Qiao Liang sighed as he opened Game Designer.
Chapter 765 - We Must Not Let Tengda’s True Feelings for Old Gamers Go To Waste!
Qiao Liang was an old gamer of Game Designer. He had been playing this game ever since it was released.
In order to produce a new episode of Products of the Gods, Qiao Liang had gone through almost all the endings. He was very familiar with the various forks in the road. as though it was his own backyard.
However, after entering the game this time, he realized that Game Designer seemed to have changed significantly.
The most obvious point was that the original standalone game had become a standalone game with internet connection.
The previous downloadable content of the game had only been updated with new voice-overs and new settings. The gameplay had not improved much even though there were many new updates.
Strictly speaking, this game would only be fun the first time they played it. It could only become a collectible after playing for a while and knowing all the endings.
However, after this update, some online gameplay had been added to this game.
While web-based gameplay was not the main form of entertainment, it was still enough to surprise people.
There was a new message board function in the game, which was a closed mode. It could be activated after clearing the first level of the game. After opening this function and entering the game, one would be able to see the words left behind by other players in various rooms, corridors, and doors.
Qiao Liang tried writing a message as well. He realized that these messages were not randomly typed in. Instead, they were made up of some existing vocabulary. They could only express relatively simple and vague meanings.
This might be because they were worried that too accurate meaning would cause serious spoilers and reduce players’ enjoyment of the game.
Using this type of message that was pieced together could easily create a ‘reverse guidance’ effect for players because the results would be different if they made the same choice under different circumstances.
That way, the new players would not only have to compete with the voice-overs, but they would also have to compete with malicious comments. There would be more obstacles on the way to success.
The second gameplay that was added was the contrarians mode. It could also be activated after completing the game play for a week.
In the original default mode, players would remain silent throughout the entire process while the voice-overs would speak to themselves throughout the entire process. Before players made their choice, the voice-overs would come up with bad ideas; after players made their choice, the voice-overs would make sarcastic remarks; and when the final outcome was out, the voice-overs would either mock the players or be stubborn.
All in all, it was mainly to attack players’ mentality.
However, after activating the contrarians mode, the status of both parties immediately reversed!
Under the ‘contrarians mode’, players would no longer be helpless. Instead, there would be a ‘little bickering assistant to fight back against the voice-overs’.
Before making a choice, the voice-overs would come up with a bad idea, and the little assistant would point out the drawbacks of players choosing that way and the benefits of choosing another option.
After making a choice, the voice-over would make sarcastic remarks, and the assistant would rebuke it, leaving the voice-over speechless.
At the end of the game, the assistant would comfort or congratulate the player. At the same time, the assistant would start to mock and despise the voice-over.
The voice-over was speechless and angry, but it could not do anything to the little assistant.
On top of that, if players followed the voice-overs’ instructions in the contrarians mode, the assistant would mock the voice-overs in various ways, just like how the voice-overs mocked players in the past.
At first, Qiao Liang was not very interested. However, after playing for a while, he realized that it was quite interesting!
“Actually, the so-called bickering assistant is nothing more than another pre-arranged voice-over that can be triggered. These are all pre-arranged program settings.”
“However, why does it feel so good to hear this little assistant bickering with the voice-overs?”
At first, Qiao Liang had thought that the voice-overs were not real so what was the point of insulting it?
However, on further thought, the voice-overs were not real but players would get angry when the voice-over dissed them!
Players had been fuming with anger because of the voice-overs on their first play. It was quite satisfying now that they had an assistant who was criticizing the voice-overs back, rendering them speechless.
What’s more, this little bickering assistant had also indirectly pointed out the pros and cons of various choices for players. It might not directly point out what the right choice was but it also gave players more reference information when making choices. It was quite amiable.
The only regret was that the voice of the little assistant was emotionless. While it did not sound as annoying as the voice-overs, it was not much better.
When they cleared the game, the little assistant would tell the player its name: AEEIS. There was no other information.
There was also a new way of playing that was to show the care and concern to the new players.
Qiao Liang tried it out and realized that it was a heaven for the sarcastic people and people who loved to bait others.
Theoretically, the right way to play the game should be for the old players to guide new players who did not understand the game to make the right choice. That way, both the new and old players would be happy.
However, when he started playing, he realized that that was not the case at all!
After going through the voice-overs, the old gamers had become weirdos with their own unique styles.
Some old players would purposely lead the new players down the wrong path.
Some old gamers would not reveal any answers and would only start to mock the players after they had chosen wrongly.
There were also some old gamers who led the new players down the right paths at first to gain the trust of the new gamers. In the end, they would beat them down the wrong paths at the crucial moment.
The scariest thing was that this model was not one-on-one. A maximum of four old players could enter the game of the same new player at a go. They could display their avatars in the four corners of the screen respectively. The content of the words would be displayed in text bubble form.
Some of the four old players were speaking the truth, some were lying, some were trying to undermine each other, and some were working together to deceive others. Coupled with the original voice-overs, the new players could experience five times the joy.
Apart from that, the most exciting part was that there were many fake new players baiting the rest!
Many players had already cleared the game many times, but they purposely started a brand new game to lure the older players in. Then, they pretended to be newbies who knew nothing and fought with them, leading all of them in circles.
“These new modes are quite interesting. Ordinary players should be able to play for two or three days without getting tired of them. The elites should be able to play quite well, right?”
“For all we know, the UP Masters might start producing programs like ‘Baiting in Game Designer’ soon.”
Qiao Liang played for a while and found it quite interesting.
The old gamers found a new source of entertainment after these two games were added to the internet mode. They had originally been left to collect dust in the game library, but after updating their downloadable content, they brought it out again for a new source of entertainment.
Games that had been played many times over were no longer interesting. With these changes, they could fill up the old bottles with new alcohol and refresh them a few more ti
mes!
After playing for a while, Qiao Liang read the gamers’ thoughts on the two games in discussion forums.
“Holy sh*t, Tengda is the conscience of the industry! How long ago was this game? The main body is free, and it’s still being updated?”
“Compared to the content of the downloadable content, the price is still as cheap as a cabbage. I seriously doubt that they can even break even back from this.”
“It’s too worth it. I’ll just buy it brainlessly!”
“Finally, I managed to be one up on the voice-overs in Game Designer. I don’t need to be mocked by it anymore. Thank you, AEEIS, the little bickering assistant!”
“There are too many people baiting on the internet mode! They are all veteran gamers, why are they pretending to be newbies? I’m speechless!”
“However, the two downloadable content seemed to have hidden some Easter eggs this time. For example, The Lonely Desert Road gave a spacecraft and an extraterrestrial scene. Does that mean that Tengda’s next game is a sci-fi-themed game?”
“A 3A level FPS game? That’s awesome!”
“The Easter egg for Game Designer should be this little assistant, AEEIS, right? Are these two Easter eggs for the next game? Then what is AEEIS for?”
“Er… the robot teammate of the protagonist in FPS games?”
“I’m not sure, but I suddenly feel like I’m looking forward to it! After all, there are too few sci-fi games in the country at the moment. There are Xianxia and Wuxia everywhere. I’m sick of seeing them.”
“That’s because sci-fi games are a technical job. All sorts of details and settings are very important. They are not as complete as the settings for xianxia and wuxia. I wonder if Tengda can do it well.”
“Tengda’s products are always top-quality. I think there’s no problem!”
Qiao Liang scrolled through the forum and found that the players were basically praising the updates.
It was rare for a company to spend so much time and effort updating unimportant old games and focusing on the gaming experience of old players after all.
Most games companies did not value the interests of old gamers at all. They would not do anything that wasn’t profitable. They would even do things to hurt old gamers for the sake of profits.
However, Tengda was the exact opposite. They might not be able to make much money from maintaining these old games and might even incur losses, but they were still updating their downloadable content.
What kind of spirit was that!
The players expressed their gratitude. It was just downloadable content, buy it!
Would they still be humans if they did not buy the sincere downloadable content with new gameplay and new contents?
They could not let Tengda’s sincerity towards old players go to waste!
Chapter 766 - Too Many Windfalls Again!
December 2nd, Friday…
Pei Qian sipped his coffee as he read the work week reports submitted by various departments in the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe.
For some reason, he felt like he was writing a memorial.
Now, Pei Qian finally understood why those incapable rulers in the ancient times did not like to go to court or approve memorials. That was because this was indeed a very troublesome matter. How could it be as good as having nothing to do and having fun every day?!
Tengda had a lot of business areas recently. It would be difficult for the heads of every department to come and report their work. What’s more, Pei Qian did not want to do that since he needed his freedom.
Thus, Pei Qian’s current supervision of Tengda’s various departments was mainly through two methods:
The first was for the various departments to submit their work week reports regularly. They would compress the work situation this week to a few dozen words. That way, Pei Qian would have a rough idea of what these departments were planning and take precautions in advance.
The second type was the Manage Loss Trainees’ regular report that was held once every two weeks. These reports would be slightly more detailed, and at the same time, they could verify with the various department’s weekly reports to ensure the accuracy of the information.
Pei Qian flipped through the weekly reports from various departments and stopped at Shang Yang Games.
“Eh? New downloadable content for The Lonely Desert Road and Game Designer were released yesterday?”
“That’s a good thing.”
“…I shouldn’t be the last to know about this, right?”
Besides going to class, Pei Qian had also spent a lot of time revising these couple of days.
It was the exam week next month. The third-year curriculum was more difficult than the first and second-year curriculum. There were more exam subjects as well.
Pei Qian felt humiliated that he could not beat the slacker Ma Yang in the previous exams.
He would be able to redeem himself this time, right?
One had to know that Ma Yang was very busy at the moment. Not only did he have to do live-streaming ‘live commerce’, but he also had to spend money on Weibo. What’s more, he had become the most popular person in the school. He might even be recognized on the streets. Many students had to address him respectfully as Boss Ma when they saw his long face.
Old Ma even had to spare some time to revise and prepare for his exams.
As for Pei Qian, even though everyone in Tengda Corporation thought that Boss Pei was ten times busier than Boss Ma, Pei Qian knew very well that he only had two hours of real work every day.
He was only truly busy one month before the settlement.
Thus, Pei Qian felt that it would be unreasonable if he could not win Old Ma under such circumstances.
What’s more, Pei Qian had purposely borrowed the notes of a few girls in his class who were good at studying. It could be said that he had made ample preparations.
Pei Qian gave it some serious consideration as to why he could not beat Old Ma in the exams previously but after some serious consideration, he felt that it was mainly because his revision method was not right.
Borrowing Ma Yang’s notes to revise would only bring him on par with Old Ma. How could he surpass him?
If the upper limit of Ma Yang’s notes was 70 points, he would not be able to surpass 70 points no matter how much he revised!
Thus, this time, Pei Qian borrowed someone else’s notes sneakily, hoping to overtake Ma Yang and beat him in terms of results.
Otherwise, it would be so embarrassing if he could not beat Old Ma the slacker every time he took the exam! It would make Pei Qian look like he could not even understand what he was doing.
Pei Qian, who had been focused on revising for the past two days, had not paid attention to the fact that the downloadable content of the two old games. That was why he only realized it the next day after the downloadable content was published by Shang Yang Games.
“Let me see the sales volume…”
“These two lousy games have been around for so long. Everyone is tired of them. Could someone really be buying their downloadable content? No way, no way, right?”
“F*ck! What’s going on?”
Pei Qian opened the platform and immediately lost his cool.
The two downloadable content released yesterday had sold 250,000 copies of The Lonely Desert Road’s downloadable content, and Game Designer’s downloadable content had reached 130,000 copies!
Going by the pricing of five and eighteen yuan, deducting the commission and tax, these two downloadable content would bring Tengda Games an estimate of more than two million yuan pure profit for the first day of sales!
What’s more, this was just profit for one day.
In the next week or even the next month, these downloadable content would continue to generate profits. In the next few days, as their influence spread, sales might even show signs of increasing!
Pei Qian was confused.
What the f*ck was going on?!
He could not understand th
e current situation. How long had these two games been out for? They should have been all dusty in the gamers’ game library, right?
What was the meaning of holding on to these two lousy games all the time? Why did you keep buying the downloadable content of the game? Are you crazy?!
Pei Qian decided to make downloadable content for these old games with two intentions:
The first intention was to disperse the manpower of Shang Yang Games so that Wang Xiaobin, who was not good at playing games, could make the downloadable content. That would allow GOG’s overseas operations to slow down slightly and give IOI some breathing space.
The second intention was because he felt that no one would play the old game anymore. Thus, he had secretly updated the downloadable content so that he could spend money without generating sales volume. It was the best of both worlds.
The result was that he had completely mistaken the entire situation!
The sales volume was ridiculous!
Pei Qian’s greatest feeling now was being confused and lost.
Didn’t they say that Wang Xiaobin was not good at designing gameplay? Didn’t they say that no one would play the old games anymore?
So what was happening now?
Pei Qian scrolled through the forum with confusion and saw a passionate comment from a certain player.
“Tengda Games: A perfect example of sincerity in creating a win-win situation!”
“When I heard that The Lonely Desert Road and Game Designer had updated their downloadable content yesterday, my first reaction was disbelief. These two games have been outdated for a long time. What’s more, the games themselves are already free. Is there a need for another downloadable content? Can they really make money?”
Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883 Page 500