Min Jingchao stared at his screen a while longer, confirming that the event hadn’t encountered any major problems or bugs, and also checked the general feedback from players.
Once he finished all of this, it was about time to clock out and head home to enjoy the holiday.
Before leaving, Min Jingchao took one last look at GOG’s data.
As expected, the online player count and other metrics had declined somewhat.
This was anticipated, after all, the purpose of this event was to direct players toward IOI by any means necessary. With such generous event rewards, it would be strange if players didn’t go there.
Considering computer performance limitations, the vast majority of players wouldn’t choose to run both games simultaneously. If they went to play IOI, they would naturally log off from GOG.
Min Jingchao knew this was perfectly normal, but he still felt somewhat concerned.
After all, as a game designer, he had become accustomed to checking the game’s status through data, and in many cases, he relied more on what the data showed than on player feedback.
Player opinions often only represented individuals, while data could represent an entire group.
Although data could sometimes lie or present a very one-sided picture, for designers, data was undoubtedly a necessary factor in understanding the game’s situation.
Now seeing the data decline, even though Min Jingchao knew this was an inevitable result of the event, he still felt worried.
His feelings were conflicted—since he knew this was an event approved by Mr. Pei, he naturally hoped its popularity would be as high as possible. But seeing that higher popularity meant fewer online players for GOG made him instinctively concerned.
“Forget it, I won’t think about this issue now.”
“Judging by Mr. Pei’s confident demeanor, this event must have some backup plans, so there’s no need to worry too much.”
“I should just enjoy the holiday first, and if any problems arise, I’ll consult with Mr. Pei then.”
After wrestling with his thoughts for a moment, Min Jingchao decided to stop looking at the data, shut down his computer, and go home.
……
……
October 2nd, Tuesday.
Pei Qian once again slept until he naturally woke up, lying in bed and comfortably playing with his phone.
His mindset was quite strange. Although he normally didn’t go to the company much and could sleep in as late as he wanted, no matter how much he slept, it was never as satisfying as during these long holidays.
Perhaps because on workdays, his mind would always conjure images of employees working diligently, making it impossible to truly relax.
It was like a primary school student pretending to be sick to avoid school—even though they were at home, just thinking about other kids studying in the classroom made them very anxious.
Only during holidays, when there was no burden at all, could one achieve complete mental relaxation.
“From yesterday’s brief report, it seems the online player count is showing a gradual downward trend, which is good news.”
“It looks like this event is having the desired effect.”
“I wonder what today’s data will look like. I’ll know in a while.”
Before the holiday, Pei Qian had instructed Min Jingchao to keep an eye on the “Gods’ Fantasy” event situation, paying him triple salary for working during the holiday.
Min Jingchao was very responsible—every morning, he would organize the previous day’s data and create a brief report consisting of a few lines of text to send to Pei Qian.
September 30th, October 1st, October 2nd—before they knew it, the event had been running for just over two days. From the data of the first two days, although GOG’s online player count had fluctuated somewhat, the overall trend was downward.
Now it was the National Day holiday, when more people should be playing games.
So the result was clear: these players must have been diverted to IOI by the event!
Pei Qian couldn’t see IOI’s data, but he imagined it must be very good.
Of course, the data Pei Qian was seeing now was only from the Chinese server. Data from servers in other regions of the world still needed to be compiled and sent over by local operators, which was more complicated and required dedicated staff from the company to coordinate. Since it was a holiday, there was no need to go through that trouble.
But from the Chinese server data alone, he could roughly infer the situation in other regions.
Because for IOI, the Chinese server was essentially at hell difficulty—the gap with GOG was the largest, and attracting players was most difficult.
If the event could achieve such good results in the Chinese server, then the effect should be even better in other regions.
Pei Qian checked the time; it was almost 11 o’clock. Min Jingchao would organize and summarize the GOG Chinese server data in the morning, usually sending it over after 12 o’clock.
He wasn’t in a hurry; after all, the data would be there, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Today he had arranged to meet Ma Yang for lunch, and it was about time to head out.
……
Fifteen minutes later, Pei Qian and Ma Yang arrived at a relatively upscale all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant near the university.
As for why they chose this place… there were mainly two reasons.
First, after eating too many fine foods, sometimes you need to eat something simple and satisfying like barbecue. Although it wasn’t healthy or refined, it could boost happiness.
Just like how many people who’ve eaten at numerous high-end restaurants wouldn’t refuse to have fast food occasionally.
Second, it was for a bit of nostalgia.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but recall when he initially recruited Old Ma as Tengda Games’ first employee. After “Ghost General” unexpectedly became a hit, he fulfilled his promise and took Old Ma to a thirty-something yuan all-you-can-eat restaurant near the school.
Now, without realizing it, they were approaching graduation.
With the start of the new semester, Pei Qian and Ma Yang had officially entered their senior year.
Once you reached senior year, the entire school felt different.
On one hand, you felt like you were among the oldest students at the school (not counting graduate students), fading out of various student activities, inexplicably feeling a sense that things had changed, having completely lost the freshness of first-year orientation.
On the other hand, there were fewer courses, and professors basically didn’t take attendance anymore. Classmates were busy applying for graduate school or looking for jobs… many classmates might not see each other more than a few times the entire year, and social activities were virtually non-existent, making the impending farewells feel even stronger.
When autumn came, with its desolate winds and falling leaves, it intensified the feeling that time was flying by, never to return.
And in this situation, Old Ma could still persist in attending classes, without missing a single one, which Pei Qian found truly admirable.
Especially considering that Old Ma was now a genuine “successful person,” a well-deserved “Mr. Ma,” yet he could still insist on attending classes—this was indeed worthy of considerable respect.
Ma Yang’s long face beamed with a smile as he happily stuffed various barbecued meats into his mouth.
Sometimes Pei Qian particularly envied Ma Yang, who enjoyed everything he ate and showed no obvious weight change despite eating so much.
Maybe it all went into the length of his face.
“Brother Qian, I’m reminded of when you first invited me to join Tengda. We went out for an extravagant meal, splurging on an egg for fried rice and extra meat for noodles, chatting enthusiastically about how to make ‘Ghost General’ cards.”
“At that time, I was still suspicious of you, fearing you’d blow through the fifty thousand yuan your family gave you.”
“But in the blink of an eye, three years have passed, and Tengda has developed so well without us even realizing it. I knew I wasn’t wrong about you back then! And you weren’t wrong about me either!”
Pei Qian felt a bit melancholic: “Emmm…”
What if he hadn’t assigned Old Ma the task of writing card requirements back then, or if he had accepted his suggestion during dinner to “change all the generals into females”? Would Ruan Guangjian have been unable to create the highly praised original artwork for “Ghost General”?
Would things have turned out differently?
Perhaps by now I would have lost enough money to be financially free!
Forget it, what’s done is done. What’s the point of thinking about useless hypotheticals?
Besides, looking on the bright side, the current situation wasn’t so bad—there was food, drink, and entertainment, life was quite happy.
Apart from occasionally being backstabbed, which was a bit annoying, there wasn’t much to complain about.
While eating meat, Pei Qian asked, “How’s the situation with Rabbit Tail Live Streaming?”
Ma Yang confidently replied, “Rest assured, Brother Qian, things are going great! I even feel like they barely need me there.”
“Does the company have any other more important projects? Or more challenging tasks? Feel free to entrust them to me!”
Seeing Old Ma still so confident—unchanged after three years—Pei Qian felt relieved.
Three years had passed, and no one had managed to plant a B-tree in Old Ma’s heart!
Actually, Pei Qian had been observing the situation at Rabbit Tail Live Streaming through the reports sent by Chen Yufeng.
Asking Ma Yang this question was purely to probe whether he had a B-tree in his heart.
Now the probe was complete—he definitely didn’t have one.
Ma Yang had been at the helm of Rabbit Tail Live Streaming for several months with remarkable results: Rabbit Tail’s performance had barely changed, at most growing slightly, steady as a rock.
One could only say, as expected of a trustworthy good brother.
Originally, Rabbit Tail Live Streaming had shown signs of potentially going viral, but Pei Qian took decisive measures, forcibly adding study time to Rabbit Tail, causing many users to leave.
Later, although Chen Yufeng organized some events, like the innovative “BP Proof Competition,” which attracted some viewers back, the platform ultimately withdrew from the fiercest battlegrounds among several streaming platforms, gradually stabilizing as a second-tier, niche platform.
Now, the initial fierce competition among streaming platforms had gradually come to an end.
The brutal cash-burning battle had entered its latter stages, with some platforms going bankrupt, others restructuring, and some even disappearing without a trace.
Originally, there were so many streaming platforms in a fragmented war, but now the situation had gradually become clear—only YiYi Live and Wolf Fang Live were growing stronger, while the other platforms showed obvious decline.
The better ones barely maintained appearances, struggling to survive; the worse ones might have simply disappeared silently into the river of time.
After all, these platforms had been burning money too ferociously—the faster they burned money, the more likely they were to collapse.
Of course, those who persisted reaped the greatest benefits.
With the cash-burning war among streaming platforms, the number of users on these platforms repeatedly hit new heights, and the astronomical signing fees for streamers repeatedly shocked people.
Among these platforms, Rabbit Tail Live Streaming was an anomaly—it didn’t poach streamers from other platforms, and other platforms weren’t particularly interested in poaching Rabbit Tail’s streamers, maintaining a very stable ecosystem.