Li Yada pondered for a moment and realized that Boss Pei was making sense. “Alright, I’ll make the necessary preparations.”
After hanging up, Pei Qian heaved a long sigh of relief.
Thank goodness I’m smart; we almost ran into a massive problem!
He could leave next week’s problems to be resolved in their own time. As long as they did not try to squeeze everything in these couple of days, he could discuss them after settlement.
Pei Qian calmed himself down. A while later, he arrived at Huanyu Tianjie.
He alighted from the car and headed straight for Fish-Catching Internet Cafe which was on the third floor.
Pei Qian had been keeping an eye on Tengda over the past few days. Thus, he had not visited Fish-Catching Internet Cafe in a long time. He needed to see the situation for himself today before he could relax.
Yet, before entering the internet cafe, Pei Qian felt that something was amiss.
It was a Sunday afternoon. As this was the biggest shopping mall in Jingzhou City, Huanyu Tianjie received many visitors.
Normally, this did not affect Fish-Catching Internet Cafe in any way since it was located on the third floor. After all, most people only came here to shop, eat, and watch movies. Few people would come here to play games. While he had been looking for suitable locations for Fish-Catching Internet Cafe, Pei Qian had noticed that the two clothes shops on this floor were relatively deserted. Even the coffee shop drew a limited crowd. That was why he decided to set up the new Fish-Catching Internet Cafe branch here.
Yet, something about the current situation looked off!
Pei Qian had taken the elevator up. There were many people inside. Pei Qian was not too concerned at first; he had thought that they were on their way to watch a movie or eat some food. Yet, to his shock, the entire group of people emerged on the third level!
Stunned, Pei Qian became the last person to get out of the elevator. He stared wide-eyed as the entire group of people walked towards Fish-Catching Internet Cafe.
Wait a moment! Stop right there! What are you doing?! Stop walking around!
Pei Qian walked briskly towards Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. When he looked inside the internet cafe, his breath caught in his throat; and he almost fainted.
More than sixty percent of the seats were filled. From the way things were going, Pei Qian guessed it would not be long before his losses would be turned to profits!
To h*ll with bitterness ending and sweetness beginning!
Pei Qian immediately looked for Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan.
Where are they?! The two of them must have been responsible for turning my internet cafe into this mess! Whoever was responsible for this should be prepared to take the blame. Once I catch you, I will make sure you suffer!
Pei Qian continued to walk deeper into the internet cafe. The further he got, the faster his heart raced.
The last time he experienced something similar was at Fish-Catching Internet Cafe’s flagship store. However, while the flagship store had become famous at that time, the crowd had mostly visited it for the drinks and Chen Lei.
This time, only the internet cafe part of the business remained!
All of these people were seated in their gaming chairs, focusing intently on the game. Most of them were playing Repent and be Saved. There were even a few couples and groups of friends. The internet cafe was bustling; it was no longer as cold and deserted as it used to be.
Painful!
Pei Qian arrived at the resting area and saw Teacher Qiao’s latest video playing on the screen.
Some customers were seated around the long table in the resting area. Some were drinking coffee while others were drinking milk tea. As they enjoyed their drinks, they listened to Teacher Qiao’s walkthrough. From time to time, their faces displayed understanding and inspiration.
Ma Yang was seated in the resting area as well, but Zhang Yuan was absent for some reason.
“Brother Qian, you’re here?”
A grin spread across Ma Yang’s long face as he welcomed Pei Qian into the resting area.
“Do you want some coffee? There’s a coffee shop next door. They noticed that our internet cafe was getting crowded so they collaborated with us to give our customers a thirty-percent discount on their drinks! All things aside, their drinks are quite good. Look, everyone here has one.”
The corners of Pei Qian’s mouth twitched.
It was like Ma Yang had stabbed him right in the face; Pei Qian was utterly stunned.
“Why… are there so many people here today?” Pei Qian asked, trembling.
Ma Yang looked confused. “Huh? Not really. There are this many people in here every day.”
Pei Qian was speechless. “…”
What the f*ck! Long-face, are you trying to infuriate me to death?! What do you gain from doing that?!
Pei Qian forced himself to calm down. “So since when did all of these people start coming?”
Confused, Ma Yang asked, “Brother Qian, don’t you know? It was while you were busy with Repent and be Saved!
“I didn’t realize it before. We didn’t have many people in our internet cafe at the time, but after everything that happened in Jingzhou recently, we did build up quite a good reputation for ourselves!
“This branch is new, but it has quite a high rating on Quanmin Reviews.
“At first, very few people came here, but the number of visitors started increasing as time went by. After shopping, people wanted to find a place to rest. The coffee shop happened to be full so they started coming into our internet cafe. In any case, spending ten yuan per hour is not much in a shopping mall like that.
“Brother Qian, guess what happened next. A few days ago, they finished renovating the huge skating rink in the mall. It was officially open!
“Many fathers started bringing their children here to ice-skate. Since their children’s ice-skating classes lasted over an hour, the fathers would come up and play games in the internet cafe.
“Some other men accompanied their girlfriends to have their hair or nails done. These would take a couple of hours at a time. That’s why they started visiting our internet cafe to pass time as well.
“On top of all of these, we had a good reputation. Teacher Qiao seemed to have recommended us in his videos as well. Wang Peng from Quanmin Reviews also recommended us.
“Of course, the most important factor was Repent and be Saved becoming popular. It caused the internet cafe to rise to fame along with it! Many of our customers want the best experience while playing Repent and be Saved; that brings them here every day. “Brother Qian, you’ve been extremely busy with Tengda’s business recently. Weren’t you working on this?” Pei Qian was really speechless.
What? How did it become my fault again?! Do you think I wanted Repent and be Saved to become like that?!
Ma Yang looked slightly regretful. “It’s a pity that we are still away from generating profit… even though we are doing so much better than before. “Brother Qian, you’re not happy with the current situation as well, right? You also think that we should get even more popular, right?”
The corners of Pei Qian’s mouth twitched. I’m really not happy, but it’s for a whole other reason!
He thought about a more urgent problem and immediately asked, “How are the other branches doing?”
Happily, Ma Yang answered, “We’ve already chosen the other locations. We just have to do simple renovations, and we should be able to open for business by next week!” Pei Qian quickly waved his hand. “It’s not urgent! Postpone their openings to the week after next-the week of the 24th. There’s no need to rush things anymore, understand?”
At first, Pei Qian had thought it did not matter when they opened the other branches. However, looking at the terrible situation the Huanyu Tianjie branch was in, Pei Qian finally realized that it mattered greatly!
If he opened the other branches too early, and they gained many customers as a result, Pei Qian would have even m
ore problems to resolve!
Thus, he had to delay opening the other branches to a week before settlement. This would mean losing a week’s worth of revenue. He did not want to put too much pressure on himself.
Ma Yang paused. “But we’ve already paid the rent. Why do you want to delay…?”
Pei Qian acted solemn as he said, “Let’s wait for a better time. Don’t ask so many questions.”
Chapter 290 - The Media’s Ratings are Published
Chapter 290 The Media’s Ratings are Published
October 12th, Tuesday…
Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd… Li Yada had just finished speaking to a few translation workspaces.
After talking to Boss Pei, Li Yada had contacted several reputable translation workspaces in the country. She had also distributed a portion of the game’s synopsis for them to try translating.
Li Yada had purposely picked out a few riddles in the game for the translation workspaces to work on as well. She wanted to see how high their standards were.
Most secondary plots required players to find clues and hints within poems. Only then would the relevant plot developments be triggered. These could only be captured by highly-skilled translators.
On one hand, they had to capture the full meaning of the poem, being careful not to miss out on any important parts of the message. That would allow foreign players to solve the riddle in the poem.
On the other hand, they had to ensure the poems remained beautiful. If such beautiful, ancient poems were translated into a pile of random facts; it would become meaningless. Players would not be able to appreciate the beauty of these words.
Thus, this really put the translators’ skills to the test. Ordinary translators would not be able to translate the poems well.
The translation workspaces had already handed in their completed translation tests. After that, Li Yada handed them to Assistant Xin for reviewing, but the latter had rejected them all.
The translations were not bad, but they had not quite captured the beauty of the language.
Li Yada’s English standard was average, but even she could roughly spot the flaws in the translations.
It went without saying that the flaws were much more obvious to Assistant Xin, who was once an assistant to a famous international enterprise’s Vice President. She was adept in three languages. While she was not good enough to translate the game, she was still able to differentiate the good translations from the bad.
Thus, Li Yada told the various translation workspaces to redo their translation tests with higher standards. If they refused, Li Yada would have no choice but to turn them down altogether.
Once she finished dealing with the translation workspaces, Li Yada began to feel emotional. Boss Pei was right indeed.
They could not rush these things!
Translating Repent and be Saved would be much more difficult than translating other games. If they rushed things, they could mess everything up and fail to ensure high-quality work.
Their rush to produce the game in multiple different languages could end up damaging their own reputation. That was not a good representation of Tengda’s way of working at
all.
Tengda had never been stingy with investments. As a company, they focused on every single detail and did it well. This was the core spirit that every employee of Tengda learned from Boss Pei.
“Forget it. I’ll take Boss Pei’s advice and avoid rushing matters.”
Li Yada had tried to look for skilled translators who were reputable in the industry. However, it was extremely difficult to do so at such short notice, and she had no relevant connections as well.
There were several professional translators and translation workspaces listed on the officials’ website for resources, such as the ones whom Li Yada had already contacted. Yet, there was no guarantee that their standards would be high.
Also, most reputable and skilled translators weren’t interested in translating games.
Normally, highly-skilled translators focused on translating contemporary, famous films. Comparatively, translating games would be akin to manual labor for them. Even if Li Yada tried to contact them, there was a chance that they would turn her down.
What’s more, Li Yada had no idea how to contact them.
Thus, she finally understood that there was no rushing these things. She had to take things slow.
On the other hand, her collaboration with Ma Yiqun of Zhongdian Chinese Network was going quite well. Ma Yiqun had approached Li Yada before, suggesting collaboration between the official novel and the game. She had happily agreed to this. It sounded like a win-win situation for both parties. What’s more, at the heart of things, they were working for the same company. Collaborating would be akin to lending a helping hand.
They started brainstorming together and quickly figured out a good plan.
Li Yada discovered that Ma Yiqun was planning to organize a seven-day login event. After completing multiple tasks on the website for seven days in a row, the reader would be rewarded with a gift in the game.
Li Yada pondered for a moment and decided to go one step further. They could link the accounts together!
All they had to do was allow one account to access Zhongdian Chinese Network, Tengda Games TPDb, and the like, right? This way, all players of Tengda’s games could use their gaming accounts to log in to Zhongdian Chinese Network. Any reward they earned would be distributed to this same account.
What’s more, this would not be troublesome to set up. In fact, it could be easily done.
As for the in-game rewards, Li Yada had thought about distributing consumables at first. These would include the three souls and seven immortal forms that could be used for upgrading, props to strengthen one’s weapons, and so on.
However, on further thought, she realized that it would be too stingy.
Repent and be Saved was a buy-to-play standalone game after all, there was no need to be so stingy.
She decided to distribute unique looks instead!
However, it was far too late to create new models for the game now. Li Yada wrecked her brains and finally thought of giving players special items to change character models. They could make use of the existing pill’s image, name them ‘Look-Changing Pills’, and allow them to be reused.
It would not be difficult to produce these pills; they would just have to change a few codes in the system.
Of course, players would not be allowed to change the character models at will. Some monsters and bosses had huge models, which could result in bugs if they were altered. Thus, the pills would only allow players to change the appearance of characters that looked like the protagonist. This included small monsters and NPCs.
At the same time, there would be a cooling-off period attached to these pills. All in all, the pills would only serve as entertainment.
No matter what, there would be various female NPCs in the game who were quite good-looking. Although they would not be the most beautiful ladies, they would be considered beauties in the game’s world.
Thus, Li Yada thought that this would be particularly attractive for players.
She made the necessary arrangements.
After distributing the work to his subordinates, Li Yada accessed TPDb, intending to check Repent and be Saved’s overall rating. All of Tengda’s employees had already developed the habit of visiting TPDb when they had free time on their hands. After all, the website’s ratings determined their following month’s bonus. They could not possibly ignore them.
The amount of revenue that the game generated was quite irrelevant; they only worked to generate revenue if it was convenient. If they wanted to earn bonuses, the employees had to ensure that their project’s ratings hit the roof.
“Eh? It’s 9.1?!”
Li Yada perked up and sat upright. The rating had spiked!
How did it increase so much in a single day?!
On closer inspection, Li Yada realized that the games media had finall
y released their reviews!
Ratings from games media held a huge weightage in the overall ratings on TPDb. The higher the ratings given by reputable and influential games media were, the higher the game’s overall rating would become.
Li Yada scanned the games media’s comments and realized that they had nothing but praise for Repent and be Saved.
“After producing Game Designer, Tengda Games has once again produced a refreshing masterpiece that redefines innovation.
“This up-and-coming game company is always providing its players with novel experiences. In a few short weeks, players went from criticizing the game to praising it, and from rejecting it to fully embracing it.
“Tengda Games can be counted on to produce superior works. It’s almost as if the phrase ‘cutting corners’ doesn’t exist in their dictionary.
“Before this, no designer would have thought that such a difficult, hardcore game would succeed in the local market. Yet, Tengda Games has done it again. Repent and be Saved makes its players suffer willingly and find joy in the process.
“That’s why this game is expected to be the standard for perfect combat systems in the future.
“The game displayed originality by including the concept of the epitaph. From various other details within the game, one can also appreciate the designer’s inspiration and talent.
“Other designers would also do well to learn from this game’s difficult mechanisms.”
Various other game reviewers and media also reflected similar sentiments.
These reviewers and media were not reacting like many players did when the game was first released. This was because after one week, the players’ impressions of the game had undergone a 180-degree change. These game reviewers and media took everything into consideration before writing their reviews.
What’s more, these game reviewers and media would not give the game a low rating just because they could not complete it. They were all professional.
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