Yet, now, Boss Li and the others had built restaurants and hotels in the area. Even the plaza outside had been renovated. In addition to the fountain in the middle, the area looked quite promising!
Everyone only renovated the original factories in the industrial zone, but after tidying up the surroundings, the weeds and the construction rubbish that had been accumulated was gone. The space immediately looked much neater.
The Golden Maze was still being built in a hurry, but it was looking different every day. The complicated structure with all sorts of intricacies was becoming visible, and Pei Qian was beginning to panic.
Fortunately, there were still a few problems left unresolved at the moment. For example, how would they market the place so that the entire country would know about this place? How would people get to the old industrial zone from the city?
Pei Qian walked two more rounds around Thriller Hostel and then decided to leave.
However, just then, he heard a surprised voice.
“Boss Pei? I knew it! You only say you want to incur losses, but in fact, this area is very important to you. You’re still making time out of your busy schedule to visit!” The corners of Pei Qian’s mouth twitched. He didn’t even have to turn around to know that it was Boss Li.
Pei Qian had been coming here in secret over the last two days, just like a thief, because he feared bumping into Boss Li and creating unnecessary drama. Yet, the situation that he had feared happened. He really bumped into Boss Li!
Pei Qian sighed inwardly. Then, he turned around and smiled. “Boss Li, good afternoon.”
Boss Li was grinning. “Boss Pei, are you here because you knew I invited the investors over to discuss Thriller Hostel’s marketing? Boss Pei, you must have a lot of insights when it comes to marketing!”
Pei Qian: “?”
There was no such thing! You’re mistaken!
Obviously, Boss Li and the other investors knew that Thriller Hostel could not generate profits in its current state. Recovering their capital aside, just maintaining daily operations would be a struggle.
That was because there was simply not enough traffic.
A large-scale amusement park like that could not be sustained on locals alone. It needed tourists from different countries, all over the world.
However, how Thriller Hostel’s marketing should be conducted was a problem
The write-up that Quanmin Reviews had done earlier-entitled ‘Beautiful Jingzhou’—would have helped, but it was not enough.
Pei Qian sniggered. “I’m sorry, Boss Li. I’ll make a move first because I have other work to do. You can take your time discussing.”
Once he finished speaking, Pei Qian boarded his car and left at lightning speed.
Li Shi stood where he was, confused about the now-gone Boss Pei. Still, he could do nothing but sigh helplessly. Then, he returned to discuss Thriller Hostel’s marketing with the other investors.
Chapter 559 - We won’t Talk about Tengda’s Plans Today!
Li Shi sadly walked into the conference room. However, by the time he entered the conference and saw the investors, his expression became one of realization. The rest of the investors had already arrived one by one. Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong were also present.
According to their current progress, Thriller Hostel would open for business at the start of next month. That meant they had to settle the marketing plan for the amusement park. After all, there was a lot to prepare before they officially started publicizing Thriller Hostel. They also needed time to create various marketing materials.
The seat at the head of the conference table was empty, but Li Shi did not sit there. Instead, he took the first empty seat to the left of it.
Obviously, the seat at the head of the table had been left empty for Boss Pei.
Li Shi looked around at everyone else and said, “Everyone, I have good news and bad news.”
Everyone else: “?”.
Li Shi explained, “The good news is that Boss Pei just visited Thriller Hostel to take a look around. He’s avoiding us on purpose. That means he values this project quite a lot.
“The bad news is… he said he has work to do, and so he won’t be joining our meeting about Thriller Hostel’s marketing.”
Everyone else: “?”.
Obviously, most of the investors were thoroughly confused by Boss Pei’s tricks.
Boss Pei, it’s fine if you don’t want to come. We weren’t hoping you would come either. However, since you were already here, would it have been so difficult to walk a couple more steps and attend a meeting?
Seeing everyone’s confused expressions, Li Shi knocked on the table. “None of you has figured out what Boss Pei’s attitude means?
“It’s very clear!
“He came to check on Thriller Hostel’s progress, which means that this project is very important to him. He just doesn’t want to make it too obvious.
“He isn’t attending the meeting, obviously because he wants to see how sincere we are in our publicity efforts! If we are sincere enough, Boss Pei would appreciate it and reciprocate!”
The other investors pondered hard about this. One by one, they seemed to understand.
That seemed to make sense!
Before this, Boss Pei had acted nonchalant about the project as well. However, when everyone proposed collectively investing in a shopping mall and sharing half of the profits with Boss Pei, Boss Pei took them seriously and came up with the Golden Maze.
It looked like it would be the same with marketing. Boss Pei was waiting to see how they would perform!
When they looked at it that way, Boss Pei’s actions seemed to make sense.
After making sure that everyone was on the same page, Li Shi said, “Alright, what ideas do you all have for publicity? Let’s put it all on the table. Don’t hide your hand anymore.”
The investors took turns to speak up.
“I’m thinking about putting up advertisements at public bus stations and train platforms around Jingzhou. We can also organize a shuttle service from the nearest public transport station to Thriller Hostel.”
“I can hire people to give out flyers at various shopping malls and universities in Jingzhou. Young people would probably be more interested in amusement parks.”
“I’m considering… placing advertisements online. However, I have to think harder about how to do that exactly. Otherwise, I won’t be able to guarantee its effectiveness.”
“Boss Li, you know Boss Wang of Quanmin Reviews, don’t you? Do you think we can run a promotion for Thriller Hostel’s tickets on Quanmin Reviews?”
Everyone quickly spoke up one by one until their publicity plan covered every aspect of the country. They were all used to working in this manner.
After all, they had already wrestled and fought when they were deciding who would be in charge of what project at the beginning. Back then, Boss Li had already whipped them into shape.
Now, everyone was in the same boat. All of them had invested a lot of money into this project. If it failed, all of them stood to lose. Although they would not go so far as to kill themselves, there would still be a lot of bleeding.
Li Shi nodded. “I’ll talk to Boss Wang about Quanmin Reviews. For now, the problem is… our publicity seems to be focused on Jingzhou. The furthest we have gone to is Handong Province.
“Yes, we can’t do much about that. It seems like a long shot to try and cover the entire country at one go.”
Everyone knew full well that Thriller Hostel’s customers would come mainly from Jingzhou in the beginning. At the most, they would come from different parts of Handong Province.
It was not practical to expect tourists from all over the country to travel all the way to Jingzhou, just to experience scares at Thriller Hostel.
What’s more, how much would it cost to run advertisements throughout the country?
They could participate in large-scale variety shows or run advertisements on channels available to the entire count
ry. Alternatively, they could spend a ton of money trying to market the amusement park to the other cities. Either way, the price-quality ratio seemed low.
Thus, this was the best they could do for now.
They had to wait until Thriller Hostel became a hit and became popular among the locals, and its name slowly spread. Then, they could publicize it to the rest of the country.
Li Shi turned to face Chen Kangtuo. “Brother Chen, Boss Pei…”
Chen Kangtuo looked helpless. “Boss Li, you know what Boss Pei is like as well. Nothing that I say can influence his plan.”
Li Shi nodded. “Yes, yes, I understand. I’m just saying that we should all try our best.”
Chen Kangtuo: “Of course.”
Li Shi looked at the publicity plan that they had come up with so far, feeling slightly uncertain. However, that was the best that they could do, given their capabilities at the moment.
In a certain motion-capture workspace in Jingzhou…
Zhang Zuting explained the script to the group of motion capture actors in English. Those actors had all been bit-role actors in Tomorrow is Beautiful, and so they all knew Zhang Zuting quite well. All of them listened intently to him.
Zhang Zuting did not get caught up in the details of every single scene. Instead, he focused on explaining the general concept of the performance.
“Boss Pei has already decided to emphasize the facial features of each actor. Based on my understanding of him, I’m sure he wants all of you to act exaggeratedly. That means every single expression has to be made as obvious as possible. You should feel like you’re acting in a drama on-stage or in a theater. “On stage, during live performances, the audience would be located very far away. Thus, they would not be able to catch minor changes in expression. To intensify the dramatic effect, actors have to exaggerate every movement. “You can take this game as an interactive movie. In some sense, it’s similar. Looking at characters with over-emphasized features and exaggerated acting could take away from the gamers’ immersiveness.
“Although the game would seem less realistic, the symbolism in the story and roles would also be made more powerful. Gamers would be made to think…
“Before this, I gave all of you a piece of paper with your character and the facial feature that’s emphasized. Study those characteristics very closely and try to exaggerate your movements as much as possible to bring them to life…”
The actors nodded as they paid close attention.
Before Zhang Zuting came, none of them had been sure how they were supposed to act out their roles. All of them had used their own techniques, and the end result had been very messy. They had not met Hu Xianbin’s expectations.
However, after listening to Zhang Zuting’s explanation and analysis, all of them had a deeper understanding of their own roles. Now, they were on the same page with their acting.
When Hu Xianbin saw this, he rejoiced. He quickly said, “Good! Work harder everyone! We’ll re-film all of those parts that we were unhappy with before!
“We have to meet Boss Pei’s expectations!”
“Achoo!’
Pei Qian had been lying down on his sofa, basking in the sun when he sneezed all of a sudden.
“This Boss Li must be badmouthing me behind my back…”
June 23rd, Thursday… In the cafe near Handong University, He An’s third lesson with ‘Ma Yang’ officially began.
Publicity for Thriller Hostel seemed to have started already. On the way to the cafe, Pei Qian had seen an advertisement for Thriller Hostel at a bus stop.
However, Pei Qian did not have a good solution to the problem now. He could only let nature take its course and pray that the publicity campaign would not be too effective.
He An gave ‘Ma Yang’ the teaching materials for today, sipped his coffee, and prepared to speak.
Pei Qian kept smiling, looking every bit like the curious student that he was trying to be. Yet, his trembling hands were ruthlessly betraying him.
It did not look like they were going to talk about Tengda’s plans today!
At least, that was what he could tell from the teaching material.
The title of the teaching material was ‘Third Lesson on Successful Designs: Restraint on Smuggling Goods and Expression’.
Just to be safe, Pei Qian flipped through the contents of the teaching material. That was when he realized it contained the plan of one successful game that He An had worked on a long time ago. It was called ‘The Landlord Game’. If Pei Qian had seen that name in the past, he might have thought about the three-player Poker game, ‘Fight the Landlord[1]’ However, he had done his homework after all. He knew about He An’s past successful games. In Pei Qian’s memory, The Landlord Game could be referred to as something else that was easier to remember—Monopoly. Although the names and packaging were different, the gameplay was the same. Pei Qian could not help but look forward to this lesson.
He An said, “For today’s lesson, we will not study Tengda’s plans anymore. That’s because, for this topic, there’s nothing worth learning from Tengda.” Pei Qian was surprised. “Oh? Teacher He, what do you mean?”He An smiled. “Today, I want to talk about the restraint on smuggling goods and expression. The exporter of every type of content from novels to movies and games-only becomes an exporter because he or she has a very strong desire for expression.
“Strictly speaking, whatever they want to express is considered a ‘smuggled good’. That’s because the content comes from the data bank in their own brain and would not necessarily resonate with everyone else.
“When the content resonates with the majority of people, we can say that the particular expression sparked empathy, revealed truth, contained philosophy, and was thought-provoking.
“Otherwise, we would say that the particular expression carried smuggled goods leading to mistaken inducement and was punishable.
“However, if content creators do not ‘smuggle goods’, they would not qualify as content creators. That’s because the content that they export would not contain their thought: it would be empty
“Thus, if a creator wants to succeed, he or she has to exercise restraint. They cannot smuggle too many goods, but they cannot smuggle too little either. They also cannot be too extreme or too vulgar. “As for why there is nothing worth learning from Tengda’s plans… “That’s because Tengda’s games and movies have already surpassed this stage. No matter how many goods they smuggle, everyone would accept it. You can’t learn from them.” Pei Qian: “…”
At that moment, Pei Qian did not know if he should rejoice or feel disappointed.
[1] This is a popular game in China, in which each player will be dealt 17 cards, and the one who plays out all his cards in valid combinations wins.
Chapter 560 - Teacher He, I’ll Keep Your Advice in Mind!
He An continued speaking. “Of course, everything that I want to say constitutes smuggled goods as well. I hope you can understand this, Boss Ma.
“That’s because there’s no such thing as an objective and fair expression. Anything that has been through artistic processing would be affected by the hidden intentions of the person who did the work.
“However, the goods that I am about to smuggle were produced by me alone. They are my personal vision for the future local gaming industry. Boss Ma, it’ll be great if it resonates with you, but it’s also fine if it does not.”
Seeing He An’s stern expression, Pei Qian pushed his conflicting emotions to the back of his mind and listened intently.
“I am going to split today’s lesson into two parts. “In the first part, I am going to talk about my successful experience while working on The Landlord Game. I will also theorize how I managed to smuggle the right ‘goods’ and exercise restraint at the same time.
“In the second part, I will briefly talk about my views on the gaming industry’s prospects for development-or shall I say, my proposal.”
Pei Qian nodded.
He could very clearly s
ee that He An looked different today than in the previous two lessons. In the previous two lessons, He An had been speaking as an observer. He had been carefully analyzing successful cases and interpreting successful elements as a professional.
However, today’s He An seemed to have a glow that only belonged to preachers who cleared confusion by giving moral and practical instruction. He reminded Pei Qian of old gentlemen who worried about their countries and people. Pei Qian wondered if he was just seeing things. After organizing his thoughts, He An said, “First, I want to talk about The Landlord Game.
“Actually, the game’s gameplay did not come from me alone. The inspiration came from a board game I played during my enlightenment years. The origins of the game can be traced back to an American political economist named Henry…” Pei Qian had a vague impression of this story, but everything he knew was in a mess, and he did not really understand it. Now, hearing He An’s narration, things were gradually becoming clearer. This political economist named Henry was born in poverty. He worked as a sailor, a miner of gold, and a printer. Throughout his work, he came into contact with countless people who were even poorer and of a lower class than
him.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States developed at a speed that was visible to the naked eye. However, that also caused an unprecedented widening of the gap between the society’s rich and poor.
Henry realized that the accumulation of limitless wealth had not been improving the lives of the poor. Instead, it had only been widening the gap between themselves and the rich.
The income of the top one-percent of society had surpassed the sum of the bottom fifty percent of society’s income.
Thus, Henry began thinking about the reason behind this massive inequality. In the end, he completed an entire thesis entitled ‘Progress and Poverty’, which exposed the root cause of all of it—the United States’ land privatization system.
In the early twentieth century, a female journalist named Elizabeth inherited Henry’s theories and decided to create a board game to test them. After a lot of development, the board game’s rules were finally perfected. That was the prototype of He An’s game, The Landlord Game.
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