Seeing Pei Qian’s pale face without any expression of approval or satisfaction, Ma Yang suddenly felt uncertain.

“Qian Bro, you’re not blaming me for spending too much money, are you?”

“Do you think a small foreign company isn’t worth investing so much in?”

Pei Qian: “…”

Looking at Old Ma’s sincere gaze, Pei Qian was momentarily speechless.

How could he respond to this…

The one who told Old Ma to act decisively when the time came was Pei Qian.

The one who told Old Ma to invest in what he liked was also Pei Qian.

Playing “Divine Initiation” was one of Old Ma’s few hobbies. Since he couldn’t invest in “Divine Initiation,” he had to settle for the next best thing by finding a similar foreign game company to invest in, and he had thrown in all twenty million at once.

From every angle, Old Ma had followed Pei Qian’s instructions.

Moreover, this seemed like a rather unreliable deal, perfectly aligning with Pei Qian’s original intentions.

But Pei Qian was suffering internally—this company gave him such a strong sense of déjà vu!

Was this IOI just a variation of LOL?

What made this situation so unexpected for Pei Qian was that he had searched for similar information online last year!

According to his original memory, Riot Games should have been established around 2006 and secured $8 million in funding in 2008 from three investors.

As for the later acquisition by Tencent for over $200 million, that happened in 2011.

In his memory, LOL was released in 2009.

Currently, it is November 2010.

Logically, the $8 million funding round should have been completed long ago, right?

Pei Qian had searched for similar news online last year but found nothing.

At the time, he hadn’t thought much about it, assuming it was just another manifestation of the world’s changes. After all, even Bilibili had become AiLiDao, so it was normal for other companies to undergo some changes as well.

Pei Qian hadn’t taken it too seriously, since the company was overseas and his information wasn’t that up-to-date.

Now Pei Qian finally understood why he couldn’t find anything last year.

Because both the company name and the game name had changed—from Riot Games to Finger Games, from LOL to IOI. Of course Pei Qian couldn’t find anything when searching for the original names.

Moreover, the entire timeline had been pushed back by two full years. Last year, this company was probably just established, merely a startup. How could there be much information about it online?

Pei Qian had always been curious about what MOBA games would be like in this world.

He never expected to finally learn the answer today, and in such an absurd manner…

However, looking at the system panel, Pei Qian found there were no obvious changes yet.

Shares worth over $2 million should be like that villa, both special assets belonging to the company, and should be displayed on the system panel.

This might be because the share acquisition was still in progress, with procedures not yet completed, so it hadn’t been formally displayed in the system.

Many thoughts flashed quickly through Pei Qian’s mind.

Faced with Old Ma’s sincere gaze, he didn’t know what to say.

Criticize him? That seemed unreasonable. Ma had completely followed his instructions without any discount.

Throwing 20 million at a small foreign company was entirely in line with Dream Realization Venture Capital’s style. Shifting the blame to Ma Yang wouldn’t be appropriate!

Praise him? Yes, he should be praised. This kind of investment was the type of achievement one could boast about for a lifetime.

But… Pei Qian simply couldn’t bring himself to offer praise.

Pei Qian took two deep breaths and reluctantly nodded: “It’s fine, you did well.”

“However, there might not be extra funds shortly. Old Ma, just have everyone work casually and play some games while waiting for my next update.”

Pei Qian stood up, preparing to leave.

He couldn’t stay in this heartbreaking place for another second.

Ma Yang raised his hand: “Hey, Qian Bro, sure you don’t want to experience a high-level match? I’ve got 1900-point masters here!”

Pei Qian: “…”

Ma Yang continued: “For Saturday night’s dinner, I’ll contact Manager Lin directly. Is that okay?”

Pei Qian: “…”

You still have the nerve to eat my food!

Unable to speak, he could only turn his back to Ma Yang, giving an “OK” hand gesture before walking away without looking back.

…

…

Returning to Tenda Games, Pei Qian sat down in his office.

Having already contemplated life, he now needed to think about how to handle this unexpected event.

This bizarre situation occurring right at the beginning of the cycle was completely beyond Pei Qian’s expectations.

Buying over 20% of the shares and obtaining IOI’s exclusive agency rights in China—this was basically a done deal. It was impossible to terminate the investment or transfer these newly acquired shares.

Because there was simply no legitimate reason to do so.

What about selling later? By then, Finger Games’ valuation would surely skyrocket, and selling would inevitably result in huge profits.

Moreover, after careful consideration, Pei Qian realized these shares could not be sold under any circumstances.

Selling midway would be too foolish!

If Finger Games could truly develop to the scale Pei Qian imagined, forget about the shares—just the exclusive agency rights for China would be a veritable money tree.

Mr. Pei indeed viewed making money as worthless as dung, but if there was too much dung… it would be impossible to ignore.

If IOI could later earn tens of billions of dollars annually, then no matter how the wealth conversion ratio was adjusted, the converted personal wealth would still be a substantial sum.

If it were just a small profit of a few million, it wouldn’t mean much to Pei Qian. But if it were tens of billions in profit, that would be an entirely different matter.

Besides, imagining it further, could he perhaps have heroes and exclusive skins named after himself in the future?

Thinking about it that way, it seemed quite exciting!

If this situation occurred, then for Pei Qian, doing nothing and earning money while lying down might not be a bad strategy.

The large amount of system funds earned could be used for logistics, physical stores, and giving back to society.

Earning money from foreigners to repay the motherland—truly a young person with a red heart and proper roots.

Of course, looking at it differently, nothing was certain.

The whole world had changed, and both the company and game names were different from Pei Qian’s memory. Who could guarantee that IOI would succeed like LOL?

Moreover, even if successful, that would be three or four years later.

During that time, it would still need many rounds of promotion and the joint efforts of many people. Only with perfect timing, geographical advantage, and human harmony could it achieve a dominant position in the global gaming market.

Who could say with certainty what would happen in three or four years?

Distant water couldn’t quench present thirst. Even if he could earn money while lying down three or four years later, it wouldn’t affect Pei Qian’s current development strategy.

In short, from a long-term perspective, these shares and exclusive agency rights should be kept.

If concerned about making money in the near term, then finding ways to spend it quickly on logistics, warehousing, public welfare… Spending it in various ways would essentially benefit society.

Thinking this way, the situation didn’t seem so bad.

The hope of losing money hadn’t been completely lost.

As Pei Qian continued thinking, suddenly a flash of inspiration came to him—a good idea.

“Perfect, I can use this opportunity to hedge the risk!”

“Since this world already has IOI, doesn’t that mean the future winner has been determined?”

“If I make my own MOBA game, wouldn’t it inevitably fail?”

“Wouldn’t that become a bottomless pit? Just pour in as much money as we want to burn!”

Pei Qian suddenly discovered a new continent, truly a case of finding a bright village after a dark willow!

If IOI was destined to sweep the globe in the future, high-quality games like “Divine Initiation” might still hold their ground, but other PC MOBA games would likely suffer heavy casualties and become mere also-rans.

In that case, if Tenda also made a MOBA game, wouldn’t it fail?

First, throw in 50 million. If things looked bad, throw in another 50 million. Finally, when the game failed because it couldn’t resist the IOI wave, all the development funds would go down the drain…

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more reliable this seemed!

He had originally reserved a budget of 50 million for Tenda’s game department and was worried about how to spend it.

Now there was no need to worry—he had a target!

With this in mind, Pei Qian quickly called Li Yada over.

“We have a new game. Take some simple notes.”

Li Yada quickly took out a small notebook from her pocket: “Alright, Mr. Pei, go ahead.”

Pei Qian thought for a moment: “Have you played ‘Divine Initiation’? Just make something like that, of the same type.”

“As for the name… let’s call it GOG, Glory of Gods.”

Pei Qian felt that with LOL, IOI, COC, and WOW already taken, there weren’t many usable letters left.

In that case, GOG would do. It didn’t have any special meaning, just hoping this game would seek to say GG as soon as possible.

Li Yada was still waiting.

After a minute, she asked with some confusion: “Is that all?”

Pei Qian nodded: “Yes.”

Since it was just being made to burn money casually, they could just mess around with it.

Li Yada thought for a moment: “But if we copy ‘Divine Initiation,’ isn’t that… somewhat inappropriate?”

“Although the law doesn’t protect gameplay mechanics, making it too similar would attract criticism.”

Pei Qian nodded: “Hmm, you have a point.”

Mr. Pei’s goal was just to lose money, not to tarnish his and the company’s reputation. Attracting such criticism was unnecessary.

“In that case, just make some random changes.”

“Make it completely different so players won’t think we’re plagiarizing.”

“First version should have twenty-something heroes to play with, development period of four months.”

“The budget is 50 million. Go all out. If it’s not enough, we can add more later.”

Li Yada was stunned: “Huh? That much?… We probably can’t spend it all.”

Can’t spend it all? Really?

Pei Qian was a bit unhappy. His employees didn’t know how to take initiative.

Pei Qian said somewhat disappointedly: “Do I have to teach you how to spend money?”

“Invest heavily in art resources, models, animations, story backgrounds, details…”

Li Yada looked at her notebook somewhat embarrassedly: “But… Mr. Pei, if it’s just one map and twenty-something heroes, we really can’t spend that much on art…”

Pei Qian: “…”

Thinking carefully, that was indeed the case.

Because of the existence of the RSRO official resource site, the cost of developing games in this world has been reduced considerably.

Trying to spend a budget of 50 million in four months on just one map and twenty-some heroes was indeed challenging.

So, what to do?

Pei Qian thought for a moment—were there any other MOBA game experiences to draw on?

There were plenty of failed MOBA games, but for many games, it was hard to tell whether they failed because of poor gameplay, too many programming bugs, or inadequate promotion.

Pei Qian thought and thought, and came up with a good direction.

A certain game that was developed and then continuously tested, never daring to officially operate.

Because once officially operated, it would instantly be sued into bankruptcy.

Pei Qian felt he could learn from this advanced experience!

Of course, they couldn’t just pirate copyrights.

Pirating copyrights meant they couldn’t officially operate. If they couldn’t settle accounts for two cycles, the system would cut Pei Qian off.

But what if they bought all those copyrights?

How much money would that cost?

There would be no worry about not spending enough money!

As long as they kept buying copyrights, no matter how much money was invested, it wouldn’t be enough.

Pei Qian thought this was a good idea: “Then let’s buy IPs!”

“Whether domestic or foreign, buy any character IPs that catch our eye, regardless of price. If they can be incorporated into the game, put them in.”

“Oh, but forget about those IPs that cost millions of dollars. Just buy lots of cheaper IPs.”

Putting characters from major IPs into the game would cost a lot of money. Some particularly big IPs might not even be available regardless of price.

But buying such big IPs also carried special risks. For example… what if it attracted a large number of fans and gave the game extremely high visibility?

Moreover, the bigger the IP, the more trouble with the parent company. Pei Qian didn’t want to spend his days arguing contract details with some foreign corporation just to buy an IP. It wasn’t worth the effort.

So Pei Qian’s idea was to pick up trash relentlessly.

Whether domestic or foreign, find those IPs that were already outdated or ignored. With the mindset of a trash collector, buy them all, put them in the game, and design skills based on the characters’ characteristics.

For those that didn’t match the game’s style, they could get prior agreement from the copyright holders, then hire art masters for reinterpretation, spending another round of money.

This way, wouldn’t the money be spent quickly?

And these trash IPs, whether bought or not, would make little difference. They wouldn’t provide any significant boost to traffic, with an abysmal cost-effectiveness ratio.

Li Yada still had questions, after all, this was the first project she was leading as the main designer.

However, Pei Qian waved his hand: “Alright, let’s start with this. Just brainstorm a bit. Don’t ask me about everything—I’m afraid it might affect your thinking.”

Li Yada squeezed her fingers: “Good, alright, Mr. Pei.”

Turning to leave Mr. Pei’s office, Li Yada thought to herself that this task was a bit too heavy, especially since she wasn’t skilled at games like “Divine Initiation.”

Thinking it over, improving her “Divine Initiation” gaming skills in the short term seemed impossible.

It seemed her only option was to privately seek help from Bao Xu.