Pei Qian was perplexed because he felt this promotional campaign seemed like something he would have created himself.

The latter two slogans were completely misleading!

While players might not know what kind of game “Safe and Civilized Driving” was, Pei Qian himself knew all too well.

The phrase about “diverse driving experiences” was barely acceptable, since the game did include family cars, buses, large trucks, as well as various luxury supercars and rally cars. So describing it as offering diverse driving experiences wasn’t wrong.

The only problem was that most players, without adequate driving skills, simply couldn’t experience the various racing modes at all.

But the subsequent promotional slogans became increasingly outrageous.

The claim about “highly concentrated driving sensations” would make players think the game had strong immersion and engagement, but Pei Qian knew that this actually referred to how severe the consequences of crashing were in the game, forcing players to maintain high concentration.

As for the “recklessness and limitless possibilities” claim, that was even more absurd. The game did offer infinite possibilities—you could wreck your car into any bizarre shape imaginable, and your driver could receive all kinds of hospital bills, from critical condition notices to death certificates.

If these promotional slogans were combined, players would certainly imagine a wild, extremely thrilling racing game.

However, in reality, “Safe and Civilized Driving” was a realistic driving simulation game very similar to real-life driving—once on the road, you had to be extremely cautious, not daring to have the slightest collision, and in most situations, you simply couldn’t race at all!

This complete disconnect between promotional materials and the actual game naturally reminded Pei Qian of the marketing campaign he had created for “Struggle” back then.

It was equally mismatched!

Such false advertising was clearly effective, at least in making players feel deceived as soon as they started playing.

Of course, the promotional campaign for “Struggle” had backfired later, but that was an extremely rare and unexpected situation that couldn’t be considered the norm.

Pei Qian wasn’t worried that “Safe and Civilized Driving” would follow the same path as “Struggle,” since the two games had completely different themes. “Struggle” with its realistic subject matter naturally had more room to be distorted and misunderstood, while “Safe and Civilized Driving” was just a racing game.

What confused Pei Qian was why Ye Zhizhou would come up with such a promotional campaign.

Didn’t he understand that this kind of promotion was very detrimental to the game’s initial popularity and reputation?

“I understand now! He’s trying to imitate Xishi’s beauty, learning to walk like people from Handan, carving the boat to find the sword!”

“Seeing that ‘Struggle’ became popular because of this promotional method, he wants to replicate it.”

“After all, Ye Zhizhou knows nothing about marketing and can’t distinguish between good and bad marketing plans. With Meng Chang washing his hands of it, Ye Zhizhou, wanting to create a special promotional campaign, could only draw from past experiences.”

“And he drew the wrong lessons! Creating a promotional campaign that’s perfect in my eyes!”

Realizing this, Pei Qian was instantly delighted.

An unexpected joy!

He continued browsing through more promotional materials, such as the game’s promotional video.

Sure enough, the promotional video also continued this marketing approach.

In the video, a sports car was speeding and racing on a track, with the driver turning the steering wheel, pulling the handbrake, downshifting and accelerating—various cool driving techniques that got viewers’ blood pumping.

It was completely a standard promotional video for a racing game.

Of course, besides in-game footage, the promotional video also included some scenes of the peripherals: after a series of racing scenes in the game, the camera shifted to show that the driver was actually using the Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator.

Pei Qian grew happier the more he watched.

This was spot-on!

He also checked the players’ comments and reviews.

“So this simulator does have a companion game! Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“Tenda is finally making a racing game?”

“‘Lonely Desert Highway’: What do you mean ‘finally’? I was here first…”

“Something seems off… The game is called ‘Safe and Civilized Driving,’ but why is the promotional video full of racing? That doesn’t match up.”

“Maybe it’s because the driving scenes in the game are too violent, so they called it ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ to make it easier to pass review? Plus it emphasizes that games are games and reality is reality, reminding everyone not to confuse the two.”

“No, Tenda’s game names have always been straightforward, with a direct connection to the game content. If the game is called ‘Safe and Civilized Driving,’ it’s very likely that’s what the game content is, and it’s the promotional material that’s misleading.”

“That can’t be right. How can promotional material be misleading? Don’t tell me this game isn’t a racing game, but a suffering game like ‘Lonely Desert Highway’? I don’t believe it.”

“Anyway, here’s another reason to buy the peripherals. Tenda’s games combined with their hardware are unbeatable!”

“Is that really necessary? Many people play racing games without steering wheels. Aren’t there many pros who are keyboard and controller gods?”

“I think the game is definitely worth buying and playing, but using a controller should be enough.”

“Yeah, it’s not that the steering wheel isn’t good, but it’s hard to justify dedicating so much space to it. It would just end up collecting dust anyway.”

“The smart fitness clothes drying rack at least offers real fitness benefits, but no one really thinks racing games can actually improve driving skills, right? It’s probably ‘easy to learn, quick to forget.’ If you bring game techniques into real life, you might end up being a super road killer.”

After reading all the comments, Pei Qian felt much more at ease.

That’s good, the response was average, nowhere near enthusiastic!

Clearly, people’s current expectations and evaluations of “Safe and Civilized Driving” were based on Shangyang Games’ previous successes.

Maintaining this lukewarm level of interest was enough—once the game was released, players would definitely feel deceived!

…

At 8 PM that evening, in a streaming room in the single-player game section of Rabbit Tail Live.

Zhang Yan started her stream as usual.

The difference from her usual streams was that she had prepared completely different content this time: in front of her triple-monitor computer screen was a complete set of Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator equipment, the deluxe version with a G-force seat.

Zhang Yan came from a well-off family and had a wide range of hobbies. She usually enjoyed streaming and chatting with viewers. Although her stream didn’t have many viewers, she found it more enjoyable than her day job.

Her main occupation was working at a TV station, and while she didn’t particularly like this job, suddenly quitting would subject her to pressure from her parents and other sources. So for now, she only streamed after work each day, occasionally missing scheduled streams.

Small streamers like her weren’t noticed by other large platforms, let alone offered substantial sums to switch platforms.

For Zhang Yan, signing with a large platform would mean losing her freedom, so Rabbit Tail Live was the most suitable platform for her.

Besides this, she had another hobby: she loved driving.

In addition to her daily commute, she had visited professional race tracks several times and roughly learned techniques like drifting.

The instructor said her talent wasn’t bad, but racing is a sport that burns both money and time. For Zhang Yan, abandoning her job to focus entirely on racing wasn’t feasible, considering both her economic situation and family environment.

It’s worth noting that the expenses of racing aren’t something an ordinary well-off family can afford—you shouldn’t even think about it without several million yuan.

As for training to become a top racer, the cost would be astronomical.

Moreover, although Zhang Yan had only graduated from university a year ago and was still relatively young, for a racing driver, this was already a very late start.

Modern racing drivers generally begin training from childhood, with many kids practicing at go-kart tracks from a very young age. Over time, this accumulates into a huge gap compared to “late bloomers” in racing.

Of course, there were examples of late bloomers who made names for themselves in racing, but without exception, they all had extremely high natural talent.

While Zhang Yan was quite confident in her driving skills and talent, this level of confidence clearly wasn’t enough to support her in abandoning everything to pursue such an elusive goal.

However, as a hobby, she could certainly play more racing games and buy simulator equipment.

Zhang Yan originally had a belt-driven steering wheel and pedals made by a foreign gaming peripheral manufacturer, which cost around four thousand yuan. After using it for a while, her desire to upgrade her equipment grew increasingly stronger.

After watching videos of direct drive motors, she increasingly felt that her belt-driven steering wheel was weak and insufficient.

However, foreign direct drive steering wheels were extremely expensive, leaving her in a dilemma.

Zhang Yan certainly knew that equipment only made playing more enjoyable and wouldn’t actually help improve driving skills—many professional racers used entry-level gaming steering wheels for simulators.

But…

She couldn’t resist!

Especially when she saw that the deluxe package of the Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator was only 9,999 yuan, she couldn’t hold back.

She immediately sold her original steering wheel set second-hand and decisively placed an order.

Of course, she didn’t purchase immediately but waited a bit to check the first wave of online reviews.

After all, the simulator was in ample supply, so there was no worry about it selling out.

When several experienced domestic simulator players unanimously recommended it and agreed that buying it was a bargain, Zhang Yan finally made up her mind and bought a set.

In the three or four days since buying it, Zhang Yan had tried running some of her previous driving games, but the experience wasn’t very good.

This was due to compatibility issues.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t use it, but many detailed compatibility aspects obviously couldn’t be perfectly implemented.

Her original foreign gaming steering wheel was a classic model that received support from many classic racing simulation games, with well-calibrated settings and convenient buttons and operations.

While Ou Tu Technology’s steering wheel hardware was good, these foreign racing games weren’t specifically adapted for it. They could only simulate other steering wheels, so they couldn’t perfectly utilize the hardware’s capabilities.

Finally today, the companion game was released!

Zhang Yan didn’t hesitate to purchase it immediately.