Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Bao Xu looked in the direction of Pei Qian’s office. “Is Boss Pei around?”

“No. He has not been in the office these two days,” Lu Mingliang replied.

Lu Mingliang had completed recording the voice-overs for the game.

He started recording on the 25th, continued on it intermittently, and completed it on March 1. Although he wasn’t very efficient, he had completed the task on time.

After all, Lu Mingliang was not a professional voice actor. Even if he had a voice-acting coach beside him, he had to repeat several sentences dozens of times initially before they were finally satisfied with the end result.

Now that he had completed the voice-overs, he could finally focus solely on producing the game.

“Brother Bao, I have sent the documents for the design of the new game to you. Can you check if there are any changes required?”

Lu Mingliang was very respectful towards Bao Xu.

After all, Bao Xu was the inspiration for Ocean Stronghold. No one could be compared to Bao Xu when it came to figuring out Boss Pei’s motives! Bao Xu opened the document and skimmed it. “These were all decided by Boss Pei. I shall not look at it anymore. I might not understand it even if I looked at it.”

It was a taboo in the game industry to randomly alter the game designs.

Everyone had their own ideas. Many a time, there were no apparent right or wrong. The key to creating a good game was to follow one person’s decisions throughout to not produce a muddled mess.

Bao Xu felt that nothing could go wrong since Boss Pei was in charge of the project personally. The only thing that he should do was to watch closely and learn from it. There was no way he could pick at the details.

That followed exactly what Pei Qian had planned. Since the game was already at the development stages, there was no way that Bao Xu could be involved in it after he returned. When there was nothing for Bao Xu to do at work, he would definitely immerse himself into his games.

In that case, the probability of success of the new game decreased further. The plan was in motion!

…

Sure enough, everything went according to Pei Qian’s plans. Bao Xu flipped the design manuscript and looked at everyone who was working. He felt that they did not need his help with the new game. Therefore, he opened his computer and started playing Ocean Stronghold.

He had been stifled after a month away from games!

As the saying went, absence made the heart grow fonder. Bao Xu felt that the company was heaven, and he did not want to go anywhere else! While he was playing, Bao Xu discovered something amiss.

The hand sensitivity of the game didn’t seem that perfect.

A month ago, Bao Xu felt that the hand sensitivity of Ocean Stronghold had almost achieved perfection. However, when he played the game after a month, he had a new feeling.

“Since I didn’t have anything at hand, I might as well do some upgrades to Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold.”

…

Bao Xu grabbed a notebook nearby. As he played, he wrote down the changes that should be made. After the release of Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold, they had never been updated. Why didn’t the players feedback about that?

Of course, there was feedback!

However… Pei Qian could not receive those feedbacks and hence pretended as though they didn’t exist! It had been four months since the release of Ghost General and a month since the release of Ocean Stronghold. For game producers that updated frequently, it was normal for some to produce a new version each month.

For game producers that updated less frequently, a new version every three months was sufficed. However, there had never been a game like this! The game was obviously still profitable and popular, and yet there had not been an update for four months.

Pei Qian did not want to update newer versions of the games. Those two games were too popular! Look at the permanent card sales records for Ghost General and the Red Kilin sales records for Ocean Stronghold…

According to the requirements of the system, he had to produce a new purchasable item with every update. He could not waste money on the updates without profiting from them. Pei Qian weighed his options and felt that the players would be very willing to spend money on the new purchasable items!

Therefore, he treated it as though nothing had happened and buried his head into producing the new game.

Not updating the games would decrease the popularity of the games!

The members of the R&D team worked like dogs on Game Designer. Therefore, they did not have time to care about these two other games which were operating steadily.

However…

Bao Xu had a lot of time on his hands! Since he could not be involved in the new game, he could try his best to make alterations to the older games. Bao Xu first carefully adjusted the hand sensitivity of Ocean Stronghold.

After that, he opened Ghost General. Ghost General had comparatively more problems that Ocean Stronghold! Ocean Stronghold was collectively produced by Huang Sibo and a group of designers. After numerous tests, its design was relatively more mature.

On the other hand, Pei Qian completely copied off an existing game model when he produced Ghost General!

Most of the texts in the game were very detailed. They were all earnestly written (casually concocted) by Ma Yang.

However, there were many minute imperfections with the combat system and some basic functions. That was because the model that Pei Qian bought was a failed project. There might not be many bugs, but there was ample room for improvement.

Of course, these imperfections did not affect the popularity of the game much.

This was a mobile game after all. Players had lower expectations for the game. The game could run probably and the players settled with that.

After playing the game for a while, Bao Xu noticed that many small problems could be fixed.

He might as well change that with this opportunity!

Very soon, Bao Xu’s notebook was filled with notes on where to edit.

He was not producing new content for the game. Therefore, what he did could not be considered creating a new version for the game. He was merely upgrading and altering some components of the game.

Bao Xu looked at his notebook.

“Yup. I should be able to complete these within three to four days.

“No sweat at all. It’s my pleasure to help!”

…

Three days later…

In the Tieba for Ghost General…

The layout of the forum seemed a little messy as compared to the forums for other popular mobile games. That was because the game company did not manage this forum!

For games such as Qute Three Kingdoms, the company would cooperate with Tieba and assign a forum manager and several assistant forum managers. There would also be employees who would post content regularly on the forum.

However, all of that did not exist in Ghost General!

The forum was completely unmanaged. Some people vied for the forum manager position. However, they were not very proactive and would merely delete violated posts and advertisements when they saw them.

However, because there were many members in the forum, it was very active.

From about one or two months ago, there were many posts on Ghost General’s Tieba that complained about the game. The number of complaints increased recently.

“Can’t the game update a new version?”

“I’ve graduated from the game a long time ago. I have collected all the rare cards. Can someone tell me what else I can play in the game…?”

“I am so jealous of Qute Three Kingdoms. They have an updated version once every two months. Moreover, those updates were for players who were in the middle and late stages…”

“This is so frustrating. Other games had long-term goals to achieve and had purchasable items. This game is the complete opposite. I can’t even spend money on the game even if I wanted to! What do I do? I found that I don’t have any more goals in the game!”

“This is the first time I saw such an apathetic company. Ghost General is one of the top games in the charts and should be highly profitable. Why don’t the producers produce some updates?”

“I am not expecting any new game modes. I am satisfied if you produce a new warrior or come up with a new purchasable item!”

Players who had not played Ghost General for a long time would have a wrong impression when they entered this Tieba.

Were they in the wrong Tieba?

How was this supposed to be a forum for a mobile game?

For example, in the forum for Qute Three Kingdoms, there would be posts that criticized the game producers, game designers, and activity planners.

The activities scammed players of their money! The new content was insincere! If they did not see such posts one day, they would suspect if Tieba had crashed. However, everything seemed completely different in Ghost General’s forum!

Players were anticipating and hoping for Ghost General to come up with a new purchasable item! Some players were even having serious discussions on what the new purchasable item should be. Some suggested the game to sell a new warrior package.

There were also other suggestions. Some suggested having a top-up activity with a high top-up ceiling. For example, players would be awarded special resources when they top-up in the game. The minimum and maximum amounts for the rewards could be one yuan and fifty yuan respectively.

However, as much as the players hope for the game producers to add some purchasable elements in the game, the producers ignored those voices completely. This scenario could only happen for Ghost General!

It was a sight to behold!