Hearing this, Pei Qian became even more enthusiastic.

“Teacher He, please tell me more about this. I’m very interested!”

He An seemed surprised: “How strange. Is Mr. Ma perhaps a seasoned RTS game enthusiast?”

Pei Qian thought for a moment: “Hmm… more or less.”

Starting to be an enthusiast now should barely qualify as seasoned, right?

Why do I like RTS games? Possibly because they can help me lose money?

He An considered this: “That works. RTS games aren’t off-topic for today’s lesson, so I’ll briefly explain.”

“RTS games, or real-time strategy games, truly had their glorious period in the past and were once a pillar of the esports industry. When discussing RTS games, it’s impossible to ignore ‘Fantasy War’ and ‘Star Ocean 2.'”

“Last year, ‘Star Ocean 2’ was released and achieved great success.”

“But this hasn’t changed industry insiders’ pessimistic view of the RTS genre, as it seems more like a final burst of radiance before extinction. The success of this one game can hardly reverse the decline of the entire genre.”

“Indeed, that’s exactly the case. Now, apart from a few well-established major companies with strong foundations and famous IPs, almost no one is willing to touch this game genre anymore.”

“Even the major companies don’t seem inclined to invest much more money and effort into this type of game.”

“The decline of this genre is directly related to the rise of new game types.”

“RTS games demand too much from players in terms of operations. Most players can’t meet the minimum operational threshold, so naturally they can’t enjoy the game.”

“At the same time, the single-player mode makes it difficult to blame teammates. The frustration after losing is too intense. This allows RTS games to become high-end esports competitions with strong spectator appeal, but makes it difficult for them to survive as mainstream games because the barrier to entry is too high.”

“The future mainstream of popular games should be GOG-type games, especially with the cross-platform feature between PC and mobile, giving them unique advantages…”

Pei Qian’s mouth twitched. How did we get back to the topic of GOG?

He quickly tried to change the subject.

“So at this point, for a company without IP accumulation, making an RTS game would be a dead end, right?”

He An nodded slightly: “Yes, you could say that.”

Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel elated.

That’s exactly what I think!

Finally, I’m on the same wavelength as Teacher He.

Pei Qian had indeed considered the RTS genre before, but the reason he hadn’t pursued it then was because the genre hadn’t completely died yet.

Although it had declined, there were still many veteran players who loved this game type at that time, and they generally had astonishing purchasing power. If they took notice, the consequences would be unimaginable.

But after more than a year, the situation had changed!

Last year’s release of “Star Ocean 2” had given RTS games a temporary revival, absorbing almost all the remaining RTS player base.

With GOG and ioi locked in fierce competition, even “Divine Revelation” could only tremble in fear, let alone a new RTS game?

Yes, I’ll make this. It seems foolproof!

Unfortunately, it was too late for this cycle. He would have to wait for the next cycle to consider it.

He An sighed: “Ah, one reason I decided to retire is that my vision can no longer keep up with the pace of game development in this era.”

“Previously, I thought games like ‘Divine Revelation’ would at most become a small but beautiful genre, and that no matter how mobile games developed, they couldn’t pose a serious challenge to PC games.”

“Now it seems these were outdated ideas.”

“So, Mr. Ma, this is why I’ve placed this lesson second—I hope you’ll always maintain a far-sighted vision, identify the development trends in gaming, and make each game precisely when it’s trending, winning without effort!”

Pei Qian: “…”

Teacher He, everything was going so well with your lecture. Why are you cursing me now?

…

10 PM.

DGE Esports Club.

It was time for lights out, and all team members’ phones had been collected to ensure adequate sleep.

Mingyun Villa was originally a villa complex far from the bustling downtown areas. Light pollution was minimal outside, and even without curtains drawn, one could only faintly see moonlight and starlight.

This was the players’ dormitory, with two people per room.

In the darkness, a figure sprawled in a “big” character shape on the bed spoke.

“Old Zhou, could you please bring me my water cup? I’m thirsty.”

Old Zhou, sleeping on the other bed, obviously wasn’t asleep either: “Damn, what were you doing before getting into bed? Besides, why don’t you get it yourself?”

The sprawled figure replied weakly: “I can’t move at all.”

Old Zhou: “Huang Wang, you’re talking as if I can move.”

Huang Wang: “Old Zhou, don’t pretend. You can move. Please, if I die of thirst tomorrow, we’ll automatically lose the training match, and we’ll have to do extra training at night!”

Old Zhou: “Call me daddy.”

Huang Wang: “Daddy!”

Old Zhou: “…You have no dignity as a team captain. I give up on you.”

Old Zhou had no choice but to roll out of bed, awkwardly walk to the table, grab Huang Wang’s water cup, and bring it to his bedside.

Huang Wang: “Ah…”

Old Zhou’s face darkened: “Are you trying to die? Drink it yourself, or I’ll pour it on the floor!”

Huang Wang hurriedly struggled to sit up: “I’ll drink, I’ll drink. Give it to me.”

Old Zhou angrily lay back down.

Huang Wang took a couple of sips and said, licking his lips: “Old Zhou, we can’t go on like this. We need to think of something. That Jiang guy from the other team is a sly fox!”

“We’ve been doing extra training for a week straight. If we keep losing like this, we’ll be destroyed!”

Old Zhou was exasperated: “That’s still because of your leadership problems as captain! Jiang Huan comes up with clever strategies every time, hanging us out to dry. Compared to them, our team is completely disorganized! Especially, you play mid lane, but your support is always slower than others. What’s the point of even playing?”

Huang Wang disagreed: “Damn, that’s because their mid and jungle are joined at the hip! Anyway, it’s all about strategies. We need to come up with new strategies too, otherwise losing training matches means extra training, and who can endure that?”

“Keep this up, and we might as well switch careers to become fitness coaches!”

Old Zhou chuckled: “No worries, before switching to fitness coaching, we can challenge the other team to a real-life fight. I can already feel my muscles growing.”

Huang Wang: “Here’s the plan: tomorrow we’ll work out a few tactics. If they don’t play by the book, we’ll have to resort to sneaky methods. I’ve realized this game is all about strategies…”

Suddenly, the light outside the door turned on, shining through the crack. Both of them quickly fell silent.

Zhang Yuan stood at the door for two minutes before turning away.

Recently, the daily training at the DGE Club has been difficult to describe.

After Mr. Pei set the training schedule, Zhang Yuan was slightly worried but still strictly implemented it.

Sure enough, these gaming addicts struggled terribly on the first day.

Morning was scheduled for jogging, but these guys quickly went from jogging to fast walking, then from fast walking to slow walking, and finally from slow walking to standing still and panting rapidly.

Evening was scheduled for strength training. They didn’t feel much immediately after training, just a sense of emptiness, but after sleeping, they could barely get out of bed the next day.

Fortunately, Coach Yaling was professional, constantly monitoring everyone’s physical condition during training. With her expert nutrition supplements, pre-workout warm-ups, and post-workout stretches, there were no major issues.

Nevertheless, these players still suffered greatly. During the first week of fitness training, the quality of their solo queue training and training match effectiveness plummeted. All ten players dropped a tier in high-ranking solo queue.

By the second week, subtle changes began to occur.

Players who were previously skinny as bamboo poles began noticeably gaining muscle mass, while chubby players visibly slimmed down. As they gradually adapted to the fitness routine, everyone’s game performance slowly recovered.

Then, one team caught on first.

Jiang Huan’s team started using various clever strategies in training matches, winning seven consecutive games and completely crushing Huang Wang’s team.

As for why they were trying so hard…

The reason was simple—losers had to do extra training!

If the loss wasn’t too bad, only the captain and the team scapegoats had to do extra training; if the loss was devastating, the whole team trained extra.

After several days of additional training, Captain Huang Wang barely had the strength to get up for a cup of water.

This was because, as the players improved their physical fitness and gradually adapted, Coach Yaling was already increasing their training intensity.

Zhang Yuan initially felt sympathy for these players, but after observing for a while, he found this approach seemed to be working!

He had heard that some clubs also had their first and second teams practice against each other. Initially, without penalties, everyone just used flashy strategies without taking winning or losing seriously. Later, when the manager decided that the losing team would each pay 100 yuan to buy snacks and cigarettes for the winning team, both sides immediately became serious.

The penalty of extra training seemed to work even better.

Both teams were racking their brains to study tactics and develop new strategies, playing more seriously than ever. New approaches discovered in ranked games would be applied to training matches on the same day.

The custom practice sessions, specifically arranged after morning jogs, were also effective.

At first, the players were confused—what was there to practice in custom mode without opponents?

But since they couldn’t do anything else during that time, they could only repeatedly practice the basics of certain heroes and study hero mechanics in custom mode.

After mastering familiar heroes’ operations to the extreme, they could only continue to study unfamiliar heroes.

Then they studied deeper game mechanics like minion waves and jungle monsters. As they researched more, many statistics became ingrained in their minds.

After all, for a full two hours, practicing muscle memory alone would be too monotonous, so they would inevitably think about game mechanics.

Huang Wang’s team had been performing better in training matches lately, desperately researching various tactics. They might soon secure a victory and regain their footing.

Then, when Jiang Huan’s team had to do extra training, they would research new tactics as well, creating a perpetual cycle of improvement.

GOG was, after all, a rising game. The players with the deepest understanding were these high-ranked players. Having them devise tactics might not necessarily be worse than having coaches who had transferred from other games.

Zhang Yuan couldn’t help but wonder: was Mr. Pei’s training plan xwell-thought-out?

After trying it for a while, the results were impressive!