Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

29th January, Friday…

From the 18th, the profits that Ocean Stronghold generated were entered into the accounts. On average, it made four to five hundred thousand yuan per week!

There were still two more days to go before the accounts were to be closed.

During this period, Pei Qian continued to spend as much money as he could.

He expanded the bandwidths of the servers for Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold. The highest specifications were chosen for each of those games.

On top of that, Pei Qian also bought the most expensive Customer Service Team, which offered the best service and best at Tai Chi[1]. Although Pei Qian still did not need to pay that much money each month, at least he could increase the company’s spending.

Even so, Pei Qian felt helpless!

Pei Qian felt completely suicidal.

He could not finish spending the seventy to eighty thousand yuan left in the System Funds.

Over these two weeks, no matter how hard Pei Qian tried to spend the money, the System Funds still exceeded a million yuan!

There was some good news: as the number of new players kept decreasing, Ghost General’s income finally fell drastically after three months. This week, it only made about two hundred thousand yuan.

The bad news was that Ocean Stronghold was starting to make a profit. This week alone, it made more than four hundred thousand yuan!

There was even worse news: this could just be the beginning.

Ocean Stronghold was not the same as Ghost General; both of these games were vastly different!

Ghost General was only popular among the people who played mobile games. What’s more, because it was priced so low, the most people could spend was thirty yuan on the permanent card. That was why the income did not last long.

Ocean Stronghold was different.

As a successful FPS game, Ocean Stronghold now attracts the largest group of gamers: those on game clients!

What’s more, it was free-of-charge and extremely easy to share with others.

The in-game price of the Red Kilin was also extremely high. Although not many players bought the weapon—as long as one person bought it, it would match the amount of money spent by 88 ordinary players of Ghost General.

The income that Ocean Stronghold would generate would probably only increase.

Pei Qian had thought about updating Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold and then spending a load of money to buy a bunch of art resources for the games. This would allow him to get rid of more money.

However, if he updated the games, he needed to introduce new paywalls as well. That was the System’s rules.

Furthermore, in the week before settling the accounts, there could not be any unannounced products. Otherwise, the settlement date would be postponed.

Thus, if he wanted to update the games or do anything similar, he had to wait until the following week.

The System permitted other types of expenses such as for celebrations or bonuses. However, there was a limit. He could only spend a reasonable amount on these things!

In other words, was it possible to achieve a loss within two days?

It’ll be extremely difficult!

Still, Pei Qian did not lose all hope.

He had already thought about it before. Now, he only had two choices:

First, he could stop spending System Funds and wait for the accounts to be closed.

The benefit of this was that he could transfer about six thousand yuan into his Personal Wealth.

However, the drawback was that the target quota to hit before the System Funds would provide supplementary funds was about a million yuan or so. Now, there was already that much money in the System Funds. That meant… there would be no need for the System to provide supplementary funds. This would result in the same outcome as the previous time the accounts were settled.

The second choice was to continue spending System Funds as much as possible without affecting the settlement date.

The benefit of this was that no matter how much Pei Qian spent, the System Funds would definitely provide System Funds. That was comforting.

The drawback was that it could result in a reduction of Pei Qian’s Personal Wealth. Five thousand could reduce to three thousand or two thousand yuan.

However, if he could spend to the point that he had less than 494,000 yuan left remaining, he would be able to make more profit than he was making now!

After spending a long time thinking about this, Pei Qian finally figured it out.

He had to continue spending!

As for how he would do so…

He had to think of new methods!

…

Over time, Pei Qian understood more and more about the system.

According to the rules of the system, the System Funds could only be used for the maintenance and management of the company. On the other hand, there were no limits imposed on spending Personal Wealth whatsoever.

Still, there was no one set way of using the System Funds either. Pei Qian was free to do whatever he wanted within the rules and boundaries set out!

Take a simple meal, for example.

When Pei Qian was eating his own meals or treating his friends to meals, he could not use the System Funds.

However, when he organized an employee gathering, he could use the System Funds.

Nevertheless, he could not organize gatherings very frequently. He could not turn every meal into an office gathering; neither could he exceed the set limit.

For instance, they just had an office gathering the day before, and so they were not allowed to have another gathering that day… unless there was a good reason.

It was just like the reasons that Pei Qian had come up with previously: learning exchange, celebrating the research and development of a new game, etc. All of these were valid reasons.

Pei Qian performed relatively well in this aspect. The judgment of rule violations and limitations on the use of System Funds were all very situational.

There was no hard restriction on many things. Sometimes, if framed in a certain way, he would be able to do supposedly restricted things.

In the same way, he came up with excuses for the house and car that he rented as well as the high-class suit and high-end Alienware that he bought. He found ways to change his personal desires into the needs of the company.

Of course, these excuses were not omnipotent.

Did Pei Qian want to buy a pair of sports shoes for tens of thousands of yuan? Did he want tickets to one of his favorite singers’ concerts? Did he want to buy high-end cosmetics or an expensive sports car? Did he want to tip a female anchorwoman?

Since he could not do any of the above under the company’s name, the System would not allow him to pay for them using System Funds.

Now, Pei Qian had 1,100,000 yuan in the System Funds. He pondered for a moment and then made the decision to spend as much as he could!

Pei Qian was helpless the last time they settled the accounts because he was alone.

Now, things were different. He had his loveable employees!

Pei Qian had already come up with a detailed plan.

Once he confirmed it, Pei Qian called Assistant Xin into his own office.

“Have you edited the salary standards?” Pei Qian asked.

Xin Hailu nodded and said, “Yes, Boss Pei. I’ve already done everything according to your instructions.”

“First, I adjusted the salaries of all employees according to their ranks. The supervisor’s salary has been increased by 60%, and the others have all been increased by 30%.

“Apart from this, I’ve also rolled out the project bonus system. 15% of the net profits we earn from games would be distributed as a project bonus to all employees involved in the research and development of the game.

“We have also added employee welfare benefits. Each month, every employee will get a shopping card worth a thousand yuan.”

Pei Qian nodded and said, “Very good.”

All these expenses, from the salary adjustments to the project bonuses, were all the maximum amounts that the System permitted at the moment.

Pei Qian wanted to give the employees even more money, but the System would not allow it. This was the best he could do.

Before Ocean Stronghold was published, Pei Qian thought about distributing project bonuses and shopping cards. However, he could not justify such expenses.

This was because Ghost General was created entirely by Pei Qian. There was no way he could justify distributing the profits earned from Ghost General to Huang Sibo and the others.

However, this time was different. Ocean Stronghold was created by Huang Sibo, Bao Xu, and the design team. They slogged their guts out for the game. It would be completely reasonable for Pei Qian to distribute bonuses!

What’s more, now that the company was earning so much profit, it was understandable that he would use the resources to distribute shopping cards to the employees in order to take care of their welfare.

Assistant Xin held onto a little notebook and said, “The salaries should be paid out by today. Do you have any other instructions?”

Pei Qian looked relieved. Once the salaries were paid out, the System Funds would be reduced by more than three hundred thousand yuan.

Now that he had given out the project bonuses, every employee was earning to the tune of over ten thousand yuan!

Was there anything else he could spend on?

[1] This is an analogy for being good at pushing the blame to others.