Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Apart from these, there was the problem with the environment. Souls-like games were not successful from the beginning. They had gone through a period of having very low sales.

From the earliest-released Demon’s Souls to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls 3… all the way to Sekiro; the difficulty level decreased progressively. While maintaining Souls-like games’ essence, the game creators lowered their difficulty to cause an increase in sales volume.

This proved that the more difficult games were, the lower their sales volume would be.

What’s more, the success of Souls-like games depended on the region.

Demon’s Souls went in a direction completely opposite from what was set by the publisher. While researching and developing the game, Miyazaki Hidetaka played some tricks and created the game against the requirements set out to him. Instead, he created a game that fully reflected his own style.

By the time the management realized this problem, Demon’s Souls was already more or less complete. They were furious, but they could not do anything about it except to make a Hail Mary effort with it.

In the beginning, even the publishers did not think the game would succeed. If the leader of the project-Takeshi Kajii—had not persisted, the game might not have been published at all.

In the early period when the game was published, the renowned video game magazine -Famitsu-gave the game a low 29 points out of 40.

The game was more or less a failure locally. Miyazaki Hidetaka tried his best to make use of his network and contacted publishers in the United States and in Europe. In the end, the game unexpectedly became popular!

The key reason for this was that Souls-like games perfectly suited the taste of hardcore Western gamers who loved standalone games. Within China, Souls-like games only really became popular fifteen years later.

At that moment, the environment in the game industry matched what Pei Qian remembered. Difficult games were only enjoyed by the minority and were thus not very popular. Since that was the case, Pei Qian could solve the problem by creating an extremely difficult Souls-like game to be released only in China.

What’s more, in order to prevent this game from being discovered by people in the West, he had to create Chinese-style backgrounds. He also had to widen the cultural gap to ensure that people in the West would not be able to understand the game even if they tried!

Pei Qian could not help but feel overjoyed. Indeed, there was no limit to one’s creativity. If he had not been trying so hard to incur losses, he would not have realized that he was such a creative person!

Pei Qian succinctly explained the direction of the game to everyone. In sum, he had five requirements.

First, the game had to have Chinese scenery as its background theme. It had to contain huge amounts of riddles, puzzles, and Chinese content. It also had to be written in the ancient Chinese language. This was mainly to ensure that the game would not be discovered by Westerners and become famous as a result. In order to solve the riddles, one would need an excellent understanding of ancient Chinese. This would make the Westerners completely uninterested in playing the game!

What’s more, the game would primarily be sold domestically. Not translating the game into other languages would not constitute a violation of the system’s rules.

Second, the game had to be extremely difficult. Pei Qian requested for Bao Xu and Lu Mingliang to use all of their brain juice to think of ways to make players fail at the game. Their top priority should be to persuade players to admit defeat.

Third, this had to be a grand action game. There had to be huge amounts of models, movements, and scenery. They had to use up all the budget allocated for art resources!

They had to think of as many ways to spend money as possible!

Of course, ‘spending more money’ was relative to the investment Tengda Games made earlier. In fact, the limit Pei Qian set in his heart was twenty million yuan. He would want to spend more than that, but the System would not allow for it.

That amount was nothing compared to overseas research and development budgets for massive projects, which could easily go up to tens of millions or even a hundred billion yuan. However, compared to the investments that domestic producers made, it could still be referred to as a big project.

Fourth, this game had to maximize the period that players would be allowed to ask for a refund. According to the requirements of official games platforms, games bought on the official games platform could be refunded up to three hours after purchase. This limit could only be adjusted upwards, not downwards.

In fact, most games merchants wished that the limit could be adjusted downwards or gotten rid of altogether. None of them would voluntarily adjust the limit upwards.

However, Pei Qian decided to use the maximum limit that the official games platform would allow-five hours! For many small games, the total game duration was about three or four hours. To allow refunds up to five hours after purchase of the game would be insane. It would be as good as free.

To Pei Qian, three hours was not long at all. Some players of Dark Souls 3 would kill three hours fighting Champion Gundyr without even realizing it. The refund allowance period would be over by then.

Pei Qian decided to allow refunds up to five hours after purchase of the game and even offer a reminder to players ten minutes before the end of this five-hour-period. This reminder will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the game.

This would ensure that every player did not let the allowance period expire without realizing

it.

Fifth, the game’s name…

To avoid influencing the players with its name and accidentally misleading people, Pei Qian decided to make the name absolutely clear. The game would be called Repent and be Saved. This would serve as an honest warning from Pei Qian to the players.

After hearing Pei Qian’s five requests, Bao Xu was confused.

As Pei Qian remembered, Demon’s Souls was released in 2009. The world that he was in did not have Demon’s Souls yet. Thus, even an experienced and well-exposed gamer like Bao Xu had not heard of such a sadistic game.

Of course, there were a few hardcore games that became famous for their high difficulty. However, he had never seen a game that made defeating players its aim like Pei Qian was suggesting.

The other requirements were understandable. The difficulty level itself was what really stumped Lu Mingliang and Bao Xu.

“Boss Pei, can you tell us more about this difficulty level? For example, what percentage of players do you want to be defeated by the boss in the final level?” Bao Xu asked.

Pei Qian instinctively wanted to say, “99.9999% of them!”

Yet, in his vision, a line of words appeared.

(Warning! It is a violation to create a game that most players cannot win. The maximum difficulty allowed for the game must be determined by the owner’s ability to win it.]

Pei Qian’s smile disappeared from his face.

System, I f*cking almost blurted it out!

I must be able to win at the game? My hand is f*cking disabled!

I can be tortured even in Ocean Stronghold. You need me to be able to win at this game. You might as well tell me that I’m not allowed to create a game like that altogether!

However, Pei Qian did not panic. After all, he was well-exposed and knowledgeable. A small problem like that would not stump him.

I have to be able to win the game?

That would be easy. I would secretly hide something in the game…

I’ll hide an especially strong weapon in the game. Players would only be able to obtain such a weapon after unlocking a highly-complex, hidden plot. They would have to progress in the game in a completely illogical manner in order to get it.

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After that, with this strong weapon, his understanding of Souls-like games, as well as a prior understanding of the various levels and maps; Pei Qian would spend two or three weeks trying to win at the game. That would resolve the problem.

For the sake of incurring losses, I will work hard!

Once this thought appeared, the System stopped showing warnings. This meant that it was allowed.

Pei Qian smiled slightly and answered Bao Xu, “We will not cut off any players based on design. However, theoretically, most players should be able to win at the game. They would just need a bit of technique.”

The subtext of his response was that if they decided to give up on the game, they could not blame Pei Qian.

“Design the game to be as difficult as you can possibly imagine. I will personally make the final edits.”

When the time came, he would add the special weapon into the game. He would make the game as difficult as it could be with the special, powerful weapon on hand. Then, he would not get another warning from the System.

If players could not find this weapon, it would be like they were in hell. If they were allowed to return the game unconditionally within five hours of making the purchase, most people would refund it for sure!

Lu Mingliang asked, “Boss Pei, the game would be called Repent and be Saved, and it would have mostly Chinese backgrounds. What theme would its world take on then?”

Pei Qian smiled and said, “You can decide on minor things like that.”