Chapter 212 - Dis is the Newest Update dat You haf Never Played Before
Lin Wan continued to play the game seriously.
Although she still could not develop a liking for games like that,for the sake of following through with this historical, pioneering work and witnessing the birth of a new type of game; Lin Wan tried to act with a good deal of professionalism.
As a designer, she had to continue playing the game even if she did not fancy this game genre. She had to work hard to understand it!
“Eh? I am the chosen one!”
On her screen, Lin Wan’s game character suddenly lit up and expanded by two or three times. Among the other players, she looked like a formidable giant.
This was what it would look like if one was chosen by the ‘Chosen One’ system. At that moment, Lin Wan’s character’s battle powers were multiplied!
Lin Wan continued to ‘work hard’ by charging into the battlefield and slaughtering the masses.
About half an hour later, the war finally ended.
Ye Zhizhou knocked gently on the door. He had come to discuss something with Lin Wan.
He had come over once before already. However, upon seeing Lin Wan working on the game seriously, he decided that it was inappropriate to interrupt her. Hence, he waited for the war to end before coming over once more.
“Director Lin, I want to discuss with you about advertising. We’re still more than a month away from publishing the game, but I think it’s time to prepare for advertising.”
According to their past research and development experience, Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin both felt that it was time to come up with a marketing plan.
Lin Wan paused. “Huh? That early?”
Based on her recollection, the effects of Tengda Games’ advertising would only be seen after the game had been published. Then, their games would become popular almost immediately.
Lin Wan thought that was normal in the industry.
Yet, on second thought, it might be that she had been clueless.
It was obvious that Boss Pei planned for Game Designer’s performance-art-style advertising in advance. The advertising only took effect a while after the game had been published, but the work must have been done earlier.
At that thought, Lin Wan nodded. “Alright. Based on your experience, how do you think we should do it?”
Ye Zhizhou pondered for a moment and said, “According to our experience, the best way of advertising would be to buy advertising space on webpages and video websites. People would just have to click on the ads, and the game window would pop up…”
Lin Wan instinctively frowned.
That’s too low-class.
Lin Wan had always hated these dishonest, misleading, and irritating advertisements on websites. Now, her own game company was intending to do that?
No way!
Ye Zhizhou added, “However, our current problem is that our game is a mini-client.
“Even if the window pops up, players would still have to download some content before they would be able to play our game. This would greatly reduce our game’s click-conversion rate. This is a very serious problem. If the click-conversion rate is reduced, it would be more difficult for us to attract players to our game… we probably won’t be able to recover our advertising fee, then.”
Lin Wan was speechless.
Was he saying that even a low-class and irritating advertising method like that wouldn’t be effective?
Lin Wan pondered for a moment and then said, “I have to ask Boss Pei for his suggestions on this.”
Ye Zhizhou looked excited. “That would be best!”
Pei Qian had instructed Ye Zhizhou before to ask Director Lin about anything to do with the game’s creation process.
Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin had done so. Whenever they ran into minor problems in the research and development process, they would raise them up for internal discussion before allowing Lin Wan to make a call.
However, if no one could make a call, they would still have to consult Boss Pei.
None of them could think of good ideas for marketing the game. Thus, they had no choice but to ask Boss Pei.
Lin Wan felt apprehensively sent a message to Pei Qian, asking him about the advertising plan for Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version.
What if Boss Pei could not come up with a good advertising method either?
After all, the game is of a different type now that they have converted it from a browser game to a mini-client. Traditional methods of advertising would no longer work.
Even Boss Pei would need several days to think about it and reply to her, right?
Yet, a few minutes later, Lin Wan received Pei Qian’s reply.
“Wait, I’ll send you a plan.”
Five minutes later, Pei Qian sent a document to Lin Wan.
Lin Wan opened it and read it together with Ye Zhizhou.
The advertising method suggested by Boss Pei was very simple: ad-bombing! They would carry on with traditional ways of advertising and continue to place advertisements on webpages and video websites. It looked no different from the original advertising plan.
However, the plan which Boss Pei sent had specific requests. They had to spend money to hire stars who would cosplay and film the advertisements. Moreover, these stars had to be Hong Kong celebrities. They had to personally read the advertisement script which had already been written[1]!
“Hello, everyone! I am so-and-so. I haf acted in many shows, but in terms of games, I haf only played Bloody Battle Song: De Powerful Version. It’s a fair gam, which would allow everyone to feel like a baller. It will be to your advantage to play dis gam. I will be your bruvver on de battlefield tonai!
“So-and-so is rooting for Bloody Battle Song: De Powerful Version! Dis gam is very fun. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait anuver 120 years for something similar!
“Dis is the newest update dat you haf never played before. In just swee minutes, you will luf this gam as much as I do!
Everything else was similar to the above.
Lin Wan and Ye Zhizhou looked at each other, confused.
They closed the document and reopened it. They had thought that they had opened the wrong document.
Ye Zhizhou began to feel like a complete letdown. Boss Pei had sent the plan over so quickly; it was obvious that he had been prepared. For all Ye Zhizhou knew, Boss Pei had already thought of this advertising method way in advance.
Yet, why was he choosing a method like that?
The script sounded… very low-class!
Wouldn’t they be scolded and cursed at by everyone?!
Ye Zhizhou thought that since Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version was no longer a game with paywalls, one could call it a game with a heart. They could have washed their reputation clean!
Since that was the case, why did they have to produce advertisements like that and dirty themselves in front of the public? If this was a traditional game with paywalls, this method of advertising would be quite good indeed.
This was because the main players of web-based games were ballers and coal bosses, who loved watching Hong Kong films. What’s more, the script was very direct and could easily pique their interest.
However, Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’s main target audience was no longer ballers!
What’s more, this advertising method seemed old-fashioned. Even when held to the standards of ordinary advertisements for web-based games, it looked low-class.
Finished! I really don’t know what Boss Pei is thinking!
Ye Zhizhou looked at Lin Wan questioningly.
Lin Wan was deep in thought as well. It was obvious that she hated this script much more than Ye Zhizhou did. However, she understood Boss Pei much better than Ye Zhizhou did as well.
Everything that looked illogical had greater meaning!
After considering for a long time Lin Wan nodded slightly. “I understand. Boss Pei’s original aim is to free players from being slaves to money and influence their tastes!
“That means the advertising has to be done to attract players who love games with paywalls as much as possible. That’s the only way to influence their tastes and change their view on spending through this game!
“If players of traditional web-based games do not play this game, how could we dream of influencing their mindset?”
Ye Zhizhou felt confused.
“It’s… it’s not that extreme, right? This is a very common way of advertising web-based games.”
“It may look like that on the surface, but many things run deeper than that.” Lin Wan shook her head. “Boss Pei will know how to follow up. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
[1] The script is written to imitate the Hong Kong accent.