Some streamers did start livestreaming after receiving the VR headset, but currently, the headset didn’t have “Animal Island” installed—not even a demo version. It only had some existing VR games currently available on the market.
Although these streamers could feel that these VR games ran more smoothly on the Doubt VR headset compared to other headsets, since the resolution of these games wasn’t high to begin with, there wasn’t a visibly noticeable difference.
Moreover, livestreaming VR was indeed difficult to describe in one word.
For PC or mobile games, the game screen and the livestream screen were identical—viewers saw exactly what the streamer was playing.
But VR games were completely different. The streamer had a free perspective, looking around by moving their head, with a very strong sense of immersion. But for viewers, there was only one feeling—dizziness!
After watching for a short while, they would feel unbearably dizzy, and they couldn’t experience the immersion of VR games at all.
Therefore, even though some content creators and streamers had shown in-game footage during their VR experiences, it was completely useless because they couldn’t convey to viewers exactly what the experience felt like.
Viewers couldn’t even tell the difference between this VR headset and other VR headsets in terms of visual quality.
Qiao Liang couldn’t help but wonder: if small streamers with just a few thousand followers were given VR headsets to experience, why hadn’t he received one?
Was Qiao Laoshi really so insignificant?
Moreover, he had close relationships with the officials, and had good relationships with both Mr. Pei and Lin Wan from Chi Xing Studio, so how could they forget him when it came to reviews?
This was truly unreasonable!
It made it impossible for him to help, even if he wanted to!
This made Qiao Liang increasingly anxious.
The VR headset’s promotional campaign had suffered a massive setback in its early stages, seemingly presenting a situation where one misstep led to further mistakes. Ever since Meng Chang announced his collaboration with Chi Xing Studio on Weibo, each subsequent step seemed to hit precisely on points that players disliked, dragging the entire project down step by step.
Qiao Liang couldn’t help but feel anxious, so he quickly found the phone number of Chi Xing Studio’s chief designer, Cai Jiadong, and called him.
After working together for some time, the two had become quite familiar, so Qiao Liang could speak frankly.
“Old Cai! Have you seen the VR headset promotional video? What’s going on? The response is terrible!”
Cai Jiadong’s confused voice came from the other end of the phone: “Uh… I have seen it, but we didn’t make this promotional video at all. According to Director Lin, this promotional campaign is entirely the responsibility of the advertising and marketing department. All the plans came from them.”
Qiao Liang asked: “So… it’s all handled by Meng Chang? Without consulting you?”
Cai Jiadong: “Yes. I’m not very clear on the specifics, but the advertising and marketing department consists of professionals. They should know better than us, right?”
Qiao Liang became a bit anxious: “And you’re not concerned at all?”
“Meng Chang has a history of issues—how can you trust him completely with everything!”
Cai Jiadong sounded helpless: “How would we have time to worry about that? Right now, we’re making final modifications to the ‘Animal Island’ tutorial according to Mr. Pei’s previous requirements. We can’t work overtime, and our schedule is very tight.”
“However… I think I heard Director Lin mention casually that this promotional plan seems to have been overseen by Mr. Pei.”
“So… there shouldn’t be any major problems, right?”
Qiao Liang was silent for a moment: “Alright, I understand. Thank you, Old Cai.”
After hanging up, Qiao Liang suddenly felt calm.
Earlier, seeing how terrible the initial promotion of the VR headset was, completely backfiring, combined with Meng Chang’s previous history of questionable actions during the Cold Face Girl era, Qiao Liang was quite worried.
Who knew if Meng Chang might suddenly lose his mind and cause some damage?
But upon hearing that this promotional plan was overseen by Mr. Pei, Qiao Liang was suddenly reassured.
With Mr. Pei overseeing it, how could the insignificant Meng Chang cause trouble?
That was absolutely impossible!
No matter how much Meng Chang might struggle, he could never escape Mr. Pei’s control.
Moreover, once he accepted the premise that “all promotional plans were actually overseen by Mr. Pei,” Qiao Liang suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.
Where had he experienced this before…
Especially this feeling of many streamers and content creators awkwardly praising a game, which reminded Qiao Liang of a long time ago, when “Game Producer” was first launched.
“Could it be that Mr. Pei’s arrangements this time have some deeper meaning again?”
Qiao Liang couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.
……
Meanwhile, Pei Qian had just finished dinner and returned to his residence, contacting Hu Xiao online again.
“How’s it going? My brothers completed the task pretty well, right?” Hu Xiao couldn’t help but feel proud, as everything was progressing according to the pre-arranged plan.
Pei Qian replied: “Yes, they did a good job. Let me see the invoice. As we agreed before, this time it’s basically divided into two categories, multiple transactions, each calculated separately.”
Hu Xiao: “Alright, please wait a moment.”
Although he wasn’t clear why this big shot wanted to divide it into many transactions and calculate them separately, since the client had made such a request, it definitely had to be fulfilled.
This paid commenter campaign was divided into several phases, but overall it could be categorized into two types.
One type involved forced praise—pretending to be ordinary users praising how great and amazing Chi Xing Studio’s headset was. The more awkward the praise, the better, without any concern about being identified as paid commenters.
The other type involved guiding public opinion—questioning Chi Xing Studio and Meng Chang’s reliability, questioning whether the headset was just hype with a subpar product.
For the first category of forced praise, they used some low-end paid commenters. Although the quantity was large, it didn’t require much skill. The second category used more high-end paid commenters—those with authentic profiles that were well-hidden. There weren’t many of them, but their influence was significant.
In the final calculation, the first category was definitely more expensive due to the volume, but the second category wasn’t cheap either.
Hu Xiao wasn’t clear about what strategy the client was playing. Usually, people hiring paid commenters either wanted praise or criticism, or sophisticated negative campaigning. Who would hire two groups of people—one group to praise and another to criticize?
Was this some kind of self-contradictory play?
But if the old client wanted to play it this way, so be it. Taking money to do the job was simple, why overthink it?
Besides, Hu Xiao had long suspected that the person on the other end had some connection with Tenda and was hiring paid commenters for some special purpose.
However, the other party was just too mysterious, and they seemed to change frequently. Sometimes they were very generous, not even bothering to negotiate prices; other times they seemed quite calculating, asking for both discounts and rounded-down figures. This made it impossible for Hu Xiao to figure out the other party’s background.
He didn’t dare to inquire further. If he accidentally offended such an old client, it would be a significant loss.
Soon, Hu Xiao prepared the quote for this campaign.
Since they were old clients and trusted each other, this time they paid a small deposit first, with the full payment to be settled after completion.
“Here’s the invoice for your review.”
Pei Qian received the invoice file and glanced at it.
“…So expensive!”
He couldn’t help but complain inwardly.
This time, the paid commenters were basically divided into two groups. One group of low-end commenters was responsible for forced praise, generally at a rate of 50-80 yuan per day. With 200 people continuously changing accounts and posting to guide public opinion, plus the cost of accounts, they spent over 80,000 yuan within five days.
This was acceptable, because the system would allow reimbursement for money spent on promoting one’s own products.
The other group consisted of high-end paid commenters responsible for questioning and guiding public opinion, generally at a rate of 200 yuan per day. After all, this was a technical job that only experienced paid commenters could handle.
They hired 50 people, spending over 50,000 yuan in five days.
Since the entire paid commenter campaign had been operating continuously from before Tenda issued the clarification about its relationship with Chi Xing Studio until now, these two groups had been working non-stop, so there was no need to break it down further.
In total, it was over 130,000 yuan—of course, that was the original price.
Hu Xiao tentatively asked: “Everything is priced according to what we previously agreed upon. Are you satisfied?”
Pei Qian was silent for a moment, then replied: “Last time we said the discount for hiring paid commenters would accumulate until this time—you remember that, right?”
Hu Xiao immediately replied: “Of course I remember! I’ll apply a discount for you right away.”
Pei Qian quickly said: “Wait!”
“Don’t apply the discount to everything. Keep the original price for the 80,000+ one, but give me a bigger discount on the 50,000+ one.”
Hu Xiao was stunned.
What did that mean?
For the same batch of orders, one part gets a discount and the other doesn’t?
What kind of operation was this?
Suddenly, Hu Xiao understood: “Oh! I get it! These two batches of paid commenters weren’t hired by the same department, right? Both departments are using you as an intermediary, but they have different available funds?”
Pei Qian: “…”
He didn’t know how to respond, so he could only give an ambiguous answer: “Something like that.”
Hu Xiao quickly replied: “No problem! Rest assured, these details are all negotiable.”
“So, the first amount won’t be discounted and will remain at the original price: 86,500.”
“The second one, I’ll give you a 30% discount! That’s 38,360 total, and I’ll round it down to 38,000. How does that sound?”
Pei Qian felt a slight pain in his heart.
Meng Chang, oh Meng Chang, I’ve really gone all out to keep you in the advertising and publicity department!
38,000 yuan—that’s enough for you to draw a base salary for a year.
Oh, right, the base salary has increased now, so it would be nine months.
In a more optimistic scenario, if you could get the minimum commission, you would only need six months—half a year.
Halfway through his calculation, Pei Qian shook his head: “Why am I bothering to calculate this?”
For Pei Qian, spending this 38,000 yuan genuinely hurt a bit.
But there was no way around it—if you want to catch the wolf, you can’t be reluctant to use the child as bait.
If this investment of 38,000 yuan could keep Meng Chang working diligently for him and prevent the VR headset project from making money, then it would still be very worthwhile!