June 4th, Saturday.

Management Trainee regular meeting.

The management trainees had now completely familiarized themselves with the work Pei Qian had arranged for them. Whether it was gathering intelligence or reporting to Mr. Pei, they had become quite proficient and skillful.

Regarding Sloth Apartments, the main focus is currently on designing plans for the three buildings. Mr. Liang Qianfan appears to be in seclusion, working on the blueprint designs.”

Pei Qian nodded. He was already aware of this information, so he didn’t pay much attention to it.

The main significance of the management trainee system was to allow Pei Qian to grasp some of the small matters in each department’s daily work that might generate profits, but it was not omnipotent.

For instance, with some newly launched projects that Pei Qian personally supervised, the management trainees might not know more than Pei Qian himself.

Also, the management trainees could only obtain information during working hours. If department heads did something privately, the management trainees would have no way of knowing.

Regarding this point, Pei Qian had no solution.

He couldn’t expect the management trainees to act as undercover agents, monitoring the department heads 24 hours a day, could he?

So, although this system wasn’t particularly perfect, as long as it showed improvement over the previous situation, it was fine.

“Slackin’ Takeout continues to invest heavily in developing fitness meals, launching several new flavors. At the same time, they’re also planning the next batch of stores to further expand their coverage area.”

This news was generally positive for Pei Qian, though there seemed to be some potential issues.

It had to be said that Rui Yuchen was truly bold with spending, which Pei Qian greatly appreciated. The large-scale opening of stores and burning money on the Food Laboratory all met with Pei Qian’s enthusiastic approval, making him wish Rui would intensify his efforts even more.

After all, for Slackin’ Takeout, opening one more store meant losing a bit more money. Where else could you find such a good deal?

As for developing several new flavors of fitness meals…

This seemed to be a potential issue, but Pei Qian considered two points. First, the fitness centers were still in a state of heavy losses, and more varieties of fitness meals would at most make it easier for those who had already signed up to persist. Since the fitness centers themselves showed no signs of profitability, he could continue to observe for a while.

Second, since the Food Laboratory was already established and research funds had been invested, they had to produce some results, right? If Rui Yuchen wasn’t allowed to continue developing fitness meals, he might start researching new dishes to improve the taste of Slackin’ Takeout, which seemed potentially more harmful.

Choosing the lesser of two evils, it was more cost-effective to let him continue developing fitness meals.

“Mingyun Private Kitchen is conducting employee training, sending employees to Tuoguan Fitness, making time for employees to learn foreign languages, and also directly recruiting highly educated individuals from Handong University who are proficient in multiple languages to work as waiters with high salaries. Additionally, they’ve put forward a series of requirements for waiters, such as requiring them to accurately describe the ingredients, heat control, craftsmanship, and so on for each dish.”

Hmm?

This news caught Pei Qian’s interest because he hadn’t been paying attention to Mingyun Private Kitchen matters for a while.

Now it seemed that Manager Lin had figured something out!

Pei Qian pondered a bit. Compared to opening branch stores, spending money on waiters was already the lowest cost-effective option, especially having waiters master multiple languages…

How many international friends would know about Mingyun Private Kitchen?

Jingzhou wasn’t an internationalized metropolis to begin with, with very few local foreigners, and Mingyun Private Kitchen was in a rather remote location. Moreover, even if there were a few individual foreigners who dined at Mingyun Private Kitchen and had a good experience because the waiters spoke foreign languages, how much impact could that generate?

The cost-effectiveness seemed very low from any perspective!

Wait, was Lin Canrong doing something so cost-ineffective because he was… sulking?

Did he see that Slackin’ Takeout wasn’t making much money but was still expanding aggressively, while all of Mingyun Private Kitchen’s requests had been rejected, so he was sulking with me and simply spending all the earned money on meaningless things?

If that was the case, then all I can say is, well done! Please intensify your efforts!

Regarding Horror Inn, the shopping mall plan has been finalized, named the Golden Maze, and tense construction has already begun. This project seems extremely expensive, and Mr. Li had to make a great effort to persuade other investors to contribute funds.”

Oh, they fell for it?

Pei Qian was very pleased. Chen Kangtuo was quite obedient. In order to extort Mr. Li and the others, I said I wanted to build a luxurious maze, with decoration costs alone making them feel the pain, and they really made a maze, and it’s a “Golden Maze”? Sounds expensive!

No wonder Mr. Li had to persuade the other investors. I guess the other investors didn’t expect me to be so demanding and ask for so much?

Well done, it seems the cracks of alienation have already appeared. If this happens two more times, these investors will definitely all be driven away!

“Tuoguan Fitness currently still doesn’t have much change in personnel. The growth of new customers is very slow, while the stickiness of old customers seems to have improved, with a decrease in mid-term dropout rates. After analyzing the current data from the fitness centers, there are mainly two reasons: on one hand, the improvement of fitness meals makes it easier for many people to persist; on the other hand, and more importantly, it’s probably due to survivorship bias.”

“Customers who can persist have already become accustomed to this fitness model, so the retained customers will have increasing stickiness. But this doesn’t mean that the fitness center’s situation has improved, as it still can’t solve the problem of attracting new customers. No matter how strong the stickiness of these old customers is, it can’t make the fitness centers profitable.”

Well, very good. This management trainee, who works as a planner at Tuoguan Fitness, truly deserves their role. They can access all the data from the fitness centers and analyze the situation very thoroughly!

All management trainees completed their reports, and Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction.

“Everyone has done very well. I’d like to specifically commend the management trainee from Tuoguan Fitness, who analyzed through objective data and reported all matters based on factual data, which is more practical compared to some idealized judgments.”

“In the future, everyone should learn more about observing through data, after all, data doesn’t lie. Alright, today’s meeting ends here. Thank you all for your hard work. Dismissed!”

…

After the meeting, Pei Qian left the company, planning to sit at Slackin’ Internet Café for a while.

As usual, he ordered a cup of coffee, took out the laptop he kept at Slackin’ Internet Café, and continued to organize the mind maps for each department.

Half an hour later, Pei Qian decided to take a short break and casually browsed the web.

Suddenly, Pei Qian saw an exciting piece of good news.

GOG’s new hero, Wind Ink Master Ruan, is online!

This was a news item from the gaming channel. The hero had already gone online today, almost right after Traveler Bao Xu. It had to be said that the efficiency was truly fast.

In terms of update speed, it had completely matched the overworking intensity of the ioi designers.

Pei Qian continued reading. This news not only introduced Wind Ink Master Ruan’s artwork, model, background story, and skill description, offering a preview of the hero’s gameplay, but also commented on the current “arms race” between GOG and ioi.

“Wind Ink Master Ruan is a calligrapher, painter, and also a knight with a romantic spirit. For a painter, infusing life into paintings and constantly seeking breakthroughs is his lifelong destiny.”

“As a lofty genius, his unique character and painting skills that transcend time have caused dissatisfaction and exclusion from other painters, so he would rather wander in the mortal world, letting his paintings remain in famous mountains and rivers, than continue to drift with the mediocrity among the mundane.”

“Fortunately, during his travels, he befriended Modiste, a close friend. They both possess virtues such as loftiness, integrity, courage, and humility, which allow them to trust each other, to entrust their backs to each other in battle, and to fight side by side!”

Pei Qian: “…”

Why did this hero introduction seem to have a sarcastic tone?

Mutual trust with Modiste, entrusting their backs to each other?

It seems like only I’ve entrusted my back to him, and then he fiercely attacks my back?

When will I ever be able to backstab him once?

Pei Qian felt very resentful.

Since getting to know Ruan Guangjian, Pei Qian had already plotted several revenge plans, such as the Hammer combo, the Horror Inn combo, the Unreasonable Client combo, and so on. However, each time, Ruan Guangjian had perfectly deflected them like a Taiji master, leaving Pei Qian with nowhere to use his strength.

Continuing to read, there was a gameplay preview and comments on the current status of GOG and ioi.

“From the current mechanics, Ruan is a sustained damage fighter with high mobility and versatility. Although the damage is low in the early game, the longer he survives in battle, the higher the damage becomes. At the same time, this seems to be a hero with an extremely high ceiling but also a very low floor. Although each skill doesn’t seem complicated, it requires a very high skill to play well.”

This vintage hero mechanism introduction was so nostalgic.

Many of the terms used here were neither standardized nor mature, but they were generally correct.

Pei Qian was very clear that this was indeed a hero with a high ceiling and a low floor, and most players would only reach the floor.

“In the past month, the ‘arms race’ between GOG and ioi seems to be intensifying, with no sign of stopping at all. This ‘arms race’ started with ioi, with the synchronous update of the domestic server and global server, and the plan to update two new heroes per month, which shocked players.”

“However, GOG quickly followed up and, unprecedentedly, adopted the method of ‘crowdfunding heroes.’ This method wasn’t well-regarded at first, but from the current situation, this strategy is extremely successful.”

“This activity fully mobilized players’ enthusiasm, keeping the vast number of GOG players consistently attentive to the game, not losing attention to ioi even during periods without new hero releases.”

“Not only that, but GOG’s ‘crowdfunded’ new heroes have excellent mechanisms and rich gameplay. Both Traveler Bao Xu and Wind Ink Master Ruan have been well-received. Does this suggest that players understand games better than designers?”

“From the current situation, GOG has used a perfect response method to maintain and even expand its leading position. So, in what aspects will ioi launch new challenges? Let’s wait and see!”

The phrase “maintain and even expand its leading position” made Pei Qian feel a bit hurt.

It had to be said that Min Jingchao was truly a genius, actually making a success out of crowdfunding game development!

But Pei Qian didn’t care about these things anymore. What he cared more about was when the benefits from the new hero’s skin would arrive.

From the current situation, both Traveler Bao Xu and Wind Ink Master Ruan only had default skins, with subsequent skins still in development.

This was because time was too tight, and the production team was busy enough just making the heroes, models, and so on. To compete with ioi for attention, new heroes had to go online quickly after being made and tested. As for skins and subsequent balance adjustments, they could come gradually.

But after a month, the skins should roughly be released; after two months, income would be visible.

Although the skins of crowdfunded heroes would have significant discounts, in reality, it would create a “small profit, high volume” effect, right?

Pei Qian wasn’t in urgent need of money now, but he still had expectations for this income.

After reading the hero introduction once more, Pei Qian suddenly thought of something.

It seemed… he had found a way to backstab Ruan Guangjian!

Invite him to play a game of GOG, and then we each use our representative heroes!

Ruan Guangjian hadn’t played this hero before, and probably wouldn’t be very skilled. This hero already had a low floor and was probably easily countered. At that time, Ruan Guangjian would experience what it’s like to be happy, which would be revenge for at least one arrow!

If I can’t deal with you, can’t the public players deal with you, you puppet?