Chapter 22
It did not take long for the other people in the dormitory to raise the same issues.
“Why is there only a single purchasable item in the shop?”
“You’re only allowed to top up 30 yuan?”
“Also, you’re only entitled to an additional 10 draw chances per day after purchasing it? That seems useless!”
“What about premium systems? Qute Three Kingdoms is already at eight tiers of it!”
Everyone turned to look at Ruan Guangjian.
However, he did not know what was going on as well!
Pondering, he replied, “I don’t know what’s the exact situation. Perhaps I should ask Boss Pei about it. Maybe there’s some special considerations or this might not even be the final version?”
Ruan Guangjian was puzzled as well as he left a message for Pei Qian through the resource website’s contact options.
“Boss Pei, I’ve seen that there’s no premium system or other in-game purchasable items. Is it because the game is still in a testing stage? These options would be added in the final version, right?”
Before long, Pei Qian replied.
“This is the final version.”
Ruan Guangjian was shocked. “What… about in-game purchasable items?”
Pei Qian: “The permanent card is the only thing our game will be selling and we have no intention of releasing any other new products either.”
Ruan Guangjian: “Why?!”
Pei Qian: “Why? There’s no why! Our game’s pricing strategy is to have a single fixed price. The players would have already spent 10 yuan just to purchase our game, how could we implement even more in-game purchases?”
“In fact, my original plan was to not even have that 30 yuan permanent membership card! However, I decided to add it eventually based on the needs of certain groups of players.”
Ruan Guangjian was thoroughly stumped and did not know what to reply for the longest time.
Boss Pei was so compassionate!
The paywall of Qute Three Kingdoms was around 1,000 yuan and only paying whales could obtain the extremely rare cards. As for normal gamers, they had to slog for a long time before they could even get a single purple card.
However, everyone was almost equal in Ghost General! The only difference was a mere 30 yuan permanent membership card!
If this was Qute Three Kingdoms, that amount of money would not even be enough for a single 10 draw!
Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt that he had gauged Pei Qian’s gentlemanly heart with his own mean measure.
He thought that the reason why there was no paywall was because the game was incomplete or due to other reasons.
However, it was only after asking that he realized – Pei Qian had not intended to create a paywall at all! he wanted to make this an extremely fair mobile card game!
He wanted the normal players to be able to enjoy the pleasure of drawing rare cards as well!
Ruan Guangjian’s eyes were brimming with tears as he felt that he had gone overboard for charging Pei Qian 3,000 yuan per set for the original arts.
He should have given a discount for a creator with such ideals and character!
Suddenly, another question struck Ruan Guangjian as he asked hurriedly, “Boss Pei, another thing. The game’s not getting many downloads yet. Is it because you haven’t started the marketing campaigns?”
Pei Qian: “Marketing? Fu, there’s not going to be marketing.”
Ruan Guangjian was stunned. “Why not?!”
What was the reason for creating a game to not market it?!
Even a good restaurant fears being situated at the far end of the street – how would gamers know about this game without any marketing?
Pei Qian: “Because I’ve got no money! I spent a total of 300,000 on this game to purchase the template, art resources, music, sound effects and cloud rental service equipment… basically, there’s no money left.”
Ruan Guangjian was moved to tears.
What sort of a spirit did this man possess?!
Ruan Guangjian recalled how generous Pei Qian was when it came to the original arts job.
Initially, Ruan Guangjian had suggested a price of 2,000 yuan for a set of four. However, Pei Qian said that 2,000 yuan was too low for their hard work at designing and insisted on raising the price to 3,000 yuan.
At that time, Ruan Guangjian thought that Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. was an extremely wealthy company that did not care about that bit of money.
With the looks of things now, that wasn’t the case!
Tengda wasn’t that rich at all! The investment fund merely had a total of 300,000 to spend on the game entirely with nothing left for marketing!
When he thought about it, while surprised, Ruan Guangjian could understand why it happened.
Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. had previously only produced a single game – The Lonely Desert Road. While it got some hype, how much could they have earned with a sales price of merely 1 yuan?
It was only natural that they would be cash-strapped now for their second game’s investment fund.
Despite the tight budget, Boss Pei could not even bear to exploit them and instead offered a price which both parties would find fair and acceptable…
Righteous! This man was too righteous!
Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt miserable – perhaps, Boss Pei might have had money left for marketing if he had asked for less previously?
However, he knew that he must not raise this topic either; after all, Boss Pei would definitely not want the money given his character. Besides, this man was the boss of a company – he would definitely want to save some face for himself.
The thought of that had Ruan Guangjian’s heart stuffing up dismally.
A game with this much conscience was about to be buried into oblivion just because there wasn’t enough money for marketing.
How heart-wrenching was that?!
“Guys, I think Ghost General needs us right now.”
Ruan Guangjian shared his thoughts with his friends of the dormitory.
Old Huang and the others were equally stunned.
“This game has so much conscience! Is it not intending to earn any money at all?”
“No company would create a game to not earn money. In my opinion, Boss Pei is someone with such upright morals that he doesn’t want to earn money wickedly!”
“That’s right. If he didn’t want to earn money, he would have set the entire game to be free! I think he’s depending on earning money through that fixed 10 yuan price!”
“But that sounds really difficult. No matter how much conscience the game has, it’ll be difficult for it to get popular without any marketing!”
“How about we be the ones advertising it?”
“We could, but there’s just so many of us… what’s the use? If we have some Big V or popular UP Masters, we might be able to get some attention to it. However, we don’t have such resources!”
All of them fell into deep thoughts.
Old Huang and the others were moved by Ruan Guangjian as well, convinced that a game as great as Ghost General must not be overlooked or it’ll be a huge loss for the domestic mobile games market!
However, they could not come up with many ideas no matter how they brainstormed.
There’s no way they could just go online and post ‘Ghost General is a good game’ repeatedly. That would be extremely inefficient and they may very well just be wasting their efforts.
Suddenly, Ruan Guangjian slapped his thigh. “I’ve got it! I’m in a group where there are some famous hotshot artists inside. Perhaps I could go ask them to see if they could be of help?”
Old Huang was stunned. “You’re in such a group? How did I not know of it?”
“Sigh, it’s a long story.”
Ruan Guangjian turned on his computer and explained, “Remember how I was doing a part time job at a concept art competition last year? Back then, I got acquainted with Teacher Chen Qi and I showed him my art. He was appreciative of it and encouraged me to develop it along the lines further while even adding me into a group.”
Pausing for a moment, he continued, “It’s a pity that the group’s full of our industry’s big shots. I’m too embarrassed to say anything inside and so I’ve just been lurking around till now.”