Furthermore, the same game couldn’t occupy duplicate recommendation slots within two months.
This meant that even if a game consistently ranked first in the connoisseurs’ selection, it couldn’t permanently occupy the best recommendation slot. Instead, it would need to rotate among the top eight recommendation positions.
In other words, to secure the best recommendation slot on the website, a game must rank within the top eight platform-wide.
At the same time, since there were recommendation slots within various game categories, niche genre games could still cultivate their own audience within their category sections.
To help connoisseurs better anticipate the current recommendation slot arrangements, the platform offered a dedicated preview portal. It clearly displayed how each game would be positioned in the upcoming week’s recommendation slots based on current connoisseur votes, along with the vote counts.
If connoisseurs felt these results were questionable, they could modify their votes.
Although individual votes weren’t enough to directly rewrite the final recommendation slot arrangements, if enough people changed their votes, the recommendation situation would shift.
Finally, there were policies for connoisseur appointment and dismissal.
When selecting connoisseurs, 50% of their number would also be chosen as alternate connoisseurs.
Every player had the right to supervise and report connoisseurs. If a connoisseur engaged in inappropriate conduct—such as consistently arranging recommendation slots for specific trash games, showing signs of under-the-table dealings, or displaying overly strong personal subjective biases in game reviews without objectively evaluating games—players could write detailed reports citing evidence.
When reports reached a certain threshold and officials verified the reported issues actually existed, that connoisseur would be removed from office, with an alternate connoisseur taking their place.
Dismissed connoisseurs would lose a significant amount of weight, meaning their priority would be lowered in subsequent connoisseur selections. However, they could still participate in future selections by writing more quality game reviews.
With multiple dismissals, the weight penalty would increase progressively until they became completely ineligible for connoisseur selection.
…
After reading through the connoisseur system’s detailed rules, Yan Qi couldn’t help but marvel: This truly lived up to the Morning Dew Game Platform’s reputation!
This connoisseur system could be seen as an extension and supplement to player empowerment.
Not only had they given players the authority to remove games, but they had also handed over the power to arrange recommendation slots to the players!
Moreover, this system actually seemed quite reasonable?
Allowing all players to collectively control the right to remove games was essentially ensuring the platform’s minimum standards. When a game performed too poorly and was denounced by most players, it had to be taken down for improvements—effectively eliminating garbage games from the platform.
But to raise the platform’s upper limits, this method wouldn’t suffice.
Especially when arranging recommendation slots, popularity couldn’t be the only metric.
After all, games weren’t purely entertainment; they were also a special art form with certain barriers to entry. Often, games with profound meanings and complex gameplay wouldn’t initially be welcomed by the masses. They required a small group of players to take the lead in appreciating and analyzing them, gradually making the gameplay more accessible to the general public.
Many of Mr. Pei’s games followed this trajectory—from initial misunderstanding to eventual elevation to legendary status.
Recommendation slots represented the platform’s taste. If determined by one-person-one-vote player voting, the results would inevitably favor games with mass appeal, leaving niche, more artistic games without any chance to shine.
The connoisseur system could achieve a good balance between popular taste and deeper gaming artistry, effectively raising the platform’s upper standards of taste.
Additionally, connoisseurs were under constant supervision.
If ordinary players felt a certain connoisseur was biased or had taken bribes, they could write detailed reports with evidence. Once reports reached a certain threshold, officials would intervene and make judgments.
This created a dual safeguard: only when both players and officials deemed a connoisseur problematic would they be dismissed, minimizing the occurrence of malicious reporting.
Of course, Yan Qi clearly understood that for this connoisseur system to function perfectly, one element was essential: careful verification of player identities.
There would certainly be players or studios who saw the immense “business opportunities” hidden behind the connoisseur system.
Many game platforms’ recommendation slots had explicit price tags, and quite expensive ones at that. If bribing connoisseurs could secure a good recommendation slot for one’s game, that would definitely be a profitable venture.
Therefore, the platform had to categorize each player carefully.
Which were genuine players? Which might be alternate accounts created by studios? How to maximize data authenticity? These were all issues that Morning Dew Game Platform staff needed to consider.
This posed some challenges, but shouldn’t be completely impossible, especially since Tenda’s TPDb website had already set a good example.
“Looking at this, there must be experts behind Morning Dew Game Platform.”
“This connoisseur system definitely isn’t something an ordinary person could devise!”
Yan Qi silently raised his evaluation of the Morning Dew Game Platform.
…
Meanwhile, Pei Qian was also in his office reviewing Morning Dew Game Platform’s announcement about the connoisseur system.
“Hmm? They’re quite efficient; the announcement has already been released.”
Li Yada had sent this announcement over that very morning when he arrived at work.
Pei Qian glanced at it, found no issues, and told Li Yada to publish it directly.
Of course, after the announcement was published, the connoisseur system couldn’t be implemented immediately. Preliminary preparations were needed, including modifying the game platform program, optimizing algorithms, pre-screening connoisseurs, encouraging players to write more game reviews, and so on.
It would take some time before this system officially launched.
But for Pei Qian, how the connoisseurs were selected wasn’t important; what mattered was whether this system could meet his expectations!
A small number of connoisseurs would control most of the platform’s recommendation slots. Ordinary players, connoisseurs, and game developers—these three parties would surely clash over these benefits.
When players frantically fought among themselves and fell into chaos, wouldn’t that disrupt the entire Morning Dew Game Platform’s order?
Pei Qian felt this had essentially the same clever strategy as “killing three warriors with two peaches.”
As he was gleefully anticipating Morning Dew Game Platform’s wonderful future, there came a knock at the office door.
Looking up, he saw Yu Fei had arrived.
“Mr. Pei, the new announcement has been prepared for your review.”
Pei Qian took the printed announcement and quickly read through it.
Since Yu Fei was still a novice, his work efficiency wasn’t as high as Li Yada’s. For the same type of announcement, Li Yada had already completed hers and published it after Pei’s approval, while Yu Fei was just finishing his.
But this didn’t matter; what Pei Qian appreciated about Yu Fei was precisely his lack of professionalism.
This announcement was generally written according to Pei Qian’s instructions from the previous Friday, mentioning only two things: First, due to internal communication failures and work coordination errors, the updates for “Eternal Cycle” had not achieved the expected effect, causing some inconvenience to players, for which they deeply apologized; Second, they would update “Eternal Cycle’s” combat system this coming Friday ahead of schedule, while other updates remained unchanged.
The apology was relatively vague, only mentioning internal errors without specifying who made the mistakes or what exactly went wrong.
This was also deliberately instructed by Pei Qian.
An apology was necessary since the update plan had been adjusted, requiring a sincere and reasonable explanation to the players.
Pei Qian wasn’t concerned that admitting mistakes would affect Tenda’s glorious image—in fact, he would prefer that it did.
But some details didn’t need to be spelled out so clearly. Whether Yu Fei or Meng Chang was ultimately responsible didn’t matter; some internal Tenda affairs weren’t appropriate to elaborate on.
As for the widespread discussion about “Tenda falling from its pedestal,” Pei Qian couldn’t care less.
He had only one thought: Thanks for the good wishes!
If they truly fell from their pedestal, that would be wonderful—wouldn’t that mean Tenda games could finally start losing money?
Forget it, such good fortune was unlikely; he was just daydreaming.
Pei Qian nodded: “No problem, go ahead and publish it.”
Yu Fei took back the announcement and said apologetically: “Also, Mr. Pei, I need to apologize for last week’s work error.”
Pei Qian completely disregarded the online criticism and insults—he was even somewhat pleased—but Yu Fei obviously didn’t share this perspective.
He felt that Tenda Games had built such a reputation, with so many projects never experiencing any issues, yet problems arose as soon as he took charge. Moreover, he had made a relatively foolish mistake, which was truly failing Mr. Pei’s expectations.
Although Meng Chang had comforted him the previous Friday, upon seeing Mr. Pei again, Yu Fei still felt very remorseful and wanted to apologize.
Pei Qian immediately said seriously: “Work error? What work error did you have? That was clearly all Meng Chang’s problem.”
“His promotional plan was fundamentally flawed. If not for that small oversight that exposed the promotional plan’s issues early, the entire plan might have caused even more serious consequences.”
“So, not only are you blameless, but you actually deserve credit!”
“Don’t worry about this issue; just continue working according to the previous process. Hmm… I’ll give you a raise later.”
Yu Fei nodded in surprise: “Uh… alright, Mr. Pei.”
Leaving Mr. Pei’s office, Yu Fei felt even more apologetic.
“Mr. Pei is truly magnanimous. To comfort me, he even shifted all the blame onto Meng Chang.”
“However, this actually demonstrates the difference in status between Meng Chang and me. Because Meng Chang is a veteran employee, Mr. Pei believes he can handle more pressure, so he let him take the blame to protect my feelings.”
“Even in this announcement, he didn’t point out me as the primary responsible person, but instead kept it vague—all to protect me.”
“My attitude was wrong before. I always felt like I was just filling in, so I didn’t give 100% effort to my work…”
“I can’t continue like this. I mustn’t let down Mr. Pei’s trust and expectations!”
Yu Fei silently resolved.