Pei Qian felt a bit dizzy trying to make sense of the material.

Mainly because Li Yada hadn’t intended to write in detail when preparing the content, focusing only on the core elements.

What kind of person was Mr. Pei? A master game designer!

Why write so verbosely?

A simple sentence should be enough for Mr. Pei to understand. Writing too much would only annoy people.

So the written content was quite brief. Glancing over it, Pei Qian’s first impression was that the game combined too many elements, making it seem bloated.

The focus was mainly on the game’s risks.

As long as Li Yada could demonstrate that the game carried sufficient risk, Pei Qian would consider it.

“Tell me your thoughts first,” Pei Qian said, looking at Li Yada.

Li Yada organized her thoughts a bit.

If Mr. Pei is asking me to report, he clearly has some areas he doesn’t understand.

Mr. Pei quickly went through the proposal, so he must already comprehend the game’s content broadly.

After all, as a master game designer, grasping the full picture of a game just from its framework should be a basic ability.

So, what should I report now?

I should report what’s not written in the proposal, what Mr. Pei can’t infer.

With this in mind, Li Yada said: “The proposal comes from a small studio whose previous game, ‘Empire’s Blade,’ was released on Morning Dew Game Platform with decent results…”

“The lead designer is Yan Qi, who has been in the industry for a while, with previous design experience mainly in mobile games…”

“This game was Yan Qi’s flash of inspiration, and I think the content has some bright spots.”

“However, as I wrote in the risk assessment report, the scale of this game far exceeds what Yan Qi and his studio can handle. The estimated development funding starts at a minimum of 100 million yuan.”

“Moreover, the game carries high risks, primarily from the following aspects.”

“Yan Qi and his studio lack the development experience needed for such a mega-project and may encounter many unexpected problems during development;”

“Because of the huge investment, the domestic game market’s purchasing power might be insufficient. Although it would be well-received among niche players who prefer this type of game, it might not recover the development and marketing costs;”

“Also, compared to the more pure gameplay of ‘Turn Back and See the Shore,’ ‘Shuli’ incorporates more elements. This is innovation but also a risk…”

“As for whether it’s feasible and worth investing in, that’s for you to judge, Mr. Pei.”

“The key is whether this idea and creativity are worth these risks.”

Li Yada’s introduction focused mainly on Yan Qi and his studio’s background.

After all, the gameplay was already clearly written in the proposal, simply being inspired by “Turn Back and See the Shore” but integrating many gameplay mechanics, adding various officially encouraged mechanisms for avoiding hardship, creating a game with its own unique style.

Mr. Pei should be able to visualize the entire game just by looking at the few points in the proposal.

Honestly introducing the risks, Mr. Pei should be able to give a comprehensive evaluation.

Pei Qian perked up at the mention of risks.

This project sounded quite promising!

The lead designer and the entire development team previously made mobile games? No experience developing single-player games at all?

And they had only worked on small projects of a few million, but now suddenly wanted to jump to over 100 million?

The key was the game itself—it sounded like a hodgepodge. If it could replicate the success of “Turn Back and See the Shore,” these two games were actually quite different.

On the surface, they both contained elements of suffering, but upon deeper examination, the differences were vast.

Plus, the story was set in a fictional world with no IP, drawing from relatively obscure historical periods, so the background story probably wouldn’t earn any bonus points with players.

Sounds good!

Pei Qian picked up the proposal for another look.

This gameplay of suffering early and flourishing later might not be completely unworkable, but considering two points—first, similar games rarely became mainstream, and second, the game required enormous investment with an inexperienced development team—the chances of making money were actually very low.

Whether a game makes money is always relative.

The higher the investment, the harder it is to make a profit.

Because the player base is limited and game pricing has an upper ceiling, more investment means higher required sales. As sales need to increase by each order of magnitude, the difficulty increases exponentially.

In short, it’s worth a try!

After considering for a moment, Pei Qian said: “We can invest.”

Li Yada couldn’t help feeling elated.

Mr. Pei agreed, which meant the gameplay was sound and could be successful!

But after waiting a while with no further comments, Li Yada hesitantly asked: “Do you have any opinions or suggestions, Mr. Pei? Are there any improvements that could be made to the gameplay?”

Pei Qian looked at the proposal, then at Li Yada.

Improvements?

He was actually quite tempted to give some direction, but thinking about his previous “achievements” in advising Tenda Games and Shangyang Games, he’d better stay in his lane.

What if a casual piece of advice had a pivotal effect and carried this game to success?

That would be infuriating.

So, Pei Qian shook his head: “As an investor, one shouldn’t interfere too much. With games, everyone has their own ideas, and this isn’t a Tenda game after all.”

“Besides, I think this game is fine, with no major issues.”

“My only concern is whether 100 million is enough. If more could be added, that might be better.”

“Imagination is priceless. How can money limit a designer’s imagination?”

Logically, 100 million was already quite substantial, but for this type of game, the more invested, the harder it would be to recover costs.

In other words, every additional amount invested after the initial 100 million would exponentially increase the difficulty of the game turning a profit.

But Pei Qian couldn’t directly say to give more money; that wouldn’t be reasonable, especially since they only asked for 100 million.

Plus, the System was still watching, so he needed to find a way to obscure his intentions.

The advantage of such a project was that the System wouldn’t use it for settlement calculations. For Pei Qian, once the money was spent, it was spent, and he wouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time.

But he couldn’t immediately think of a specific reason to invest more, so he had to let the game designer figure it out himself.

Li Yada nodded: “Really? You think so too, Mr. Pei?”

“Indeed, this type of game does need sufficient development funds to achieve good results.”

“In that case, I’ll go back and have Yan Qi refine the proposal, adding back previously cut content, and include more for the game flow and level design, as well as more equipment, items, NPCs, monsters, and so on.”

Pei Qian added: “Arrange the hiring as soon as possible too. You’ll need to hire eventually, so don’t wait until halfway through development to realize progress is too slow—that would be too late.”

For game companies, personnel costs were the bulk of development expenses.

The more people hired, the greater the daily expenses. Hiring early meant spending money early, and hiring more meant spending more.

For such a large project, especially with a new team that needed time to gel, development time wouldn’t be significantly reduced by early hiring. Instead, it would just cost more.

Li Yada felt somewhat touched.

Although she had anticipated that Mr. Pei might invest in this game and support Yan Qi’s dream, she hadn’t expected Mr. Pei to be so generous—not just agreeing to 100 million but suggesting even more.

But honestly, similar game effects were indeed achieved through money.

When Tenda first made “Turn Back and See the Shore,” its foundation wasn’t very solid, so the game content was more streamlined, the gameplay wasn’t very long, and the final price wasn’t high.

But now, Tenda’s scale had grown dramatically.

Perhaps Mr. Pei, seeing the plight of Yan Qi’s small studio, was reminded of Tenda’s early days, and thus decided to lend a helping hand?

They couldn’t let the “Shuli” project have any regrets!

Indeed, Mr. Pei’s understanding of investment was different from other investors.

Other investors always thought about cutting costs and seeking maximum returns with minimal investment. So when encountering such projects, their first reaction would be to reduce costs, and their second would be to interfere with the project and disrupt the creative process.

But Mr. Pei was different. When facing this issue, his first concern was whether the money was enough and if people should be hired quickly. And even though Mr. Pei was a master game designer, he fully respected the original designer’s ideas without any intention of interfering with the creation!

It could only be said that Mr. Pei’s primary identity was still that of a designer, and only secondarily an investor.

Or rather, even as an investor, Mr. Pei was completely different in nature from other investors.

“Alright, Mr. Pei. I’ll relay this right away, asking the designer to revise the proposal, adding back all the previously cut ideas and making the game more complete.”

“Umm… or should we wait for He Desheng to return and let him convey this?”

“I still need to ensure my identity isn’t revealed.”

Li Yada had previously told Yan Qi that she knew people at Dream Realization Venture Capital and could put in a good word. But if she directly delivered official messages, it would exceed the bounds of friendship and might raise suspicions.

So, it would be better to wait for He Desheng to return and discuss this in his capacity as the head of Dream Realization Venture Capital.

Pei Qian nodded: “Yes, that works. We should maintain confidentiality.”

“Speaking of which… is the identity of Morning Dew Game Platform still a secret?”

Li Yada thought for a moment: “So far, yes. We’re still safe.”

Pei Qian felt slightly relieved: “Good, keep it that way for as long as possible. This is important.”

Continuing to keep it secret would allow him to burn more money. If they weren’t exposed in the short term, they could burn even more.

Once Morning Dew Game Platform’s relationship with Tenda was exposed, they would be forced to enter the next phase.