A few minutes later, Wu Chuan knocked and entered.

“Mr. Pei, this is the first episode of the ‘Agent Academy’ animation made according to your previous instructions.”

Wu Chuan handed over a tablet as he spoke.

Pei Qian took it and immediately pressed play.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, Pei Qian fell silent as he watched the completed video.

Good grief, this length!

It ended before he knew it, truly catching him off guard.

When Pei Qian watched “The Successor” before, each episode was an hour long. After starting work in the afternoon, he could watch three episodes of “The Successor” in the meeting room and then directly go home.

But this “Agent Academy” was something else—the first episode, including opening and ending credits, was a total of 14 minutes!

That meant, excluding the opening and ending, this episode was only about 10 minutes.

Although he had anticipated that “Agent Academy” would be short, he never imagined it would be this short!

Of course, he couldn’t blame Wu Chuan, since this was what Pei Qian had initially requested.

Back then, Wu Chuan had spent a lot of effort investigating all the domestic animation studios, but Pei Qian wasn’t satisfied with any of them, thinking the possibility of these animation studios making money was too high. So, on a whim, he decided to do it his own way, like making games, using real-time rendering for the animation.

Wu Chuan had of course raised many concerns, essentially saying that if they were to use real-time rendering, they might need to remake all the models, find specialized motion capture actors, have difficulty controlling costs, face too many challenges, and so on.

This made Pei Qian happy—that was exactly what he wanted!

In the end, “Agent Academy” was still forcibly made using real-time rendering. Wu Chuan pulled together a team from within Fei Huang Studio, headhunted some people from outside, and reluctantly began production.

Of course, Pei Qian provided the maximum financial support on his end—how could he stand idly by such a great opportunity to burn money?

Pei Qian’s original requirement was that each episode should be fifteen to twenty minutes, which was quite appropriate.

As long as they produced one episode before settlement, that would count as completing the task. At least the project would be considered launched, and the system couldn’t find fault with that, right?

Now it seemed that Wu Chuan had completed the task ahead of schedule, but his completion was somewhat discounted.

Wasn’t it supposed to be fifteen to twenty minutes? This was clearly only ten minutes!

Short and weak!

Pei Qian said, “It seems a bit… shorter than I imagined.”

Wu Chuan hurriedly explained, “Actually, I had originally planned to make it over fifteen minutes, but during the actual production process, I found that the original ‘Agent Academy’ story itself was more fragmentary in nature, making ten minutes more suitable. At fifteen minutes, it would be difficult to end at a particularly perfect point.”

“Besides, this is using a new method to make animation, full of risks. Making the first episode shorter, producing a finished product to see the effect first, would make it easier to correct any issues if found.”

“Of course, if you think the time is too short and audiences might not accept it, I can go back and re-edit, incorporate some content planned for the second episode to make it fifteen minutes, or simply combine the two to make twenty minutes.”

Pei Qian raised his hand: “Forget it, actually, looking at it this way, a ten-minute length is fine.”

He suddenly realized that the shorter and more cliffhanger-like it was, wouldn’t viewers be less inclined to watch it?

Being shorter wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The quality of the first episode, to be fair, was acceptable.

It wasn’t particularly good, nor was it particularly bad.

Although GOG had existing hero models that were quite detailed, using them directly for animation was still somewhat insufficient. After all, GOG’s perspective meant there was no need to make them as detailed as single-player games, which would actually take up more resources and cause lag on lower-end computers, reducing the player base.

Therefore, while the “Agent Academy” production team could directly use the hero models and some scene materials from GOG, they still needed to refine and adjust them.

From the finished product, “Agent Academy” was definitely a qualitative improvement compared to some independently produced animations and short dramas.

After all, the entire animation production team was comprised of staff transferred from Fei Huang Studio, along with some professional talent headhunted from outside. These regular troops were incomparable to ordinary amateur enthusiasts.

However, from another perspective, the production quality of the first episode of “Agent Academy,” compared to some foreign series and domestic top-tier animation production companies, still had a significant gap.

Considering the extensive resources Tenda Group had invested in “Agent Academy,” as well as the speed of content output…

This project seemed okay? Could it lose money?

Pei Qian calculated: the last time Wu Chuan came to formally finalize “Agent Academy” was at the end of October last year, so official production probably began in early November, which was just over two months ago.

Two months to produce just one episode? Ten minutes?

That efficiency was truly touching.

Of course, Pei Qian had absolutely no intention of blaming anyone; on the contrary, he thought Wu Chuan had done a great job.

They needed more employees like this to lose money!

Even if the process became more streamlined later and production speed increased, the efficiency would at most double, right?

One episode per month, no more than that.

And with each episode being only ten minutes, even if the viewership skyrocketed, how much money could it make?

Since “Agent Academy” was a short animated series, it would, like “The Successor,” have to negotiate with video websites for cooperation, either buying the rights outright or calculating profit-sharing based on viewership and popularity.

But “Agent Academy” was no “The Successor”!

No matter how much criticism “The Successor” received, it was still a high-standard major production with cameos from film stars like Lu Zhiyao, which could impress AiLiDao website.

What credentials did “Agent Academy” have? At most, it would receive the same treatment as other domestic animations.

Whether it was sold outright or shared profits, it wouldn’t make much money.

Considering the production cycle and quality…

This was secure!

Of course, there was another point to consider: the plot of “Agent Academy.”

Pei Qian thought the plot was fine, a good recreation of the original. Basically, it used the hero characters from GOG as the background to tell the humorous daily lives of agents (i.e., players). Many of the jokes were widely circulated in real life, along with some original humor. It was more than adequate as a casual video to watch during meals.

But was it especially, particularly brilliant?

It was just okay.

In summary, this was an animation with decent plot and quality, but factors like time, investment, and update frequency determined that it definitely wouldn’t become a big hit.

That was reassuring.

“Fine, I think it’s good. Go ahead and release it!” Pei Qian handed the tablet back.

Wu Chuan was a bit stunned: “Release it just like this? Don’t you want to give some feedback or make some changes, Mr. Pei?”

Pei Qian shook his head: “What feedback is there to give? I’m not very knowledgeable about this area. You’re all professionals, certainly doing better than I could.”

“Besides, from my perspective as a seasoned AiLiDao viewer, it’s filmed well, perfectly fine as a casual meal-time video. Since the quality has already reached this level, there’s absolutely no need to go any further.”

“Time is of the essence! Speed is the key!”

Pei Qian tried hard to instill the “good enough is good enough” philosophy in Wu Chuan, hoping the quality of “Agent Academy” would stop here and not improve any further.

Even if there were minor issues, there was no need to fix them—good enough was good enough.

Wu Chuan nodded: “Alright, Mr. Pei. We’ll do as you say. I’ll contact the video website right away.”

“So… what specific payment model should we use for ‘Agent Academy’? If we sell it outright, since this is our first animation, the price might not be very high…”

Pei Qian waved his hand: “That’s easy. Go find Huang Sibo to negotiate with AiLiDao website. Like ‘The Successor,’ calculate the profit-sharing based on factors such as viewership and ratings.”

“But there should be some differences from ‘The Successor.’ The rating factor should be as low as possible, while the factors for total views and total watch time should be higher.”

Pei Qian reasoned that the production quality of “Agent Academy” itself was passable. Although it couldn’t compare to some of the top domestic animated films, it would rank among the better ones in the domestic animation section of AiLiDao website.

Considering GOG players’ fondness for this subject matter, and the natural appeal of humorous short dramas, the ratings would likely not be low, completely incomparable to the situation faced by “The Successor.”

That being the case, he should shift the profit-sharing focus toward total views, especially total watch time.

Given “Agent Academy’s” turtle-paced update frequency and its compact, embroidery-needle-like length—10 minutes of actual content per month—how many views could it get?

Even if the viewership was decent, there wouldn’t be any issues with total watch time, right?

Wu Chuan was a bit surprised but didn’t say anything, just nodding: “Alright, Mr. Pei. I’ll arrange it right away.”

Watching Wu Chuan leave, Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling a bit happy.

Double happiness!

“The Successor” had aired two more episodes over the weekend, and Meng Chang’s team continued to pour promotional resources into it, but the situation still hadn’t improved. The ratings fluctuated up and down, but overall remained very low.

Now, striking while the iron was hot, “Agent Academy” was also launching. Even if the reception was good, as long as it didn’t make money, everything would be fine.

Calculating this way, out of Endline Chinese Website’s Inspiration Class’s three copyright adaptation projects, two lost money, and one made money.

Only “Eternal Reincarnation” made money, which was completely acceptable.

After all, following the popularity of “Turn Back to Shore,” and being developed by Tenda’s gaming department, it was understandable that it made money.

Moreover, he had gained Yu Fei as the lead designer and arranged for Hu Xianbin—a win for a loss, so it wasn’t a bad deal.

Thinking about it that way, things were looking quite optimistic!