July 8, Friday.
Pei Qian, as usual, had breakfast at Slackin’ Internet Café, then sipped coffee while refining his mind map.
“Hey, Mr. Pei, isn’t today the opening day of the Shudder Inn? Aren’t you going there to oversee things?” Xiao Peng curiously asked, seeing Mr. Pei so calm and collected.
Pei Qian sipped his coffee and chuckled, “No.”
What was there to see at the opening?
Anyone could guess there would be a lot of people!
With Tenda’s reputation in Jingzhou, the promotion from Shared Phone Booths, Study Hard, and other investors, the traffic driven by Tenda Games and Mass Reviews… if the Shudder Inn had no visitors on its first day of operation, that would be too wonderful for Pei Qian—wonderful to the point of being unreal.
So Pei Qian thought there was no point in hoping for such a miracle. He might as well just lie low for the first few days after opening.
The key was to see how things would develop after this first wave of enthusiasm.
Pei Qian hadn’t given up on the Shudder Inn project yet, mainly because it still had one last line of defense, which was the defense he had set up from the beginning: the charging model.
Of course, the Shudder Inn originally had three or four lines of defense, such as the remote location with inconvenient transportation, lack of surrounding facilities, insufficient publicity, and so on. But these defenses had already collapsed before the Shudder Inn even opened, which was a very sad thing.
But the last line of defense could still be counted on.
Pei Qian’s pricing strategy was: the first multiplayer project had extremely low fees; the second project was scarier, moderately priced, but to complete it, one had to memorize the specific process and operations of each project; the third project was more expensive and could only be attempted after passing the second project.
This way, most people would be attracted to the first project, stop at the second project, and very few visitors would actually enter the third project and spend money there. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t go a second time.
Building and maintaining the Shudder Inn required very high costs. The first project had limited space, and even if it ran at full capacity all day, it wouldn’t make much money. If visitors didn’t enter the second and third projects in large numbers and spend crazily in the Golden Maze, then the Shudder Inn couldn’t be profitable.
Anyway, this first wave of visitors was the most dangerous. Among them would be haunted house enthusiasts from the entire Handong Province, Tenda’s old customers, and even Tenda Games fans from all over the country.
But they certainly couldn’t play in haunted houses every day. After this wave of enthusiasm passed, the Shudder Inn would be safe.
So, Pei Qian planned to lie low for these two days. Going to the Shudder Inn now would not yield any good results.
However, seeing Mr. Pei apparently unconcerned, just quietly drinking coffee and typing on his computer, Xiao Peng inexplicably had a feeling that “Mr. Pei was commanding the situation with great strategic vision.”
For such a major project with huge investment and long preparation time, on its first day of opening, could Mr. Pei resist going?
What kind of strong willpower was that!
In fact, this wasn’t just something that could be achieved by willpower alone, but also required absolute confidence in the Shudder Inn project and a consistently calm mind.
Xiao Peng couldn’t help but exclaim that Mr. Pei was truly extraordinary!
Inspired by Mr. Pei, Xiao Peng also quietly found a quiet corner and began to seriously think about the next steps for Slackin’ Internet Café, including how to arrange the specific locations for a large batch of new stores.
Pei Qian was organizing his mind map when his phone rang.
“Ding.”
Pei Qian frowned, thinking, could it be that bad news had already arrived from the Shudder Inn?
That shouldn’t be possible?
Looking at his phone, Pei Qian’s expression first showed joy, then shock, and he almost blurted out an “Oh crap.”
The good news was that the income from Ruan’s skin had arrived!
The Ruan hero was released at the beginning of last month, so it had been exactly one month.
Of course, it wouldn’t be distributed separately.
It seemed to be exactly one month simply because it was a coincidence. Such a sum of money needed to be properly verified before disbursement, so it had been delayed from the beginning of this month until this Friday, the 8th, before being released.
However, this efficiency was already quite high, and there was nothing to be dissatisfied about.
The reason Pei Qian almost shouted “Oh crap” was that he hadn’t expected this money to be so little.
The account information clearly showed that this sum was a total of 41,366.4, down to the decimal.
Pei Qian didn’t see clearly at first, carefully counted the number of digits, and then confirmed that it was indeed a five-digit number, forty thousand yuan.
“Could someone be embezzling my money?”
This was Pei Qian’s instinctive thought, not because he didn’t trust his finance department, but because this was much less than he had imagined.
He hurriedly opened the backend data and briefly checked. After checking, Pei Qian found that it seemed like there really wasn’t any miscalculation…
Currently, GOG has reached over 1.7 million concurrent players, accounting for more than 60% of the MOBA game market in China. This data was not much different from the LOL China server data in the first half of 2012 that Pei Qian remembered.
In other words, there were already many players.
The reason LOL could become so popular afterward was mainly due to its development over several years, which expanded the boundary of MOBA game players, attracting players from other types of games.
At present, GOG, which was born less than a year ago, obviously couldn’t reach that level of popularity. Having over a million concurrent online players was already a miraculous figure, with still great room for future development.
Of course, this million-plus was concurrent online, and the real number of players was far higher. Some players who only logged in once every two or three days would still buy skins.
Over 400,000 players had purchased Ruan’s skin. This was Ruan’s first skin, an epic skin priced at 18 yuan.
This skin went on sale two weeks after Ruan was released because the GOG project team was currently focusing all efforts on developing new heroes. The priority of new hero production was far higher than skins, so squeezing out this skin after two weeks was already quite an achievement.
The skin’s price was set by Pei Qian himself: Brave skins were free, Epic skins were 18 yuan, and Legendary skins were 45 yuan.
If it was 400,000 × 18 × 5%, that would be 360,000, but the problem was that when collecting hero designs in the GOG Creative Community, there was also a rule: after a player-designed new hero was released, the first skin would be 90% off, the second skin 50% off, and the third skin 20% off, available to all players, limited to one month.
If you were an active user of the GOG community, there were other discounts.
That is to say, players bought this skin for 1.8 yuan.
No wonder so many people bought it, proportionally speaking. Many of these players might not even play the Ruan hero, or would even ban it before every ranked match, but because the skin was so cheap, many people still bought it for collection purposes.
And GOG’s main source of income still relied on skins sold for heroes not designed by players. Those skins did not participate in the GOG Creative Community’s discounts and would not share profits with players.
Pei Qian had mixed feelings.
Logically speaking, forty thousand was not a small amount given his current income level, but why did he still feel a hint of sadness?
Is this what it feels like to shoot oneself in the foot?
Pei Qian had previously set all skins at dirt-cheap prices to minimize the game’s income as much as possible, and Min Jingchao had carried out this philosophy. To encourage players to actively participate in GOG’s game design, the discounts were unprecedented.
As a result, Pei Qian found that the first month’s share was only forty thousand yuan, which had to be said was due to the cause and effect he had planted earlier…
Pei Qian took a sip of coffee and calmed his emotions.
“Stay calm, be optimistic.”
“Forty thousand is not a small amount, and it will increase in the future.”
“If I think about it carefully, I don’t lose either way.”
“GOG is now burning money to expand market share, which helps me fleece the system; if GOG becomes popular in the future, then each of Ruan’s skins will bring me hundreds of thousands or millions in income.”
“So, in the short term, treating this money as pocket money is fine. After all, this money will come every month.”
Indeed, looking at it from a different perspective, Pei Qian felt much better.
“The first batch of visitors should have already entered the Shudder Inn, right?”
Pei Qian looked at his watch: “I wonder what the scene is like there now.”
…
At the same time.
At the entrance of the Shudder Inn.
Qiao Liang got off the Shudder Inn’s bus and looked at the bustling crowd, having the illusion that he was visiting an amusement park.
Well, that’s not right either. The Shudder Inn was an amusement park, just that it currently only had haunted house attractions.
“Jingzhou! Qiao Laoshi is back again!”
Stepping on Jingzhou’s soil again, for some reason, there was a familiar sense of intimacy, like two old friends meeting again after a long time.
Qiao Liang took out his phone and opened his fan group, where new messages popped up rapidly.
“Brothers, gather at the entrance!”
“I’m on the next bus, should be arriving soon, wait for me.”
“Where’s Qiao Laoshi? Come lead us! I’m under this tree next to the parking lot!”
Qiao Liang quickly found his fans and successfully met up.
“There seem to be fewer people than imagined. I remember when going to Disney and Universal before, it was a sea of people, practically queuing to death,” said one fan.
Qiao Liang smiled, “What are you thinking? How could it reach the level of Disney and Universal? One Disney park requires an investment of billions of dollars. How much has been invested here? Just think of it as a larger haunted house.”
“However, I believe Mr. Pei will consistently bring us surprises as always!”
For some reason, Qiao Liang felt he always had a mysterious trust in Mr. Pei.
The news of the Shudder Inn’s opening had already spread in Qiao Liang’s fan group. As an old friend of Mr. Pei, he had no reason not to come and see, even though he was afraid of haunted houses.
If it were just as a Tenda consumer, he could come or not as he pleased, but as Mr. Pei’s friend, how could he not come to support when Mr. Pei’s haunted house opened?
Qiao Liang greatly cherished his friendship with Mr. Pei.
As for what to do if the haunted house was too scary… well, he would assess the situation once he arrived. At worst, he could just courageously run away.
Soon, Qiao Liang’s small fan team was assembled.
These people came from all over the country. Usually, they just chatted and boasted online without having the opportunity to meet. This was a good chance for them to meet face-to-face.
However, Qiao Liang quickly discovered a sad fact: he seemed to indeed have no female fans.
A group of men headed towards the Shudder Inn together.
“The scale is not small, and the supporting facilities are well done. With restaurants, hotels, shops, and parking lots all available, adding up to at least two or three hundred million yuan?”
“I heard it’s not just Mr. Pei’s money, but many local investors in Jingzhou joined together, each responsible for a part. If it were just Tenda, bearing such a large expense would probably not be easy.”
“Yes, after all, Mr. Pei also needs to consider spreading the risk.”
“Huh? Don’t they check tickets at the entrance? We’ve already walked in.”
“It seems each project has separate ticket sales and checks. There’s a combined ticket, but I didn’t buy it because it costs 200 yuan, which doesn’t seem to save much…”
“Let’s go in and see which project is fun, then decide how to buy tickets.”