Pei Qian waited for a few minutes. When Lin Wan didn’t raise any questions, he knew the matter was settled.

Pei Qian was well aware that the advertising plan he had proposed was indeed the most effective promotional strategy for traditional browser games.

It couldn’t be said to have the best cost-performance ratio, but its effectiveness would certainly not be poor.

For browser games, the most cost-effective approach would be to directly steal assets from other games or create some inexplicably ridiculous videos—basically whatever would maximize the click-through rate.

For example, “I keep showering, where is the greasy world?”

But doing so would be illegal. Art resources couldn’t be used carelessly, or a lawsuit would follow.

Pei Qian certainly couldn’t do anything illegal.

Therefore, hiring celebrities was the only option.

Traditional browser games targeted middle-aged players—successful people with plenty of money, private business owners, coal bosses, and the like.

These people tended to be fond of Hong Kong and Taiwan stars, weren’t particularly concerned about game graphics, had financial flexibility, and enjoyed the feeling of being surrounded by a group of subordinates in the game.

So when creating advertisements targeted at these people, this was exactly what they would look like.

Choosing Hong Kong and Taiwan celebrities increased the appeal and affinity for this demographic. At the same time, all the promotional language highlighted the selling points of the game for the target player group in the most concise way possible.

Features like selling equipment for profit, free trading, nation wars, and so on were all elements that browser game players were passionate about.

Presenting all these highlights in the advertisement as comprehensively as possible was simple, effective, and could produce an excellent brainwashing promotional effect—it was quite cost-effective.

That being the case, why did Pei Qian still want to make this advertisement?

The reason was simple: the audience targeted by the promotion was wrong, so no matter how good the effect was, it would be useless!

This promotional plan was designed from the beginning to attract traditional browser game players, the very people who would be despised by ordinary gamers.

The name “Hot-Blooded Battle Song: Enhanced Edition” followed the same logic.

This way, after spending a lot of money on advertising, although there would be influence, it would attract a large number of traditional browser game players.

These people’s characteristics were that they didn’t care about game graphics; they only wanted to spend money to defeat others and gather followers in the game, enjoying the feeling of being the center of attention.

However, what kind of game was “Hot-Blooded Battle Song: Enhanced Edition” now?

It had almost no pay-to-win elements; everyone could only buy stamina potions, and those who dominated the battlefield were lucky individuals selected by the heavenly choice system…

Even the form of the game itself had been changed from a traditional browser game to a micro-client to improve graphics!

In other words, these people would need to wait to download the client and couldn’t play immediately. Their office computers might not even be able to run the game, and the improved graphics weren’t something they were particularly sensitive to…

They would discover this wasn’t the type of game they wanted and would leave quickly while cursing.

How could the game not fail?

Spending big money to hire celebrities for advertisements and placing them on major websites, only to have poor promotional effects with players leaving in droves…

It would lose money!

So, who should be the true target audience for “Hot-Blooded Battle Song: Enhanced Edition”?

It should be students or office workers without much money, or ordinary players who liked the traditional browser game mode but couldn’t afford to spend heavily, or even some traditional PC or mobile game players could be included.

But the problem was that the vast majority of these people would be discouraged by the name and advertisements.

Just as Pei Qian could recite those few advertising lines backward, he had never actually considered trying to play the game himself.

So, there wasn’t a major problem with either the game itself or the promotional method.

But when the game and its promotional strategy targeted different player groups, that created a significant problem!

Additionally, with the game itself requiring a huge investment, with development and promotion combined costing at least seven or eight million yuan, and with a limited number of players and a single payment point, it would be almost impossible to recover costs even if a group of players did join.

Pei Qian took a deep breath. It seemed Shangyang Games could be left alone for now.

Next was the development situation of Tenda’s “Returning is the Shore.”

A few days ago, Pei Qian discovered that Terminus Chinese Web was writing an official novel for “Returning is the Shore,” which thoroughly frightened him.

After experiencing several previous incidents, Mr. Pei now maintained high vigilance at all times, not overlooking even the slightest movement.

Therefore, Terminus Chinese Web’s serialization of the official novel for “Returning is the Shore” didn’t escape his notice.

However, after checking the reader feedback, Pei Qian felt much more at ease.

Terminus Chinese Web’s development so far has been very slow. Although it had attracted some web novel authors with its superior full-attendance conditions, because the content in the book library was so poor, the growth rate of new users was worrisome.

So far, Terminus Chinese Web had only about two thousand daily active users, and that included those who came out of curiosity, took one look, and never returned.

Nevertheless, there were still a few hundred people who had read the official novel for “Returning is the Shore.”

Because this novel was prominently displayed on the website’s homepage, most visitors would see it.

However, below this novel were nothing but negative reviews.

“What is this garbage? Can’t understand it.”

“Read three chapters and still couldn’t figure out who the protagonist is!”

“All world-building? Gives me a headache.”

“This quality gets featured on the homepage? How trashy is this website?”

“‘Returning is the Shore’? What a garbage name, makes no sense!”

“Strongly suspect this is someone’s connection getting published! So many books are better than this, but they don’t get such good promotional spots.”

“If it’s due to connections, that further proves this website has no future!”

The game “Returning is the Shore” was still in development with no promotional campaigns, so Terminus Chinese Web hadn’t made a big deal about this book being the official novel of the same name, and hadn’t tried to ride Tenda’s popularity.

Ma Yiqun and Zhu Xingan’s original intention was to publish the official novel for their own enjoyment and to hear genuine feedback from players.

If only Tenda’s die-hard fans came to read it, they might start praising it regardless of content. Then all the flattery might make Ma Yiqun and Zhu Xingan dizzy, preventing them from maintaining an objective attitude and affecting the subsequent plot content.

As a result, the reader feedback couldn’t have been more genuine…

Pei Qian also flipped through two chapters of the novel and found that the readers’ criticism was quite accurate.

Zhu Xingan and Ma Yiqun deserved every bit of the criticism they received…

Zhu Xingan was the one writing the book, with others providing ideas and opinions.

Ma Yiqun had to manage the website and didn’t have much time for creative work. He also felt that his thinking was deeply influenced by web novels and might go off track, so he assigned this task to Zhu Xingan.

Zhu Xingan had absolutely no foundation in web novel writing, so when writing the official plot and world-building, he naturally referenced some foreign game plots, including original novels from foreign AAA titles, official setting collections, and so on.

It was vague and elusive, intricate and confusing.

The writing would have been fine for plot scripts, but when published on a web novel site, it stood out awkwardly.

With this official novel prominently displayed on Terminus Chinese Web’s homepage, who knew how many readers it had scared away?

Many new readers visiting the website would naturally first click on the prominently featured book, as books in this position often represented the website’s highest quality.

But upon opening it, they’d think, “This is it?”

They’d be immediately discouraged and wouldn’t click on a second book.

Pei Qian silently observed all this from behind the scenes and couldn’t help but secretly rejoice.

Good, Terminus Chinese Web certainly hadn’t let him down!

Ma Yiqun, with his mere 30 first-order subscriptions, plus a group of outsiders with zero understanding of web novels, this result finally met Mr. Pei’s expectations!

As for the matter of “Returning is the Shore” official novel being featured on the homepage, Pei Qian didn’t plan to intervene. After all, not only had this novel failed to attract any traffic so far, but it had also driven away a large batch of readers.

It was simply a boundless virtue!