After Meng Chang left, Pei Qian checked the time. Today’s work was pretty much done.

Tomorrow was Saturday, and he would need to come in again due to the special holiday arrangement this year.

This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival fell on September 30th, which was Sunday after tomorrow, coinciding with the subsequent National Day holiday.

So this year’s holiday arrangement was a very rare eight-day long vacation. Tomorrow, Saturday, would be a normal workday, followed by the holiday starting from Sunday, September 30th, and lasting until Sunday, October 7th.

Regular work would resume on October 8th.

Originally, Pei Qian had planned not to come in tomorrow either, giving himself a nine-day holiday to rest and relax, but that wasn’t possible because according to the original plan, the “Gods’ Fantasy, Summit Together” joint activity with ioi would officially begin tomorrow.

The timing was quite coincidental, happening right at the beginning of the Golden Week holiday.

Actually, Pei Qian had thought there was no need to rush. He suggested that if preparation time wasn’t enough, they could postpone until after the holiday.

But the ioi side disagreed, clearly feeling that the Golden Week holiday could create better synergy with the activity, allowing them to gain higher popularity during this opportunity. They didn’t want to give up so easily.

So Pei Qian had to cooperate with them, making his employees work a bit harder to get the activity online by tomorrow.

……

……

September 29th, Saturday, the last working day before the holiday.

This time, Pei Qian didn’t go to his own office but came to Tenda Games’ floor, planning to find Min Jingchao to understand the preparation status of the “Gods’ Fantasy, Summit Together” activity and prevent any unexpected issues.

Although Pei Qian felt that the risk of this activity was low and unlikely to have any surprises, it was still necessary to observe more closely.

After all, employees were about to go on holiday, and if any problems occurred during the long holiday, it would be too late to make changes.

As soon as he walked into the gaming department’s office area, he first saw Yu Fei.

At this moment, the former web novelist and current acting chief designer of Tenda Games was looking at the design draft on his computer screen with a complex expression, seriously studying relevant knowledge.

Obviously, the previous matter of splitting “Eternal Cycle” had still affected him to some extent.

Although Mr. Pei had repeatedly emphasized that this wasn’t a major oversight and, in terms of results, it was a blessing in disguise, Yu Fei clearly couldn’t completely let it go.

He felt that his position was very important, and if he didn’t do well, it would affect others and even waste his colleagues’ efforts. So recently, he had been working hard to catch up on relevant knowledge.

However, from his expression, it was clear that it wasn’t going smoothly.

Game design is, after all, a highly specialized industry. People like Huang Sibo and Min Jingchao basically all had experience as entry-level implementation planners before being promoted to lead planners. Although they were promoted a bit quickly, they were at least industry insiders before, so it wasn’t too outrageous.

But Yu Fei could at most be considered a game enthusiast!

Forcibly placed in the position of chief designer, he could handle simple problems, but once things got a bit more complex, it became very difficult to manage.

The only good news for him was that if he held on a bit longer, Hu Xianbin would be back soon.

Seeing Yu Fei’s current state, Pei Qian was very satisfied.

This was clearly the scene he had been hoping to see!

Just think about it—the Tenda Games department had gone through so many chief planners, was there any use? It was all the same!

No matter how many times the chief planner changed, whether male or female, no matter where they were promoted from, the games always became popular in the end. Who could reason with that?

Mr. Pei had his reasons too. What kind of people were these that he was asked to lead? Huang Sibo, Bao Xu, Lü Mingliang, Li Yada, Hu Xianbin… one after another, they were all imagination monsters, all multi-talented treasure employees. Previously, they didn’t show their abilities, appearing to be just ordinary implementation planners.

Did they deserve those ordinary positions? No, their abilities were too strong.

Randomly pick any one of them to be chief planner, and they could create a game that would go down in history. Why were they all clustered in the Tenda Games department?

But now it was fine. After switching to Yu Fei, the script was finally normal.

But Pei Qian also had some concerns.

Mainly because Hu Xianbin would be back in a month, and at that time, he would lose Yu Fei as a talent.

Let him go back to writing novels?

That wouldn’t work. He would be making money for the Endpoint Chinese Website there, and Hu Xianbin would be making money for Tenda Games here, which would be a severe loss for Mr. Pei.

Actually, according to the previous rate of chief planner turnover in the Tenda Games department, Hu Xianbin should have already taken the dream fund and left.

Unfortunately, there was a hiccup in the last vote, and his position was inexplicably swapped with Bao Xu’s.

Pei Qian thought about it. The next vote would still be half a year away, and even if there was a vote, it might not necessarily fall on Hu Xianbin.

He would need to make a manual correction.

Find an excuse to send Hu Xianbin away, and wouldn’t Yu Fei stay?

Of course, Pei Qian could also guess that Yu Fei would definitely decline. But this was easy to solve. Pei Qian would just tell him that choosing a chief designer was a major matter and needed long-term consideration. Using the tactic of “dragging things out” would work.

Let Yu Fei continue as an acting replacement, and if he asked where the new chief planner was, the answer would be that they were still in the selection process. Just hold on for another month, and someone would soon replace you.

Yes, this plan was good!

Pei Qian, satisfied, walked past Yu Fei, who was furrowing his brows and pondering the design draft, to find Min Jingchao.

And Yu Fei, unaware that his fate had been decided, was still looking forward to Hu Xianbin’s return after the holiday, so that he could go back to the Endpoint Chinese Website Authors’ Inspiration Class to happily write the new book he had been contemplating for a long time.

……

Seeing Mr. Pei arrive, Min Jingchao hurriedly stood up.

“How are the preparations for the activity with ioi going?” Pei Qian asked.

Min Jingchao answered truthfully, “They’re pretty much ready. The relevant features have been completed, and the activity rewards have been finalized. We’ll post an announcement on the official website in a while.”

Actually, when Min Jingchao first learned about the specific content of this activity, he was very reluctant.

Many aspects might not seem obvious when discussed verbally, but once put down on paper, with each clause clearly laid out, it became very apparent.

In the cooperation terms between the two parties, the clauses for Tenda were a long list, and each item was specified very clearly, making it difficult to gloss over. In contrast, the Dyack Group and Longyu Group’s clauses were just three or four simple items, and they were all written vaguely.

It was even more obvious in terms of page count. Tenda’s related requirements and restrictions took up four or five pages, while the other side had just one page.

In such a contract, the more vague the content, the more room there was for interpretation. Even if it went to court, there would be a lot of room for maneuvering.

Min Jingchao’s first impression of this contract was very poor, even feeling somewhat puzzled.

GOG was currently developing very well. They could just run their own activities to expand their user base. Did they need to get involved with ioi?

Wasn’t it normal for two competing games to have no interaction?

But after hearing that this was Mr. Pei’s requirement, Min Jingchao calmed down and thought about it, feeling that Mr. Pei must have deeper intentions.

So he went ahead and implemented it without any objections.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with Min Jingchao’s attitude and briefly went through the announcement for this activity, finding no major issues.

After all, this unequal treaty was personally signed by Mr. Pei, and the main purpose was to inject resources into ioi. What major problems could there be?

“Alright, then post the announcement.”

“By the way, keep an eye on the trends of this activity during the holiday. If anything happens, report to me immediately.”

“I’ll pay you triple wages for working during the holiday.”

This job wasn’t big and wouldn’t have much impact on profits. It would help identify problems early, and he could also pay out more wages. It was a win-win-win situation.

Min Jingchao nodded, “No problem, Mr. Pei. This is part of my job!”

After Mr. Pei left, Min Jingchao arranged for his subordinates to publish the announcement and communicated with Zhao Xuming from the Longyu Group, preparing to officially update the client tonight and start the activity.

After all these matters were arranged, Min Jingchao looked at the players’ reactions to this announcement.

As expected, GOG’s players were quite puzzled.

“Huh? Am I seeing this right? In my lifetime, GOG and ioi, these two archrivals, are actually doing a joint activity?”

“I’m shocked! And they’re encouraging us to play ioi? Is this activity arranged by a mole in the company?”

“Hmph, ioi is already in decline. Do we need to do a joint activity with them? With this money, it would be better to cooperate with game manufacturers of other types.”

“Not going! I’m a loyal subject of GOG, how could I be a traitor? Wanting me to play ioi? No way!”

“But these rewards are so generous, and there are even skins being given away.”

“What? Really? Where? They really are giving away skins! I’m going to download the ioi client right now…”

Although some players expressed confusion or even dissatisfaction with the GOG and ioi joint activity, as soon as they heard about the generous rewards, they immediately said “it’s worth it” and went to download the ioi client.

In contrast, the reactions of ioi players were quite different.

“Hmm? There’s actually a joint activity with GOG? But they’re only giving these few things? That’s too perfunctory!”

“Obviously, the officials don’t intend for us to play GOG…”

“Then what’s the point of this activity?”

“The point is huge! GOG players coming to play ioi will definitely increase the number of players. Our national server already has few players; matchmaking takes over three minutes in the queue. Now matchmaking will be faster, we’ll encounter more newbies, and the gaming experience will definitely improve!”

“From a long-term perspective, it’s clearly beneficial for ioi!”

“But I’m a bit confused. The two games are said to be cooperating, but looking at the rewards, it seems like they’re making every effort to attract GOG players to our side? Shouldn’t the rewards on both sides be similar?”

“I’m so envious of GOG players… they can earn skins by coming to play ioi!”

“But we have rewards without having to go over there!”

Obviously, ioi players were in a state of happy confusion.

According to the activity rules, it was definitely encouraging GOG players to come play ioi, which would certainly improve the gaming experience for ioi players. Because more players always meant a livelier game.

At the same time, GOG was giving rewards, and ioi was also giving rewards!

The difference was that GOG players had to come to ioi and play for a certain amount of time and matches before they could get rewards.

For ioi players, it was different. Their rewards were divided into two types.

The first type was rewards obtained by going to play GOG, which were very perfunctory.

The second type was rewards that could be obtained without doing anything, and they were as generous as GOG’s rewards.

This was clearly a small trick by the Dyack Group and Longyu Group.

The second type of reward wasn’t part of the activity content, but it was opened simultaneously with the activity. It was designed to bind ioi players through rewards, preventing them from coveting the rewards that GOG players would get in the activity.

The first type of reward was purely to fulfill the contract.

In other words, this activity had the following rewards:

For GOG players, going to play ioi, they could first receive a newcomer reward on the ioi side, which was ioi’s strategy to retain these new players. Secondly, when they returned to GOG, they could claim a reward, which was to induce players to go play ioi.

For ioi players, going to play GOG, the rewards were very ordinary both in GOG and ioi, without much attraction.

But outside the activity, ioi players could also get a reward from other activities, unrelated to this joint activity, but the rewards were very generous, which was clearly a consolidation measure to prevent player loss.