Soon, others in the dormitory raised similar questions.

“This game, why does the mall only sell one type of product?”

“It only allows a 30-yuan recharge?”

“And after buying it, you just get one more ten-card draw opportunity per day. Doesn’t seem very useful?”

“Where’s the nobility system? ‘Cute Three Kingdoms’ has already gone up to Nobility Level 8!”

Everyone looked toward Ruan Guangjian.

But Ruan Guangjian himself didn’t know either!

He thought for a moment: “I don’t know what’s going on either. Let me ask Mr. Pei. Maybe there are some special considerations, or perhaps this isn’t the official version of the game yet?”

Ruan Guangjian was quite puzzled and left a message for Pei Qian using the contact information from the resource site.

“Mr. Pei, I see that there’s no nobility system in the game, and the mall only has one product. Is it because the game is still in the testing phase? The official version will add these things, right?”

Before long, Pei Qian replied.

“This is the official version.”

Ruan Guangjian was shocked: “Then… what about the items in the mall?”

Pei Qian: “Our game only sells this lifetime card, and we don’t plan to introduce new products in the future.”

Ruan Guangjian: “Why?!”

Pei Qian: “Why? There’s no particular reason. Our game’s pricing strategy is primarily based on a one-time purchase model. Players have already spent 10 yuan to buy our game, how could we possibly introduce too many in-app purchases?”

“I originally planned not to sell this 30-yuan lifetime card at all, but then I thought there might still be some players who need it, so I added it.”

Ruan Guangjian was completely shocked and didn’t know what to say for a long time.

Mr. Pei is so conscientious!!

In “Cute Three Kingdoms,” the spending ceiling was nearly a thousand yuan. Only big spenders could obtain those extremely precious and rare cards, while ordinary players often had to grind for a long time to get just one purple card.

But in “Ghost General,” almost everyone was equal, with the only difference being a 30-yuan lifetime card!

In “Cute Three Kingdoms,” this amount wouldn’t even be enough for one ten-card draw!

Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt that he had been judging a gentleman with a petty person’s mindset.

He had thought Pei Qian hadn’t created a monetization system because the game was incomplete or for some other reason.

But after asking, he learned that Pei Qian never even considered creating a monetization system—he wanted to make a very fair card mobile game!

He wanted to let ordinary players also enjoy the fun of drawing rare cards!

Ruan Guangjian’s eyes moistened. He even felt that charging Pei Qian 3,000 yuan for a set of concept art was a bit excessive.

For such an idealistic, principled designer, he should have offered a discount!

Ruan Guangjian thought of another question and hurriedly asked: “Mr. Pei, there’s one more question. I see that the game’s download data is very poor. Is it because there hasn’t been any promotion yet?”

Pei Qian: “Promotion? Uh, no promotion.”

Ruan Guangjian was stunned: “Why no promotion?!”

Making a game but not promoting it—why?

Even good wine fears deep alleys—if you don’t promote, how will players know about your game?

Pei Qian: “Because there’s no money. This game had a total investment of 300,000 yuan. Buying templates, art resources, music and sound effects, renting cloud servers… basically used it all up.”

Ruan Guangjian was moved to tears.

What kind of spirit was this!

Ruan Guangjian still remembered that when Pei Qian was buying concept art, he could be described as generous!

Originally, Ruan Guangjian had proposed 2,000 yuan for 4 pieces of concept art, but Pei Qian felt that Ruan Guangjian would be working hard on the design, and wasn’t comfortable with just giving 2,000 yuan, so he forcibly increased the price to 3,000 yuan.

At that time, Ruan Guangjian had thought that Tenda Network Technology Co., Ltd. was a wealthy company that didn’t care about these tens of thousands of yuan.

But now it appeared that wasn’t the case at all!

Tenda didn’t have that much money. The development funds totaled only 300,000 yuan, barely enough to create a card mobile game, with no extra funds for marketing and promotion!

Thinking about it carefully, this was unexpected yet understandable.

Before this, Tenda Network Technology Co., Ltd. had only released one game, “The Lonely Desert Highway.” Although this game had a small burst of popularity, it was priced at only 1 yuan—how much could it earn?

Now, investing in the development of a second game, it was easy to be strapped for cash.

Even with such tight development funds, when discussing concept art, Mr. Pei couldn’t bear to exploit artists and instead proposed a relatively fair price that both parties found reasonable…

Righteous, so righteous!

Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt uncomfortable. Perhaps if he had asked for a bit less money, could Mr. Pei have squeezed out some promotional funds?

But Ruan Guangjian couldn’t bring it up, because he knew that with Mr. Pei’s personality, he definitely wouldn’t take the money back, and after all, he was the boss of a company—someone who needed to save face.

Ruan Guangjian suddenly felt a lump in his throat, very uncomfortable.

Such a conscientious game, without promotional funds, was about to face the fate of being buried in obscurity.

How distressing this was!

“Brothers, I think ‘Ghost General’ needs us now.”

Ruan Guangjian shared his speculations with his dormitory mates.

Old Huang and the others were also shocked.

“Is this game really so conscientious that it’s not planning to make money?”

“It’s not that they’re not planning to make money. What company makes games without planning to make money? I think Mr. Pei has lofty aspirations and doesn’t want to make unethical money!”

“That’s right. If he didn’t want to make money, Mr. Pei might as well have made the game completely free. He still wants to earn money through the 10-yuan one-time purchase fee, earning money honorably!”

“It seems very difficult. No matter how conscientious a game is, without initial promotion, it simply can’t become popular!”

“Should we become organic promoters?”

“Organic promotion isn’t a bad idea, but with just the few of us… it’s not very effective. If we were influencers or popular video bloggers, then of course we could do organic promotion, but we don’t have those resources.”

Everyone fell into deep thought.

Old Huang and the others were also moved by Ruan Guangjian’s words. They all felt that such a conscientious game as “Ghost General” absolutely should not be buried; otherwise, it would definitely be a major loss for the domestic mobile game market!

But after thinking it through, there was no good approach.

They couldn’t just manually post online, constantly spamming “Ghost General is a good game,” could they? That would be too inefficient and might be all for nothing.

Suddenly, Ruan Guangjian slapped his thigh: “I’ve got it! I have a group with some well-known master artists. I’ll ask them if they can help think of a way.”

Old Huang was startled: “You have such a group? How come I never knew about this?”

“Well, it’s a long story.”

While opening his computer, Ruan Guangjian said: “Last year, didn’t I work part-time at a concept art competition? That’s when I met Teacher Chen Qi. I showed him my work, and he appreciated it, so he encouraged me to develop more in this direction and added me to a group.”

He paused, then continued: “Unfortunately, everyone in the group is an industry big shot, so I don’t feel comfortable speaking up. So until now, I’ve just been silently lurking.”