“Did someone steal from me?”
The thought sprang up in Pei Qian’s head instinctively. It was not that he did not trust his own finance department, but that amount was much less than he had expected, wasn’t it?
He quickly accessed the platform and checked out the data. After checking it, Pei Qian realized that everything seemed correct.
At the moment, GOG had more than 1.7 million players online simultaneously. The local MOBA game market accounted for more than sixty percent of that. Those numbers were not that far off from that of LOL’s national server in the first half of 2012, as Pei Qian remembered.
In other words, there were a lot of players.
LOL subsequently became so popular, mainly because of its development throughout a couple of years. It pushed the boundaries of MOBA games and caused many players of other types of games to enter the pit.
GOG had only been released less than a year ago. Of course, it could not achieve that kind of popularity yet. The fact that there were more than a million players simultaneously online in the local server was already a miracle, and there was a lot of room for the game to develop in the future.
Of course, that was just one million people online at the same time. The actual number of players was much higher than that. Some people only played the game once in two or three days, and they would buy skins as well.
More than four hundred thousand players had purchased Ruan’s skin. That was Ruan’s first skin, which was an epic skin sold for 18 yuan per piece.
That skin had only been sold two weeks after Ruan was released because GOG’s project team was investing all of their efforts into developing new heroes. Producing new heroes was of a much higher priority than producing new skins. Thus, releasing a new skin two weeks after the hero’s release was already considered a feat.
Pei Qian had been the one to set the price of the skin. Brave skins would be distributed for free, epic skins would be sold at 18 yuan, and legendary skins would be sold at 45 yuan. 400,000 x 18 x 5% amounted to 360 thousand yuan. However, the problem was that there was another rule for collection of ideas for heroes on GOG’s Creative Community: Once the new heroes designed by gamers were launched, the first skin would be sold at a ninety percent discount, the second at fifty, and the third at twenty. All gamers would be able to enjoy that promotion for up to a month.
Active users in GOG’s community would have more benefits.
In other words, gamers could buy that skin for about 1.8 yuan.
It was no wonder that a proportionately larger number of people had bought it. Many players in the game would not play Ruan. In fact, before each ranked game, it would be the first to be banned. Many people were only buying it as a collectible because it was so cheap.
The main source of income for GOG was from the skins of heroes that had not been designed by players. Those skins would not be sold at the discounts of GOG’s Creative Community, and profits would not be shared with players.
Pei Qian had mixed feelings inside.
Logically speaking, forty thousand yuan was a lot for his current income level. Yet, why did he feel a faint sadness in his heart…?
Was this what it felt like to shoot himself in the foot…?
To minimize the game’s income, Pei Qian had set extremely low prices for all the skins. Min Jingchao had obviously implemented his suggestion, thinking that unprecedented discounts were being given just to encourage players to actively participate in design work for GOG.
As a result, Pei Qian found that his income for the first month was only 40,000 yuan. He had to admit that he had caused all of this.
Pei Qian sipped his coffee and tried to calm himself down.
Calm down and stay optimistic. Forty thousand yuan is quite a lot. What’s more, it would only increase.
Think about it carefully, I won’t lose out in any way.
GOG is burning money to fight for a greater market share, and that would help me incur losses and take advantage of the System. In the future, once GOG becomes popular, I would earn hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan from each type of Ruan’s skin.
It’ll be good to take this money as pocket money in the short term. Anyway, I’ll receive a certain sum each month.
Indeed, after taking another perspective, Pei Qian felt much better.
“The first group of visitors should have entered Thriller Hostel by now, right?”
Pei Qian glanced at his watch. “I wonder what the situation is like over there.”
At that moment…
At the entrance of Thriller Hostel…
Qiao Liang got off Thriller Hostel’s bus and scanned the surrounding crowd. He had a strange feeling that he was visiting an amusement park.
Er, that was not right. Thriller Hostel was an amusement park to begin with. It was just that it only contained a haunted house at the moment. “Jingzhou! I, Teacher Qiao, am back!”
He was setting foot on Jingzhou’s soil once again. For some reason, he felt a sense of familiarity and warmth. It was like saying hello to an old friend whom he had not seen in a long time.
Qiao Liang retrieved his cell phone and clicked on his fan group. One by one, messages quickly appeared.
“Brothers, gather at the entrance!”
“I’m on the next bus, and I should be arriving soon. Wait for me.”
“Where’s Teacher Qiao? Come and lead the group! I am under the tree in the parking spaces!”
Qiao Liang quickly found his own fans. They had successfully met.
“It looks like there are fewer people than I imagined. I remember Disney and Universal Studios being very crowded. The lines were so long that I thought I would queue to death,” said one of the fans.
Qiao Liang laughed. “What are you talking about? How could it be possible to reach the standard of Disney and Universal Studios? Just one of Disney’s amusement parks cost billions of US dollars to build. How much had gone into this one? Take this as a slightly bigger haunted house, and that would be good enough.
“Still, I believe that Boss Pei would surprise us as he always does!”
For some reason, Qiao Liang felt a strong trust in Boss Pei.
News of the Thriller Hostel’s opening had long been circulating in Qiao Liang’s fan group. As an old friend of Boss Pei’s, Qiao Liang had no reason not to come and see it for himself even though he was terrified of haunted houses.
If he was simply a customer of Tengda, of course, it would not matter whether he came or not. However, he was also Boss Pei’s friend. Now that Boss Pei had opened a haunted house, how could he not visit it?
Qiao Liang treasured his friendship with Boss Pei a lot.
As for what he would do if the haunted house was too scary… he would decide what to do when he came to it. At most, he could grit his teeth and go. Very quickly, Qiao Liang’s fans gathered. Those people came from all over the country. Usually, they talked and bragged to one another on the Internet but never had the opportunity to meet. This time, they jumped at the opportunity. However, Qiao Liang soon discovered an upsetting truth: he did not seem to have many female fans.
A group of impressive men walked into Thriller Hostel together.
“Frankly, this is not small at all, and the supporting facilities are not bad. There are restaurants, hotels, shops, and parking. It must have cost two or three hundred million altogether, right?” “I heard that Boss Pei was not the only one who paid for all of these. Many other investors in Jingzhou pooled their money together and played their part. I’m afraid that this expenditure might have been too huge for Tengda to bear on its own.”
“Well… Boss Pei has to think about diversifying his risks after all.”
“Huh? Aren’t they checking our tickets at the entrance? We’re already in.”
“It seems like the tickets for each project would be sold and checked separately. There are joint tickets, but I didn’t buy them because they cost two hundred yuan. They’re not that much cheaper…”
; “Let’s go in and see which project looks fun, and then we’ll decide how to buy tickets.”
Chapter 574 - Desperate Escape)
Qiao Liang looked around and sighed with emotion. Boss Pei was always able to come up with new tricks.
The experience of the Thriller Hostel was different from other places.
Basically, all the buildings were remodeled by the old industrial zones so they had a sense of age. At the same time, the style of the entire area was very uniform. There was no feeling that a certain building was particularly outstanding. The feeling of the entire area was that it was very open, just like a park.
Many amusement parks need to purchase entrance tickets to limit the flow of people so they would appear relatively closed. Tourists were more anxious after entering because time was limited. They all wanted to hurry to the famous projects, queue up, and play so they would not feel at ease to hang out.
What was different here was that they could enter and exit at will. It gave people the feeling of walking in the nearby park, which was more relaxing
In no time, everyone came to the central square and saw the peculiar maze and healing fountain in front of it.
Looking towards the distance, they could see large workshops where the three projects were located. The road signs clearly pointed out the directions. The names of the three projects were: Desperate Escape, Haunted House Nightmare, and Ultimate Horror.
There were leaflets at the entrance of nearby shops which could be picked up by tourists. In addition to the map of the entire Thriller Hostel, there were also introductions to the different projects.
Someone took a few leaflets and distributed them to everyone.
“Fu*k, the prices differ so much? Desperate Escape is only 10 yuan when Ultimate Horror is 100 yuan?” “Ultimate Horror sounds like something that spent a lot of money to build.”
“Ultimate Horror’ had no introduction, only two words: Don’t go? Fu*king advertisement, I’m more tempted to go now…”
“But there is definitely a big problem with this pricing strategy? Reading the introduction, Desperate Escape seems to be a replayable model like Be Quiet. Since it was replayable, shouldn’t the price be sent higher? At least 30 yuan?”
“The Ultimate Horror is rather expensive. It’s just a large factory space. Many people were scared out of it within five minutes. Wouldn’t most people be worried about their wallets and not dare to go?”
“Who knows? Let’s enter and see how it is.”
It was still the year 2011. Jingzhou was a second-tier city so 100 yuan on a haunted house ticket was relatively high. Of course, Desperate Escape, which cost only 10 yuan, was very affordable.
Since the park was just open and it was still Friday morning, the flow of people had yet to reach the peak. Desperate Escape had a queue, but it was not too long.
They quickly entered the tail of the queue.
Judging from the number of people-other than those wandering around and shopping in the Golden Maze, 70% of the tourists were prepared to experience the first project, 30% went to the second project, and none were at the third. The sporadic few asked about it but were soon told to pass the second project first.
It was obviously best to queue for the first project when there were still few people.
In the process of queuing, Qiao Liang observed the number of people they let in each time. He found that they would let in about a hundred people each time and then wait for fifteen minutes to let the next set of people in.
Qiao Liang looked at the leaflet in his hand again and realized that the interior of this large factory building was divided into ten parts with a total of five different decoration styles. Each of them was more than four hundred square meters which could be experienced by ten people.
Therefore, the queue walked fairly fast, but many tourists from the exit ran to the end of the queue again, seemingly excited and wanted to play a second time.
Qiao Liang and others were in rather advanced positions. It was his turn after waiting for fifteen minutes.
Everyone had seen the specific rules of this project on the sign beside it while in the queue. It gave Qiao Liang the feeling of a simplified version of Be Quiet. The scene seemed to be similar, probably used similar art styles in the game. That added on to his anticipation.
Before entering the project, a staff handed out a special bracelet to everyone to be returned after the game.
This bracelet seemed to have a heart-monitoring function. It also had a bright and every eye-catching light on it.
Everyone could choose the scene freely before entering. There were mental hospitals, lunatic villages, country hotels, castles, and schools. These scenes were obviously consistent with the classic scenes in Be Quiet, just a miniature version.
Moreover, it was certainly impossible to build an old castle in the factory, just as close as possible in style.
The map was reduced, gameplay simplified, and the pace accelerated. It was obviously to reduce the time required to learn and only retain the most interesting gameplay. It was so that the tourists could understand the gameplay in the shortest time and have fun while at it.
Desperate Escape was a special escape room from the point of view of the rules. All tourists play the role of ordinary people being locked in. Everyone’s common goal was to find the decryption spell in the setting, activate it, and find an exit to escape.
The decryption spell was arranged in advance and scattered throughout the entire venue. There were a few dozen of them, but only one dozen of them would be activated in each round which created randomness.
The tourists would be able to accumulate their progress by bringing their wristbands near to the decryption spells. It would be permanently activated, bringing them one step closer to winning the game.
There would be a staff who acted as a lunatic, wandering around the venue. He would have a portable speaker, playing terrifying roars and BGM to remind tourists that terror was approaching
The staff looked like they were trying to capture tourists, but they would not really chase after them lest it caused them to fall and become injured. There were potential safety hazards.
Therefore, the only correct way to play was to search for the decryption spell while the staff slowly patrolled the entire venue. They immediately found a place to hide while the staff approached them.
Moreover, the wristbands given to the tourists were the sanity meter in the game, Be Quiet. The wristbands would detect the heart rate of the tourists. The color of the wristbands would gradually change color if the heart rate of the tourists rose abruptly or remained high.
Green represented healthy, yellow meant danger, and red meant out of control.
The staff also had a small remote control in their hand. If a tourist were to appear in his field of vision, he could directly change the heart rate calculation up to make it red faster.
Once it turned red, the tourists would not be able to activate the spell through the wristbands anymore. On the contrary, if a tourist with a red wristband appeared within a certain distance of other tourists, there would be a ‘contagious’ phenomenon where the wristbands of other tourists would also turn from green to yellow and then to red.
However, the game also had a corresponding ‘safe house’ design in the game. Some specific areas could only be entered by normal tourists, but tourists with red wristbands and staff could not enter the area. In this area, the wristbands would not be affected by the outside world.
Therefore, it was very stupid for a tourist with red wristbands to stare at other tourists to infect them. The best method was still to scare others and spread the infection.
If the players escaped within the time limit, then all the ‘healthy’ tourists win; if the players fail to escape within the time limit, then the victory would be in the hands of the ‘out of control’ tourists.
Fifteen minutes later, Qiao Liang and the rest left the exit with yearning expressions on their face.
“Ho
w interesting, I’m even a little hooked! I want to try it again!” “I did not have enough of it yet. The sense of substitution is quite strong. It’s a little like playing Be Quiet live!”
“That staff really knows his thing. I heard him coming so I quickly hid into the cabinet. He knew I was in the cabinet so he deliberately wandered around and looked through the cracks of the cabinet. My heart was beating so fast in fear that my wristband became yellow!”
“Old Qiao, you’re such a scumbag! You actually came out to chase us after your band turned red. Are you still a human?” “That’s right, we almost cleared it, but you came out to stir sh*t. My wristband was originally yellow, but it turned red after I was scared by you so I could only join you.”
“That’s the rules of the game. The fact is that I won, so?” Qiao Liang retorted.
Everyone said that they had never seen someone so brazen! He might be despised by everyone, but Qiao Liang himself had fun.
He could now understand why so many tourists immediately rejoined the queue after playing it once because it was really addictive!
As a game UP Master, Qiao Liang could see many mature design concepts from the design of this project.
The basic gameplay of this project was actually rather primitive. It was basically a cat and mouse game with the packaging of Be Quiet. However, when compared to many escape rooms and other haunted house projects, its biggest advantage was in two main points: replayability and moderate sense of horror.
Most escape rooms and haunted houses had the same layouts due to space constraints. One would not want to experience it a second time after one played with it once. However, Desperate Escape was a multiplayer game. Each entry was guaranteed to be different through the random refresh of decryption spell positions.
The staff acting as a lunatic would cooperate in the game according to the different reactions. Every action was random and elusive. The heart rate change of every player was different. They became ‘out of control’ at different times; their actions after becoming Tout of control’ were different which would affect the overall situation. Therefore, players would need to adopt different strategies every time they played.
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