Everyone hurriedly stood up to welcome Mr. Pei, with Hu Xianbin offering him the central seat.
After Pei Qian sat down, his gaze swept around the room, but he didn’t see Bao Xu.
“Is Bao Xu traveling again?” Pei Qian asked casually.
In his impression, Bao Xu was indeed rarely in the office—he was either traveling or on his way to travel somewhere.
But thinking about it, there didn’t seem to be any travel activities recently?
The outstanding employee selection was held in February and August. Currently, there were still two months until the next selection, and there weren’t any annual meetings or similar activities recently.
So where was Bao Xu?
Hu Xianbin hurriedly explained, “Boss Pei, Brother Bao has been helping out at the snack market recently. I’m not very clear on the specific situation. Does he need to attend this meeting?”
Pei Qian immediately shook his head. “No need, I was just asking.”
What was this Bao Xu doing, meddling at the snack market?
Pei Qian was a bit puzzled about Bao Xu’s motives. He didn’t seem like the type who liked to interfere in others’ business.
But it didn’t matter. Bao Xu wasn’t some culinary expert anyway.
Letting him mess around at the snack market would certainly be less harmful than having him mess with the gaming department.
Anyway, Bao Xu probably wouldn’t escape his fate of accompanying travelers during the next evaluation. Since he was already like this, he might as well do whatever he wanted.
Everyone took their seats, and the meeting continued.
Hu Xianbin said, “Boss Pei, after receiving the task to adapt ‘Eternal Damnation,’ we immediately organized the department’s designers to read the original novel. We’ve specially invited the author here today to roughly determine the specific content of this DLC.”
“However, opinions aren’t entirely unified, and the specific form of the DLC hasn’t been finalized yet.”
“It’s perfect timing that you’re here, Boss Pei! Could you please give us some guidance? How should we approach this DLC properly?”
Everyone looked expectantly at Boss Pei, their eyes full of hope.
“Turn Back Ashore” had previously developed DLCs before—they had released new weapons, new items, and even introduced Reincarnation Mode and Random Mode. But the situation now was different from before.
The previous DLCs only supplemented some gameplay elements, and the content wasn’t particularly rich. They were priced very cheaply, merely intended to give something for the old players of “Turn Back Ashore” to do.
But this DLC involved the copyright development of the novel “Eternal Damnation.” Judging from Boss Pei’s intention, he clearly wanted to showcase the essence of the novel as much as possible and create a substantial DLC. It couldn’t just be a simple patch-up job anymore.
The problem was that adapting a fan novel’s content into the game required not only thoroughly understanding the novel’s plot but also creating specialized designs in the game that corresponded to the storyline.
These changes might conflict with the game’s original gameplay mechanics, requiring some trade-offs.
As a result, everyone couldn’t quickly reach a consensus.
But now, Boss Pei had arrived!
As the father of “Turn Back Ashore,” Boss Pei would definitely come up with a perfect solution!
Pei Qian pondered for a moment. “Uh… before discussing the game, let me briefly emphasize two things.”
“First, as previously notified, everyone must keep the copyright development of the Inspiration Class works confidential, no leaks allowed.”
“Second, within the next two months, that is, before August 1st, you can conduct preliminary preparations for DLC development, but don’t officially initiate the project yet.”
Preliminary preparations were not equivalent to initiating a project.
The concept of preliminary preparations was quite broad. For instance, thinking about the specific approach for the DLC, drafting a few proposals, or even preparing some art resources in advance for minor touches—all these counted as preliminary preparations.
Just doing this wouldn’t be considered starting a new project by the system and wouldn’t affect settlement.
But once officially initiated with a development schedule and clear plans for the DLC’s release date, it would count as a new project and affect settlement.
Pei Qian emphasized this mainly to ensure the settlement wouldn’t be affected.
Hu Xianbin nodded. “Understood, Boss Pei. You mean that the ‘Eternal Damnation’ large-scale DLC requires a lot of preparation, so we should thoroughly explore inspiration, be fully prepared, let it settle for two months, and then officially develop it without being too hasty, right?”
Pei Qian: “…More or less.”
Obviously, Hu Xianbin and others’ understanding differed slightly from Pei Qian’s original intention, but since the result was roughly the same, it was fine.
Pei Qian continued, “As for the DLC design… uh, how have your discussions been going?”
“I can offer some advice, but ultimately, you’ll make the decision.”
Originally, Pei Qian hadn’t planned to get involved with the DLC design. He was quite busy nowadays, and whether he paid attention to a mere game DLC or not didn’t matter much.
But Pei Qian suddenly remembered something that changed his mind.
Up until now, “Turn Back Ashore” still wasn’t free!
According to the system’s rules, a single-player game could become free if it had been on sale for more than 10 months and its current monthly income had dropped to within one-fifth of the second month’s sales.
The problem was that “Turn Back Ashore” sales remained remarkably strong. Just when it seemed like it would drop to one-fifth of the second month’s sales, the numbers would miraculously bounce back!
So “Turn Back Ashore” sales kept fluctuating, but no matter how it fluctuated, it just couldn’t meet the standard to become free!
This frustrated and puzzled Pei Qian.
Who was still buying “Turn Back Ashore”?!
The game had been out for two years already—how was it still making money?
Not being able to make it free was too annoying!
Pei Qian felt that these people were continuing to subject themselves to torture because the difficulty level wasn’t set high enough.
Logically, with “Turn Back Ashore’s” difficulty, it should have deterred a large batch of players. But after Qiao Laoshi released very detailed and thorough tutorial videos, many people could complete the game by following the videos and steadily progressing through the game, even if it meant a bit of suffering.
Many new players came out of curiosity, relying on these tutorial videos to persist until they completed the game, continuously contributing to “Turn Back Ashore’s” sales.
This situation couldn’t continue. The difficulty needed to be cranked up even higher!
Pei Qian planned to implement a bold strategy.
For other games, DLC content typically came after the main game. Players generally experienced the main game content first, then went on to experience the DLC.
But this time, Pei Qian wanted to place the DLC before the main game.
It wouldn’t affect players who had already completed “Turn Back Ashore.” But for a player who had never played “Turn Back Ashore” before, they would experience the DLC content first upon entering the game, then experience the main content of “Turn Back Ashore.”
The DLC would have a special filtering mechanism: players must complete the first few chapters before they could pay to purchase the DLC; and after completing the DLC, they would get a 30% discount when purchasing the main game of “Turn Back Ashore.”
This wouldn’t affect old players, but for new players, they would definitely be tempted by the 30% discount, leading to a decrease in the number of people purchasing the main game of “Turn Back Ashore.” This way, couldn’t the sales of the main game be lowered to meet the system’s requirements and make it free?
Making it free one month earlier meant earning much less money!
Of course, to accommodate players’ feelings, there would be appropriate explanations before “Turn Back Ashore” became free, and players who purchased it shortly before would be eligible for a price protection refund service.
This plan was quite perfect, but there were two main problems facing Pei Qian.
The first was the difficulty issue. The difficulty of “Turn Back Ashore” was already very high for him, and he only managed to get through it with the “Salvation” weapon. If the difficulty was increased further, how would Pei Qian himself complete the game?
The second was the plot issue. To place the DLC before the main game—experiencing the DLC first and then the main content—there needed to be a convincing reason.
And Pei Qian hadn’t figured out any of these issues yet.
He hadn’t even read the plot content of the novel “Eternal Damnation.”
So, Pei Qian decided to first ask about the discussions everyone had had and then selectively offer his own opinions.
Hu Xianbin handed over a document. “Boss Pei, these are the ideas we’ve compiled and a synopsis of ‘Eternal Damnation.’ Please take a look.”
“We’re currently considering approaching it from the protagonist’s identity.”
“According to the story background of ‘Eternal Damnation,’ the entire story takes place during a period when the world of ‘Turn Back Ashore’ hadn’t yet collapsed. The protagonist is a powerful human warrior whose skills are transcendent. He walks the world, honing his skills, and becomes a legendary martial god.”
“But even the most powerful people will face death. In his later years, he tries everything to escape the fate of death. He forces craftsmen to forge a demonic sword that can extinguish souls, soaks it in the blood of enlightened monks, and has shamans create a pill that can place him at the brink of death, floating between the realms of yin and yang.”
“When the Black and White Impermanence come to claim his life, the martial god uses the demonic sword to slay them. Driven by the sword, he slaughters all the ghost officers who come to apprehend him, enters the netherworld, and causes the entire six paths of reincarnation to collapse.”
“But at the final moment, he regains his senses and realizes that under the sword’s influence, he has committed a grave mistake. All the demons in the endless hell are stirring, about to awaken. So he delves deep into the endless hell, merges his body with the Dao, and becomes the first Jailer.”
“Our current idea is to arrange an NPC in the initial village. After players defeat the Jailer in the first playthrough, they obtain an item. Once they give this item to the NPC, they can travel to the DLC and experience the story content of ‘Eternal Damnation.'”
“The game’s combat system will continue to be utilized, but with the addition of some new weapon and item actions, such as special combo techniques and execution techniques, highlighting the protagonist’s identity as a ‘Martial Saint’ and contrasting with the frail protagonist of the main ‘Turn Back Ashore’ game.”
Pei Qian pondered for a moment without immediately responding.
It was evident that for Hu Xianbin and others, this level of modification was already considered quite “bold.”
After all, this was just a DLC, not a sequel or a new game.