Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

But, how should he dissuade the gamers?

Pei Qian was a nobody to begin with. Even if he were to declare his identity as the creator of The Lonely Desert Road, how was he going to spread the news quickly?

After pondering about it, he decided that it would be better for him to explain things right in the details of his game’s page on the official games platform.

That way, the gamers who enter to download the game would be able to read his message directly and that would be the best method of dissuasion!

At that thought, Pei Qian opened the back end and started editing the game’s summary.

“My sincere apologies!”

“I’m sorry, this is truly an extremely and downright trashy game!”

“It’s boring to the max and isn’t worth playing at all!”

“Please stop playing it! Gamers who bought it please seize the chance to ask for a refund! Thank you!”

Pei Qian changed the summary and waited.

In the end, even after an hour passed, the hourly download volume of the game did not show any signs of dropping!

Not only that, there were some new comments.

“Eh? The summary of the game changed?”

“Did the creator of the game undergo some trauma?”

“On account of you saying sorry, I forgive you. However, it’s too cumbersome to ask for a refund of a mere 1 yuan. Take it that I’m treating you to ice cream, creator!”

“This creator’s making me burst with laughter. Do you really think we don’t know that it’s a trash game? It’s precisely because it’s trash that we’re playing it!”

“This creator really knows his own worth. On account of your honesty, I’ll tip you with an additional 5 yuan!”

“I’ll send this game to my friend as a gift!”

Pei Qian was almost on the brink of tears upon reading the comments.

What must I say in the summary to persuade you guys to ask for a refund?!

Pei Qian had finally realized that setting the sale price at 1 yuan was a huge mistake – it was so cheap that people who bought it weren’t even bothered with going through the refund process!

However, the main point was that Pei Qian didn’t dare to set it too high as well – this was an indie game after all. If he had set it at 100 yuan, not only would it be difficult to get through ESRO’s vetting process, the system would definitely warn him for it too!

Pei Qian was despondent as he looked at the popularity of the game soar rapidly – he could barely take it anymore.

…

Monday.

“Brother Qian, you’re skipping this afternoon’s classes again?”

Ma Yang had already packed his stuff. He asked puzzledly as he looked at Pei Qian who was clearly awake but lying on his bed and contemplating about life with widened eyes like a dead fish.

Pei Qian waved it off; he didn’t even have the strength to reply.

“You’re really something.”

Ma Yang left with his books.

This was year one after all. Most students would only cultivate the habit of skipping classes and sleeping till noon by the time they were in year two or three.

Pei Qian was someone who had transmigrated from 10 years in the future after all and he knew that skipping these classes meant nothing to him.

At the end of the day, he wasn’t in a course like medicine or law where missing a single class could possibly lead to a failure. For a normal humanities major like his, even if he skipped classes completely, he could still cram his way to a pass at the last minute.

Besides, Pei Qian was in no mood to attend classes at all…

When he refreshed the back end of the game editor daily and saw the leaping figures, he would start to contemplate more about life.

After lying on his bed like a corpse for a full 30 minutes, Pei Qian found the courage to summon the system.

After Sunday’s settlement, the profits from the games platform should have been transferred to his company accounts early that morning.

By now, the System Funds should have been refreshed as well.

Dreaded, Pei Qian looked at the line of numbers on the screen of the system.

<Wealth Conversion System>

<Owner: Pei Qian>

<Profit Conversion Ratio 100:1. Loss Conversion Ratio 1:1>

<Next Settlement: 7 days later.>

<System Funds: 51394.5 (↑1394.5)>

<Personal Wealth: 367>

“Oh…”

He closed the interface of the system, feeling as though he was about to die!

He could truly take this no more!

In truth, Pei Qian had mentally prepared himself slightly before looking at the figures – after all, he could have a rough estimate of how much money the game made based on the number of downloads.

After Teacher Qiao’s episode was published, the game’s downloads was increasing daily.

Teacher Qiao’s video was shared widely by many marketing accounts and there were other content creators who hopped aboard the bandwagon hoping to get a piece of The Lonely Desert Road’s hype.

The moment it started getting viral and people were sharing it, it was almost impossible to stop the hype train.

Pei Qian could only watch helplessly as the game’s daily downloads went from dozens to hundreds to thousands.

The rapid surge in the downloads numbers caused the game to get a better recommendation spot under indie, driving simulator and racing games genres as well.

Each time Pei Qian turned on the system’s back end, he would receive notifications.

“Congratulations! Your game, The Lonely Desert Road, has been awarded with XXX recommendations. Please try not to update the game’s version within this week so as to prevent any unknown bugs from affecting the game experience…”

Pei Qian was already indifferent towards seeing the notification.

By now, he was dead inside!

There was another week to go and the System Funds has already broken through 50,000 yuan. That means to say that the money earned would be converted to his Personal Wealth under the 100:1 ratio come settlement.

1,000 yuan would be able to get him… 10 yuan?

Pei Qian looked at the figures shown and was utterly exasperated.

…

…

A week later.

Dormitory.

“… Ridiculous! How in the world did such a lame game get popular?”

“Get the hell out of my computer!”

“Someone on the rankings actually spent over 40 hours on this game… is he nuts?!”

Ma Yang was playing The Lonely Desert Road on the upper bunk bed. He quit in less than five minutes and he was bewildered as to how such a game got popular.

Pei Qian on the other hand was shivering on the lower bunk.

“Hey, Brother Qian! Have you played that extremely popular lame game? That something, something desert road?” Ma Yang poked his head down and asked.

“… No.” It was the truth – Pei Qian had truly not played the game.

It was because he knew all too well that the game was created to disgust people. How could he play it…

Ma Yang slapped his own thigh.” What a scam! I wonder which wicked as*hole created a game as such! What a rotten person!”

Pei Qian: “…”

I truly didn’t expect you guys to play! Can I be blamed that all of you insist on playing it?!

Pei Qian had not imagined that the game’s popularity would reach the school and even his own dormitory…

In the span of a single week, through the mass sharing of content creators and games media outlets, The Lonely Desert Road had turned so popular that Pei Qian was questioning life itself.

He was extremely relieved that streaming platforms were not as popular in 2009 just yet as it was still in a growing phase. At the moment, the only player that monopolized the market was Waiwai streaming platform that only had a mere hundreds of thousands of users.

If livestreaming was as popular as it was 10 years in the future…

Pei Qian could not imagine how things would have been like.