“No!” Pei Qian refused decisively.
Li Yada was a bit anxious: “But…”
Pei Qian didn’t let her finish and immediately interrupted: “No need to say more. This is a matter of principle, no compromises.”
“Work progress can never be fully caught up with. Even if I approve you returning to work a week early, would that one week allow GOG to surpass IOI?”
Li Yada was momentarily at a loss for words: “One week certainly wouldn’t be enough, but…”
Pei Qian immediately continued: “That’s exactly the point. If I approve you coming back to work a week early, and we still haven’t surpassed IOI, wouldn’t you then apply to work weekends?”
“If you work overtime this week and still haven’t surpassed IOI, wouldn’t you need to continue working overtime next week?”
“A thousand-mile dike can be breached by an ant hole—you should understand the principle of preventing small problems before they grow.”
“If this continues, where would you place Tenda’s rules and regulations?”
Li Yada: “Uh…”
Pei Qian spoke earnestly: “So, if working two extra days won’t have a decisive effect, then don’t work overtime. Meaningless overtime wastes everyone’s time and my overtime pay. What’s the point?”
Li Yada couldn’t think of a good way to refute this for a moment, but she felt something was off the more she thought about it.
“But Mr. Pei, IOI keeps releasing new versions, and they’re expanding aggressively in Europe and America. Our GOG is in direct competition with IOI—one step behind means falling further behind with each step.”
“At this critical moment, one oversight could lead to unimaginable consequences!”
Li Yada’s tone was very anxious.
She had been keeping an eye on IOI’s situation even while on holiday. Seeing IOI’s game quality visibly improving rapidly, she couldn’t sit still.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but sigh—sometimes, having employees with too strong a sense of responsibility wasn’t a good thing!
Since GOG was destined to fail from the beginning, why bother with all this effort?
Working overtime and rushing progress only to fail in the end was just wasting emotional energy.
It would be better to just do the bare minimum from the start and spend the money, that’s it.
Pei Qian coughed lightly and said, “I understand how you feel. But, a matter of principle is a matter of principle, it can’t be compromised easily.”
“Yada, I think there’s a bit of an issue with your mindset.”
“Problems at work are common. Is your first reaction always to solve them by working overtime?”
“Overtime isn’t a cure-all miracle drug. On the contrary, it’s a poison that quenches thirst by drinking toxic wine!”
“Use it once, and you’ll become dependent, sinking deeper and deeper. Use it too much, and all your other skills will atrophy—you’ll lose all skills other than ‘overtime’.”
“Think carefully about what’s more important.”
“Remember, what’s important isn’t working overtime, but doing the right thing at the right time.”
“Figuring out what the right thing is is far more important than simply working hard.”
On the other end of the phone, Li Yada fell silent.
After a long while, her anxious mood calmed down.
“Mr. Pei, your words are eye-opening. I’ve indeed fallen into a misconception.”
“When facing problems at work, I shouldn’t solve them by working overtime. On the contrary, I should try hard to solve them using every other method except overtime.”
“If I only knew how to make employees work overtime, that would be a failure of my responsibility as a leader!”
“Thank you, Mr. Pei. I understand now! Happy New Year, Mr. Pei!”
Pei Qian listened quietly: “Hmm, Happy New Year.”
After hanging up, Pei Qian couldn’t help but marvel that she was indeed his own employee—her ability to extrapolate was quite strong, with a way with words.
With just a little guidance, she had completely abandoned the idea of working overtime.
Well, not bad!
“Finger Company, you need to step up your game! Try to put in more effort during the Spring Festival and knock GOG down directly…”
Pei Qian silently prayed.
……
……
February 10th, the eighth day of the Lunar New Year.
Back to work officially.
School hadn’t started yet, so Pei Qian had returned to Jingzhou the previous afternoon.
His parents knew that Pei Qian was making money at Fei Huang Studio, and that his new movie was about to be released, keeping him busy with work, so they didn’t keep him long.
They just repeatedly reminded him to take care of his health and not to overexert himself.
Pei Qian thought silently that he certainly wouldn’t overexert himself.
His job was quite healthy—he could sleep until he naturally woke up, and work meant just slacking off and drinking tea, occasionally enjoying good food at Mingyun Private Kitchen.
Everything was quite comfortable, though it would be even better if his employees didn’t keep backstabbing him.
……
On the 17th floor, Tenda Games Department.
Cui Geng was already continuing to gather material from Bao Xu.
The Endpoint Chinese Network study group had also resumed today. Although Cui Geng was still a member of the study group, he now had an official position at Tenda as a “Special Observer,” so he didn’t need to be confined in the “dark room” anymore.
The other people in the Games Department had quickly entered their work state, fully concentrating on typing at their keyboards, finding even the time to drink water excessive.
There was no choice—the workload was heavy!
During the Spring Festival, many people, like Li Yada, had been constantly monitoring IOI’s movements. Seeing the game’s updated version, they were eager to rush back to work.
As a result, after speaking with Li Yada, they learned that she had been criticized and educated by Mr. Pei, so they could only wait patiently for the holiday to end.
So on the first day back at work, they eagerly began modifying the game.
Most people in the Tenda Games Department had a chip on their shoulder.
Our Tenda Games have always been the sharp blade unit that can fight tough battles! Under Mr. Pei’s leadership, our games have been successful one after another. We can’t let this gold-plated signboard be tarnished in our hands, can we?
If GOG loses to IOI, we can’t face anyone!
Everyone was working with full effort.
Before the New Year, Li Yada had already assigned tasks to the three “regent ministers” and arranged their respective responsibilities.
However, these three were still newcomers and needed time to familiarize themselves and transition.
From now until the end of the month, while ensuring development progress, Li Yada also needed to transfer as much work as possible to these three people to ensure a smooth handover.
After instructing Hu Xianbin on the main planning tasks for the near future, Li Yada had some free time. She drank coffee while thinking about the current situation.
Whenever she unconsciously became anxious, she would constantly recall what Mr. Pei had said, because she firmly believed: the path to success was within those words!
“Mr. Pei said, what’s important isn’t working overtime, but doing the right thing at the right time…”
“So, what is the right thing?”
“Serious development? That’s just part of our duty, the safest approach, and can’t be called ‘right’.”
Li Yada thought for a long time but still couldn’t figure it out.
She instinctively wanted to consult Bao Xu, since he had his approach to interpreting Mr. Pei’s thinking.
But Bao Xu was telling Cui Geng about Tenda’s past, providing material for Cui Geng’s new book, so Li Yada didn’t want to disturb him.
Since she couldn’t ask Bao Xu, whom could she ask?
Huang Sibo? That wasn’t impossible, but Li Yada knew that Fei Huang Studio was preparing for a new movie, so Huang Sibo was probably extremely busy recently.
After thinking about it, she decided to ask Lin Wan!
Lin Wan also had her approach to interpreting Mr. Pei’s thinking.
Li Yada sent a message to Lin Wan, expressing her confusion, and asked: “Mr. Pei said to do the right thing at the right time. What does that mean?”
Before long, Lin Wan replied.
“You’ve asked the right person! I have the standard answer to this question!”
“Mr. Pei once said similar words to me!”
Li Yada became interested immediately and quickly called her.
“Tell me, what exactly happened?” Li Yada felt as if she had suddenly found a ray of hope.
On the phone, Lin Wan laughed confidently: “Do you remember what happened when our Shangyang Games were making ‘Hot-Blooded Battle Song Enhanced Edition’?”
“After the web client launched, the game was losing money continuously, so I went to ask Mr. Pei what to do.”
“Mr. Pei said to quietly wait for the right opportunity. When the opportunity comes, things will naturally get better.”
“Think about it—isn’t this sentence somewhat similar in spirit to what he told you? Doesn’t it also emphasize the ‘right time’?”
Li Yada suddenly realized: “Oh! You mean…”
Lin Wan smiled: “That’s right. Mr. Pei has already made it clear that overtime is meaningless, and no matter how much effort you put in, it would only be twice the effort for half the result.”
“The implication is that there’s a way to solve the problem without working overtime!”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t continue to fight IOI in the PC game sector, because win or lose, it would be a mess.”
“I would switch to a different field, get ahead of them, and then counterattack!”
Li Yada’s eyes lit up, and many of her confusions were instantly resolved!
Regarding what the “right time” was, Lin Wan had already found the correct answer when she was working on “Hot-Blooded Battle Song.”
The coming mobile game wave was the right time!
It was because Lin Wan had understood this point that she transformed the half-dead “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” web client into a mobile game, and then caught the fast track of the Shenhua mobile app market, allowing it to soar and stage a beautiful comeback!
If we apply this standard answer…
It means turning GOG into a game with both mobile and PC cross-platform compatibility!
Mr. Pei had also said that IOI had started earlier and was ahead of GOG by no small margin.
This gap couldn’t be bridged by the Tenda Games Department working overtime.
So Mr. Pei wouldn’t let everyone work overtime to avoid wasting energy on useless work. Instead, he wanted everyone to invest their limited energy in more meaningful things.
What if GOG were transformed into a mobile game?
That would be overtaking on a curve!
Currently, there is no similar game in the mobile field. Porting GOG over, even if the gameplay wasn’t as rich, as long as it could run stably, it would naturally dominate.
After GOG quickly established an undisputed dominant position in the mobile field, it would naturally influence the PC field in return.
Imagine, if a player had already played GOG on their phone, and they wanted to play a similar game on PC for the first time, would they choose GOG, which they had played on their phone with many heroes and various skins, or IOI, where they didn’t recognize any heroes and had to start from scratch?
The current consensus in the gaming industry is to transform successful PC games into web games, and successful web games into mobile games, thus sinking step by step, changing platforms to give old games a second life.
This was a fixed mindset.
But this wasn’t absolute.
If neither the PC nor mobile platforms had a dominant giant game yet, who said you couldn’t go mobile first, then PC?