Thursday, March 22nd.

At Tenda Group’s Advertising and Marketing Department.

Meng Chang had arrived at his workstation early in the morning. He turned on his computer and launched the demo for “Mission and Choice” to experience it again.

The working hours for the Advertising and Marketing Department were the same as other departments—a standard eight-hour workday with weekends and holidays off. When developing marketing proposals, they were allowed some flexibility, though this was strictly controlled.

As the department head, Meng Chang wasn’t required to follow these rules. His working hours were completely flexible—he could come and go as he pleased without needing to clock in or out.

After all, he earned commissions based on the effectiveness of his advertising campaigns, so clocking in and out was truly unnecessary.

Nevertheless, he had been diligently working full eight-hour days recently to ensure that the promotional campaign for “Mission and Choice” would be flawless.

In the office area, only some of the Advertising and Marketing Department employees were working seriously.

Since this marketing campaign required relatively little new design work—mostly just modifying existing promotional materials for these games—there wasn’t enough work to go around.

Those who weren’t working were either watching matches, playing games, following dramas, or browsing the web.

Most of the department’s employees kept up with news about Tenda’s various business ventures daily, primarily for work purposes, hoping to develop excellent promotional campaigns at any time.

“Tuwi Live is really thriving now. The two leagues are driving the platform’s popularity. When many players think of esports matches now, their first instinct is to watch on Tuwi Live.”

“Wolf Fang Live must be suffering the most, right? After all, they position themselves as a gaming livestream platform, so having the livestreaming market taken from them must hurt.”

“I have to say, Mr. Pei’s plans always work out.”

“Indeed. The livestreaming field has become a red ocean with many major investors entering the market. Many platforms burned through cash and created temporary excitement only to fade away quietly. Yet Mr. Pei entered forcefully and has managed to establish a foothold in the current landscape. He’s truly amazing!”

“The key is that Mr. Pei hasn’t actually spent much money on Tuwi Live. Every penny has been used effectively.”

Listening to his colleagues’ discussion, Meng Chang silently raised his evaluation of Mr. Pei yet again.

Although Mr. Pei already held a lofty position in Meng Chang’s estimation, that didn’t prevent it from rising further—after all, such heights were difficult to reach.

However, Meng Chang’s mindset wasn’t significantly affected as he continued to focus on experiencing the “Mission and Choice” demo.

“Strange, this game doesn’t seem particularly fun.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m not an avid gamer, so I can’t appreciate what makes it enjoyable?”

Meng Chang was practically holding his nose as he forced himself to repeatedly experience the game’s demo.

Since he wasn’t much of a gamer to begin with, and had never played real-time strategy games at all, it was difficult for him to appreciate the joy of such games.

The overall difficulty of the “Mission and Choice” demo changed with the storyline. The realistic elements were introduced mid-game, at which point soldiers would disobey orders and move around randomly.

If combined with the film’s storyline, this change would feel natural and effectively engage players emotionally.

However, the current demo for “Mission and Choice” hadn’t yet incorporated the film portions, so Meng Chang couldn’t grasp the storyline and consequently couldn’t understand the significance of this gameplay mechanic.

In short, Meng Chang found the experience unpleasant, even developing a sense that “no matter how I promote this game, it couldn’t possibly become popular.”

Fortunately, he quickly suppressed this dangerous inclination. Every game Mr. Pei released became successful, and Meng Chang wasn’t foolish enough to judge the potential success of Mr. Pei’s games based on his own limited gaming experience.

In any case, preparing for the worst was never a bad approach.

After forcing himself to play “Mission and Choice” a bit longer, Meng Chang exited the game to clear his mind.

Just then, he saw a message from Hu Xianbin of Tenda’s Gaming Department.

“We’ve finished coordinating with the official platform. They’ve compiled the collection of classic Chinese games and communicated with the relevant companies.”

“There are just two remaining issues: when to release this collection, and what promotional materials to use.”

For these classic Chinese games, some of the original companies had gone bankrupt, so the official platform was now managing their games. Other companies still existed but had stopped selling these games years ago. The official platform had easily negotiated to repackage these games as a collection.

But since this collection was ultimately requested by Tenda Games, the official platform decided to let Tenda determine the release date and prepare the promotional materials.

Meng Chang considered briefly: “Launch it as soon as everything is ready. I’ve prepared a version of the promotional materials that we can submit to the official platform.”

Hu Xianbin quickly replied: “Sounds good.”

Meng Chang was fully responsible for this promotional campaign. Neither Hu Xianbin nor the official platform had any specific requirements—as long as the entire promotional activity wasn’t too outlandish, it would be fine.

—

A moment later, the liaison from Tenda’s Gaming Department received the promotional materials from the Advertising and Marketing Department.

Hu Xianbin also received a copy and opened it for a quick look.

“This…”

Although he had mentally prepared himself for these promotional materials, seeing them still left him somewhat stunned.

Meng Chang had previously mentioned that the promotional materials would primarily focus on these old games, but Hu Xianbin had assumed they would at least be repackaged and made to look more appealing.

Instead, he saw that Meng Chang had directly used the historical promotional materials with only minimal modifications.

The background images, promotional slogans, and other elements remained completely unchanged. The only differences were slightly higher resolution materials, somewhat more refined visuals, and minor layout adjustments to ensure all game promotional posters had similar structures.

That was it!

Although there were slight modifications, Hu Xianbin could only recognize them because he had seen the original promotional images for “Mission and Choice.” Current players would likely be unable to spot the differences 99.9% of the time.

If these promotional materials were uploaded, they would probably transport everyone back to the 1990s, creating a sense of time travel.

Hu Xianbin looked at the employee who liaised with the Advertising and Marketing Department: “Are we definitely going with this set?”

The employee nodded: “Yes. Do you think there might be an issue? Should we ask the Advertising Department to revise it?”

Hu Xianbin shook his head: “Let’s go with this set. Mr. Pei has entrusted the promotional campaign to Meng Chang. Even if we don’t trust Meng Chang, we should trust Mr. Pei.”

“Besides, Meng Chang has already created several successful promotional campaigns. This one should be fine too.”

—

That afternoon, at Binhu Residential Complex.

Qiao Liang had just finished eating the Slackin’ takeout that was delivered on schedule and was comfortably lounging on his sofa, enjoying the warm sunshine streaming through the window.

He opened his phone and checked his fan group as usual.

Sure enough, the fan group was filled with questions about when his new video would be released and when he would start streaming.

Qiao Liang silently scrolled through the chat history, then continued to pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

“Comrades, I really don’t want to bail on you, but I just don’t have any inspiration.”

“Creative artistic work like mine isn’t like a hen laying eggs—it really depends on my mood.”

After this self-consolation, Qiao Liang acted as if nothing had happened and sat at his computer. He opened the official platform, wanting to check if there were any new games.

“Hmm? Looks like there’s a ‘Revisiting Classic Chinese Games’ collection.”

“Why are these games from the 90s being dug up again? Aren’t these all games that have been played to death?”

“Oh, I get it. They’re probably for reminiscing and appreciating how far we’ve come.”

Qiao Liang didn’t think much more about it and clicked to view the details page for these games.

“Some old games from many years ago, now back on the official platform.”

“I have to say, it does bring back memories.”