Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Note:
There's no Chapter 104, rather, it's just the author saying that he'd take a leave for a day.
Chapter 405: Just Finished Handling a Small Matter
January 24th, Monday.
With a face full of dark lines, Pei Qian arrived at the company and walked into his office.
Over the weekend, he had visited every mall containing one of the 21 phone booths, and the experience had completely shattered his spirit.
Among these 21 booths, the one at Huanyu Sky Street had been built personally by Zhang Wang, while the other 20 were manufactured by contracted factories.
Now, every single booth had been painted with hero illustrations from GOG, and the interiors had been stuffed with all kinds of things that, in Pei Qian's opinion, had absolutely nothing to do with a phone booth—such as drink machines, karaoke jukeboxes, gashapon machines, and more.
A perfectly normal phone booth had been forcefully transformed into a small multifunctional entertainment room!
And outside every booth, long lines had formed. Some people had even traveled from far away just to take photos or go inside to stamp a commemorative seal.
When Pei Qian finally found Zhang Wang, before he even had the chance to question him, Zhang Wang proudly began reporting the achievements of the Shared Phone Booth project.
Each booth cost about 10,000 yuan to build. Adding the various equipment inside—along with the AED device—and rent ranging from 500 to 1,000 yuan, the initial investment per booth came to slightly under 40,000 yuan.
If the hero artwork painted on the booths was included, the cost rose to about 70,000 yuan.
Currently, each booth was being used around seven to eight hours per day on average.
At 40 yuan per hour, plus the extra revenue from the drink machines and gashapon machines, each booth could earn over 300 yuan per day.
That meant around 10,000 yuan per month. Even after deducting maintenance costs and other expenses, earning 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per month was absolutely no problem.
By this calculation, the cost of a booth could be recovered within one year, and everything after that would be pure profit.
At that stage, the current 20 booths alone would generate over 100,000 yuan per month for Pei Qian.
Of course, for the battle-hardened President Pei, this mere hundred thousand yuan was only a tiny burden.
The reason he felt so miserable was mainly the severe sense of defeat this project had given him.
"Even a ridiculous project like this can make money???"
On a psychological level, the blow Pei Qian suffered from this project was far greater than from the previous profitable projects…
So even when he arrived at the office this morning, he still felt a bit mentally dazed.
Just then, a message appeared on his phone.
"President Pei, GOG is about to begin official testing."
Pei Qian glanced at the message and simply replied:
"Got it."
After thinking for a moment, Pei Qian sent a message to Lin Chang, arranging to meet near Handong University at Moyu Internet Café.
Over the weekend, Pei Qian had been busy dealing with the Shared Phone Booth situation, causing his meeting with Lin Chang to be postponed again and again. Eventually, it had been reluctantly pushed to this morning.
It worked out perfectly—while meeting Lin Chang, he could also stop by Moyu Internet Café to personally observe the real situation of GOG.
The so-called "official testing phase" meant that the test version of the game would be formally released on the official gaming platform, allowing players to freely download and try it.
Of course, considering server pressure, only a limited number of test accounts would be issued at the beginning. Naturally, core players of Tengda Group games would have a higher chance of obtaining them.
Through their playtesting and feedback, the developers could more effectively identify bugs and problems in the game and fix them.
During the testing period, the game version would certainly be full of bugs. However, players who enjoyed playing test versions tended to be more tolerant—they approached it with a "trying something new" mindset, so they usually didn't mind the bugs too much.
Still, Pei Qian felt that online comments alone wouldn't reflect the true situation of GOG.
Going to Moyu Internet Café to observe things firsthand would be much more reliable.
. . .
Meanwhile…
At the Terminal Chinese Web Authors Training Camp.
At noon, everyone sat around the long conference table, eating lunch while chatting casually.
Since there was no work on Saturday and Sunday, some of the authors made up their updates using chapters they had already stockpiled, while others continued writing in the hotel using their own laptops.
As a result, Ming Yu and Cui Geng, the two authors who had been personally singled out by President Pei, hadn't been seen by everyone else for three days.
"Hey, Ming Yu, Cui Geng—what did you two do on Friday? Come on, tell us," someone asked curiously about where they had gone.
Ming Yu cleared his throat and said quietly, "I went to a nearby internet café with really good computers. In the morning I secretly wrote three chapters, then saved them. In the afternoon I played some games."
Someone was stunned. "Wait, weren't we told not to write?"
Ming Yu smiled. "Yeah, but no one's actually checking. As long as I spread those three chapters across Saturday and Sunday updates, who's going to know?"
Everyone couldn't help but sigh in admiration.
As expected of a model worker! Even when forced to take a break, he still secretly stockpiled chapters!
With Zhu Anxing not around, the authors could speak freely.
Originally, Zhu Anxing had been sent by Ma Yiqun to supervise the writers. But after President Pei came for an inspection last time, he reassigned Zhu Anxing elsewhere and allowed the authors to manage themselves.
Ming Yu then turned to Cui Geng.
"What about you, Brother Cui? You didn't actually spend the whole day receiving Tengda Group's ideological education, did you?"
Another author chimed in, "Yeah, Brother Cui—was that 'completion announcement' you posted just out of frustration?"
To the authors who didn't know the full story, Cui Geng's behavior was extremely confusing.
On Friday, he had gone to Tengda Group's headquarters, and that very evening he posted a notice saying the novel would be ending soon, which scared his readers badly.
Everyone thought he was about to drop the book.
But then on Saturday, Cui Geng updated again—and not just once, but four chapters!
On Saturday, Sunday, and even Monday morning, Cui Geng continued writing the novel seriously, and the word count of his updates wasn't small at all. There was no sign whatsoever that he was about to abandon it.
Which made things even more confusing.
What exactly happened on Friday?
Was Cui Geng going to continue writing this book or not?
Facing everyone's questions, Cui Geng smiled slightly.
"Friday? I did indeed receive Tengda Group's spiritual education. But it wasn't the boring kind of lecture you're imagining. It was presented in a very creative way."
"You'll understand if you go there yourselves. That method was really interesting!"
"As for this book—I really do plan to finish it quickly. But that's because…"
"I've had a sudden realization. I want to wrap up this book quickly and then write a better one!"
Cui Geng's eyes sparkled.
During this period, he had been constantly designing the overall framework for The Butterfly Game. Once he gathered enough material from the various departments at Tengda Group, he would be ready to start writing.
Ming Yu felt curious.
He sensed that Cui Geng's mental state had clearly changed.
Before this, Cui Geng had suffered from serious procrastination, was somewhat lazy, and tended to be a bit overly sentimental.
To be honest, Ming Yu had always felt that Cui Geng was wasting his own talent.
Even writing casually, he could reach five or six thousand subscribers. If he wrote seriously and updated properly—say 6,000 or 8,000 words per day—wouldn't his subscriptions easily exceed ten thousand?
But looking at him now, he seemed as if he had completely turned over a new leaf.
Could Tengda Group's "spiritual education" really be that effective?
Cui Geng continued:
"And there's something else I learned from this Tengda Group training."
"That is—don't resist or reject rest and entertainment. Instead, you should use them to maintain a better working state."
"The number of words updated shouldn't be the only metric. What's more important is ensuring the quality of the novel."
"Didn't you always ask me how I managed to reach 5,000 average subscriptions, Ming Yu? I think for someone like you, the most urgent thing isn't writing more words—it's slightly reducing your update length and further improving quality."
Ming Yu thought about it for a moment.
"Hmm… that actually makes a lot of sense."
"How about I update a little less today and go study the Tengda Group spirit as well?"
Although he had been given a day off, Ming Yu hadn't been particularly interested in taking a break.
As the most motivated author in the training camp, what he cared about most was how to write more—and better—content.
Seeing Cui Geng's completely renewed attitude after undergoing a session of Tengda Group spiritual training, Ming Yu also began to feel tempted to experience it himself.
Another author spoke up.
"Uh… I want to go too."
"Me too!"
More than half the people at the table wanted to see for themselves what kind of Tengda Group training could cure the legendary 'King of Pigeons' (a nickname for someone who constantly delays updates) of his mental block.
But with so many people wanting to go, how should they arrange it?
Ming Yu thought for a moment.
"How about this—everyone competes based on their own results. Write however much you're supposed to update, and whoever writes the least gets to go."
"Anyone who has already gone once should write more voluntarily and not participate again."
"If multiple people skip updates entirely, then the one with the lowest average subscription count goes."
Everyone considered it for a moment and felt this was a pretty reasonable method, so they nodded in agreement.
As for Cui Geng, he no longer needed to participate. In the next couple of days, he would wrap things up here, leave the training camp, and start visiting various departments of Tengda Group for his new work—collecting material.
. . .
Moyu Internet Café
Pei Qian arrived before Lin Chang.
Instead of sitting down for coffee, he walked around the gaming area of the internet café.
The situation wasn't as optimistic as he had imagined—but it was still within an acceptable range. It wasn't terrible.
In his original expectations, GOG should have flopped badly.
Inside internet cafés, GOG had to compete directly with traditional online games such as Ocean Fortress. At the same time, it also had to compete with similar games like Divine Revelation and IOI.
Divine Revelation had a large and loyal player base, while IOI had become extremely popular overseas, and its popularity had already spread to the domestic market.
Just like other internet cafés, Moyu Internet Café had already installed the international server version of IOI along with a Chinese translation patch for customers.
Although the latency was somewhat high, customers at the café could still play IOI.
So Pei Qian had originally assumed that not many people would play GOG.
But when he arrived at Moyu Internet Café, he discovered that quite a lot of people were playing GOG. It had basically formed a three-way rivalry with Divine Revelation and IOI!
Of course, purely in terms of visual quality and overall game polish, IOI still had the upper hand.
After walking around for a while, Pei Qian fell into deep thought.
"Hmm… judging from the current situation, IOI should still be stable."
"Right now, the version available in internet cafés is still the overseas server, which has high latency. And during matches, players often can't communicate easily with teammates due to language barriers, so it naturally has some disadvantages."
"Even so, IOI is still more popular than GOG in the café, with slightly more people playing it."
"If IOI releases an official domestic server and solves the latency and communication issues, it will definitely become more popular than GOG, right?"
"So GOG should still fail. My judgment should be correct."
After thinking it through carefully, Pei Qian felt that the current situation wasn't too bad. If anything, it could be described as cautiously optimistic.
Just as he was thinking about this, Lin Chang arrived.
"President Pei, long time no see," Lin Chang said with a smile.
Pei Qian felt that Lin Chang's smile seemed to carry some hidden meaning, as if there were something behind it.
"President Lin, have you also been busy with work recently?"
Lin Chang chuckled.
"Just a small matter—mainly connecting a few parties together. I've already finished taking care of it."
<+>
Tn: I updated the story daily, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/posts/157991757?collection=1399284
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