‘Does Boss Pei feel that we’re being too wasteful? It can’t be that, right?’
‘I’ve already calculated our budget with serious restraint!’
Pei Qian did not say anything and Huang Sibo could only wait.
Those figures displeased Pei Qian immensely.
It was too little!
This was a client-side game, but they were only spending 700,000 for the game resources and custom-made functions? What was this? Giving scraps to a beggar?
This was way too stingy!
How was he going to lose his System Funds with such watchful spendings?
Pei Qian did not reply right away and instead continued looking through the details of the price list.
Shooting games basic template (Precise modification version) – 120,000
Settings template, secret base style – 50,000.
Three differing styles effects and various degrees of destruction within the settings – 50,000
Character, zombies and mercenaries universal models including movements and minor custom-made modifications capabilities – 80,000
Little girl model including custom-made movement modifications – 60,000
Various gun models including trajectory and casing visuals – 90,000
Various game mode functions and employing of 5 programmers for 2 months – 70,000
Other than that, there were other expenses for sound effects and commonly used character dialogue et cetera.
The usage of rental cloud services was not included into the calculation – that would be an issue to consider depending on the game’s popularity post production.
Pei Qian was completely dazed.
What was going on?
He felt that 670,000 was too low of a price based on the figures alone.
But, through the checklist, the prices seemed to be within a reasonable range albeit slightly lowered.
They had not decided on cheap resources to purchase intentionally either – why was the expended sum so low then?
Pei Qian’s confusion was only normal.
That was because he did not have a deep understanding of Ocean Stronghold!
Bao Xu and Huang Sibo had gone about it with the idea of saving as much resources as possible; the story was done using a single setting style; the only side character was a little girl; all the other zombies and mercenaries were produced using modifications of universal templates.
Since there wasn’t much custom-made content, the price was naturally low!
However, Pei Qian was naturally unable to comprehend all of that with a single rough browse, merely feeling displeased that the money spent was too little.
“Go back and redo it. Double the budget estimate at least,” Pei Qian returned the checklist right to Huang Sibo.
Huang Sibo was stumped.
Double the budget estimate?
“But, Boss Pei…”
He wanted to continue, but Pei Qian’s eyes were resolute.
‘If I ask you to double it, double it! There’s no buts about it!’
That was roughly the idea of it.
Swallowing his words instead, Huang Sibo went out with the checklist.
Pei Qian leaned back against his chair and calculated.
>
600,000 was far too little.
Doubling that to the range of 1,200,000? That’s more like it.
Otherwise, there was truly no way to spend the System Funds entirely!
There were two more months before the next settlement and even though Ghost General’s income had started to dip, it was still providing a consistent flow nevertheless.
If they didn’t spend more, he would have to eat grass come the next settlement!
As to what resources Huang Sibo would buy with the money, Pei Qian could not be bothered.
That guy could buy anything he liked as long as they were not deemed as system violations!
…
Huang Sibo returned to his desk in a conflicted state of mind.
Double the budget estimate?
Previously when he looked for resources online, he did it through looking at the prices.
Most of the resources had decent quality with affordable prices.
There were some with excellent quality but because their prices were slightly higher, Huang Sibo disregarded them.
But now, Boss Pei was displeased with the sum they were spending!
“Is it because he thinks the resources I’ve sourced are of inferior quality?”
“Yes, that’s a possibility. Boss Pei is someone that seeks to be perfect.”
“Ghost General’s original art is a good example of that.”
“Alright, since that’s the case, let’s change all of these to high quality resources! We’ll use the best for everything!”
“To be responsible to the gamers, to be perfect… that should be Boss Pei’s intentions.”
Huang Sibo opened up the resource website and redid the entire proposal.
All of the resources, including the art and programs that they had sourced initially, were all changed for the best ones.
With double the budget, Huang Sibo had much more room to play with and it was only through splurging freely that he had barely managed to reach Pei Qian’s requirement.
The final estimate was set at 1,260,000 and much of the content that Huang Sibo had axed initially were also added in.
After an intense rush, he finally managed to amend the proposal at around 3pm in the afternoon.
Heaving out, Huang Sibo lamented, “Phew. Boss Pei should be satisfied now, right?”
He took the new proposal and looked for Pei Qian once more.
Pei Qian retrieved the document and scanned through it quickly before eyeing the final price.
1,260,000!
That was finally something he was pleased about.
With his decided amount reached, Pei Qian could not be bothered to check what it was spent on.
“Yes, not bad. Go look for Assistant Xin.”
“Divide the purchase into two batches and get the more important ones first. The less important stuff, leave them for the next week.”
Even though Pei Qian was in a rush to spend money, he had to take into consideration his future income.
That was why he decided to divide the purchase into two or the System Funds would not be able to handle it on paper.
Huang Sibo took back the proposal – this was the final version now.
Pei Qian emphasized. “Also, if there are places where you can spend money on in the future, feel free to do so! Don’t compromise on quality with your proposal. Let me know at the first notice, got it?>”
Huang Sibo nodded furiously. “Yes, Boss Pei! Understood!”
Chapter 47
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Ocean Stronghold’s details were finalized swiftly.
Within a single week, most of the design drafts for the functions were completed duly. Huang Sibo was in charge of overseeing the project and each time he saw a portion which had a differing concept from his and Bao Xu’s, they would have to change it.
At the same time, the group of designers had also started on creating the game’s prototype using the game editor.
Due to their use of universal templates, their initial progress was rather decent. However, they would still require concise finetuning to achieve Huang Sibo and Bao Xu’s intended effects.
The arts team was also assigned to handle the communications with the artists on the resource website for liaison regarding the art resource requirements.
The universal zombie and mercenaries templates as well as the image of the little girl was also being prepared speedily.
Using the image of the little girl as a basis, the members of the arts team on Tengda’s side would have to go back and forth for confirmation between the artists and Huang Sibo and Bao Xu.
There were only three people in charge of the little girl’s image. One of them was the concept artist who was in charge of the original arts as well, another was in charge of her character model and the last was in charge of her movements. Each of them had their own job scopes.
With that entire workflow, the little girl became the most invested character in the game.
For some of the story segments, even her movements and expressions were custom-made – it was clear that they spared no expenses.
But of course, all of it was still within the budget.
The reason for that was because in the overseas AAA games, there were multiple lead characters and every single one of them were created with the same standards. However, Ocean Stronghold only had that single little girl – that was why the budget was still well maintained.
When they occasionally came across better art resources, Huang Sibo would go look for Pei Qian right away.
He would always receive a single big thumbs up: Buy them!
Initially, Huang Sibo would still feel uneasy wondering if it would truly be fine to add on to the purchase budget repeatedly.
If this was any other company, he would have been lambasted by the boss!
From 700,000 to 1,200,000 to 1,500,000…
If this was any other company, Huang Sibo would definitely be tagged with the image of someone that was weak in planning and controlling the budget.
However, in Tengda, Boss Pei not only did not blame him, but was pleased on the contrary!
Huang Sibo could not help but lament that this was the difference in a stage to perform!
‘How can I be so stupid? Boss Pei’s actually trusting me so unconditionally…’
‘He’s doing so with all his love without any need for repayment!’
‘If I don’t produce this game well, I’ll be letting him down!’
…
In the blink of an eye, the end of the month arrived.
It was November 29th, Friday.
For Huang Sibo, that was like any other normal day.
By then, his work was almost completed; work on the design aspect was done with the details handled appropriately and the various resources of the game was in the midst of being created too.
As the chief planner, Huang Sibo’s job scope naturally did not involve things such as handling the game editor personally – he had underlings for that.
His mission was to watch over everyone else of the design team and to ensure that progress was made.
Compared to creating the design draft, this was a much easier job and because of that, Huang Sibo had not stayed overtime for quite awhile.
With sufficient manpower and budget, the progress was within schedule and there was naturally no need for overtime.
Huang Sibo had never realized that work could be so relaxing and pleasing.
Ding!
His phone rang.
When he picked it up, he saw a bank transfer message!
“Huh? Isn’t it 29th today?”
Huang Sibo was stunned.
Most companies would only pay the current month’s salary in the next month.
Receiving their pay on the 5th of every month was already considered to be really graceful of the company.
Extremely messed up companies would drag the salary payout till the mid or even end of the month. That w
as equivalent to holding back an employee’s salary so that they could deduct from it in case there were any issues if they were to leave – in any case, that left a bad taste in their mouth.
Therefore, all companies that paid out salaries before the 5th of every month were considered extremely graceful.
However, this was the first time that Huang Sibo had come across a company that paid within the month itself!
“Your account XXXX has been credited with 5,375.8 yuan on November 29th, 11:09am. [XX Bank]”
Huang Sibo was shocked.
Was there an issue with the salary?
He remembered clearly that his employment date was around November 5th and he had definitely worked for less than a month.
The base salary was set at 4,000 yuan per month. Including tax, insurance and rental allowance, his salary should be quite a bit lower than 4,000!
Why was it more than 5,000?!
Even though he was stumped, Huang Sibo knew that it was not suitable to ask Boss Pei regarding something as minor as such and thus, he went to Assistant Xin instead.
He found her and expressed his doubts.
Xin Hailu smiled gently. “That’s right, it’s the correct figure. There’s overtime pay included.”
“Overtime pay?” Huang Sibo was even more puzzled.
Xin Hailu nodded her head. “Yes, it’s not just you. Everyone in the company got overtime pay. You should have done around 50 hours of overtime for the company, right? Based on the 1.5x of the normal hourly rate and deducting for insurance, rental allowance and tax, this should be the sum.”
Huang Sibo’s mouth gaped open as he could not find the words to speak.
The overtime pay that only existed in the legends!
And it was 1.5x of their hourly rate!
Something such as overtime pay was non-existent for most gaming companies.
Notwithstanding right now, even if it was 10 years into the future, overtime pay was a rare sight to be seen in most industries.
Not only that, most companies would calculate overtime pay based on their local lowest possible hourly rate, the same way they measured for insurance and rental allowance – there was a trick to it!
But not at Tengda! Each employee was given overtime pay based on their own pay!
To put it simply, it meant that they were receiving even more overtime pay!
Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883 Page 26