Meanwhile, Zhou Muyan was also looking at various game metrics, smiling so widely he could barely close his mouth.

Excellent! When Mr. Pei made a move, it was truly extraordinary!

Min Jingchao was impressive too, leading the team at Tianhua Studio to create such a blockbuster game without any overtime!

It seemed that signing everyone up for that suffering trip was money well spent! Everyone truly deserved this paid vacation.

Zhou Muyan had always been a relatively generous boss. Although he couldn’t compare to Mr. Pei, he never stinted on benefits and bonuses as long as the project was profitable.

Just as he was contentedly watching “Bullet Mark 2” gaining more and more popularity, his phone rang.

Zhou Muyan was startled for a moment before answering: “Hello? Mr. Ding?”

A confused and somewhat impatient voice came from the other end: “Mr. Zhou, what’s this announcement about?”

Zhou Muyan was taken aback: “Announcement? Is there something wrong with the announcement?”

Mr. Ding seemed a bit stumped by the question. After a pause, he said: “This announcement, this announcement is completely unnecessary, isn’t it? Our operational strategy needs to be flexible, adjusted according to the game’s subsequent performance. How can we lay all our cards on the table with the players from the start?”

“Besides, for matters concerning operations, if there’s going to be an announcement, shouldn’t Longyu Group be the one to make it?”

“Mr. Zhou, you didn’t even tell me before releasing this announcement. Isn’t that a bit inconsiderate?”

Zhou Muyan was stunned: “Huh?”

“Mr. Ding, you didn’t know about this?”

“Oh my, there must be some misunderstanding here!”

“It’s like this: recently, some rumors appeared online claiming that ‘Bullet Mark 2’ would definitely introduce all sorts of messy operational activities later on. Isn’t that spreading false rumors? Isn’t that slander?”

“If you hadn’t signed an agreement with Tenda, it would be a different story. There might indeed be monetization activities in the future, and we couldn’t issue an announcement that would contradict our future actions. But since you’ve already signed an agreement with Tenda, there definitely won’t be such operational activities in the future, so of course we needed to clarify immediately!”

“So when people from Tenda told me about this, I thought it made perfect sense. The sooner we issue the announcement, the better!”

“Issuing it early not only dispels players’ doubts but also shows our integrity. Why wouldn’t we do it?”

“Mr. Ding was probably too busy, so you didn’t get the news. But this shouldn’t have much impact. Didn’t Longyu Group sign an agreement with Tenda? Since everything was agreed upon, this announcement shouldn’t have any impact, right?”

“If you ask me, Mr. Ding should immediately issue a supplementary announcement. If we’re going to put on a show, let’s do it thoroughly.”

Mr. Ding: “I, I just…”

Obviously, he had a lot to say but didn’t know how to express it.

Although they had signed an agreement, there was still room for negotiation within its content! It wasn’t entirely impossible to skirt the edges within the agreement’s scope, quibble over wording, and squeeze in some operational activities.

But with this announcement released, it meant exposing the matter directly to all players’ view. If they tried to implement such activities later, they would definitely be severely criticized by the players!

Moreover, players would be able to precisely target Longyu Group without mistakenly blaming Tenda or Tianhua Studio.

But Mr. Ding couldn’t directly express his inner thoughts, and at this point, anything he said would be useless.

After hemming and hawing for a while, Mr. Ding had no choice but to say: “I understand, Mr. Zhou. I’ll issue an announcement from our side later. That’s all for now, talk to you later.”

Zhou Muyan: “Eh? Hello?”

After hanging up, Zhou Muyan was still a bit puzzled.

“This Mr. Ding, why doesn’t he seem too happy even though the game is so popular? Never mind, anyway, this money tree is enough to feed our studio for several years!”

Zhou Muyan continued to happily examine the backend data.

…

Jin Yong was pretending to work on an operational plan when his phone rang.

Seeing the caller ID, Jin Yong couldn’t help but smile knowingly. He answered the phone while sending the operational plan, which was about seventy to eighty percent complete, to Mr. Ding.

“Hello? Mr. Ding, the operational plan is about seventy to eighty percent done. I’ve sent it to you. Would you like to take a quick look?”

“What? We’re not doing the operational plan anymore?”

“Tianhua Studio’s announcement? What announcement? Oh, we should issue a similar one, right? Understood.”

After hanging up, Jin Yong smiled, and couldn’t help but marvel: Mr. Zhao’s strategy really worked well!

Not only had it perfectly achieved the goal, but it had also extricated him without arousing any suspicion from Mr. Ding.

Of course, Jin Yong had no choice. If he hadn’t done anything and had truly followed Mr. Ding’s instructions to quibble with Mr. Pei, he would likely have ended up in an impossible position.

As a game operator, Jin Yong was very clear about the nature of his work.

Did game operators get cursed at a lot? Of course they did.

Whenever there was a paid activity, the first to be cursed was always the game operator, and only then the company boss and the “dog designers.”

At such times, the “dog designers” felt wronged: I only design the game, operations have nothing to do with me! Why are you cursing at me?

Actually, operators were also wronged. While they did create the plans, in many cases, they were just taking the blame for the boss!

The boss wanted operators to create more profitable plans—could operators refuse? If they dared to refuse, they would be replaced immediately!

So, many times Jin Yong knew what he was doing wasn’t right, that it would drain the game’s lifespan and invite criticism, but what could he do? This was his profession. Could he go against his boss?

In the past, if Mr. Ding had made such a request, even if he was unwilling, Jin Yong would have had no choice but to hold his nose and comply.

But this time, the situation was different.

He was delighted to discover: could things actually be done this way?

Just by thinking a bit and bringing out Tenda and Mr. Pei as powerful backers, many problems could be easily solved.

The boss could indeed pressure his subordinates, but he wouldn’t dare cross Mr. Pei! As long as Tenda took preemptive action, the boss would become completely obedient.

Of course, this wasn’t about pressuring or controlling these bosses. They would still earn their money in full—it was just about keeping them in check and preventing them from causing trouble on a whim.

Jin Yong quickly drafted the announcement and, after confirming its accuracy, released it.

After all, Tianhua Studio had already set an example, so he just had to follow suit. It wasn’t difficult.

The announcement was simultaneously released on Longyu Group’s official website, official Weibo, and other social media platforms.

Soon, players began to respond.

“Wow, Longyu Group has also issued an announcement! This definitely confirms it’s true!”

“They had no choice. Tianhua Studio had already made a statement. If Longyu Group didn’t respond, wouldn’t it be like writing ‘Come at me’ on their own face?”

“Great! Setting in-game purchase prices and promising absolutely no operational activities other than discounts basically leaves no room for wordplay, right? ‘Bullet Mark 2’ is confirmed to be a conscientious game like GOG! Extremely optimistic about it!”

“I still don’t trust the integrity of Tianhua Studio and Longyu Group. These two have always had a history of bad behavior. Breaking promises isn’t impossible for them.”

“But being willing to make a statement with this announcement is still a good thing!”

“Tenda is still amazing, being able to require the operator to follow their rules! This is only possible with Tenda. Other development companies probably have no say at all. Forget about making suggestions for operational plans—they’d be lucky if the operator didn’t force them to change their design plans!”

“Well, who else comes up with ideas and designs like Tenda? If you can design hit games yourself, then go ahead and design them. When cooperating with Tenda, of course you have to listen to everything Tenda says!”

“So, does this count as Tenda ‘helping the world when successful’? They’ve brought this concept of conscientious operations to other companies, creating a ‘good currency drives out bad currency’ effect?”

“There should be more game companies cooperating with Tenda in the future, right? I suggest that this incident becomes the norm. The gaming circle should also have a Tenda certification. Companies that cooperate with Tenda should first issue an announcement saying they will adhere to these two operational principles, and then we’ll play their games!”

“Wow, isn’t that too harsh?”

“Harsh my ass! It’s not like they’re not making money! It’s just about not fleecing players too severely, not always thinking about uprooting the leeks completely.”

“Makes sense. In the future, we’ll only play Tenda-certified games. Gradually, won’t the entire gaming circle only have Tenda-certified games left? All according to plan!”

Jin Yong hadn’t expected such a positive response!

Clearly, players had reached a level of unconditional trust in Tenda and Mr. Pei, to the extent that jointly developing a game with Tenda and issuing a statement could earn Tenda’s credibility endorsement and become a hot topic!

“Could it be that Tenda might actually change the entire domestic gaming environment?”

Jin Yong suddenly had this outlandish idea.