The trainer answered all the questions and helped set up the equipment. Soon, all the Smart Fitness Clothes Racks were occupied.

Those who arrived late could only watch from the sidelines.

“This thing actually comes with a game?”

“It looks really fun!”

The clientele at Tuoguan Fitness consisted mainly of young people and white-collar workers, with a high proportion of female members.

The gym’s business model had a certain filtering effect—only those with relatively good financial conditions, high standards for fitness environments, somewhat poor self-control but strong determination to exercise would ultimately remain as members.

Most people filtered through this process were young, exactly the target player demographic for “Fitness Battle,” so naturally they showed intense interest after seeing the game.

Previously, everyone had indeed dismissed the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack, but that was because there was no game involved.

Without a game, this thing was just an ordinary piece of fitness equipment, not essentially different from the other equipment in the gym, and even less professional than those machines.

But with a game, it became a gaming peripheral—the more fun the game, the more useful it seemed!

Even the fitness trainer was dumbfounded. He never expected that the previously ignored Smart Fitness Clothes Rack would transform so dramatically and instantly become so popular.

But he had to admit one thing: paired with the game, the fitness experience of the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack was far more interesting than monotonously pumping iron in the gym.

After “Fitness Battle” perfectly merged with the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack, news about them quickly spread and reached the ears of internet users…

…

After completing the first chapter, Qiao Liang was completely exhausted.

The game began prompting him that he needed to take a mandatory break.

After restoring the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack to its initial state according to the game’s instructions, Qiao Liang planned to use his free gacha opportunity and then investigate the game’s shop system.

During gameplay, the system had already gifted him several nice outfits and guided him through the process of changing his game character’s clothes.

“Dress-up” was a popular and enduring gameplay mechanic.

Who could resist the temptation of dressing up pretty girls in cute outfits?

Many dress-up games had very simple gameplay but could still generate tens of millions in monthly revenue—as long as they kept releasing new outfits, players would unhesitatingly pay for them.

Most dedicated dress-up games used 2D anime-style characters, yet players still spent money enthusiastically. “Fitness Battle” featured 3D modeled characters with great detail that could talk to players and accompany them during workouts—wasn’t that much more appealing than 2D characters?

After seeing the outfits given by the system, Qiao Liang instantly developed a strong interest in the game’s dress-up system.

Although many high-level outfits were difficult to unlock, there was no harm in just looking, right? If something looked really good and was reasonably priced, spending a little money wasn’t out of the question.

Qiao Liang opened the newly unlocked shop interface and found it was quite simple, with just two main tabs: “Shop” and “Gacha.”

Other games had similar systems but usually dressed them up a bit and wouldn’t label them so directly. “Fitness Battle,” however, wasn’t subtle at all.

Clicking on the shop interface revealed various in-game items, clearly categorized.

These items were sorted by type, including character hats, tops, pants, shoes, gloves, wristbands, and other decorative accessories, as well as dedicated fitness scenes and special effects for attacking monsters.

The shop allowed sorting by quality, price, and other factors, making selection very convenient.

There were also pre-arranged discount packages, such as complete outfit sets for specific characters at special discounts.

However, all items in the shop had two prices: one in calorie coins and one in premium currency.

For all products, the ratio between the two currencies was the same, and there were no items in the entire shop that couldn’t be purchased with calorie coins.

The gacha interface was much simpler, merely showing information about single pulls, ten-pull bundles, and guaranteed items from ten pulls.

Many other games would display new heroes or items on this screen to attract players, but “Fitness Battle” didn’t include these elements, making the interface very clean.

Just when Qiao Liang thought there was nothing special about this gacha system, he noticed a very prominent information icon.

“Detailed explanation about the gacha system?”

Qiao Liang was surprised, as many other games wouldn’t provide explanations for their gacha systems.

The reason was simple: there wasn’t much to explain.

The things that could be openly stated were already well understood by players, so there was no need to explain them; the things that couldn’t be openly stated would cause major issues if players knew about them, so they definitely couldn’t be explained.

Gacha was a black box. Many game companies would implement fake probabilities in their gacha systems or set extremely low drop rates for rare items without disclosure, as players had no way to verify anyway.

Of course, as ESRO’s official platform imposed increasingly strict restrictions on gachas, this situation had improved somewhat in recent years.

But most game companies would only be accountable to the official platform and wouldn’t provide too many explanations to players.

Qiao Liang instinctively clicked on it, expecting just a few simple explanations, but was surprised to find it extremely detailed!

“The cost-effectiveness ratio of gacha is 0.8… seems a bit unprofitable, but actually not bad since gacha is all about probability anyway.”

“Wait, gacha can’t use calorie coins, and… automatic refunds?!”

This automatic refund feature left Qiao Liang dumbfounded.

Many games allowed refunds, but with very strict limitations requiring dedicated manual review, and after refunding once, they basically wouldn’t approve any future refund requests.

But “Fitness Battle” was clearly different—this automatic refund didn’t require manual review at all, and you didn’t need excuses like “my child stole money to make purchases.” You could get a direct refund just because you were dissatisfied with the gacha results!

The only restriction was that you couldn’t make any purchases for the next three days.

But strictly speaking, this didn’t seem like a restriction—it was more like a protection mechanism, allowing players to cool down after impulse spending and control their wallets.

As long as there was no limit on refunds, players could simply refund once every three days until they got results they were satisfied with.

“What kind of strategy is this?”

Qiao Liang was confused.

He had seen plenty of pay-to-win games and had considerable experience resisting temptations, but this was the first time he’d encountered a game that allowed refunds so freely.

Which side was this game designer on?

Qiao Liang suddenly felt a strong desire to make a purchase.

After all, if he wasn’t satisfied with the gacha results, he could get a direct refund! There was absolutely no psychological burden.

However, after hesitating for a moment, Qiao Liang still resisted. After all, he hadn’t even ordered a Smart Fitness Clothes Rack yet, so starting to spend money on the game seemed premature.

He decided to spend the calorie coins given by the system first and use the free ten-pull opportunity.

Since calorie coins couldn’t be used for gacha, Qiao Liang picked a few pretty dresses and then used his free ten-pull.

The results were average—not great but not bad either. There were two nice dresses, and Qiao Liang wasn’t known for his luck in gacha games anyway, so the results were within his expectations.

“Oh right, doesn’t the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack come with a professional version gift package?”

Qiao Liang suddenly remembered, but after careful investigation, he discovered that this gift package corresponded one-to-one with the device’s serial number, with each device limited to one redemption.

The equipment at Tuoguan Fitness was for public use, so the gift package couldn’t be claimed.

“That’s a wrap!”

Although he couldn’t get the professional version gift package, Qiao Liang was already quite satisfied.

On one hand, the official game had given him a free ten-pull, allowing him to get some minimalist yet pretty clothes, providing satisfaction on the gaming front. On the other hand, he had met his exercise quota for the day, working out until he was drenched in sweat and feeling a bit light-headed when walking—that was satisfaction on the physical front.

If he only had satisfaction from the game aspect, there would be a slight feeling of emptiness, as gaming was a form of mental entertainment that often left a sense of wasted time.

But having exercised his body along with it, his overall state showed a noticeable improvement with sustained mental stimulation. Most importantly, players could feel that through exercise, their physical fitness improved, making it more meaningful than simply playing games.

“It’s decided, I’m ordering one!”

After trying it out, Qiao Liang no longer hesitated and placed an order directly.

Although this Smart Fitness Clothes Rack was expensive, it was indeed worth the price.

Moreover, Qiao Liang felt that the “Fitness Battle” game had many commendable design aspects, especially the shop system—there must be profound intentions from Mr. Pei behind it!

Why not go back and make a video or post a Weibo analysis? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?