Although the DGE Club members had planned from the beginning to follow this script for their entertainment routine, they couldn’t make it too obvious.
Because their opponents weren’t stupid. If they discovered that the DGE Club was deliberately not killing them, they would fearlessly attack even with low health. In that case, DGE would never be able to complete this entertainment task.
If opponents came in with low health, and you didn’t kill them, they would kill you; if you killed them, the entertainment would fail.
So, to complete this task, they first needed good acting skills, making the opponents believe that DGE was playing seriously, making those low-health players think they had escaped by luck.
Their acting was so good that they not only fooled their opponents but also the vast majority of viewers. Until the final moment when the truth was revealed, the direction of the barrage of comments flipped several times. At one moment, people were spamming “DGE worst club,” and the next moment, “DGE reverse invincible.” In the end, everyone was proven wrong, creating maximum entertainment value!
After the match, Huang Wang high-fived his teammates in celebration.
Perfect! One hundred thousand yuan prize money secured!
Making quick money like this felt truly comfortable.
Zhang Yuan watched silently from the side, feeling gratified for his team members.
Occasionally playing these entertainment matches could both relax their minds and adjust their attitudes.
Moreover, Huang Wang and DGE Club’s popularity was rapidly increasing!
Jiang Huan’s first team was also warming up, quietly selecting their entertainment plan.
They absolutely couldn’t lose to the second team, otherwise they would have to train extra!
…
…
August 15th, Monday.
Pei Qian came to his office as usual.
Over the weekend, Pei Qian had been following ZZ Live’s Entertainment Competition, focusing on DGE Club’s performance.
The situation was not encouraging!
After watching the matches, Pei Qian realized that the true strength of these two teams had reached such a level???
Previously, when DGE Club’s two teams went out to compete and returned with low spirits, Pei Qian thought they had lost badly.
Now it seemed that either he had misunderstood, or these two teams had made tremendous progress in their abilities during this period.
Upon careful consideration, the former seemed more likely.
But Pei Qian was puzzled: why were these two teams so strong?
Didn’t I arrange fitness training for you all?
Judging from the muscles on these people, they should have completed their fitness training with good quality and quantity.
Logically, with less time for game training and divided energy, their performance should have been at the bottom, right?
But the result was that they crushed those veteran clubs.
They could win even while performing entertainment stunts, showing the extent of the skill gap between the teams!
Therefore, Pei Qian increasingly felt that something was wrong with DGE, and he needed to quickly come up with countermeasures!
If they continued playing like this, Huang Wang’s popularity would likely skyrocket. Just casually duo-queuing with his teammates…
He might become instantly famous.
It didn’t matter if these people signed streaming contracts, but from another perspective, if DGE Club had five or six highly popular streamers, wouldn’t DGE’s reputation take off immediately?
What if some particularly wealthy sponsors came knocking at that point?
The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more worried he became.
As he was pondering, someone knocked on the office door.
Looking up, it was Hu Xianbin.
“Mr. Pei, the development of ‘Struggle’ is basically in its final stages. Should we start formulating a promotional plan?”
“Can you give me a general direction?”
“Or should we not promote it, and let players discover it themselves?”
Regarding game promotion, Hu Xianbin was uncertain and needed to confirm with Mr. Pei.
After all, Mr. Pei was an undisputed marketing master when it came to game promotion.
“Promotional plan…”
Pei Qian fell into thought.
For some independent game developers, no promotion meant failure.
But for Pei Qian, Tenda Games no longer had such good fortune.
With more and more successful games developed, Tenda Games has built a reputation. Whenever a new title was released, players would pay attention, the media would rush to report, and everyone would shout, “I’ll buy it like crazy!”
Hoping that “without promotion, no one will pay attention” was now an ostrich mentality.
But if they promoted it… Wouldn’t it become even more popular and make more money?
This was very awkward.
However, the current Pei Qian was different from before.
Because he now had theoretical knowledge!
Professor He had once taught an important theory: all aspects of a game must be compatible.
Especially promotional work, which must align with the game’s inherent characteristics. There couldn’t be a disconnect between promotion and the actual product.
The reason Pei Qian’s previous game promotions had succeeded was mainly because he had been too lucky, hitting the mark by chance.
Strictly speaking, for quality-oriented single-player games, false advertising was an absolute minefield. If you stepped on it, it would be fatal or crippling!
At that time, Pei Qian was already considering whether “Struggle” could use the knowledge he had learned previously, wouldn’t it successfully achieve a loss?
So, this time Pei Qian decided to abandon illusions and start fighting.
He shouldn’t think that not promoting is good enough. Not promoting was far from sufficient; he needed reverse promotion to discourage players!
But exactly how to implement reverse promotion and create a disconnect between promotion and product was a difficult problem.
Because the system didn’t allow deception.
In the promotion process, Pei Qian couldn’t deliberately release false information to deceive players. That wasn’t allowed.
But this didn’t stump Pei Qian.
I indeed can’t lie, but I can only tell a part of the truth!
Although it’s the truth, as long as some information is hidden, it can still mislead players!
Pei Qian was well aware that the reason why the “disconnect between promotion and product” had such a destructive impact on the product itself was ultimately because of the disconnect in the player base.
For example, if your game was casual, but after promotion, few casual players were interested, and instead, a group of hardcore gamers showed up, that would be very awkward.
People who would like this game didn’t come to play, and people who wouldn’t like it played the beginning and left, leaving negative reviews. Wouldn’t that mean game over?
So, Pei Qian felt he should create such a disconnect.
Pei Qian thought silently.
“Now let’s conduct a comprehensive analysis according to Professor He’s theory.”
“What should be the target audience for ‘Struggle’?”
“Hmm, it should overlap quite a bit with the player base of ‘Game Developer,’ those who don’t need much operation but focus on exploring and analyzing the game’s connotations.”
“So, in promotion, I should do the opposite.”
“Make these people see the promotional text and lose interest, not wanting to play; while another group of players who enjoy operation and grand scenes would come in, curse, and leave.”
“As long as this ‘disconnect’ is achieved, everything else can be worked out!”
With this in mind, Pei Qian had a plan and said to Hu Xianbin, “Take note of these promotional points.”
“When promoting, we shouldn’t use the Chinese name ‘Fendou’ but instead use the English name: ‘STRUGGLE.'”
“Reveal to players that this game has the following characteristics:”
“Diverse choices, rich strategies.”
“Beautiful graphics, all actions used real motion capture.”
“Complex plot, suspenseful story.”
“And, innovatively using a dual protagonist mode.”
As Pei Qian spoke, Hu Xianbin quickly took notes.
After finishing, Hu Xianbin looked up at Mr. Pei, then down at his notebook, his face full of confusion.
Is this our game?
Upon careful reading, none of the points seemed wrong.
But combined, these elements didn’t remind him of the game “Struggle” at all!
Hu Xianbin tried to imagine: if he saw these promotional points, the first thing that would come to mind would be a story-driven, high-budget, single-player action game.
Look at these features!
All actions used real motion capture, this must be an action game.
Diverse choices, rich strategies, indicating a complex combat system with high replayability.
Suspenseful story, clearly emphasizing the narrative packaging of an action game;
Dual protagonist mode, making people think of switching between two protagonists with different fighting styles in an action game’s story.
Hu Xianbin hesitated: “Mr. Pei, is this… description accurate enough? Should we clarify that this is not an action game?”
Pei Qian smiled slightly: “Don’t ask too many questions, just promote it according to this.”
I haven’t told a single lie!
The English name of “Fendou” is indeed “STRUGGLE,” but the word “struggle” simultaneously has multiple meanings, including “strive, fight, wrestle, grab, break free.”
If you say “fendou” (in Chinese), most people would think of realistic themes.
But if you say “struggle,” combined with the subsequent game feature introduction, most would think of action themes!
As for the following points, I haven’t said anything wrong.
“Struggle” indeed has diverse choices and rich strategies, though no matter how you choose, there’s only one ending, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot change fate.
It indeed has beautiful graphics and used motion capture, but I never said the captured motions were fighting actions, did I?
The dual protagonist mode is even more accurate, and it’s indeed a very innovative dual protagonist mode.
In other games, dual protagonists exist within the same story framework, with different fighting styles but with intersections, mainly used to adjust players’ gaming emotions.
But my dual protagonist mode is impressive: one poor protagonist, one rich protagonist, same gameplay, not even in the same story framework, not even in the same game, because the poor version and rich version are sold separately.
I haven’t told a single lie, no false advertising! If you insist on understanding this game as an action game, I can’t help it!
Watching Hu Xianbin leave with a bewildered expression, Pei Qian felt that this time he had succeeded.
It wasn’t a waste to invite Professor He to lecture!
Although Professor He often criticized me, there was still a lot of valuable content in his courses, which I’m now putting to use, aren’t I?
Having settled the promotional issue for “Struggle,” Pei Qian’s mood changed from cloudy to sunny.