Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

There was a trial video after the promotional video.

Compared to the promotional video, the trial video was much simpler. Yan Qi controlled the protagonist and used the four methods of Confucian, Shi, and Dao soldiers to eliminate the demons in a small border village.

Before entering the village, he would use dao technique pills and talisman amulets to apply various buffs on himself. Then, he would set up an array formation to attract all the demons nearby. With his rich preparations before battle, he would easily defeat a large number of demons.

However, the state of the formation and the talisman could not last long. More demons were still emerging continuously.

The protagonist took down his spear from behind and used his weaponry to fight the monsters. From time to time, he would shoot a bow and arrow, hitting the demon in the distance.

If the previous dao technique focused more on early preparations, it would become an action game that required reaction and operation. The protagonist would use all the weapons he could get to fight the demons and monsters around him. At the same time, he would kill his way to the core area of the village.

Immediately after that, the protagonist encountered more and more powerful demons. Some demons that were covered in layers of resentment would not be harmed by ordinary swords. Thus, the protagonist's Buddha light shone brightly on his body, and his skin turned pale gold. The blazing Buddha light made the dark demonic aura disappear quickly like ice meeting a sun.

In the end, he faced a powerful baneful spirit. The protagonist used a Confucian material and saw the weakness of the baneful spirit on its head and back. After dodging the baneful spirit's attack, he cut off the sharp horns of the baneful spirit!

Immediately after that, other scenes appeared. For example, the battlefield with corpses scattered everywhere, the burning temple, the border city that they had fought to the death, the Road to the Underworld between the two worlds, and so on.

However, these scenes only flashed past. They did not spend so much time describing them as before. They were just a display of the scene.

This trial video was a real battle in the game. Dao techniques, Buddhist Dharma, military tactics, Confucianism, these four combat methods were vividly displayed, including the use of various weapons, various moves and movements.

As a veteran action player, Yan Qi had to play it a few times before he could achieve the most satisfactory effect.

However, he did not display all the most exciting content in the game. He only chose some moves that could highlight the characteristics of the four schools. After all, the deeper combat system, more combat scenes and monsters, and more complicated game plots had to wait for the game to be released for players to experience it themselves.

Combined with the promotional video and trial video, players could roughly understand the content of the game 'Shu Li'. The players' current feedback could basically guess the situation after the game was released.

Of course, the prerequisite was that the development was successfully completed and everything that they wanted to do was done. They could not take out a half-finished product to fool players.

"There is a clear difference from action game benchmarks like Repent and be Saved and Eternal Reincarnation. It can be considered to have made its own characteristics. I wonder if players will like this path." Yan Qi was a little apprehensive.

He had also opened this promotional video on Aili Island's website. However, the video had just been released after all, so it was not very popular.

Yan Qi did not mind. He was prepared to continue playing the game's DEMO, look for bugs, and then come back to take a look.

This time, he did not invest too much resources into publicizing it with Dawn Games platform. He only created a few basic recommendation spots because he wanted to see the true feedback of the players.

If gamers liked the video of "Shu Li" after discovering it, it would naturally spread quickly and cause a huge popularity. That would prove that the path of the game "Shu Li" was right.

If he invested a lot of resources into publicity now, the real popularity and fake popularity might mixed together. That would make it difficult to clarify the true popularity of "Shu Li". Naturally, it would not be easy to find the problem with it.

After more than an hour, Yan Qi submitted two bugs.

It was the weekend. The efficiency of looking for bugs was too low.

Yan Qi did not pay much attention to it and continued watching the comments section of the video.

"Logically speaking, it should be a little popular. After all, they bought some basic recommendation spots and sent it using the official account of Dawn Games platform. There should be some natural traffic, right?"

"Eh? There is indeed traffic, but I feel that something is amiss."

"Where did the popularity come from?"

Yan Qi was shocked seeing the popularity and discussion of this video.

It had only been released for more than an hour, but the video of "Shu Li" had already reached the first place on the game channel's rankings. According to this trend, it would only be a matter of time before it reached the homepage!

Not only that, Yan Qi realized that the keyword # Shu Li # had also gone on the hot searches of Aili Island's website and Weibo!

That was ridiculous!

What's more, he realized that the keyword 'Shu Li #' seemed to have been bought from the hot searches on Weibo…

That was because this keyword was on the fifth position on the hot searches list. This position was basically occupied by celebrities previously.

What's more, given the current popularity of "Shu Li", it was not at the level of hot searches. passers-by did not know this, but Yan Qi knew it very well.

"What's going on? Dawn Games platform bought a hot topic for me?"

"That can't be. They didn't inform me about this, right? What's more, they don't even work during the weekend!"

Yan Qi could not figure it out no matter how hard he thought.

He had wanted to see the natural popularity of "Shu Li" to confirm the players' first impression of this game. In the end, his plan was completely disrupted!

Yan Qi quickly opened the comments section and various forums.

"Another domestically-produced AAA game is going to appear?"

"This scene, this movement, this combat system, not bad! I really want to play it. When will it be released?"

"You want to monopolize Dawn Games platform? Awesome! Dawn Games platform finally has a unique 3A masterpiece! It's worth celebrating!"

"I told you that this cultural heritage can only be grasped by domestic game designers. The Chinese style games produced by foreign games companies are simply unreliable!"

"I heard that this game seems to be still being developed, but it is lacking in development funds. I think they want to use this video to raise money this time."

"That's true. This team used to make mobile games. They would definitely not have enough funds to make such a large-scale 3A game! May I ask where the crowdfunding or pre-sales entrance is? I'll pre-order a portion to do my best for the development of domestically-produced games!"

"I don't think there's a pre-order. Perhaps the producer doesn't want to take the money from players."

"Does no company invest in such a good project?"

"Heh, it's not like you don't know how lousy the domestic investment companies are. Standalone games are a pitfall to them. Who would invest in them? Who would make ducks and drakes of their money?"

"Eh, I think a few investment firms are willing to invest in this game?"

"Aren't these the 'anti-Tengda Alliance' companies? F*ck, are they pretending? Are they investing in 'Shu Li'? They're obviously investing to disgust Tengda! I don't believe that these people have such good intentions!"

"That's right. I hope that the team of 'Shu Li' won't take this sum of money… If they really lack money, they can look for gamers to pre-order it. If they take the money of such a company, they will definitely not have a day of peace in the future!"

"These companies said that they would not interfere with the normal development of the 'Shu Li' project. What's more, I think this matter should be ignored. If Shu Li failed to achieve the perfect effect because of the lack of funds, it would definitely be a loss and regret. If the funding of these companies can allow us to have another outstanding domestically-produced game, why not?"

It had to be said that the popularity of 'Shu Li' had risen too quickly. From Aili Island's website to the hot searches, and then to the various gaming forums, it had ignited a discussion among gamers at a speed that Yan Qi had not expected.

However, this discussion was a little strange to Yan Qi. Something was amiss.

Why… did everyone seem to be focused on 'investment'?

Why did everyone prescribe that the 'Shu Li' project was lacking money?

Logically speaking, a normal gamer's first reaction should be to discuss the game's style, combat system, plot, story background, and so on after seeing the promotional video and trial video. At the same time, he should say that he would buy it all as soon as the game was released.

They usually did not care if the game developers had enough funds.

That was normal. Why would players care about this? They were not the developer's shareholders. Players only needed the game to be fun and to pay happily.

What's more, the 'Shu Li' project was not short of money!

Yan Qi was very puzzled. Where did the news of lack of money come from? There were so many people discussing it?

Could it be…?

Yan Qi strung everything that had happened recently together and suddenly realized where the problem was.

The anti-Tengda Alliance was trying to rope companies in from all over. As far as Yan Qi knew, some gaming platforms had already been pulled in.

Two days ago, Nie Yunsheng had personally come to Jingzhou to invest in Yan Qi. Yan Qi had rejected him.

After the video of 'Shu Li' was released, there was suddenly a lot of popularity on the internet. There were also two investment firms in the anti-Tengda Alliance who expressed their willingness to invest in 'Shu Li'…

These things happened too coincidentally and coherently. Yan Qi was not stupid. He naturally thought of it.

Obviously, the anti-Tengda Alliance had not thought about how to hide it at all. After all, their goal was to incite public opinion and let Yan Qi accept investment.

"Good lord, I used to beg everyone to invest in me, but not a single one of them was willing to invest. Now, I don't want it anymore. They even came to me and insist on giving me the money?"

"Ridiculous!"

If he were to count on these investment firms, the 'Shu Li' project would not have been born at all, much less to this extent.

However, many things were just that contradictory. These investment companies were all people who would not release the eagle unless there was a rabbit. It was impossible to give charcoal in the snow. Things that were icing on the cake were more urgent than the last.

Yan Qi did not know to laugh or to cry. On one hand, it was because the change in attitude of these investment firms was too obvious. Their faces were too ugly. On the other hand, it was because the project 'Shu Li' was really not lacking money!

He had already made it so clear to Nie Yunsheng. Why did he not believe him?

"Forget it, forget it. I'll make an announcement to clarify."

"How many times must I tell you to believe that I'm not short of money?"