February 8th, Monday.
With the Chinese New Year approaching, Pei Qian could feel a “holiday” atmosphere permeating everywhere.
Regarding the 2010 New Year, Pei Qian didn’t have many memories, he couldn’t even remember what programs were on the Spring Festival Gala that year.
This world had some differences compared to his previous life, so the Spring Festival Gala would probably have some differences too.
Of course, no matter how different, it probably wouldn’t be much better than before.
At the university, after exam week ended, students had already gone home. It was winter, trees had shed their leaves, and walking around campus always gave a sense of desolation.
Pei Qian arrived at the company and sat down in his office.
Taking a cup of tea from Assistant Xin, he sighed that another boring day had begun.
He summoned the system panel.
【Wealth Conversion System】
【Host: Pei Qian】
【Surplus conversion ratio 100:1, Loss conversion ratio 1:1】
【System funds: 1.78 million (↑780,000)】
【Personal assets: 21,647.8】
“Huh…”
Pei Qian blew on his hot tea, feeling completely unmoved.
As expected!
In just one week, the original 1 million in system funds had become 1.78 million.
After updating the servers and bandwidth, Sea Fortress had seen another surge in player numbers. The game had been dominating various official platform rankings, and income continued to increase.
Money was being spent quickly, but it was being earned even faster!
Even though rent, salaries, and other expenses were constant, the funds in the company account kept growing.
Fortunately, Pei Qian had timed the last settlement perfectly, otherwise achieving a loss wouldn’t have been an easy task.
This time, Pei Qian was considering three directions for spending money, all requiring substantial amounts.
Huang Sibo had promised 1 million.
For Ma Yang’s shop, according to Pei Qian’s extravagant ideas, the initial investment would be around 2 million or so.
For the development of Game Producer, Pei Qian planned to invest at least 2 million initially, with no upper limit.
If the money wasn’t spent completely, he would add more!
Current daily expenses, including office rent and employee salaries, amounted to about 1 million per month.
Adding it all up, it wasn’t a small sum, and the current system funds weren’t enough.
But the problem was that this cycle was three months long.
With the earning speed of Ghost General and Sea Fortress, they could earn more than 3-4 million in just one month!
If Pei Qian wanted to keep the system funds below 1 million by the next settlement to achieve another loss, it would still be quite challenging.
Pei Qian calculated repeatedly, feeling somewhat frustrated.
He had also considered whether using the surplus of system funds for conversion might be better.
But a quick calculation showed it wasn’t feasible.
The two games were indeed highly profitable, earning nearly 10 million in three months without issue.
If converted at a 100:1 ratio, it would translate to nearly 100,000 in income, which seemed decent.
But what about expenses? Was Pei Qian supposed to be a miser?
Even if Pei Qian did nothing, the company’s monthly operating expenses were nearly 1 million. After three months, there would be at most a surplus of 5-6 million, which would convert to 50,000-60,000.
With such a small amount, wouldn’t a slight loss wipe it out?
Besides, if the goal was surplus, would Pei Qian still be willing to liberally use system funds for reimbursements? His quality of life and work environment would decline sharply!
A simple calculation showed that surplus conversion and loss conversion were completely different in terms of difficulty, and Pei Qian wasn’t stupid!
So, losing money was the right path!
This time, Pei Qian wanted to set a small goal for himself: to lose 700,000 out of the 1 million system funds. Should be easy, right?
Triple insurance!
As he was thinking, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Lü Mingliang pushed open the door, holding a printed design draft.
“Boss Pei, the concept draft for Game Producer is ready for your review.”
Pei Qian was surprised: “So fast? Did you work overtime past 9 PM?”
Lü Mingliang hurriedly waved his hands: “No, no, I just felt inspired and efficient lately. I didn’t exceed the overtime limit you set!”
Pei Qian was extremely strict about employees working excessive overtime.
Taking the printed concept draft, Pei Qian carefully examined it, occasionally asking Lü Mingliang: “How did you consider this part?”
Whenever he had questions, he would ask.
Meanwhile, Lü Mingliang nervously answered, explaining his thought process completely without any omissions.
Boss Pei doesn’t understand?
How could Boss Pei not understand?
Lü Mingliang knew clearly that this was Boss Pei testing him!
He couldn’t help but recall when Huang Sibo was still here.
He remembered when Huang Sibo submitted the first design draft for Sea Fortress directly to Boss Pei, who quickly skimmed through it and approved it.
But now, Boss Pei was meticulously examining each section and asking questions.
What did this mean?
It meant that Brother Huang’s draft had been perfect, and Boss Pei had complete confidence in it!
While my draft is far inferior, Boss Pei is worried that I can’t handle it, and is helping me review it in detail and constantly raising questions!
Thinking about this, Lü Mingliang suddenly felt ashamed.
It’s all my fault for being so useless, making Boss Pei teach me step by step!
Sigh, it seems I need to work harder in the future!
…
After reviewing the draft from beginning to end and raising many questions, Pei Qian felt somewhat relieved.
On one hand, reading this type of design document format gave him a headache, and he genuinely needed Lü Mingliang’s explanations to understand it.
On the other hand, he had to ensure that the design draft perfectly captured his ideas without any deviation!
Sea Fortress was a bloody lesson. It was precisely because he didn’t understand the design draft and missed many details that the game deviated from his intentions.
This time would be different!
According to his previous ideas, the detailed settings for Game Producer had all been established.
The game would be set inside a game company.
There would be computers for work, game promotional posters, figurines, plants, and various decorative items, as well as many game industry professionals as background characters.
Players would navigate in first-person perspective, starting from the point representing the game’s initial proposal and walking to the endpoint representing the game’s launch.
Each key milestone would be represented by a room.
For example, players needed to choose what type of game to make.
In this room, there would be many doors, each labeled with a game genre and featuring posters of that genre.
If players wanted to select a particular game type, they would enter through the corresponding door, representing their choice of that game genre.
After passing through a corridor, they would reach the next room.
This room would also have many doors, each representing differences in game details.
For instance, for a card mobile game:
It could be divided into different monetization models like “heavy pay-to-win” or “light pay-to-win”;
Players could choose different promotion methods like “video creator sponsorships,” “street marketing,” or “purchasing website advertisements.”;
They could select various themes like “anime style,” “Three Kingdoms,” “mythology,” or “original IP.”;
They could specify art styles like “2D cards,” “side-scrolling characters,” or “full 3D”;
They could choose combat systems like “turn-based” or “real-time battle”…
In short, each room would represent a player’s choice!
The room’s setup would revolve around these options.
For example, when players chose themes like “anime style,” “Three Kingdoms,” “mythology,” or “original IP,” the corresponding door areas would visually represent these themes.
“Anime style” would feature a bunch of cute characters;
“Three Kingdoms” would show traditional Three Kingdoms characters;
“Original IP” would display some original character designs.
These would be displayed intuitively, and players could enter the corresponding door for their choice.
After a series of choices, players would arrive at the final room.
Here, they would see the scene after the game’s release.
They might see countless enthusiastic journalists with flashing cameras and passionate players and fans;
They might see an empty, abandoned office of a bankrupt company;
They might see huge advertisements in busy shopping districts and a distant view of a theme park built based on the game.
They might see game discs gathering dust in some obscure video store…
In short, this would be the entire content of the game.
Players would choose different paths to create their games and ultimately see the results.
There would be no operations or interactions throughout the entire process, just walking and watching!
Isn’t that extremely boring!
And even more insidious was what came next.
A narrator would constantly follow players, making sarcastic remarks.