Pei Qian froze completely.
At this moment, his feeling was like casting a ten-second Fireball spell, only to have it reflect off the opponent’s shield and scorch his face.
However, Mr. Pei was a battle-hardened veteran after all, and he quickly regained his composure.
“Overseas distribution company…”
“As far as I know, domestic films generally aren’t very popular in overseas markets, right…?”
“The box office is mostly just… one or two million dollars?”
Pei Qian had at least some basic knowledge about these things.
Although many successful domestic films would attempt overseas distribution, due to cultural barriers, language issues, and other problems, the results often weren’t particularly impressive. Films that could easily break 100 million yuan domestically might only make one or two million dollars overseas, and that still depended on the subject matter.
Pei Qian calculated quickly. If it was just one million US dollars, after considering distribution splits and exchange rates, it didn’t seem to be too heavy a burden.
A small matter of a few million was something he could easily handle.
What concerned him more now was which clueless overseas distributor had taken an interest in this film??
Huang Sibo smiled and said, “That’s indeed correct.”
“With many influential Chinese movie stars in Hollywood retiring, the box office appeal of domestic films overseas has been continuously declining. At the same time, as the domestic market develops faster and faster and our national self-esteem and confidence grow stronger, many films simply focus on the domestic market without chasing overseas tastes.”
“So in recent years, many domestic blockbusters that easily earned hundreds of millions at the box office at home could only manage one or two million overseas, with limited screenings, low buzz, and very limited influence.”
“But it’s precisely for this reason that our film could stand out!”
“Although ‘Journey to the Flying Star’ flopped worldwide, it was after all a big-budget international sci-fi film. ‘Beautiful Tomorrow’ was able to achieve comparable box office with an extremely low investment, while completely dominating in terms of reviews. This gave the overseas distribution company tremendous confidence!”
“Moreover, ‘Beautiful Tomorrow’ has a unique advantage in that it features English dialogue throughout. The story is set in a future world that blurs national and ethnic concepts, without overly obscure local cultural elements, making it easier for foreign audiences to accept!”
“The film’s themes mainly explore wealth gaps, excessive consumption, the alienation of people by capital, and so on, which more easily resonates with overseas audiences!”
“So rest assured, Mr. Pei, our film will earn far more than just one million dollars. It will be higher than that!”
“…” Pei Qian didn’t know how to respond for a moment.
Zhu Xiaocai added: “By the way, Mr. Pei, you absolutely shouldn’t underestimate the English dialogue aspect!”
“You should know that foreigners are extremely resistant to subtitles. The reason is simple: English is a relatively verbose language, and reading subtitles is very tiring.”
“A powerful piece of evidence is that while China and Japan have very large danmaku video websites, foreign countries don’t. This is because our writing systems are ideographic, with highly condensed information. We can understand the meaning of danmaku with just a glance, but English isn’t like that.”
“The same applies to subtitles. Foreign audiences aren’t accustomed to subtitles like we are. For them, whether a film has English dialogue is a key factor in their decision to watch it!”
“So, our film being entirely in English is a huge advantage! Although the three main actors all have a slight Asian accent, foreigners don’t mind accents. They might even feel that this better fits the characters’ designs and ethnic distinctions.”
“In short, this film has aligned with overseas market tastes right from the script stage!”
“Mr. Pei, your decision to have everyone speak English demonstrates your far-sighted vision!”
Zhu Xiaocai gave an excited thumbs-up.
Pei Qian: “…”
He wanted to say, No, you’re wrong! I’m not far-sighted at all, I’m damn short-sighted! I only thought about using all-English to discourage domestic audiences, and never imagined this film would one day enter the overseas market!
However, seeing the admiring looks from Zhu Xiaocai and Huang Sibo, Pei Qian could only silently sigh in his heart.
How painful!
…
…
March 30th, Wednesday.
These past two days, GOG players have welcomed the ultimate celebration.
Yesterday at dawn, GOG’s first seasonal Spring Tournament had locked in the results.
And today, all prize money has been distributed, bringing the event’s excitement to its peak!
Online, discussions about this event could be seen everywhere.
Of course, some questioned the true abilities of the prize winners. After all, there are no fair rules in this world, and sour grapes psychology naturally makes people jealous of those lucky ones.
But such noise only constituted a small portion.
Because the competition rules were open, fair, and transparent. Although there would certainly be cases of players getting boosted by duo-queueing with skilled partners, generally speaking, players who could climb to the top 500 in such a short time all had genuine skill.
Because the time was short, boosting services and gaming studios couldn’t react quickly enough. Before they could form any significant impact, the results were already locked in, and the prize money distributed.
The players who received prizes were all happy, showing off their rankings, displaying their prize money, and accepting worship, further stimulating and boosting GOG’s popularity.
In short, everyone was happy.
Players got money, the GOG project team gained popularity, and Mr. Pei distributed money.
But while others were unconditionally happy, Mr. Pei’s happiness was mixed with deep concern.
Because he found that the game’s popularity had risen far beyond his expectations…
In Pei Qian’s view, this seemed to show signs of getting out of control!
So, the clever Mr. Pei gave Hu Xianbin a task yesterday, asking him to analyze this seasonal climbing event and submit a detailed report.
On the surface, it was assigning homework, but in reality, Mr. Pei himself wanted to know what was going on…
It must be said that Hu Xianbin’s efficiency was indeed high. Pei Qian received this analytical report today.
But after reading it, his heart grew colder…
…
During the brief but intense climbing process, GOG, both the mobile and PC versions, saw active player numbers skyrocketing every day.
The temptation of a “100,000 yuan weekly salary” was irresistible to players. Even if some people’s rationality kept telling them they couldn’t possibly get this 100,000, their speculative psychology still drove them to enter the game and try.
GOG’s seasonal rewards were so generous that they attracted many newcomers who had never played similar games before. Combined with the AI set up to protect new players’ gaming experience, most people had a very good initial experience. The positive feedback from the game was strong, so the vast majority of people developed the illusion that they were exceptionally talented.
By the time they truly realized they couldn’t win any prize money, they had often already played intensively for two or three days, become very familiar with the game, and experienced its joy, making it unlikely they would quit.
Not only that, but players’ speculative psychology also drove them to “repeatedly jump back and forth.”
Those confident in their touchscreen skills played the mobile version.
Those confident in their mouse and keyboard operations played the PC version.
Those getting destroyed in the PC version thought mobile players were worse and considered switching to mobile.
Those struggling with touchscreen controls thought keyboard and mouse operations were more convenient and accurate, and considered switching to a PC.
The cross-platform data synchronization design made players not at all resistant to switching between platforms. Instead, they enjoyed it, which even stimulated their desire to purchase skins.
After all, skins were shared across platforms – one purchase, double the pleasure.
After switching back and forth, by the time players realized they were bad at both PC and mobile versions, their gaming habits had already formed.
In short, this event could be described as stable, precise, and powerful. It not only captured veteran players in one fell swoop but also won over a large number of new players. In a short time, it raised GOG’s popularity to an extremely high level through high prize money, and ended the event before boosting services and directors could react, maximizing fairness.
The rest of the report was just mindless praise for Mr. Pei.
…
After reading the report, Pei Qian was speechless.
He finally understood the reason for the abnormal data.
Looking at it this way, he had indeed lost money, but the cost seemed somewhat large, completely exceeding his original expectations…
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Anyway, as long as we can lose money this cycle, that’s fine. We’ll deal with future issues later.”
“However, GOG’s current situation seems to expose my huge problems in understanding games…”
“No, the next game must change this situation. It can’t make money again!”
“Summarize experiences, learn lessons, and I must make a failed game!”
After several days of secluded thinking, Pei Qian had come up with a good idea for a game that would flop.
In the next cycle, he must arrange the two game departments!
…
…
March 31st, Thursday.
Before Pei Qian’s eyes, the system’s light screen automatically appeared.
[Wealth Conversion System 2.0]
[Host: Pei Qian]
[Surplus conversion ratio 1000:1, Loss conversion ratio 10:1]
[Settlement imminent…]
[System funds: 3.77 million + 0.86 million (↓5.37 million)]
[Fixed assets: Mingyun Villa residential property (8.61 million)]
[Personal assets: 340,000]
[Settlement in progress…]
[Performing wealth conversion…]
[System funds: 3.77 million + 0.86 million (↓5.37 million)]
[Personal assets: 920,000 (↑530,000×110%)]
[Current cycle wealth conversion value exceeds 200,000, will receive mysterious reward within system rules. (Available)]
[Current incomplete project: Thriller Lodge. Must officially open for business before next settlement.]
Seeing this, Pei Qian finally let out a long breath.
That feels good!
After buying the house, Pei Qian had about 180,000 left. He earned 100,000 from writing the movie script, and also received several tens of thousands in red envelopes during the New Year.
Most of his daily expenses were basically reimbursed by the company, so he couldn’t spend much of this money and had saved it all.
After converting more than 580,000 this time, Pei Qian’s assets had returned to 920,000.
Though it was hard work, it was still worth it!
Comparatively speaking, losing money was more profitable. To convert the same 530,000, making money would require earning 500 million.
Moreover, these 500 million must be sitting in the company account during settlement and couldn’t be invested elsewhere to achieve conversion. But with all this money piled up in the company account without investing, how could one earn more?
So, no matter what, losing money was the correct way to use this system.
Pei Qian noticed that after the system upgraded to 2.0, although the ratio was lowered due to the Matthew effect, the difficulty of achieving losses seemed to have correspondingly decreased.
Previously, Pei Qian had to work himself to death to achieve one loss per three settlements.
But now, he seemed to be able to consistently lose money.
On one hand, this was because Pei Qian had become increasingly familiar with the system’s temperament after numerous failures and had developed more strategies, such as developing some industries that allowed for short-term gains at long-term costs, exchanging money for reputation.
On the other hand, it was because the system had provided more favorable conditions after the upgrade, such as a charitable allowance each cycle and allowing certain projects to be extended over two cycles.
The ability to lose money this time was crucially dependent on the tens of millions poured into the Thriller Lodge.
Calculating it all, five months had converted sixty thousand in personal assets, which could be considered earning 100,000 per month!
Hmm, congratulations!
With this money, there would be no problem furnishing the new house with furniture and appliances, and setting up nice interior decorations.
Of course, he had to keep up the good work.
Besides this, Pei Qian also discovered a moderate concern: in terms of fixed assets, the Mingyun Private Kitchen villa had increased in value by over 200,000…
Buying fixed assets in the company’s name for business operations could indeed involve spending a large sum of money at once, but Pei Qian had always been afraid to buy too much because it would affect settlement.
The biggest problem with fixed assets was that after calculating 10%, they occupied system funds. When calculating losses, the formula was: loss = initial system funds – current system funds – 10% of fixed assets, which was very frustrating.
If the system’s initial funds were only 10 million, and the company’s total fixed assets were worth 100 million, then even if Pei Qian spent all the system funds, it still wouldn’t count as a loss, which was an awkward situation.
However, this was after all the first settlement of the 2.0 system, and the initial system funds would continue to increase in the future.
As long as the initial system funds increased to 20 million, 30 million, or even 50 million, Pei Qian could consider buying more fixed assets in the company’s name for production and business activities.
And the more system funds there were, the more he could lose, and the more money he could convert.
“I hope the system funds will be higher in the next cycle…” Pei Qian prayed silently.