Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

The next afternoon, Ruan Guangjian crawled out of bed having a slight hangover.

Thankfully, they had only drank beer and his head was mostly cleared after sleeping.

“Oh, right! The game!”

Ruan Guangjian suddenly recalled – the game should have passed through the vetting process by now!

He took out his phone impatiently and searched for Ghost General on the official platform.

The original art was something that he and his dormitory mates had rushed out after giving it burning tons of midnight oil and he cherished it like it was his own son. As such, he naturally hoped that the game would become popular.

By then, he could use the term concept designer on himself legitimately.

Thereafter, be it whether he was looking for jobs or seeking investments, things would definitely be easier for him once he tosses these original arts under his portfolio.

That was why even though he was just an artist outsourced with the job, he was even more concerned about it than Pei Qian was!

“Ah, the game’s passed the vetting process! Hurry and download it! Just search for Ghost General!”

Ruan Guangjian yelled out and his friends that had woken up scurried to download it on their phones.

After looking at the game’s information interface, Ruan Guangjian frowned.

Why was it so simple?

It was especially the case for the summary! Claiming that this guy was just barely doing his job was an understatement – it was clear he gave no f*cks at all!

Summary: This is a normal card game with nothing new

?!?!

Did the creator bear some grudge against his own game or something?!

Besides, most other games would place some promotional pictures or beautiful posters on this page to improve the impression of the game.

In any case, they would dump all the best art resources the game had to offer on the information page so that gamers would be tricked in.

As for whether the actual graphics matched the promotional pictures… that didn’t matter anymore; they would be able to retain part of the gamers that were tricked in.

But yet, Ghost General had no pictures at all!

That was the reason why the total downloads was still zero by the time Ruan Guangjian searched for it – even Pei Qian had not downloaded it yet.

“He must not have had the time to promote it since the game’s just gotten through the vetting process… yes, that must be it.”

Ruan Guangjian consoled himself while downloading and entering the game.

He naturally did not care about the 10 yuan cost of the game.

It was an extremely rudimentary card game with a gameplay that resembled Qute Three Kingdoms six months ago.

However, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

Mobile games had never required overly complex systems or gameplays. In this age, the trend still leaned towards mobile games that were more relaxing.

Most of the gamers could only afford around three hours of daily gameplay spread through the entire day.

Therefore, most of the mobile card games around that period revolved around automated gameplays such as clearing stages and sweeps¹ using energy and limited number of entries to control the amount of time gamers had to spend on the games.

Introducing too many flowery gameplays wasn’t something that would benefit them.

However, for a game such as Qute Three Kingdoms that has already been operating for a year, there exists a paradox.

While new gameplays were more effort than they were worth and could bloat the game such that gamers would find it too tedious, these same gamers would feel bored of the game if it remained the same all the time without any new elements.

As such, Qute Three Kingdoms would go through an update every three months or so to introduce new skills and cards. While that caused their game to turn bloated, they had no other choice.

However, that problem wouldn’t exist for a new game such as Ghost General.

While it made use of Qute Three Kingdoms’ older gameplay, it was a classic gameplay that had already gone through the market’s approval and gamers would be more accepting towards it.

All it took was a change of overall appearance to please the gamers.

Besides, since the game contained some of the more rudimentary playstyles, card gamers would be able to pick up on it quickly without finding it tedious or tiring.

Ruan Guangjian did not take long to draw some cards that were suitable for newcomers.

Looking at the overall effects, he felt that they were decent!

When he was creating the original arts, Ruan Guangjian knew that these would be used for a card game and as such, he had intentionally added some unique designs so that the characters would seem more moving.

For example, if Guan Yu the dragon was waving his blade and wanted to slash someone, his card would shake with that would vibe with the players.

The more he looked at them, the prouder Ruan Guangjian was.

“Indeed, I’m the only one who can create such perfect original arts!”

Initially, Ruan Guangjian was even worried that his art style may seem awkward or would not match with the game. But now, it looked completely fine.

Not only were the cards fitting in well, it even added a unique feel to the game.

The beautiful cards along with the decent interface effects and passable music and sound effects gave Ruan Guangjian quite a decent playing experience!

Having played other mobile card games before, it didn’t take long for Ruan Guangjian to get the hang of it.

Or perhaps, it was because he was the one who had created the original art and he felt like its father that Ruan Guangjian was even more enamored towards the game.

After a few minutes, he entered the routine card drawing segment.

Most of the card games would introduce a segment as such so that they could entice the players to stay with a rare card.

Of course, in order to ensure that the game’s paywall would work, the card would normally be just a normal purple card. It was something that may seem decent for newcomers but in reality, it wouldn’t be useful and would be taken as trash in the later stages.

Ruan Guangjian was naturally clear about that point.

However, he was stunned after 10 consecutive draws.

He had actually drawn two orange cards?!

Ruan Guangjian had a clear understanding of the cards’ values in-game. After all, the requirement form had stated clearly that a portion of the warriors would be made into rare cards.

Right now, he had already drawn two warriors – Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang. These two were true blue rare warriors and in fact, the rarest in the game!

Ruan Guangjian was completely confounded.

His first reaction was that this game must still be in its testing stage. That must be why the draw chances were set wrongly and there was a high chance of drawing rare warriors.

However, it did not take long before the next most ridiculous thing came along.

To Ruan Guangjian’s shock, he found out that the game’s shop only had a single purchasable item – a permanent membership card!

Players who do not purchase the membership card could only have a 10 draw daily while gamers who did could have two 10 draws.

Other than that, Ruan Guangjian found no other purchasable items nor were there any premium systems or the likes.

In other words, while the game contained in-game purchase elements, the most one could spend was just 30 yuan! They couldn’t even top up more into the game if they wanted to!

“This… could this be because the game is in a testing stage and that’s why the functions are incomplete?”

“But that’s not right. Isn’t this the version that had already gotten through ESRO’s vetting process?”

Ruan Guangjian felt that something was wrong.

If the creators wanted to update the game or fix any bugs, they would have to apply to ESRO for a new vetting process.

Besides, there was a limited number of times that one could apply for a vet monthly and they couldn’t repeat it endlessly so that ESRO’s staff would not have their time wasted.

Usually, it would be the actual version of the game that was submitted for the vetting process and there shouldn’t be fundamental issues as such!

After all, the game would be published on the official shop after it was approved so that gamers could see and purchase it.

Out of responsibility for the gamers, the creators should not be changing the contents of the game incessantly as well.

Ruan Guangjian was thoroughly stumped.

Since it wasn’t a lowly error, it must have been intended by the creator!

He had not thought that Ghost General would be a mobile card game with this much conscience!

Wouldn’t they be making terrible losses then?!?!