March 15th, Tuesday.
3 PM.
Pei Qian had slept well last night and didn’t wake up until noon.
After lunch, he arrived at the company and first checked the sales figures for “BE QUIET.”
The game was still in a lukewarm state. There were some people discussing the gameplay itself online, but attention wasn’t high. Most players were still arguing about the preliminary challenges.
As for the game’s rating, it currently stands at 8.5 on the TPDb website—not low, but not particularly high either.
Because the gameplay was rather complex and there weren’t many players, no one had yet truly mastered the game mechanics, so naturally, word of mouth hadn’t had time to ferment.
As for the “Study Buddy” project, there was still no news.
Everything seemed good.
Pei Qian looked at the calendar. This week was crucial.
Because most projects would produce results this week, whether they would make or lose money would be determined in one go!
As Pei Qian calculated these projects, he suddenly realized he’d recently overlooked something.
The GOG side—he wondered how development was going.
Come to think of it, the development time for GOG had been unexpectedly long.
He had originally only planned to make a game to challenge ioi, then naturally be defeated by ioi, with all development funds going down the drain, thus achieving his goal.
But GOG’s development efficiency was too low, dragging on until now without officially launching.
However, Pei Qian didn’t think too much about it, because the development environment at Tenda Games was indeed quite harsh…
On one hand, the project’s lead designer Li Yada and core member Bao Xu had both been sent on vacation, leaving the project without its backbone; on the other hand, with Tang Yishu in charge, the project was plagued with bugs, and just fixing them was enough to drive anyone crazy.
Thinking of this, Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Tenda Games’ predicament.
“Why don’t I go offer some comfort?”
“After all, the gaming department has performed well recently, completely abandoning the bad habit of overtime. They’ve performed excellently in several consecutive zero-overtime competitions, and their development progress is so slow, which pleases me greatly.”
Pei Qian got up from his office, preparing to make a round upstairs.
For Pei Qian, it was best if all projects released their products one week before settlement, ensuring these products would only sell for a week, thus making less money.
But the problem was that project timelines were hard to control so perfectly.
Whether developing games or doing other projects, delays due to unexpected situations were common, and completing on schedule was relatively rare.
Therefore, Pei Qian had to give these projects some lead time, setting deadlines two or three weeks before settlement or even earlier, to avoid projects being incomplete and settlements being delayed.
But this created a new problem: what if a project was completed on schedule, or even ahead of schedule?
Then Pei Qian had no choice but to let them release early, since the project was already complete. Even if he wanted to forcibly delay, he couldn’t find a good reason.
“BE QUIET” belonged to the category of completing too quickly, which was why Pei Qian set up preliminary activities as a remedy.
Currently, it seemed the remedy was quite successful.
The GOG project clearly belonged to the category of completing relatively slowly, which was more in line with Pei Qian’s initial expectations.
Soon, Pei Qian arrived at Tenda Games upstairs.
Upon entering, he was momentarily bewildered.
The entire Tenda Games department had a few familiar faces!
There was no help for it. The gaming department had been consistently successful, with each game being a hit. Those outstanding old employees who had made an impression on Pei Qian had basically all been sent away. Even the important position of executive lead designer had changed hands several times.
Huang Sibo and Lü Mingliang were at Fei Huang Studio and Headwind Logistics, respectively, and now Li Yada and Bao Xu had gone on vacation. Pei Qian suddenly didn’t know whom to find.
There were several old employees who looked familiar, but Pei Qian couldn’t recall their names at the moment…
This was a bit awkward.
Fortunately, everyone recognized Mr. Pei.
Seeing Mr. Pei enter, three employees who were gathered together hurried over to greet him.
These three were Hu Xianbin, Min Jingchao, and Zhang Nan, currently the acting executive lead designer, numerical designer, and skin feature designer of Tenda Games—the three people to whom Li Yada had handed over work before leaving.
“Mr. Pei! What brings you here?”
“My name is Hu Xianbin, the current acting executive lead designer for the gaming department. If you have any questions, you can ask me anytime.”
Hu Xianbin and the other two introduced themselves one by one.
Pei Qian tried hard to memorize their names and appearances, scanning his memory perfunctorily.
Hmm… they seemed to be quite new faces.
Li Yada had found three complete newcomers to take over her work? No wonder GOG’s development progress was so slow.
But for Mr. Pei, this was a good thing!
If Hu Xianbin completed his work to Mr. Pei’s satisfaction, Pei Qian wouldn’t mind letting Li Yada retire early.
Uh, retiring at twenty-five—would the system approve that?
Pei Qian smiled and said, “Nothing special, I’m just taking a casual stroll around. How’s the GOG project development going? Is it proceeding smoothly? Will we be able to play it at Slackin’ Internet Café before next week?”
Hu Xianbin hurriedly said, “For the GOG PC version, our original plan was to officially launch next Monday. Since this game seems to have quite a few bugs, we’ve been fixing them, so progress has been slightly delayed.”
Pei Qian was very satisfied with this timeline and smiled, saying, “No, no, not slow at all, this timing is perfect!”
“As the saying goes, slow work yields fine results. Fixing more bugs during development means fewer bugs after launch.”
“Wait, did you just say GOG PC version?”
Pei Qian keenly detected some issues from Hu Xianbin’s wording.
GOG was originally a PC game, so why specifically emphasize it?
Hu Xianbin smiled, “Yes, Mr. Pei, because the mobile version was launched today.”
Three question marks slowly floated above Pei Qian’s head.
???
“Mobile version? What mobile version?”
Hu Xianbin was also taken aback: “The mobile version of GOG.”
Pei Qian: “…”
What was going on?
Was history repeating itself??
Pei Qian instantly recalled the scene when the “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” mobile version was launched. At that time, he was having dinner with the Shangyang Games team at Mingyun Private Kitchen, and the news had struck him like a bolt from the blue, instantly petrifying him.
This situation was similar. Pei Qian couldn’t immediately wrap his head around it.
After a moment, he reacted and quickly asked, “So how’s the current situation?”
Hu Xianbin proudly said, “Mr. Pei, you can see for yourself!”
On the computer, the three were previously surrounding. GOG’s real-time data showed downloads, active users, paying users, and other metrics all skyrocketing!
Pei Qian felt his legs weaken and sat down in a chair.
He quickly pulled the chair closer to examine the specific data.
It was indeed true—all metrics were skyrocketing!
What particularly shocked Pei Qian was that the GOG mobile version had not only launched on the official platform but also various other channels, such as Shenhua mobile’s app market and other mobile platforms.
Pei Qian asked, “These platform partnerships, they took a long time to negotiate, right?”
Hu Xianbin shook his head: “Not at all, they approached us.”
Pei Qian: “???”
Hu Xianbin briefly explained, and Pei Qian instantly understood.
Tenda’s reputation was strong, and the GOG mobile version itself was of high quality. So they didn’t need to approach these platforms to negotiate partnerships or beg them to list their game—instead, these platforms were begging Tenda!
Tenda had both single-player and online games, each of which could be considered a great success. With successful projects like “Sea Fortress” and “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” in the online gaming sector, negotiating partnerships for GOG naturally met no resistance.
Many platforms would even proactively offer better terms and increase Tenda’s revenue share just to secure GOG’s launch on their platform.
And GOG itself was a highly coveted prize!
So far, “Divine Revelation,” IOI, and GOG each have had their strengths and weaknesses in the PC gaming realm. IOI had no domestic server and required using accelerators to connect to foreign servers, while GOG hadn’t officially launched yet and was only in public beta. So the situation in PC gaming was still rather unpredictable, making it hard to say who would be the ultimate winner.
But “Divine Revelation” and ioi had no plans to enter the mobile gaming sector, which made GOG a unique gem, a coveted prize!
Of course, no one could guarantee that adapting this game mode for mobile would definitely succeed, but in the eyes of many gaming platforms and channels, this was clearly a very promising direction worth investing substantial resources to try.
Because if the attempt succeeded, the rewards would be beyond imagination!
For these two reasons, Hu Xianbin and his team didn’t have to go through the trouble of finding channels or promotion. They just slightly leaked some information, and these gaming platforms immediately approached them, offering various favorable terms.
They didn’t need to worry about how to promote—just lie back and relax!
Hu Xianbin excitedly said, “When Sister Li left, she didn’t tell me how to find platform partnerships. I was a bit worried and planned to ask her online these few days.”
“But it turns out I was overthinking it completely!”
“Mr. Pei, I can only say that the foundation you’ve built for Tenda is too solid. Now these gaming channels are fighting to launch our games—this is the power of reputation!”
Pei Qian was momentarily speechless.
What does this have to do with me!!
He looked at the various backend metrics, not knowing what to say.
A major crisis had emerged—he needed to quickly think of countermeasures!
Pei Qian couldn’t sit still. He quietly stood up, planning to return to his office to browse web pages and see how players were responding to the GOG mobile version.
If players were universally condemning it, there might still be hope!
Seeing Mr. Pei stand up to leave, Hu Xianbin quickly asked, “Mr. Pei, do you have any other instructions?”
Pei Qian was exasperated: “No.”
Watching Mr. Pei’s departing figure, Hu Xianbin felt a bit disappointed.
The data was quite good, yet he still couldn’t get a word of praise from Mr. Pei.
Ah, Mr. Pei’s standards were really strict!
It seemed they couldn’t rest on their laurels but needed to continue working hard to earn Mr. Pei’s approval as soon as possible!
Hu Xianbin, who had been somewhat elated by the good launch data for the GOG mobile version, calmed down and continued working on the GOG PC version development.