April 15th, Sunday, 8 AM.
Pei Qian stared blankly at his computer screen, his right hand stiffly scrolling the mouse wheel and clicking, browsing web pages one by one.
He hadn’t slept well last night because the flood of news about “Mission and Choice” and “Fantasy War Remake” had dealt him a devastating blow.
All night long, Pei Qian tossed and turned, and every time he closed his eyes, those terrifying comments from the internet echoed in his ears.
“‘Mission and Choice’ utterly destroys ‘Fantasy War Remake’!”
“Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river!”
“The national gaming disgrace has become the national gaming pride, we must buy it in droves!”
“I’m going to refund ‘Fantasy War Remake’ and buy ‘Mission and Choice’ instead!”
He didn’t sleep well the entire night, and even after waking up in the morning, Pei Qian still couldn’t accept this reality.
“How could such a garbage game be remade this way?”
“It makes no sense at all!”
Others couldn’t understand why “Fantasy War Remake” turned out so terrible, but Pei Qian was even more confused!
But such a ridiculous thing had indeed happened—who could he complain to?
“Ding.”
The phone on the table rang. Pei Qian picked it up and saw it was a message from He An.
The old man was health-conscious and always went to bed early and rose early. Clearly, he must have just learned about the news of “Fantasy War Remake” not long ago.
He An seemed very excited and sent several voice messages in a row.
“Well done, Mr. Pei! Don’t tell me that ‘Fantasy War Remake’ turning out this terribly was also part of your plan?”
“Otherwise, why would you confidently release ‘Mission and Choice’ on the same day as ‘Fantasy War Remake’?”
“Hmm, thinking about it now, there were some signs pointing to ‘Fantasy War Remake’s’ failure. We could have seen clues from various details.”
“For instance, the quality of their games has been declining in recent years, gradually losing their reputation for ‘every release being a masterpiece.’ And when dealing with player feedback, they’ve appeared arrogant, always ‘teaching players how to play the game’…”
“Moreover, ‘Fantasy War Remake’ was always secretive when revealing information, and some negative news had leaked out.”
“But people trusted this game too much, so they ignored these small negative signs and wishfully believed the game would continue the classic…”
“Could it be that you, Mr. Pei, were able to determine that ‘Fantasy War Remake’ would likely fail, and fail miserably, just based on this information? Is that why you moved up the release date of ‘Mission and Choice’ to this day?”
“Wait, the timing is so coincidental—did you have this planned from the very beginning when you decided on the game type and theme? Although ‘Fantasy War Remake’s’ release was only announced last month, various rumors had been circulating earlier. Did you estimate this game’s approximate release date and determine ‘Mission and Choice’s’ development timeline accordingly…”
He An was old and typed slowly, but he could send voice messages quickly, and messages flooded the screen one after another.
From his tone, it was clear that he was extremely excited and animated.
A domestic game had actually defeated “Fantasy War Remake” head-on—not just defeated but utterly crushed it in all aspects. What a moment of pride for people in China’s gaming industry!
In the era when they were active, this would have been unimaginable!
Of course, the main reason for this head-on victory was that “Fantasy War Remake” was too terrible, truly garbage among garbage. But regardless, a victory was a victory.
Moreover, “Mission and Choice” was of sufficiently high quality!
He An had originally thought that “Mission and Choice” would certainly suffer by clashing with “Fantasy War Remake,” but now he discovered that it was the other party that had suffered, with all the attention being drawn to “Mission and Choice”!
Thinking back to Pei Qian’s confident and secretive demeanor earlier, He An suddenly felt that everything seemed to be within Pei Qian’s plan all along.
Listening to He An’s voice messages, Pei Qian’s expression became even more dazed.
What are you talking about?!
Have you gone senile? The game type and theme were things I asked you about, and you personally decided them!
How has this become part of my plan now?
I can take the blame for the game’s success, but choosing the game type and theme has nothing to do with me!
Pei Qian immediately replied: “How is that possible? Didn’t you decide the game type, theme, story background, and even some design details?”
He An quickly responded: “Mr. Pei, don’t be so modest. I’ve been thinking back to that scene, and you must have used some special psychological suggestion technique, right?”
“You asked me what the most out-of-favor game type was, and at the same time, Tenda happened not to have developed any RTS games yet, so you subconsciously guided my thoughts toward the RTS genre!”
“The rest followed a similar logic. Mr. Pei, you had already planned out the design details for the game, but deliberately proposed a seemingly lower difficulty solution to tempt me into suggesting a higher difficulty approach. But in reality, you had already planned for the highest difficulty solution!”
“So, on the surface, it looks like I determined the framework and many details of ‘Mission and Choice,’ but in reality, these details were determined under your step-by-step guidance and psychological suggestion.”
“Otherwise, how could simply gathering all failure elements possibly create such a successful game? It’s completely unreasonable!”
He An spoke with absolute certainty, as if he had completely seen through Pei Qian’s despicable thoughts.
However, Pei Qian’s mouth hung slightly open, utterly speechless.
“I f***ing…”
He An’s rapid-fire analysis left Pei Qian stunned, to the point where he couldn’t even think of how to refute it.
Clearly, in He An’s mind, he had elevated Pei Qian’s level of complexity to infinite heights, making any explanation from Pei Qian completely futile.
He An continued: “Although you’ve played another joke on me, I’m still very happy! I never thought you could actually transform decay into wonder—taking these elements that should definitely fail, gathering them together, and then turning the situation around!”
“I am genuinely happy that the domestic game industry has a genius like you! Anyway, I’ve already bought tickets and am taking a few old friends today to watch ‘Mission and Choice’ for a second time!”
Pei Qian: “…”
It was hopeless.
Both the movie and game versions of “Mission and Choice” had become hits. Players who had played the game wanted to rewatch the movie’s plot, while those who had seen the movie wanted to download the game to play…
Players were experiencing double happiness, leaving only double pain for Mr. Pei.
Pei Qian stood up and paced quickly around the living room.
“This can’t continue—I need to find a way to remedy the situation.”
“From the current situation, both the game and movie are likely to be hits. The movie box office revenue will take some time to come in, but the game revenue will arrive soon…”
“All that money I spent is going to come rolling back with interest. I need to find another way to spend it!”
“But starting a new industry seems a bit too late now. There’s just over three months until settlement, and starting a new industry easily triggers more chain reactions, potentially causing a bigger crisis…”
“Partnering with Shenhua Group to create a gaming department is worth considering. That should be able to spend a good amount of money.”
“Is there any other way…”
“What department does Tenda still lack?”
Pei Qian took another turn around the room and suddenly his eyes lit up.
“Got it—a sales department!”
“Tenda doesn’t have a sales department yet!”
Pei Qian suddenly found a blind spot.
He had always dismissed the idea of a sales department because, for a company like Tenda that never intended to sell any products—they’d rather hide them—what use was a sales department?
But Pei Qian suddenly realized that having a sales department didn’t necessarily mean promoting sales!
Under the banner of a sales department, spending the sales department’s funds, but actually working to discourage customers—how perfect!
“I’m a f***ing genius!”
Pei Qian suddenly didn’t feel so bad anymore because he had thought of an excellent way to spend money!