Now, what Bloody Battle Song’s update had done was to get rid of nearly all the paywalls in the game. This way, less negative emotions would be invoked in players. The entire game was now at the standard of traditional MMORPGs like Fantasy World.
At the same time, the complex levels and human relationships in Bloody Battle Song were retained. Every player could take on different roles, creating a pseudo-society in the game and allowing them to operate in an orderly fashion.
The ‘Chosen One’ system was an example of this. Each person had a chance to play a critical role. This experience was something that other games could never provide.
After being chosen by the ‘Chosen One’ system, players’ skills would immediately surpass that of other players. They would be allowed to have a hack-and-slash experience.
Hack-and-Slash games could recreate this feeling as well, but one would only be fighting non-playing characters in games like that. It was all down to programming. On the other hand, in Bloody Battle Song, one would be fighting other real players. Behind each ID was a human player.
One would be invincible and help one’s team attack critical locations on the battleground, thus showing off in front of hundreds of other players. It would be extremely difficult for other types of games to create the same sense of achievement.
Thus, the changes made to Bloody Battle Song could be summarized. As much as possible, the unique experience of war games with paywalls was retained while the aspects that invoked negative, ‘toxic’ feelings in players were removed.
Lin Wan only understood these things after playing Bloody Battle Song every day during this time and talking to many other players in the game.
“I see. It looks like I’ve been too childish. I never knew that there were so many ways about this. Now I understand why ballers liked to come here and spend huge amounts of money before as opposed to playing games like Fantasy World.
“Boss Pei’s aim is clearer to me now. Why did he want to buy over Shang Yang Games, even as it incurred huge losses? He wanted to use Bloody Battle Song to try something very risky. He wanted to conduct an experiment that no one had thought about conducting!
“Boss Pei wanted his players to stop being slaves to money. He wanted to adjust his players’ taste, and show them that it was possible to enjoy feelings that only ballers used to feel, even without having to spend money…
“I must admit… this motivation is noble indeed!
“Or shall I say… this is absolutely heaven-defying!”
Lin Wan could not help but view Boss Pei with fresh eyes.
Games with paywalls could be profitable because they sold unique, custom gaming experiences to ballers at high prices.
From golden, dazzling wings to the title of king in a war game, these were all products that had been custom-made for ballers. On the other hand, ballers did not mind spending thousands of yuan on these things.
Through this process, game companies stood to profit and ballers stood to enjoy a custom-made gaming experience. The only people who were getting hurt were the players who acted as the ballers’ sandbags.
Now, Boss Pei was choosing not to make profits like that. He wanted to snatch the custom-made experience from ballers’ hands and distribute that to ordinary players according to set rules.
Wasn’t this a heaven-defying move?
Lin Wan felt that she was bearing an even heavier burden.
Boss Pei had spent so much money to create Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version in order to make up for the game’s only shortcoming: its graphics. After the game was complete and given Tengda Games’ strong marketing capabilities, the game might slowly revamp the entire domestic market for games with paywalls!
Of course, this might be too idealistic. Games with paywalls would not go extinct. As long as ballers were willing to pay, they would remain in the market.
However, as long as Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version could cleanse the games market a little and influence players’ taste, it would have achieved loads for the community!
Some game developers wanted to tender to ballers and used games with paywalls for their own interests; other game developers wanted to create a reputation for themselves and develop standalone games very seriously.
Boss Pei was probably the only one in the industry who had already achieved huge success with standalone games but still bothered enough to intentionally get involved in messy situations elsewhere. He was willing to give up making huge profits, purely for the sake of influencing gamers’ tastes and leading them to freedom from slavery to money.
How noble were his aspirations?!
Chapter 212 - Dis is the Newest Update dat You haf Never Played Before
Lin Wan continued to play the game seriously.
Although she still could not develop a liking for games like that,for the sake of following through with this historical, pioneering work and witnessing the birth of a new type of game; Lin Wan tried to act with a good deal of professionalism.
As a designer, she had to continue playing the game even if she did not fancy this game genre. She had to work hard to understand it!
“Eh? I am the chosen one!”
On her screen, Lin Wan’s game character suddenly lit up and expanded by two or three times. Among the other players, she looked like a formidable giant.
This was what it would look like if one was chosen by the ‘Chosen One’ system. At that moment, Lin Wan’s character’s battle powers were multiplied!
Lin Wan continued to ‘work hard’ by charging into the battlefield and slaughtering the masses.
About half an hour later, the war finally ended.
Ye Zhizhou knocked gently on the door. He had come to discuss something with Lin Wan.
He had come over once before already. However, upon seeing Lin Wan working on the game seriously, he decided that it was inappropriate to interrupt her. Hence, he waited for the war to end before coming over once more.
“Director Lin, I want to discuss with you about advertising. We’re still more than a month away from publishing the game, but I think it’s time to prepare for advertising.”
According to their past research and development experience, Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin both felt that it was time to come up with a marketing plan.
Lin Wan paused. “Huh? That early?”
Based on her recollection, the effects of Tengda Games’ advertising would only be seen after the game had been published. Then, their games would become popular almost immediately.
Lin Wan thought that was normal in the industry.
Yet, on second thought, it might be that she had been clueless.
It was obvious that Boss Pei planned for Game Designer’s performance-art-style advertising in advance. The advertising only took effect a while after the game had been published, but the work must have been done earlier.
At that thought, Lin Wan nodded. “Alright. Based on your experience, how do you think we should do it?”
Ye Zhizhou pondered for a moment and said, “According to our experience, the best way of advertising would be to buy advertising space on webpages and video websites. People would just have to click on the ads, and the game window would pop up…”
Lin Wan instinctively frowned.
That’s too low-class.
Lin Wan had always hated these dishonest, misleading, and irritating advertisements on websites. Now, her own game company was intending to do that?
No way!
Ye Zhizhou added, “However, our current problem is that our game is a mini-client.
“Even if the window pops up, players would still have to download some content before they would be able to play our game. This would greatly reduce our game’s click-conversion rate. This is a very serious problem. If the click-conversion rate is reduced, it would be more difficult for us to attract players to our game… we probably won’t be able to recover our advertising fee, then.”
Lin Wan was speechless.
Was he saying that even a
low-class and irritating advertising method like that wouldn’t be effective?
Lin Wan pondered for a moment and then said, “I have to ask Boss Pei for his suggestions on this.”
Ye Zhizhou looked excited. “That would be best!”
Pei Qian had instructed Ye Zhizhou before to ask Director Lin about anything to do with the game’s creation process.
Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin had done so. Whenever they ran into minor problems in the research and development process, they would raise them up for internal discussion before allowing Lin Wan to make a call.
However, if no one could make a call, they would still have to consult Boss Pei.
None of them could think of good ideas for marketing the game. Thus, they had no choice but to ask Boss Pei.
Lin Wan felt apprehensively sent a message to Pei Qian, asking him about the advertising plan for Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version.
What if Boss Pei could not come up with a good advertising method either?
After all, the game is of a different type now that they have converted it from a browser game to a mini-client. Traditional methods of advertising would no longer work.
Even Boss Pei would need several days to think about it and reply to her, right?
Yet, a few minutes later, Lin Wan received Pei Qian’s reply.
“Wait, I’ll send you a plan.”
Five minutes later, Pei Qian sent a document to Lin Wan.
Lin Wan opened it and read it together with Ye Zhizhou.
The advertising method suggested by Boss Pei was very simple: ad-bombing! They would carry on with traditional ways of advertising and continue to place advertisements on webpages and video websites. It looked no different from the original advertising plan.
However, the plan which Boss Pei sent had specific requests. They had to spend money to hire stars who would cosplay and film the advertisements. Moreover, these stars had to be Hong Kong celebrities. They had to personally read the advertisement script which had already been written[1]!
“Hello, everyone! I am so-and-so. I haf acted in many shows, but in terms of games, I haf only played Bloody Battle Song: De Powerful Version. It’s a fair gam, which would allow everyone to feel like a baller. It will be to your advantage to play dis gam. I will be your bruvver on de battlefield tonai!
“So-and-so is rooting for Bloody Battle Song: De Powerful Version! Dis gam is very fun. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait anuver 120 years for something similar!
“Dis is the newest update dat you haf never played before. In just swee minutes, you will luf this gam as much as I do!
Everything else was similar to the above.
Lin Wan and Ye Zhizhou looked at each other, confused.
They closed the document and reopened it. They had thought that they had opened the wrong document.
Ye Zhizhou began to feel like a complete letdown. Boss Pei had sent the plan over so quickly; it was obvious that he had been prepared. For all Ye Zhizhou knew, Boss Pei had already thought of this advertising method way in advance.
Yet, why was he choosing a method like that?
The script sounded… very low-class!
Wouldn’t they be scolded and cursed at by everyone?!
Ye Zhizhou thought that since Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version was no longer a game with paywalls, one could call it a game with a heart. They could have washed their reputation clean!
Since that was the case, why did they have to produce advertisements like that and dirty themselves in front of the public? If this was a traditional game with paywalls, this method of advertising would be quite good indeed.
This was because the main players of web-based games were ballers and coal bosses, who loved watching Hong Kong films. What’s more, the script was very direct and could easily pique their interest.
However, Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’s main target audience was no longer ballers!
What’s more, this advertising method seemed old-fashioned. Even when held to the standards of ordinary advertisements for web-based games, it looked low-class.
Finished! I really don’t know what Boss Pei is thinking!
Ye Zhizhou looked at Lin Wan questioningly.
Lin Wan was deep in thought as well. It was obvious that she hated this script much more than Ye Zhizhou did. However, she understood Boss Pei much better than Ye Zhizhou did as well.
Everything that looked illogical had greater meaning!
After considering for a long time Lin Wan nodded slightly. “I understand. Boss Pei’s original aim is to free players from being slaves to money and influence their tastes!
“That means the advertising has to be done to attract players who love games with paywalls as much as possible. That’s the only way to influence their tastes and change their view on spending through this game!
“If players of traditional web-based games do not play this game, how could we dream of influencing their mindset?”
Ye Zhizhou felt confused.
“It’s… it’s not that extreme, right? This is a very common way of advertising web-based games.”
“It may look like that on the surface, but many things run deeper than that.” Lin Wan shook her head. “Boss Pei will know how to follow up. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
[1] The script is written to imitate the Hong Kong accent.
Chapter 213 - Just as Boss Pei had Expected!
Pei Qian waited for a few minutes. Lin Wan had not sent any questions. This meant that the problem had been resolved. In fact, Pei Qian knew that the advertising plan he had sent them was the most effective advertising method for traditional web-based games.
He could not say that the quality-price ratio was the highest, but it was quite effective.
For web-based games, advertising methods with the best quality-price ratio required directly copying other games’ materials or creating strange, humorous videos. All in all, their aim was to get as many clicks as possible.
Take ‘I keep showering, where is the world of oil’ for example[1].
However, doing so was illegal. One could not use others’ art resources at will, or they would surely be sued.
Pei Qian would not do anything illegal. Thus, he had no choice but to hire movie stars.
Traditional web-based games mainly targeted middle-aged players who were rich and successful like owners of private companies or coal bosses. These people loved watching Hong Kong celebrities. At the same time, they did not have high expectations for game graphics and had plenty of cash. They also liked the feeling of having followers in games.
Thus, filming advertisements targeted at people like that would be good.
He chose Hong Kong celebrities to appear more attractive and warm to the target audience. At the same time, he made the language simple so that the merits of this game would be obvious to the target audience.
These included the ability to earn money from selling equipment, deal freely, fight in wars, and the like. All of these were characteristics that were popular to web-based game players.
If one could list all of these merits in the advertisement, it would be simple and effective. The advertisement would also brainwash viewers effectively. It would make the money spent worth it.
Since that was the case, why would Pei Qian want to film the advertisement in this manner?
The reason was simple. The target audience was wrong, and the effect would be useless!
This advertising method was meant to attract players of traditional web-based games. Ordinary players would despise these methods.
It was the same logic with the name ‘Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’.
This way, while Pei Qian spent money on advertising that would effectively draw people in, the people who would be drawn in would be players of traditional web-based games.
These people did not care about game graphics. Instead, they only wanted to use cash to slaughter as many people as they could, buy as many loyal
followers as they could, and enjoy feeling like the moon among stars.
Yet, what was ‘Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’ about?
There were almost no paywalls, people could only purchase strength potions, and only lucky ones selected by the ‘Chosen One’ system would be allowed to slaughter everyone else.
They even changed the game’s form-from a traditional browser game to a mini-clientjust to improve the game’s graphics.
In other words, these people would have to download the mini-client to play the game. They could no longer access it from the browser and play whenever they wanted to. The computers that they used in the office might not have this game installed either. Yet, they might not even notice the improvements in graphics.
When they find out that this was not the game they were looking for, they would curse under their breaths and run as fast as they could.
Could this game succeed?
He would spend huge amounts of money hiring celebrities to film the advertisements. He would also buy advertising space on various websites. Ultimately, the advertisements would still prove ineffective, and the game would lose players.
He would incur losses for sure!
What kind of people was Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version really made for?
The game was probably targeted at students and working adults who were not rich, ordinary players who like playing traditional browser games but could not afford to top up too much money on them, or ordinary client-side games and mobile games players.
However, the problem was that most of these people would probably be turned off by the game’s name and advertisements.
They would be just like Pei Qian; even if he could recite the advertisement script backward, he would never think about trying the game out.
Thus, there was no problem with the game or the advertising method per se.
However, the game and advertisements would appeal to different groups of people. That was where the problem was!
In addition, they invested a lot in the game to begin with. They spent a total of seven to eight million yuan on research and development coupled with advertisements. With a limited number of players and purchase optionseven if some people did try out the game, they probably would not be able to recover the capital.
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