Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883
Page 32
While everyone was eagerly stuffing themselves with the food, Pei Qian looked worried as though he was deep in thoughts.
Indeed, that was the responsibility of being a boss! That was what it meant for leaders to worry about the future and to only be happy after their underlings are happy!
Lin Wan felt that she had gained even more insight into Pei Qian as a person.
…
After they were done with the meal, everyone headed to a nearby KTV’s luxury suite before enjoying themselves for the entire night.
But of course, for some of the girls that did not want to sing or wanted to head home early, Pei Qian had arranged for male colleagues to book rides for them to get home.
In any case, the charges for the suite were fixed whether or not people left and it did not affect Pei Qian’s money spending.
His principle was simple – As long as you guys don’t stop me from spending my System Funds, you can do whatever you want!
There was a small bar and dance area within the suite where everyone drank as they pleased, be it alcohol or soft drinks.
At the start, everyone was still rather restrained. However, after Ma Yang delivered his deathly gross rendition of ‘Transactional Love’, the entire place was hyped!
Everyone started letting themselves go, howling into the microphone as they fancied.
Lin Wan did not leave and instead, sang a couple of songs where her melodious voice was received warmly.
She discovered that she was already starting to like this group.
This was just like a loving, big family where everyone enjoyed themselves while revolving around Boss Pei!
This atmosphere convinced Lin Wan that she had not joined the wrong place!
Tengda was the answer that she had painstakingly looked for!
Out of joy, Pei Qian also indulged in a couple of drinks.
During his intoxicated moments, he seemed to recall seeing the system conducting a settlement where the 500,000 of System Funds was being converted to his Personal Wealth…
…
…
The next afternoon, Pei Qian woke up in his rental apartment and rubbed his eyes slowly.
Even though he had drank the previous night, there wasn’t much of a hangover because they had drank high quality wine.
He poured himself a glass of water and turned on his laptop.
This was a new laptop; his previous one was already retired even though he had used it for just six months after school started.
Pei Qian’s current laptop was a high-end Alienware!
Since he would be spending System Funds anyway, having a laptop as such was no longer something that Pei Qian looked forward to.
He opened ESRO’s website and checked on Ocean Stronghold only to find out that it had not passed the vetting process yet.
Because the game was huge, it was only natural for the vetting process to take longer. As such, the game was still in the vetting process despite 20 hours having passed.
Pei Qian closed the laptop and wasn’t overly bothered.
Other companies bothered about when they would pass the vetting process because they had a marketing plan to execute.
However, Pei Qian had nothing of the sort!
Since that was the case, why would it matter when the game passed the vetting process? It wasn’t important at all!
Chapter 58
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Monday, afternoon.
The cohesion on Friday had everyone feeling extremely high. Coupled with the rest of the weekend, they were completely relaxed.
Other than Bao Xu who continued heading to the office, none of the rest turned up and enjoyed their weekend thoroughly.
After all, there was no reason to do overtime now that the game was already completed!
Even though there would be overtime pay, the allure of a lazy weekend was much more enticing comparatively.
Come Monday, most people were still busking in the same happiness.
Huang Sibo on the other hand looked somewhat stern.
“You’ve noticed the figures for Ocean Stronghold too, right?” Huang Sibo came to Bao Xu’s desk and saw that he was also looking at Ocean Stronghold’s backend figures.
Simply put, it was terrible!
The game was sent to vet on Friday and it passed the process on Saturday. However, they merely had a couple hundreds of downloads even after Sunday had passed.
That was far too little!
FPS games were unlike other games. One could view it as a competitive online game which could only be played if there was a sufficient player base.
The core of a FPS game was to allow gamers to go against one another. But, what sort of a competitive environment would there be with just a couple hundreds of downloads and a few dozens of active players? Notwithstanding the fact that they might get uneven matchmaking of players with different skill levels, there might not even be enough players to match against!
It wouldn’t make sense to have all these gamers play against bots, right? That would be ridiculous!
But of course, unlike Bullet Hole and other FPS games, Ocean Stronghold had a story mode and could be played as a standalone game.
However, the story mode wouldn’t be enough to sustain a long playtime and gamers would soon grow sick of it.
Furthermore, gamers that liked Counter Strike would prefer PvP modes and would be rather indifferent to story modes.
All in all, the situation did not look good!
Ocean Stronghold’s few hundred downloads were based on the fact that it was free to download. If it was sold at the price of a standalone game, it would cost at least 30 to 50 yuan and that will cost the download figures to dip even further.
As to why Ocean Stronghold was set as a free game…
It was because Pei Qian had learnt his lesson from Ghost General.
Because of how much of a heart Ghost General had, its player base climbed rapidly and that resulted in a gain of hundreds of thousands of new active gamers monthly!
The additional 10 yuan of income provided by each of those gamers was something that Pei Qian had not accounted for…
He had initially set the price as a barrier of entry to deter those free to play gamers but yet, it worked against him and gave him profit through despite the low margins…
From that painful experience, Pei Qian decided to do away with a fixed price for Ocean Stronghold.
The game was completely free to play. That way, even if they encountered some hiccups resulting in a gain of download volumes, Pei Qian would not earn any money from those casual gamers!
On the contrary, with the high barrier of entry of 888 epic weapons, he would be able to gain bad reputation and flames from the gamers to dissuade others from playing Ocean Stronghold. At the same time, most gamers would not be able to afford those weapons.
As to why he did not make it completely free to play…
Wasn’t it obvious that Pei Qian would want it to be that way?
But, the system would not allow it!
If the game was free to play and there weren’t any in-game purchases or advertising earnings, it would be illogical to begin with as it would be equivalent to Pei Qian spending money to create a product to give away for free.
It would be a clear scam and that was a violation the system did not allow.
Otherwise, it would be too easy for Pei Qian to lose money. As long as he created products to sell at a cheap price, he would be able to lose as much as he wanted.
There was no way the system would provide such an obvious loophole for Pei Qian to abuse.
Therefore, he had to design a proper profit model be it through a fixed price of the product or adding in-game purchases so as to not receive a warning from the system.
In any case, as of now, Pei Qian was firmly in control of Ocean Stronghold’s circumstances.
He had set three lines of defense for Ocean Stronghold.
First,
there would be no marketing and that would result in a lack of interest for the game.
Second, the game’s profit model was a huge failure with epic weapons priced at 888 – that would result in poor word of mouth for Ocean Stronghold.
Third, Ocean Stronghold would be competing with a superior game – Bullet Hole.
Right now, his first line of defense had already been activated.
That was exactly the reason why Huang Sibo and Bao Xu were troubled.
Both of them were watching Ocean Stronghold’s progress keenly as well. After all, this was a product they had worked really hard for and they carried the responsibility of Boss Pei’s trust on them.
Wouldn’t they be letting Boss Pei down if the game failed?
They must not let that happen!
Huang Sibo was hesitant as to whether or not he should say what he was about to say.
However, after pondering, he decided to speak his mind.
“Brother Bao. Say, do you think Boss Pei has no intention of marketing Ocean Stronghold at all? There shouldn’t be any reason why the download volume is so pathetic for Ocean Stronghold, right?”
Even though what he said may have sounded disrespectful towards Boss Pei, it did seem as though that was the case.
These days, a large factor of whether or not a domestic game could succeed lies in its marketing channels.
Many trash games made use of those brainwashing marketing campaigns to lure in a bunch of gamers.
Of course, player retention for those lured gamers was another issue entirely.
But at the very least, as long as they did the proper marketing and were willing to spend for it, even trashy games would generate some interest.
But for a game to receive only a couple of hundreds of downloads after being online for an entire day? That didn’t make sense at all!
Bao Xu looked at Huang Sibo. “Brother Huang, don’t question Boss Pei. Someone who could think up of using Weibo to market Ghost General is definitely a master in the field. How could he not know of the importance of marketing?”
Huang Sibo shrugged.
The logic was not wrong.
However, it was clear that there was no marketing done such that Ocean Stronghold was in such a miserable state…
Huang Sibo even searched for it intentionally. Not only was Ocean Stronghold not on any other gaming platforms, it did not have any form of advertising or marketing attempts.
Could Boss Pei be waiting to unleash a ultimate move?
As though he could read Huang Sibo’s troubled mind, Bao Xu said, “I think that we just have to trust in Boss Pei. If he didn’t ask us to worry about marketing, we don’t have to worry about it.”
“Yes, that does sound right too,” Huang Sibo agreed with Bao Xu’s viewpoint.
They weren’t in a position where they had to worry for a genius such as Boss Pei.
With that, Huang Sibo turned around to leave.
10 minutes later, he returned.
“It’s not about marketing this time round,” Huang Sibo explained. “It’s about the later versions.”
“Huh? Do elaborate, Brother Huang,” Bao Xu nodded his head.
Huang Sibo paused for a moment. “Well, now that the official version for Ocean Stronghold is done, based on normal development schedules, we should be preparing to develop the next version.”
“Yes, yes. And?” Bao Xu was not really clear what was going on.
As of now, his knowledge of a game’s development process was half baked at best. In any case, he would just accommodate what Huang Sibo wanted.
Chapter 59
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Normally, the progress of a gaming company’s development team would be a version ahead of what the players had on hand, sometimes even two.
For example, if gamers were on version 1.01, the testing group would already be on 1.02’s content while the development group was on 1.03. In fact, 1.04 would already be proposed onto the schedule.
But of course, that was for games that had more frequent updates.
Even for games with less frequent updates, the development team would at least be a version faster ahead.
It was only natural for them to swiftly enter the next development phase after a game was created. Otherwise, wouldn’t the development team have nothing to do?
That was why Huang Sibo felt that they should start planning for the next development phase based on his previous experience; this was also part of his job as the chief planner.
If he were to start working only when Boss Pei asked to see the next version, that would be a severe dereliction of his duty.
Bao Xu had no objections and agreed to it readily.
“But the problem now is… I don’t know what’s the plan. I don’t even know what we should change or the direction we should move in,” Huang Sibo explained his troubles.
There were two aspects to a new version, modification and progress.
First, they had to fix the bugs that existed in the original version as well as loopholes and illogical components. Second, they have to implement new playstyles, maps and content so that the game could be expanded and improved.
But now, Huang Sibo’s issue was that Ocean Stronghold was already in a state where he and Bao Xu deemed to be perfect – there didn’t seem to be any bugs or design flaws to be fixed!
As for developing new content…
To be honest, the current content was already enough.
There was a story mode, PvP mode and there were even various other playstyles such as biochemical, apparition and bomb defusal mode.
For the time being, there was nothing new they could add.
Wouldn’t they be biting on more than they could chew if they spent all the effort creating new modes and maps before the gamers were even sick of the current ones.
Bao Xu was troubled as well since this was something beyond his capabilities.
Playing games? He could do it.
But planning for a game? He had no idea how to do it.
“I’ve got no clue about this as well. Brother Huang, how do you think we should go on?” Bao Xu asked.
Huang Sibo thought for a moment. “I think that we should get some veteran gamers of the genre to test the game so that they can provide their opinions and suggestions.”
“Please don’t be mistaken, Brother Bao. It’s not that your opinions are not enough, but we’re the ones involved directly after all. Therefore, as much as possible, I think we should still look for other gamers. The greater the sample size, the more accurate the data gained.”
Bao Xu had no objections to it. Instead, he nodded as he felt what Huang Sibo said made sense.
He was previously in charge of the game’s balance and hand sensitivity.
Whichever gun he felt needed a change of trajectory or whichever motion felt strange, he would have Huang Sibo arrange for the design team to change it.
However, Bao Xu was just one person after all. No matter how impressive he was, he merely represented himself.
Yet, the game was targeted for hundreds and thousands of gamers. Who could dare guarantee that their personal preference was representative of all the other gamers?
Therefore, Huang Sibo felt that they should still get some gamers to try the game.
If they could sieve out any issues, they could plan them into the next version’s development so that they could continue to improve the game.
That way, they would have a direction to start on for Huang Sibo’s next step of the game’s development.
“I agree. But, who are you intending to look for? We can’t get people to come help us test our game for nothing. Will they be willing? Do we have to pay them some money?” Bao Xu asked.
“Yes, that’s a problem indeed,” Huang Sibo frowned. “Let me think about how we can get some lab rats.”
…
When he returned to his desk, Huang Sibo was slightly bothered too.
Indeed,
right now, they had to get some, no, a lot of lab rats to test the game.
Actually, most normal games would have a beta testing segment for gamers before being published.
Many times, even the best testing teams were no match for those gamers who could find bugs out of anywhere.
However, as the game editor became commonplace and ESRO’s vetting process got swifter, the development phase for most games shrunk and the beta testing segment became a negligible aspect. At the same time, Boss Pei did not set down instructions for a beta testing and had Huang Sibo send the game in for vetting right away.
As such, Ocean Stronghold was published without a chance for beta testing.
Now, Huang Sibo felt that they had to get some lab rats to gain some external opinions about the game but the issue was where to find them.
He had no connections for it at all!
Should he… ask Boss Pei for advice?
That wouldn’t be right.
It would be embarrassing if he had to ask Boss Pei’s help for such a simple task!
Huang Sibo reminded himself repeatedly – You are the chief planner now!
‘Boss Pei didn’t give you such a heavy responsibility because he wanted you to go look for him for every single small issue like a kid! He’s hoping that you can be independent and do what you have to do properly!’
‘It would be for the best if you can resolve all the small matters yourself without troubling him.’
‘Besides, it’s not as though Boss Pei may know about how to get lab rats too. Even though he has an incredible network, it’s not as though he can just stoop down to get lab rats personally, right?’
Therefore, Huang Sibo repressed the notion of seeking Pei Qian’s help and decided to handle the dirty work himself.
After he found no results searching on Qiandu, Huang Sibo sent an internal message to the design team.
“I want to find gamers to test our games… anyone has any connections? The best would be if we could find some fans of the FPS genre. Can anyone try to liaise with some groups to see if you can get some lab rats?”
“Of course, we’ll show them some appreciation. We might not be able to give them money, but we’ll be able to let them have some limited edition guns in-game.”