January 24th, Monday.
Pei Qian arrived at the company with a gloomy expression and entered his office.
Over the weekend, he had visited all twenty-one phone booths in various malls, and the sight had broken his heart.
Among these twenty-one phone booths, the one at Universal Street Mall was self-made by Zhang Wang, while the other twenty were manufactured by contracted factories.
Now, all the phone booths had been painted with hero artwork from GOG, and they were filled with various items that, in Pei Qian’s view, had nothing to do with phone booths—such as beverage machines, jukeboxes, capsule toy machines, and so on.
A perfectly good phone booth had been forcibly transformed into a small multi-functional entertainment room!
Moreover, there were long queues outside all the phone booths, and many people had come from far away just to take photos and collect stamps inside!
Feeling utterly speechless, Pei Qian found Zhang Wang. Before he could question him, Zhang Wang had already proudly begun reporting on the achievements of the shared phone booths.
Each phone booth cost around 10,000 yuan, plus various equipment including AEDs, along with rent ranging from 500 to 1,000 yuan, bringing the initial investment to just under 40,000 yuan.
If you added the cost of the original artwork, it came to 70,000 yuan.
Currently, each phone booth is being used for an average of seven to eight hours daily.
At 40 yuan per hour, plus additional income from beverage machines, capsule toy machines, and other equipment, each booth earned more than 300 yuan per day, amounting to over 10,000 yuan monthly. Even after deducting maintenance fees and other expenses, earning 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per month was entirely feasible.
At this rate, a phone booth would recover its cost within a year, and after that, it would be pure profit.
At that stage, the current twenty phone booths alone would earn Pei Qian more than 100,000 yuan every month!
Of course, for the battle-hardened Mr. Pei, this mere 100,000 yuan was just a negligible burden.
The reason Pei Qian felt so depressed was mainly due to the severe sense of frustration this project had brought him.
“Even such an unreliable project can make money when invested in???”
On a psychological level, the blow Pei Qian had received was much greater than from previous profitable projects…
So, even as he came to the company this Monday morning, Pei Qian still felt somewhat mentally disoriented.
“Mr. Pei, GOG is about to officially begin testing.”
Pei Qian glanced at the message on his phone and simply replied, “Noted.”
After some consideration, Pei Qian sent a message to Lin Chang, arranging to meet at the Slackin’ Internet Café near Handong University.
Pei Qian had been busy with the shared phone booth situation all weekend, repeatedly postponing his meeting with Lin Chang, and had regrettably pushed it to this morning.
This was a good opportunity to not only meet with Lin Chang but also check out the real situation with GOG at the Slackin’ Internet Café.
The so-called “officially begin testing” meant releasing the test version of the game on the official gaming platform, allowing players to freely download and experience it.
Of course, considering server capacity, not many test account qualifications would be distributed in the early stage. Core players of Tenda Games would naturally have a better chance of obtaining access.
Through their trial play and feedback, it would be easier to identify bugs and issues in the game and fix them.
The version during the testing period would certainly be full of bugs, but players who enjoyed testing were generally more tolerant, approaching it with an early-adopter mindset and not being too critical of these bugs.
Pei Qian felt that online reviews alone might not show the true state of GOG, so visiting the Slackin’ Internet Café in person for some field research would be more reliable.
…
At the Endpoint Chinese Web Authors’ Study Group, commonly known as the “Black Room” among readers.
At noon, everyone was seated around the long conference table, chatting casually while eating.
With no work on Saturday and Sunday, some of these authors had used previously stockpiled chapters to cover these two days’ updates, while others continued writing on their laptops in the hotel.
So, Ming Yu and Cui Geng, who had been singled out by Mr. Pei, hadn’t seen everyone else for three days.
“Hey, Ming Yu, Cui Geng, what did you two do on Friday? Tell us quickly.” Someone was very interested in their whereabouts.
Ming Yu coughed lightly and said in a low voice: “I found a nearby internet café with high-end computers, secretly wrote three chapters in the morning, and saved them. Then I played some games in the afternoon.”
Someone was surprised: “Weren’t we told not to write?”
Ming Yu smiled: “Yeah, but nobody was monitoring. I just need to spread these three chapters across my Saturday and Sunday updates, and who would know?”
Everyone couldn’t help but marvel—truly a model worker! Even when forced to take time off, he still secretly accumulated chapters!
With Zhu Xing’an absent, these authors could speak freely.
Previously, Zhu Xing’an had been sent by Ma Yang to supervise these authors, but after Mr. Pei’s inspection, he had been sent away, leaving the authors to manage themselves.
Ming Yu then looked at Cui Geng: “What about you, Brother Cui? You didn’t spend a day learning about the Tenda spirit, did you?”
Another author chimed in: “Yeah, Brother Cui, was that ending announcement posted out of anger?”
To these uninformed authors, Cui Geng’s behavior was quite puzzling.
He went to Tenda headquarters on Friday and posted an ending announcement that evening, scaring his readers quite a bit.
Everyone thought the book was being cut short, but then on Saturday, Cui Geng updated again, and with four chapters no less!
Throughout Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning, Cui Geng continued writing his book seriously, with no reduction in word count, showing no signs of cutting it short.
This was very confusing.
What exactly happened that Friday? Was Cui Geng going to continue writing this book or not?
It should be noted that among all the authors participating in the study group, Cui Geng’s performance was quite strong.
For many novice authors, a work with five to six thousand subscriptions would be worth writing forever.
Facing everyone’s questioning, Cui Geng smiled slightly: “On Friday, I was indeed educated in the Tenda spirit. However, it wasn’t the dull study you might imagine, but rather a novel approach.”
“You’ll understand when you go there. This method is truly fascinating!”
“As for this book, I do plan to complete it quickly, but that’s because…”
“I’ve had an epiphany and want to quickly finish this current book to write a better one!”
Cui Geng’s eyes shone brightly.
During this time, he had been continuously conceptualizing the framework for “The Butterfly Game,” just waiting to collect enough material from various Tenda departments before he could start writing!
Ming Yu was curious, feeling that Cui Geng’s mental state had changed.
Previously, Cui Geng had severe procrastination issues, was somewhat lazy, and a bit pretentious.
Honestly, Ming Yu had always felt that Cui Geng was wasting his talent.
With casual writing yielding five to six thousand subscriptions, and frequent cutting despite irregular updates, if he wrote seriously, producing six or eight thousand words daily, wouldn’t his subscriptions exceed ten thousand?
But seeing his expression now, it seemed like he was planning to turn over a new leaf.
Could the Tenda spirit education be that effective?
Cui Geng continued: “Moreover, this Tenda spirit learning experience has taught me a principle: don’t resist or reject rest and entertainment; use them to better maintain your work state.”
“The word count shouldn’t be the only indicator; the quality of the book should be prioritized.”
“Brother Ming, you’ve always asked me how I reached five thousand average subscriptions. I think for you, slightly reducing your update word count and further improving quality is the most urgent matter.”
Hearing this, Ming Yu pondered thoughtfully.
“Hmm… that sounds reasonable.”
“Maybe I should update less today and also learn about the Tenda spirit?”
Although he had earned a day off, Ming Yu wasn’t interested in it.
As the most ambitious author in the study group, he cared more about how to write more and better content.
Seeing Cui Geng’s transformed appearance after a single Tenda spirit learning session, Ming Yu was also inspired to go learn.
Another author said, “Uh, I want to go too.”
“Me too!”
More than half of the people at the table wanted to see this Tenda spirit training that could help even the legendary “Pigeon Spirit” overcome his mental obstacles.
But with so many people wanting to go, how should they arrange it?
Ming Yu thought for a moment: “How about this: everyone writes according to their ability. Whoever updates the least gets to go. Those who have already gone once should conscientiously write more and not participate again.”
“If multiple people fail to update, then the one with the lowest average subscriptions goes.”
After some thought, everyone felt this was a reasonable method and nodded in agreement.
Cui Geng no longer needed to participate, as he would be tidying up his affairs in the next couple of days, leaving the study group to start his new work (material gathering) in various Tenda departments.
…
At the Slackin’ Internet Café.
Pei Qian arrived before Lin Chang. Instead of sitting down for coffee, he took a tour around the internet section of the café.
The situation wasn’t as optimistic as he had imagined, but it was still within an acceptable range, not particularly bad.
In his original vision, GOG should have been a complete failure.
In the internet café, GOG had to face not only the influence of traditional online games like “Sea Fortress” but also direct competition from similar games like IOI and “Revelation.”
“Revelation” had a large and loyal player base, while IOI had quickly become popular abroad, with its popularity spreading to China.
The Slackin’ Internet Café, like other internet cafés, had already installed IOI’s international server and language packs for customers. Although the latency was a bit higher, café customers could now play IOI.
So, Pei Qian had originally thought that not many people would play GOG.
But when he arrived at the Slackin’ Internet Café, he discovered that quite a few people were playing GOG, forming a tripartite balance with “Revelation” and IOI!
Of course, in terms of graphics and game completion, IOI still had the upper hand.
After his tour, Pei Qian fell into deep thought.
“Hmm… it seems IOI should still be stable for now.”
“Currently, the IOI in internet cafés is still the foreign server version with high latency, and it’s difficult to communicate with teammates due to language barriers, so there are inherent disadvantages.”
“Even so, IOI is more popular than GOG in internet cafés, with more people playing it.”
“If IOI officially launches a Chinese server, solving the latency and teammate communication issues, wouldn’t it naturally be more popular than GOG?”
“So, GOG should still fail. My judgment should be correct.”
Pei Qian thought carefully and felt that the current situation wasn’t terrible—it could be described as cautiously optimistic.
Just as he was thinking, Lin Chang arrived.
“Mr. Pei, long time no see,” Lin Chang smiled.
Pei Qian felt that Lin Chang’s smile seemed to hide a deeper meaning, as if concealing some information.
“Has Mr. Lin been busy with work recently?”
Lin Chang chuckled: “Just a small matter, mainly making connections. It’s already taken care of.”