In his previous life, the smartphone popularization wave occurred around 2010-2011. Benefiting from this trend, some popular mobile online games, such as card mobile games, appeared around 2012.

But in this world, smartphones appeared earlier, so similar card game gameplay had already emerged around 2008.

Now, in 2009, card mobile games were considered quite commonplace.

When card mobile games were first launched, they were indeed quite an innovative game mode, and stayed popular for a long time.

But now, due to the appearance of numerous reskinned card mobile games, this gameplay has triggered players’ psychological resistance. The days when one could simply change the skin and make money no longer existed.

The pioneer of card mobile games in this world was called “Cute Three Kingdoms.” Its success boiled down to a few points: cute Q-version art style, traditional card game mechanics, and so on.

Last year, the Three Kingdoms IP hadn’t been overused, and players were generally quite accepting of it.

This game rode the wave of smartphone popularization, creating a mobile game miracle in one stroke, earning a fortune and making industry peers incredibly envious.

In this world, game editors were advanced, allowing many independent game developers to quickly join the competition. As a result, various reskinned card mobile games sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain, exhausting what could have been a three-to-five-year popularity of card mobile games in just over a year.

Now, many players had an instinctive rejection and resistance when seeing card mobile games.

This was exactly what Pei Qian wanted!

Additionally, Pei Qian noticed that “Cute Three Kingdoms” had a significant difference from the card mobile games in his previous life.

In terms of payment, it was relatively restrained.

This game used a one-time purchase model in the mobile game market, selling for 5 yuan. Besides this, various in-game items were also priced quite reasonably. Things like “spend 2,000 yuan and receive a rare card” simply didn’t exist.

The ceiling for in-game spending was basically at the 1,000 yuan level. Beyond this line, there was nowhere to spend money.

But even so, “Cute Three Kingdoms” was still frequently criticized by players for being money-grabbing.

Because this world was different from the environment in Pei Qian’s previous life.

Perhaps due to extremely strong copyright protection awareness, piracy wasn’t as rampant in this world, and single-player game companies were doing well.

Therefore, single-player one-time purchases and online game time card systems were the main profit models, and players had accepted and were accustomed to these models.

With “Cute Three Kingdoms,” the creators obviously didn’t dare to be too excessive, only setting a 5 yuan purchase price and adding some in-app purchases in the game.

Even so, they were still heavily criticized by players.

After researching the market, Pei Qian began to consider how to deliberately fail at making the game.

The most direct method was to charge straight into the line of fire!

If there was already an extremely successful game on the market that was the pioneer of this type, then completely imitating it would almost certainly lead to a miserable failure.

Card mobile games were now a red sea, so he would make a card mobile game!

“Cute Three Kingdoms” was successful, right? Then he would also use the Three Kingdoms theme!

He would copy the gameplay, buy a similar card mobile game template from a resource site, spending ten or twenty thousand yuan, no big deal.

Of course, he couldn’t copy the art resources, as that would involve copyright infringement.

Pei Qian had no intention of copying the art style anyway, because he was counting on art resources to burn through his money. Otherwise, just buying a template alone, how could he easily burn through 300,000 yuan?

Another important point was the game’s monetization model.

“Cute Three Kingdoms” had restrained pricing, so should Pei Qian’s game make players spend money until they died?

Wrong! Terribly wrong!

Pei Qian didn’t think so.

He understood players’ mentality too well; most of these players were verbally critical but physically honest.

They would verbally complain about games being money-grabbing, requiring too much spending, saying they would never play again, and so on.

But when something new was released at a sky-high price, the wealthy players would still complain while reaching for their wallets.

If Pei Qian set the spending ceiling in this game particularly high, for example, at the level of tens of thousands of yuan, what if he encountered a bunch of wealthy players?

One wealthy player’s consumption could match thousands of ordinary players. In that case, a small number of wealthy players could directly turn the game from loss to profit, wouldn’t Pei Qian be spitting blood then?

So, he had to do the opposite!

To prevent wealthy players from spending, the game’s spending ceiling must be low enough!

Pei Qian thought about it. “Cute Three Kingdoms” had a spending ceiling of about 1,000 yuan, so he would push it down further, to 500 yuan!

No, 100 yuan!

Still not enough, 30 yuan!

Make it so that wealthy players who wanted to spend money had nowhere to spend it!

Of course, as a card game, there had to be some common cards and some rare cards.

The general approach was to make rare cards available through paid draws to boost income.

Pei Qian rejected this approach because he didn’t want to increase income; he wanted to lose money!

The most expensive item in the game would be a permanent membership card, costing only 30 yuan! After buying it, you would get a few extra card draws every day.

Apart from this, you wouldn’t find anywhere to spend money even if you wanted to!

Want to give money to Tenda? No way!

Ordinary players who didn’t spend this 30 yuan would still have chances to draw cards, just slightly fewer.

This way, players would have no compelling reason to spend money!

As for the game’s price, Pei Qian wanted to set it as free, but after a second thought, that wouldn’t be good.

Because among current mobile games, free ones were few, and most had a minimum price of 1 yuan.

If Pei Qian’s game were free, it might attract a large number of players.

What if it became popular?

So, Pei Qian took the contrary approach and set the game’s purchase price at 10 yuan!

Even more expensive than “Cute Three Kingdoms”!

These 10 yuan would serve as an extremely high threshold, deterring 90% of players from the start.

Think about it: a mobile game that completely relied on a card game template, without any gameplay innovation, priced 5 yuan higher than the most popular card mobile game currently on the market—who in their right mind would buy it?

Of course, this threshold couldn’t be too high either.

Because 10 yuan was already sufficient to deter players. If the price were set even higher, with roughly the same number of players, Pei Qian would earn more money.

Earning more money equaled losing more money, which was unacceptable!

So, Pei Qian determined his goal.

First, this would be an imitative work with only the most basic card mobile game gameplay.

Features that other card games didn’t have, my game definitely wouldn’t have either.

Features that other card games have, my game might not necessarily have!

In short, all systems would be overused, absolutely not allowing players to see any innovative gameplay!

Second, this would be a game that catastrophically collided with “Cute Three Kingdoms”!

Both used the Three Kingdoms theme.

Both were card mobile games.

Theirs was the genuine article; mine would be the counterfeit.

Give players no reason to choose this game over “Cute Three Kingdoms”!

Finally, this would be a game with an incredibly stupid pricing strategy.

First, use the high threshold of 10 yuan to deter average mobile game players.

Then, use the 30 yuan spending ceiling to block those wealthy players, making it impossible for them to spend even if they wanted to!

“I’m simply a genius!”

“A perfect plan!”

Pei Qian couldn’t help but admire himself. With these characteristics, could this game possibly make money?

No possibility, absolutely no possibility!