Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Fish-Catching Internet Cafe’s losses had reassured Pei Qian greatly. As for Boss Pei’s Daily Life and Game Designer, they both had signs of losing steam as well. If something else happened with Fish-Catching Internet Cafe again, Pei Qian’s heart might not be able to take it anymore.

 Fortunately, Ma Yang would never let him down! Pei Qian settled down a little.

 He was still most concerned now with Game Designer. The internet cafe continued to incur losses. Although three hundred thousand seemed like a lot, it was the icing on the cake and wasn’t that substantial.

 As for Boss Pei’s Daily Life… Pei Qian’s only wish was for it not to engage in sponsored partnerships.

 “Next, I have to continue paying attention to Game Designer; I can’t allow anyone to pull any stunts! I must learn my lesson from Ocean Stronghold the previous time.

 “Previously, I had not delved into Ocean Stronghold and played it for long; I had only seen the story mode and the 888 Red Kilin and thought that all was good. In the end, it wasn’t that case at all!

 “This time, I must play the game through from start to end!”

 Thinking of this, Pei Qian was a little anxious.

 Everyone said that it was hard to make money.

 For me—why was it that it was so hard to make a loss?!

 …

March 25th…

 Game Designer was finally officially completed. It was in late-stage modification and bug fixing now.

 Pei Qian asked for the latest version of the game from the developing team and installed it on his computer. He was going to have a go at it from the start! Although he knew every choice and result like the back of his hand, Pei Qian still wanted to complete the entire gameplay once.

 The release date for the game was April 1st.

 To release a game on April Fool’s Day; yes, he was that reckless! If Pei Qian really found something in the game now that might result in it being popular, there still was time to fix and rectify it by April 1st.

 As for publicity…

 Pei Qian had given up on struggling.

 Different from the past two times, Tengda Games now was rather well-known. With Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold’s reputations, Tengda had gained in popularity.

 To date, all of Tengda’s games had been released through the official games platform. Once Game Designer was released, some Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold players would definitely come to try it out!

 Under these circumstances—regardless of whether he did advertising or not, it would not affect Game Designer that much.

 The crux was the game itself.

 Pei Qian had done so many things in the game to mock gamers; that was where his confidence was at! Pei Qian started the game from the very beginning. Every segment, every result, every voice-over; he paid much attention to them.

 “…Lu Mingliang’s dubbing is actually not bad? How did he make out this irritating and cheapskate voice? It’s so boring. There’s no point in running, really. This voice-over keeps on mocking me; can I just go and beat Lu Mingliang up now…”

 “How long more do I have to run…? Hang in there…”

 Pei Qian felt that he was in a trance; Game Designer had created the ultimate urge in him to quit playing. Although Ruan Guangjian had personally created the animation and concept designs and the entire game’s artistic style was rather unique—to Pei Qian, these were tasteless.

 Why?

 Every single choice, every voice-over… had been written by Pei Qian!

 Walking in a room, he was faced with an umpteenth number of choices. For a gamer, after every door and every decision, an unknown awaited them. However, for Pei Qian, he knew clearly what was going to happen.

 Knowing what was going to happen well; would this game be fun?

 Just like if one was watching a detective drama, and he already knew who the killer was—what the ending was like. No matter how good or splendid the process was, it would not have that good an effect.

 Hence, Pei Qian scrunched his nose as he went through the entire gameplay once and experienced a few different endings. He came to a conclusion.

 This game was exceedingly boring! There was no special way to play it. Players could only control their gamers to run around and enter room after room. Every time they ran to a new room, they could only see the setup inside each room and hear a voice-over mocking them.

 Besides that, no other way of playing the game existed!

 “En, not bad. This time, this game has standards.

 “Alas, I must indeed intervene in order to make sure things are smooth!”

 Pei Qian rested easy. From the looks of it, this game did not require any alterations. It would flunk at the launch, and all he had to do was wait for the losses to come in!

 …

…

At this same time, everyone else in the company was extremely busy.

 Ma Yiqun—who had formally entered the company—received his first formal task. He was to play Game Designer!

 However, it was to just experience the game.

 Lu Mingliang asked Ma Yiqun to see more and learn more; however, he was not intending to let Ma Yiqun raise any opinions or suggestions. He most definitely was not going to let Ma Yiqun make changes to the game.

 “This company… is indeed special,” Ma Yiqun sighed and said.

 The work environment was very good while a harmonious environment was ever-present; a salary package much higher than the industry standard.

 Ma Yiqun had heard Huang Sibo talk about these things before and hence had not felt that surprised.

 What surprised him was the way the company worked!

 He still remembered the first day he entered Shang Yang Games back then. He had just entered and before he had even warmed his seat, Old Liu had tossed a huge pile of game synopses at him.

There was no direction, no instruction. His demands were vague and his standards unclear. Besides the due date, everything else was left to Ma Yiqun. All in all, he was there to work!

 As for Tengda, things were completely different. He had arrived and had not been given any work but only a few words: see more and learn more! If he wanted to quickly throw himself into work?

 Apologies, that wasn’t going to happen.

 “Indeed, this is a completely different level, right?

 “Shang Yang Games was doing things that were rough and did not apply technology at all. Hence, even newcomers like me could get used to the work quickly. Hiring new people for them was entirely just to have menial workers to issue commands to.

“For Tengda, a high standard of design had to go into the work here. Hence, newcomers could only learn! Furthermore, this learning process had to be for an extended time…

 “Ah, I seem to have returned to high school. I’m quite nervous and the pressure is great.”

 Ma Yiqun couldn’t help but salute Tengda. After running through Game Designer once, Ma Yiqun felt that it was very unique. This type of game… he had never seen it before!

 It did not seem to belong to any commonly seen games in the market now. If this was something proposed at Shang Yang Games, the boss would have shot this down immediately. With no precedent and huge risks involved, Shang Yang Games’ boss would definitely not have invested money in it!

 However, it seemed like this kind of new and uncommon thing was quite normal. With the boss leading the way to innovate and come up with new ideas, all employees listened and cooperated seamlessly!

 This kind of understanding and consensus was not something that could be fostered in a short while.

In Shang Yang Games, Ma Yiqun frequently heard some conversations like ‘is there precedence’, ‘which game is this copying’, ‘are there enough paywall options’, etc. In Tengda, he had not heard such talk at all. It seemed as if everyone was working in steps towards a common goal. Although Ma Yiqun didn’t understand, he felt this was something incredible!

 Ma Yiqun deeply felt that he still had so much to learn.

 “No wonder no work has been assigned to me; my abilities are still severely lacking! I must work hard to learn and understand what’s going on; I must align with Boss Pei’s train of thought as soon as possible!”

 Ma Yiqun quietly made up his mind.