After Lin Wan approached them and asked them to test the game, most of them immediately objected.
Are you thinking of making us test the game without paying us?
Are you trying to get it for free?
However, because of their own pride, many people still decided to download the game and play it.
Once they started, they could not stop!
Ocean Stronghold had simplified operations. To newbies, this made the game much more satisfying to play. However, for experts—especially elite gamers in Counter Strike; these simplified operations invoked feelings of contempt and discomfort.
Still, the story mode in Ocean Stronghold resolved these issues!
Once this group of people entered the game, most of them became absorbed by the story mode of the game. After playing for just a few hours, they slowly got used to the unique hand sensitivity and achieved perfect transitions.
What’s more—once they got used to the hand sensitivity, many people became uncomfortable going back to playing Counter Strike!
Why did it take so long to fire?
Why was it so difficult to resist the recoil?
The reaction was so slow!
Suddenly, it felt so painful to play the game!
Counter Strike was an excellent, competitive game. There were bound to be many restrictions on the mechanisms.
For example, allowing such a high firing speed would probably allow experts to become too strong. On a certain level, this would ruin the balance in the game. That was probably why the creators of the game reduced the firing speed.
However, Ocean Stronghold did not need to pay attention to these things. All it was concerned with was allowing the gamers to have as much fun as possible!
Balance?
I’ve already made the Red Kilin; are you really still talking to me about balance?
These elite gamers of Counter Strike seemed to have been let loose all of a sudden. The gaming experience was extremely smooth so playing the game felt incredibly simple and relaxing!
In the end—when they went back to playing Counter Strike, they could not get used to it.
It was easy to go from frugality to extravagance. Once one got used to playing games with simplified operations, going back to games with complex ones would feel incredibly difficult!
What’s more, Ocean Stronghold did not only have a story mode. There were also all kinds of PVP modes!
Compared to Bullet Hole and Counter Strike, Ocean Stronghold’s apparition mode and biochemical mode were all new methods of playing. This made most of the players feel a sense of novelty!
Of course, these new modes were thought of by Bao Xu and Huang Sibo while they were creating the story mode. The original intention was for them to make good use of the leftovers from the story mode, such as the zombie models and various other art resources. From the perspective of gameplay, these modes were not considered mature. Their balance was still quite bad, and there was much to be improved.
Still, the most important thing was that there was no other game in the market that had similar modes as theirs; there was no competition to speak of!
Thus, many players preferred the apparition mode and biochemical mode to the actual PVP mode, even though they were less fair. Although the balance was horrible, they were purely for the sake of fun. Nobody cared too much. Instead, it made everything much more exciting!
In just a few days, news of Ocean Stronghold spread as quickly as a pandemic in many FPS gaming groups.
…
…
Friday.
After completing her last professional course, Pei Qian finally had time to relax.
He had already decided to go into the office and accept painful news that Ocean Stronghold had failed rapidly.
In the few days since Ocean Stronghold was published, Pei Qian had been focusing very hard on the exams for his professional course. He seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
He was afraid that Huang Sibo would rush him to do proper marketing for the game once he saw how badly received it was. Thus, he quickly instructed Assistant Xin to turn down anyone who came looking for him by telling them that he was not free!
He went on a full week without looking at the figures on the back end.
Ocean Stronghold should have settled down in the market by now, right?
Pei Qian was in charge of all the money in the company’s account. Basically, he had more or less been completely defeated. There was no way he was going to spend a single cent on marketing.
Even if others wanted to market Ocean Stronghold, there was no way they would be able to!
It was just pure bad luck on Pei Qian’s part, dealing with Ruan Guangjian for Ghost General back then. How could it be so easy to meet such a talented artist who just happened to be in the artist circle as well?
This time, there was no such artist for Ocean Stronghold!
What’s more, the game had vastly different hand sensitivities compared to Counter Strike and the 888-yuan paywall equipment.
There were multiple layers of assurance that it would fail completely!
Pei Qian specially waited for so long before showing his face in the company again, mainly because he did not want to laugh uncontrollably while people were still coming to terms with their failure.
Now, Ocean Stronghold’s fall should have been more or less complete. As the boss of the company, Pei Qian needed to make a trip down to comfort his employees. He had to express his deepest regrets for Ocean Stronghold and tell them not to feel discouraged or to give up. They had to quickly collect themselves and prepare to meet the next target.
The income that Ghost General was still raking in could maintain the company’s business for some time. Then, Pei Qian would be able to get five hundred thousand yuan and spend more System Funds provided for the next phase.
Perfect! Too perfect!
He arrived at the bottom of Shenhua View.
Pei Qian rubbed his cheeks and then forced the corners of his mouth—which subconsciously curled upwards—down. He looked up at a 45-degree angle to the sky and tried to invoke sadness that time was passing so quickly. Then, he forced this expression to remain on his face.
He took his phone out and saw himself in the mirror. His acting skills were passable.
Pei Qian walked into the lift and arrived at the office.
…
The moment he arrived in the office, Pei Qian distinctly felt that something was amiss in the atmosphere!
Huang Sibo was staring at his computer screen, refreshing every second. He was practically seated at the edge of his chair.
Xiao Lu also looked quite restless. He kept shaking his leg and scratching his head as if he had contracted ADHD.
Bao Xu was not playing games. Instead, he was looking at the plants next to the window and the view outside the window. Pei Qian had no clue what he was thinking about.
At this point, Pei Qian suddenly felt guilty.
He felt like he had let all of them down!
They were a group of slackers who could not come up with any good games. What’s more, they had been spending a lot of time eating and traveling during this period so they didn’t have much time to develop new games.
However, everyone still invested some of their emotions into the games they developed together.
Now, seeing that nobody cared about their game and that it was failing so thoroughly, it was only normal that they would feel terrible.
Huang Sibo must have been stumped by the terrible figures he was seeing on his screen.
Xiao Lu must have been at a loss as to what to do next.
How about Bao Xu? He must have been doubting his existence.
Pei Qian sighed softly.
At that moment, they needed him to comfort and counsel them as their boss. After all, he had to take ninety percent of the blame now that the game had failed so badly.
Pei Qian quickly pondered about what he should say.
H
owever, at that moment, the two twin girls at the front desk noticed Pei Qian.
“Boss Pei is here!”
The two girls suddenly began to clap their hands!
The entire office immediately burst into action. There were rounds of applause and cheers, which scared Pei Qian half to death.
What the hell was happening?
Pei Qian noticed that everyone’s faces had lit up with bright smiles. They were not even faking it; these smiles were genuine and from the heart!
This immediately gave Pei Qian a horrible feeling!
Huang Sibo stood up and walked briskly towards Pei Qian before bowing down low.
“Boss Pei, I have learned my lesson! Before this, I did not know why you did not market Ocean Stronghold. I even began to suspect your actions. However, now, I finally understand!
“In fact, you were telling me that good games did not need to be marketed! Based on the word-of-mouth of the players alone, the competition in the market would be squeezed out!
“Boss Pei, I greatly admire your self-confidence!”
Pei Qian’s heart immediately turned cold.
He nearly cried out loud. He tried so hard to control his facial muscles as he put on a serious expression.
“My game… became popular?” Pei Qian asked, feeling like he had just fallen into a deep pit.
Huang Sibo nodded profusely. “It’s very popular!”
“I kept refreshing the platform because I could not believe my own eyes! Even though we have not done any marketing for the game—in terms of popularity, number of active players, or profits; this game completely trashed Bullet Hole!”
Chapter 67
Pei Qian took in a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.
Something was amiss.
Calm down, I have to calm down!
Now, Pei Qian finally understood why these three people were reacting the way they were.
Huang Sibo had been staring at his computer screen, refreshing every second, because the game figures had far expected the best-case scenario he imagined in his head. He could not believe his own eyes!
Xiao Lu looked restless because he was so excited!
As for Bao Xu, he was indeed thinking about his existence; but the reason for this was completely opposite of what Pei Qian had thought.
“Boss Pei, champagne!”
Xin Hailu was smiling as she handed a bottle of champagne to Pei Qian.
Pei Qian glanced at the champagne. This was quite a unique bottle of champagne. The sheath of the wine bottle was made of platinum, and it was covered in English words. Even a conservative estimate of the price of this bottle of champagne would be a five-figure sum.
Pei Qian was completely unexcited about popping this bottle of champagne.
This was because he knew that the amount of money Ocean Stronghold would make for him was far more than the cost of hundreds of bottles of this champagne.
However, while everyone was staring at him, Pei Qian could not just walk away in anger.
He could not allow anyone to doubt the system; neither could he allow anyone to challenge or suspect his own existence!
Pei Qian sucked in a deep breath and took the bottle of champagne. There was a ‘pop’, and then it was open.
The light-gold liquid poured out of the bottle, together with a unique fragrance. The atmosphere in the office immediately became much more excited and passionate!
Everyone was cheering. The two girls at the front desk took out their already-prepared handheld confetti and caused golden rain to fall in the office! They all began to sing and dance. Xiao Lu even wanted to slide on the floor on his knees. Huang Sibo had to stop him from doing so.
While everyone else was in such a celebratory mode, Pei Qian tried his best to put on a smile. “Good job, everyone. Keep working hard!”
Pei Qian kept a smile on his face and entered his own office before closing the door.
Huang Sibo watched Pei Qian’s back view and could not help but sigh. “Of course, everything is in Boss Pei’s plan! He expected that all of this would happen. That’s why he isn’t surprised. To Boss Pei, this is completely normal!
“Ai, compared to Boss Pei, we are really like children who have never seen the real world. Achieving this little bit of success has gotten us all so excited…
“When can I become like Boss Pei…?”
Huang Sibo kept sighing sorrowfully as he refreshed the platform.
Ocean Stronghold was through the roof!
Of course, Huang Sibo thought that this result was normal, given that Boss Pei had personally designated the direction for this game. All of this was to be expected; there was nothing to be excited about.
After analyzing Boss Pei’s design and intentions, Huang Sibo and Bao Xu both had a feeling that this game would likely succeed! However, they did not expect that it would become as popular as it did. Even Sun Strike Studios’ Bullet Hole was taken down by the game!
What came as even more of a surprise to Huang Sibo was that Boss Pei had thought of something new!
Boss Pei had already shown that through a game like Ghost General, one could achieve the greatest marketing effect while paying the lowest price.
At that time, Boss Pei employed a unique method of marketing within the artist circle. In the end, he succeeded in publicizing the game to ordinary artists!
This time, Huang Sibo wanted to see how Boss Pei would similarly market the game in a way nobody had ever done before in order to achieve huge results.
He even thought of several marketing techniques that would save costs.
Yet, from the looks of it, he had been thinking along the wrong lines entirely.
Boss Pei had no intention to market the game at all! Boss Pei knew for a fact that this game would be popular even without marketing. Just the word-of-mouth of the gamers alone could draw attention to their game naturally. Official and automatic recommendations were more than enough!
How aggressive and confident!
One would only be able to achieve something like that if they had experienced a fair share of success and could accurately judge the market!
Even when Boss Pei was popping the bottle of champagne, he could remain composed and confident. It was almost as if this little achievement was no big deal to him.
Huang Sibo truly admired him!
…
…
In Pei Qian’s own office…
He squatted down on his chair and did not sit down for a long time.
What was happening? Was the plot all wrong…?
Why?
How did this game become popular even though I did no publicity whatsoever?
Was there still law in this country?
Was there still order?
None of this was logical.
Ruan Guangjian had not marketed this game for me on his own initiative this time. Where did I go wrong?
Pei Qian kept trying to calm down as he opened his computer and tried to find out what exactly happened.
If he did not figure this out, he would not die in peace!
After he logged onto the official games platform, Pei Qian saw the accurate data for Ocean Stronghold.
He could not help but curse under his breath.
It was only published a week ago, and yet the people currently online on the game had reached a hundred thousand!
What’s more, this was not yet the peak.
There were only a hundred thousand players online now, not because there were only a hundred thousand players in total… but because the bandwidth of the cloud server that Ocean Stronghold rented could only accommodate that many players. There were still more players outside, queuing to get in…
Logically, the overhead cost of a server was not considered huge compared to the operating expenses associated with maintaining online games. Of course, that was unless one could come up with a game of as terrifying a volume as World of Warcraft or League of Legends.
For general mobile games that onl
y needed to accommodate about three thousand active players at the same time, the cost of renting an appropriate cloud server would only come up to a few hundred yuan. The more expensive ones were so because of the bandwidth requirements. The more active players a server had to accommodate, the higher the bandwidth requirements and the more expensive the server would be.
For mobile card games like Ghost General, the cost of a server was really not much.
It was the same for Ocean Stronghold. As an FPS game with PVP mode, many people liked to play in stand-alone mode locally. Since PVP mode was conducted in separate rooms, it was unlikely that there would be hundreds of players fighting at the same time.
After being split into separate rooms, the pressure on the server’s bandwidth would be much less compared to MMORPGs, in which many people remained in one location at the same time.
What’s more, Pei Qian had expected Ocean Stronghold to fail thoroughly and completely. That was why he did not prepare an even better server with greater bandwidth for the game.
Only a few days had passed, and yet Ocean Stronghold had already reached a hundred thousand active players. There were even a significant number of people waiting to enter the game!
Moreover, in just a few days, more than a thousand Red Kilins had been sold. From this alone, they earned more than four hundred thousand yuan.
Pei Qian’s body went limp on his chair.
It would not be difficult for him to finish spending four hundred thousand yuan.
The problem was, given his experience with Ghost General, this was only the beginning!
As Ocean Stronghold got more and more popular, the income they would receive in the following week would far exceed four hundred thousand yuan. What’s more—as more and more people played the game, they would sell more and more Red Kilins. Based on his calculations, they would probably earn more than three million yuan in this month alone!
This was already the effect of greatly discounting the game.
Because of Pei Qian’s pricing strategy, Ocean Stronghold was practically a free game. It did not cost anyone anything to download it. Apart from the Red Kilin, they sold nothing else in it as well!
In other words, only ballers—who were in the minority—would buy the Red Kilins. Most players would not spend a single cent on the game!
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