Pei Qian was generally satisfied with this plan.
After all, Lü Mingliang possessed a key advantage that Huang Sibo lacked—he was obedient and didn’t overthink things.
Whatever Pei Qian asked him to do, he would do it straightforwardly, not seeking achievement but rather avoiding mistakes.
However, this also brought about a problem—insufficient initiative.
For instance, with this plan, the money being spent seemed far too little from any perspective.
With the pricing already determined, of course, it would be better to spend more money!
Pei Qian thought for a moment.
“For ‘The Lonely Desert Highway,’ adding just three new map scenes is too few. Add ten.”
“‘Ghost General’ is only updating ten military generals, that’s also too few. Make it fifty.”
“As for ‘Game Producer,’ although it’s only releasing one scene style, how can it be at the same level as the previous set?”
“Ruan Guangjian needs to draw the original art for ‘Ghost General,’ but he might not have time. So, let’s find another big-name artist at his price level, then double the work hours. It must be meticulously crafted, striving to make the new scenes surpass the original version!”
“As for ‘Sea Fortress’… hmm…”
“Besides this new epic weapon, add two more hours to the story mode, add a new scene, three new characters, and ten new guns.”
“That’s it. Start production as soon as possible, aiming to update before June 18th.”
Lü Mingliang was a bit dumbfounded.
The reason he had planned fewer updates was mainly because he was worried the DLCs wouldn’t sell enough to support the income!
According to Lü Mingliang’s plan, there was a ceiling for the investment in updated content.
Take “The Lonely Desert Highway” for example—each scene template cost 20,000 yuan. The original plan was to add three sets of scenes. With the DLC priced at just 1 yuan, they would need to sell 120,000 copies just to break even!
Now Pei Qian had directly changed it to ten sets, meaning they would need to sell 400,000 copies to break even…
Wasn’t this nonsense?
The original art design for “Ghost General” was to be done by Ruan Guangjian, and although Ruan Guangjian had many friends who could help with the artwork, the price would certainly not be low.
Previously, the original art for “Ghost General” military generals was 4 original drawings per general, at 3,000 yuan each. Now with Ruan Guangjian’s increased status, his fees had naturally gone up. Mr. Pei insisted on not accepting a friendship discount and insisted on paying the market price, which would be at least 5,000 yuan per set.
For fifty military generals, that would be 250,000 yuan.
With this set of military generals priced at 5 yuan, it meant they would need to sell 100,000 sets just to recover the cost.
As for “Sea Fortress,” the new storyline, new scenes, new characters, and new guns were almost all being given away to players for free. The only revenue point was that new epic weapon, and even that was limited in quantity!
“Mr. Pei, this… might not recover the costs…” Lü Mingliang looked at the numbers he was quickly calculating in his notebook, feeling uneasy.
Pei Qian smiled calmly, “It will.”
“Remember, be sincere to others. If you treat players with sincerity, they will naturally reciprocate with sincerity.”
“Besides, even if we don’t recover the costs, what’s the big deal? Players have already given us so much money. It’s only right that we should appropriately subsidize them with some losses.”
Lü Mingliang blinked in confusion, feeling that Mr. Pei’s words sounded particularly righteous and generous.
It just felt like something was a bit off.
“Alright, time is tight and the task is heavy. Quickly allocate tasks and get moving. It must be completed before June 18th.”
Setting June 18th as the deadline was mainly because it was the last working day of the second-to-last week before settlement.
The 19th and 20th were weekends, and from the 21st to the 23rd, Pei Qian also planned to reserve three days to handle any unexpected situations.
Before the 24th, all development work must be completed, and all DLCs must be updated, or it would affect the settlement.
Pei Qian left the meeting room gracefully, while Lü Mingliang hurriedly allocated tasks.
Although the workload was much larger compared to the previous plan, most of the pressure was on the art resources side, so with some pushing, it could still be completed within the deadline.
The only problem was that they would be spending quite a bit more money.
……
May 6th, Thursday.
Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan came to Pei Qian’s office to introduce several potential locations they had identified.
Ma Yang’s laptop was connected to the projector in the office, displaying the internet café locations and some detailed information on the projection screen.
This time, Zhang Yuan had done most of the work, selecting several locations with good positioning; Ma Yang had also casually found a few to make up the numbers.
They needed to open four new stores, and Pei Qian had requested ten location options, which they had now all found.
This time, Zhang Yuan was also determined to prove himself.
Why were all of Mr. Pei’s other projects thriving, while only the Slacking Internet Café was consistently losing money?
It was too embarrassing!
Moreover, Mr. Pei placed such high regard and trust in them, which made it even more important to turn the losses into profits!
Opening these branch stores was a good opportunity.
In Zhang Yuan’s view, the reason the previous store had been continuously losing money was a location problem.
There was no large commercial area nearby, no high-end office buildings, and no high-end residential areas.
Without enough high-end consumers within several kilometers, who would support the consumption of a high-end internet café?
You couldn’t expect wealthy people to drive over just to have a drink at a bar, could you?
Of course, some exceptionally good bars could indeed achieve this, but the Slacking Internet Café wasn’t a proper bar—it was a mixture of internet café, bar, coffee shop, small restaurant, and bookstore…
Without outstanding advantages, it couldn’t attract people to travel from far away to consume there. That wasn’t the way to make a profit.
So after reflection, Zhang Yuan felt that this time they needed to focus on location selection. They must choose popular commercial areas!
“Mr. Pei, I particularly recommend three places.”
“This one is at the south gate of Handong University, very close to several male dormitory buildings, and there’s a high-end residential area across the street.”
“Although there are already several internet cafés in this area, they’re still often full. Our Slack Internet Café has a good environment and good computer configurations, which can attract rich second-generation students who care about the environment and have a certain economic capacity.”
“This location was originally a coffee shop, which also fits well with our internet café’s environment. The space isn’t small either. This is my top recommended location!”
Pei Qian didn’t say anything. He knew this place all too well; after all, he was studying at Handong University, and the apartment Assistant Xin had rented for him was just across the street.
The internet cafés in this area were indeed often full, Zhang Yuan wasn’t wrong about that.
But… Pei Qian would not choose this location.
If they made money here, whose fault would that be?
Seeing that Pei Qian did not react, Zhang Yuan had to continue introducing the next location.
“This one is in Jingzhou’s largest shopping mall, on the ground floor. The downside is that the rent is extremely expensive, but I’ve researched it. There aren’t many places to rest in this mall, and many men accompanying their girlfriends or wives while shopping have nowhere to sit when they get tired, which is quite pitiful.”
“If we open our internet café here, these successful men accompanying their wives for shopping could come to the internet café to surf the internet or have a coffee when they get tired. Their spending power would be top-notch.”
“With this kind of foot traffic, even with high rent, we can surely make it back!”
Pei Qian still did not react.
Zhang Yuan felt even more uncertain and could only continue introducing the locations one by one.
As he got to the latter options, the locations of these storefronts became increasingly dismal.
There was no help for it; Pei Qian had specified that the Slacking Internet Café branches could only open in Jingzhou City, with many restrictions. Finding so many storefronts available for transfer was already quite difficult.
After introducing all of them, Zhang Yuan looked at Pei Qian with some apprehension.
Mr. Pei hadn’t said a word the whole time—what did that mean?
Was he dissatisfied with all of them?
Pei Qian nodded approvingly, “Not bad, thank you for your hard work.”
Zhang Yuan let out a sigh of relief.
Mr. Pei wasn’t dissatisfied; that was great!
Pei Qian looked at the projection screen with approval, “I think the last four places you introduced are all good.”
The last four places?
Zhang Yuan turned to look at the screen, then back at Mr. Pei, not quite understanding for a moment.
These… were just fillers!