While interviews were being conducted at Tenda Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Dream Realization Venture Capital.

Today, President Ma still hasn’t shown up.

Although President Ma’s whereabouts had always been unpredictable, and the company indeed didn’t have money for new investment projects recently, his absence still made He Desheng and others feel slightly worried.

If President Ma lost interest in the “nine-protect-one” game, many people might lose their jobs on the spot!

Even if they didn’t lose their jobs but just fell out of favor, it would still mean a bleak future career prospect.

Therefore, these experts who professionally played games with President Ma and invested as a side business were all a bit anxious.

After arriving at work, the first thing He Desheng did was open his email to check for messages.

He had sent game modification suggestions to Fingertip Company last Friday. Today being Monday, they should have replied, right?

Indeed, there was an unread email from Fingertip Company.

He Desheng briefly scanned through it.

True to being a shareholder.

Fingertip Company had already replied to the email on Saturday, but Dream Realization Venture Capital was closed on weekends, no one was working overtime, and He Desheng hadn’t checked his emails during the weekend, so he only saw it today.

But regardless, they had given a response within a short day, which showed how much Fingertip Company valued its shareholders and domestic agents.

The email was lengthy and very polite, using plenty of respectful phrases.

However, although the tone was tactful, the subtext was very clear.

Translated, it essentially said three things:

Thank you very much for Dream Realization Venture Capital’s support and love for the IOI game.

Thank you very much for Dream Realization Venture Capital’s valuable suggestions for the game, which were very inspiring for our game design.

However, due to some reasons that are difficult to explain in an email, Fingertip Company cannot promise to make changes accordingly, as game design is a very holistic issue. Of course, if conditions allow, these modifications are not completely out of consideration.

After reading this rather official reply, He Desheng silently sighed and closed the email.

There was no choice; their attitude was already very clear—they couldn’t make changes.

Although Dream Realization Venture Capital had shares in Fingertip Company and had obtained exclusive domestic agency rights, with just this amount of shares, it was impossible to dictate to Fingertip Company.

Moreover, Fingertip Company had consistently maintained its attitude toward investors, with a very firm determination to remain independent.

Getting such a polite reply in such a short time was already quite good. If other companies had made these suggestions, Fingertip Company probably wouldn’t have even bothered to respond.

Thinking carefully, this was quite normal. Dream Realization Venture Capital appeared to be just an investment institution on the surface, so how could Fingertip Company change their current game content that was still considered decent just because of an investment institution’s suggestions?

Even if Tenda was behind Dream Realization Venture Capital, Tenda’s influence abroad wasn’t that significant, and Fingertip Company’s response would likely still be the same.

In short, this path was not viable.

For other matters, he might just give up if it wasn’t possible.

But considering everyone’s livelihood, He Desheng felt they must use the game to regain President Ma’s trust.

If IOI wasn’t an option, were there any other similar games?

After considering for a long time, He Desheng suddenly remembered.

“Isn’t Tenda also developing a similar game?”

“Our brother department should be more approachable than Fingertip Company, right?”

He Desheng, didn’t have Li Yada’s contact information, but he could contact Assistant Xin.

So, after getting Li Yada’s contact from Assistant Xin, He Desheng sent over this modification plan.

As for whether Li Yada, the person in charge on Tenda’s side, would accept this plan?

He Desheng wasn’t confident.

Although they were brother departments, Tenda made games to earn more money, too.

If this modification plan contradicted Tenda’s previous design direction, the person in charge on Tenda’s side wouldn’t simply violate their design philosophy and make major changes to the game just because of personal relationships.

But in any case, he would ask first.

Maybe the person in charge there would be very interested in this modification plan?

…

…

Tenda Network Technology Co., Ltd.

“Mr. Pei, excuse the interruption.”

“Regarding this haunted house, could Mr. Pei briefly explain the specific requirements?”

“Although Hao Qiong and I have some ideas, we’re very concerned that they might not meet your expectations.”

Looking at the message from Chen Kangtuo, Pei Qian fell into deep thought.

Still couldn’t brush them off.

These two people had taken the initiative to ask, What should he do?

Pei Qian didn’t want to “point the way” for Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong, because he felt his words had been blessed with some sort of magic—whatever he said would come true.

Every time he gave others bad advice, it turned into golden ideas.

This made President Pei feel very confused and troubled.

So this time, Pei Qian also didn’t say much to Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong, just letting them figure things out on their own, hoping to brush them off.

As a result, these two probably sensed something wasn’t right, and after a weekend, they still took the initiative to ask.

Pei Qian didn’t want to “point the way” for them, but if he truly didn’t say a word, it also seemed somewhat inappropriate.

Hmm, he would just say one sentence.

Pei Qian thought for a moment and typed in reply: “Let those with courage find nowhere to spend their money, let those without courage be deterred at the sight.”

After about two minutes, Chen Kangtuo replied.

“Mr. Pei, could you explain a bit more…”

Clearly, after carefully reading these two sentences and pondering for two minutes.

However, he still couldn’t understand what these sentences were trying to express, and could only ask again helplessly.

Although this might make Mr. Pei think he was a bit useless, considering this was a ten-million major project, Chen Kangtuo didn’t dare to proceed with such confusion.

Pei Qian chuckled.

Explain?

It’s simple, it means letting those with courage, those who dare to come and play, play freely with low fees that don’t make money; letting those without courage not dare to come play, naturally unable to contribute income to the haunted house.

Those without courage don’t dare to come, those with courage come but don’t spend much money—wouldn’t the haunted house lose money?

But these words certainly couldn’t be stated explicitly.

Pei Qian also didn’t dare to explain further, fearing that one wrong word might trigger wild speculation from the two.

At this moment, silence was better than words.

So, Pei Qian simply replied with three words: “Figure it out yourself.”

Chen Kangtuo: “…Understood, Mr. Pei.”

He handed his phone to Hao Qiong.

The two looked at the screen showing Mr. Pei’s reply of “Figure it out yourself,” momentarily speechless.

Nice one, figure it out yourself…

The hint was just one sentence, wasn’t the difficulty of understanding this too high?

Hao Qiong had heard that previously, when Mr. Pei gave general directions, there were often three to four points, and they were usually quite specific.

But now, it had been highly condensed into one point, and it seemed too mysterious!

Teacher, this question is beyond the syllabus!

Chen Kangtuo felt his brain aching: “How… how do we figure this out?”

Hao Qiong took a deep breath: “Calm down, calm down.”

“Director Lin once taught us how to analyze Mr. Pei’s intentions. Wait a moment, let me recall the key points.”

“Step one, first establish a belief that no matter how unreliable Mr. Pei’s words seem, they are correct…”

Hao Qiong began to analyze the deeper meaning in Mr. Pei’s words according to the method Lin Wan had taught.

Those with courage, those without courage.

These should be all potential customers of the haunted house.

How these potential customers view the haunted house directly determines its success or failure.

Logically, it should be about ensuring both courageous and timid customers can enjoy themselves and willingly pay.

But these two types of customers have different demands.

Courageous customers need more thrilling and exciting adventure experiences, such as staff dressed as ghosts providing close-up scares.

Timid customers, however, are easily deterred by such thrilling and exciting attractions, perhaps not daring to enter at all, naturally not generating any consumption.

So, how to bridge the demands of these two different types of customers?

Chen Kangtuo believed that Mr. Pei’s sentence must contain the answer!

Let those with courage find nowhere to spend their money, let those without courage be deterred at the sight.

Does it mean making the haunted house extremely terrifying, then setting a low ticket price?

This way, those without courage wouldn’t dare to enter, naturally being deterred, while with the low price, those with courage would find nowhere to spend their money…

This indeed seemed to match Mr. Pei’s statement.

But the problem was, this wouldn’t make money and didn’t make sense.

Why make those without courage be deterred? Wouldn’t it be better to have them spend as much as possible? Why scare them away?

It definitely couldn’t be this simple.

So, this idea must be completely overthrown.

Let’s dig deeper into the meaning of Mr. Pei’s words!

The two pondered deeply for a long time.

Chen Kangtuo suddenly had some clues, slapped his thigh excitedly, and said: “Got it! I suddenly thought of something!”

“Let me briefly share my thoughts, and you can see if they make sense.”

Hao Qiong nodded, listening carefully.

Chen Kangtuo said somewhat excitedly: “Our earlier idea, simply put, was a high fear effect + low ticket price model, which would inevitably cause massive losses for the haunted house, definitely a dead end.”

“It misinterpreted Mr. Pei’s meaning.”

“I’m wondering if we missed some key information?”

“Mr. Pei deliberately omitted a key piece of information, which could very well be a test for us.”

“Mr. Pei never said the haunted house could only have one attraction, did he?”

Hao Qiong’s eyes widened instantly, showing a sudden realization.

That’s right, these two sentences don’t necessarily refer to the same attraction!

The entire haunted house has an initial investment of ten million, with more investment to follow, and it’s built in such a remote old industrial area, inconvenient to get to from anywhere, with the only advantage being plenty of land and factory buildings to use freely…

So why did Mr. Pei choose this location?

He never planned to create just one attraction from the beginning!

Chen Kangtuo continued: “Suppose we open two, or even three major attractions, each satisfying the demands of different consumers?”

“Let those with courage find nowhere to spend their money, meaning we need to find ways to collect money from those without courage.”

“Let those without courage be deterred at the sight, meaning satisfying those with courage with very stimulating experiences.”

“But we definitely can’t scare away those without courage. We want those with courage to rave about our haunted house, making those without courage be deterred yet still linger at the entrance, hesitating… and eventually transform into those with courage.”

“That is Mr. Pei’s ultimate goal!”

As Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong continued to analyze, Mr. Pei’s objectives gradually became clearer.

These two simple sentences could be broken down into the following points.

For players with courage, this place should be very scary, while having low consumption costs for them. This way, they would rave about this place, eagerly recommend it to friends, and repeatedly bring them to play.

For players without courage, they would develop fear due to how scary this place is, but absolutely cannot be completely scared away by this fear.

We need to find ways to earn more money from players without courage!

So, how to charge less from players with courage and more from players without courage?

Simple, through discounts and ticket refunds!

For example, the longer one persists in the haunted house, the cheaper the ticket becomes. If one manages to complete the course, consider refunding 70-80% of the admission fee, or even offering free entry depending on the situation.

This would perfectly achieve Mr. Pei’s requirements!

However, this scenario seemed somewhat idealized and had some loopholes.

For timid players to be deterred yet linger at the haunted house entrance, they first need to come to the haunted house.

If they never even consider coming here to play, then this effect naturally can’t be achieved.

Therefore, the haunted house must have an attraction suitable for slightly timid people.

This way, when these timid people are playing less scary attractions, they would also see courageous people going to play very thrilling and exciting attractions.

Moreover, this thrilling and exciting attraction would offer discounts based on the completion time.

This way, these timid people would be tempted to try, but since they couldn’t endure the entire course, their ticket prices and additional consumption would be higher.

For instance, items similar to the Buddha statues in “Return Is Salvation” could be sold at the entrance, which not only provide illumination but also reduce the scares from staff dressed as ghosts.

This would be equivalent to value-added services in games.

In this way, the experiences of both types of consumers could be accommodated!

One less scary but fun attraction to attract timid people.

One very scary attraction to attract courageous people.

After timid people come, they would develop curiosity about the scary attraction, generating additional consumption. This way, the haunted house’s income would be much higher than just selling tickets, naturally ensuring profitability.

With this realization, the previously confused pair felt a sudden clarity.

“So that’s it!”

“Now our task is very clear.”

“This haunted house must have at least two to three major attractions. There must be one with a low fear level but strong social attributes, suitable for multiple people to play repeatedly, used to attract timid consumers.”

“There must be one with a high fear level, attracting horror enthusiasts from across the country. The admission fee would be reduced based on how long they can endure.”

“As for the third attraction… it could be a transitional one. After all, between the first and third attractions, the horror factor gap is too large, and some timid consumers might still not dare to participate.”

“Let them practice their courage with the second attraction first, then they can go to the third attraction to continue the challenge.”

The two became increasingly excited as they discussed and immediately began writing planning documents!

Hao Qiong typed while marveling: “I must say, this analysis method Director Lin mentioned works!”

“We’ve analyzed so much from it at once!”

Chen Kangtuo nodded: “Yes. But coming back to the point, Mr. Pei’s guidance is more important.”

“It seems Mr. Pei already had a clear vision for this project.”

“Not only did he envision the ultimate form of this project in advance, but he also extracted the key points for the project’s success and gave us hints with such a brief sentence!”

“Mr. Pei is truly amazing.”

“Given that, what do we have to worry about?”

“Just follow Mr. Pei’s instructions and everything will be fine!”

The two had originally been very unsure, worried about messing things up.

But now, both were full of confidence and also full of expectations for the haunted house they would build!

…

…

Evening.

Tenda Group’s first recruitment had concluded.

Although there was still the Tenda Spirit Compatibility Test phase to follow, that was no longer the concern of the interviewers and staff.

The people who participated in the interviews had all been strictly screened, and each person’s interview duration was strictly controlled. Although there was a slight extension in time, it didn’t differ much from the estimate.

However, the work continued until after 5 PM before it was completed.

Because after the interviews, the interviewers and all staff still had to calculate and weigh the scores of all interviewees, compile the final selection list, and notify the interviewees.

This time, each department had recruited a large batch of new members.

Among them were experienced backbone employees with years in the industry, as well as freshly graduated or soon-to-graduate college students.

Although cross-interviews meant that various heads couldn’t directly interview candidates for their departments, the final selection results were generally satisfactory to everyone.

After all the work was done, the heads of each department happily went for a meal, expressing gratitude to each other.

After eating for more than an hour, they prepared to return home.

Li Yada took the opportunity during the dinner to consult Huang Sibo and Lü Mingliang on some issues.

Although the two had different ways of understanding Mr. Pei’s intentions, the results seemed to converge.

Only when the gathering was dispersing did Li Yada find the opportunity to take out her phone and see He Desheng’s friend request, as well as the game suggestion improvement plan he had sent.

“This kind of plan… seems quite risky.”

Although Li Yada’s understanding of similar games wasn’t as profound as Bao Xu’s, she had been leading the development of GOG for so long that she could clearly explain the pros and cons of most designs.

In most people’s view, 5v5 combat games represented by “Genesis” were undoubtedly fair, competitive games.

Since it was competitive, the higher the difficulty, the clearer the distinction between expert players and novice players would naturally be.

However, excessive difficulty would also lead to high game barriers, deterring some players with poor skills.

Reducing difficulty would indeed improve the gaming experience for novice players, but for many experts, “games being easy to get started with” might also be one reason they lose their sense of superiority…

In short, these suggestions seemed somewhat reasonable, but also had some risks.

How to choose? Li Yada found it difficult to decide.

After considering for a long time, she still couldn’t make a decision.

She originally wanted to consult Bao Xu or Mr. Pei, but then Li Yada remembered what Lü Mingliang had said during the dinner.

At that time, Li Yada had asked Lü Mingliang what he thought was the most important quality for a game designer.

Lü Mingliang thought for a moment and said the most important quality was not to be too confident in oneself.

Li Yada didn’t understand, so Lü Mingliang explained a bit more.

According to Lü Mingliang, the vast majority of designers were very confident in themselves.

Because before becoming designers, most people first had to become game enthusiasts, veteran game players, then enter the gaming industry, and gradually move upward.

Without self-confidence, many designers might not have entered this industry in the first place.

Therefore, most designers were full of confidence in themselves.

This confidence was certainly a good thing, but sometimes it could also make one blind.

Each player was just an individual, with tastes and preferences varying greatly.

And games certainly couldn’t satisfy everyone.

A good game only needed to satisfy the tastes and needs of the target player group, and that was enough.

So, what if what the designer liked was completely at odds with the target player group of this game?

Many designers would fall into blind confidence, creating games that were detached from players, which would undoubtedly fail.

On the contrary, designers who weren’t so confident in themselves would humbly listen to opinions, making games more in line with the tastes of most players, achieving success.

Therefore, not being too confident didn’t mean doubting oneself, but rather not blindly trusting oneself or following others.

Try to observe players from an objective perspective and seek a balance between personal preferences and player demands.

Thinking of this, Li Yada couldn’t help but reflect on herself.

She indeed wasn’t blindly confident, but…

Was blindly trusting Bao Xu also inappropriate?

Although Bao Xu certainly had rich experience with similar games, he could very well be making the “overconfidence” mistake that Lü Mingliang mentioned…

After thorough consideration, Li Yada decided.

There was no need to ask Bao Xu or Mr. Pei about this plan; just make a new version directly!

Among these changes, game mechanics like last-hit economy and bounty were relatively easy to implement; shrinking the map was a bit more troublesome, but could still be fixed in a few days; the more complex content, like designing heroes suitable for beginners or experts, needed long-term planning, but wasn’t that urgent.

In the early stages, they could first modify these basic mechanics, make another version, and update it to Slackin’ Internet Café as well.

After some time, by comparing the player data of these two versions, wouldn’t it become clear which version was better?