Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

On June 21st, Fei Huang Workspace's documentary Coming Out of the Cocoon as a Butterfly was officially released on Aili Island!

As a documentary, Coming Out of the Cocoon as a Butterfly had not been embedded into any commercials and had not been entered into any profit-sharing agreements with any sites. If it was based on Aili Island's ordinary incentive plan—even if the viewership hit a million, income earned would only be a few thousand; that was peanuts.

Hence, Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce had more or less given up on this idea and had just gone ahead doing something they loved without looking forward to gaining from it.

As Fei Huang Workspace had previously released the Boss Pei's Daily Life series and already had a huge group of fans—once this documentary was released, it immediately attracted wide attention!

In the video, Li Zhengwei faced the camera as he talked tirelessly about his life journey over so many years.

"After my dad left, I kicked open the door and ran away. I went to Shanghai alone to start my career proper.

"Coming to think of it, I did not regret this choice. I felt that I had been born to compete online; if I had followed life's course and went to work, got married, and had kids; I might be living my entire life in great regret.

"I'm not like those second-generation people born with a golden spoon in their mouths. My luck was not so good, and I was born in a rather poor family. However, from another perspective, my luck wasn't bad. I chose something that I liked and had made a name for myself.

"However, I do not recommend for youngsters to follow in my footsteps.

"After I started my career and became successful, many people actually asked me regarding this. My answer has always been the same…

"If you have really decided, then you shouldn't ask me this question. You would be just like me at the beginning, kicking open the door and living. Also, you would firmly believe without a doubt from then on that this was your dream; and you would fight for it till the end.

"If you need my advice before you can make up your mind, my suggestion would be to first make sure of something: Are you afraid of studying and so you want to escape that by doing this; or do you truly understand the price you have to pay by choosing to become a professional gamer?"

…

Very quickly, a huge number of players started to leave messages in the comments section.

"So fast!"

"I was still asking why Fei Huang Workspace had stopped filming Boss Pei's Daily Life. They actually had this lined-up!"

"This documentary seems to be very classy; it seems like it was a massive production!"

"It actually is a documentary about the professional gamer I love the most; I must support this!"

"I have not thought that a career gamer's life is so bitter and tough. To kick open the door, leave, and try to be a professional gamer. Fortunately, he had managed to gain his parents' approval after he made it big."

"Brother Li's every sentence is so earnest and honest."

"This documentary is really meaningful. I have a brother whose results aren't good and is always truant to play games online; he is also always talking about becoming a professional gamer. I feel that Brother Li's words are very true. My brother isn't that passionate about gaming, and he also hasn't thought about whether he has this flair or not; he just wants to escape from studying."

"Indeed, this documentary isn't trying to encourage people to fight on, be passionate, or about eSportsmanship. These themes have been covered so many times and are actually misdirection for youngsters. Why this documentary is a gem is because it also portrays the hardship and pain professional gamers go through. It also wants us to know that so many people wanted to become career gamers but failed. This documentary is very objective."

"I did not think that Fei Huang Workspace could actually produce such realistic and meaningful content; I support this!"

The comments left behind by players were pretty much all positive ones!

Coming Out of the Cocoon as a Butterfly soon became a new hot topic in the gaming world; it also was featured on the front page of Aili Island and grew even more popular!

…

…

June 23rd…

In Fish-Catching Internet Cafe, Pei Qian turned off the documentary playing on his cell phone as he sipped the coffee in front of him. He finally managed to put his heart at ease.

"Hu… things have finally become normal for once. It actually really didn't make money; that's a mean feat!"

Coming Out of the Cocoon as a Butterfly had been launched three days ago. In these three days, Pei Qian had been on tenterhooks.

He was very afraid that Huang Sibo would give him an ominous phone call saying, "Boss Pei, the documentary has made money!"

Fortunately, nothing of the sorts had happened.

Pei Qian had double- and triple-checked. Although Coming Out of the Cocoon as a Butterfly had more than two million views in just three days and was among the top three most popular videos on the site, it had not brought in much income.

Based on Aili Island's incentive plan, this clip would at most bring in thousands of yuan; that was nothing.

This was in-line with Pei Qian's prediction.

"Not bad, I have learned well from my loss-making experience. This proves that choosing to film documentaries like this would not make money; this was a good choice.

"I think I can continue injecting money in Fei Huang Workspace."

Pei Qian suddenly realized that after Fish-Catching Internet Cafe, he seemed to have found yet another decent loss-making avenue.

Making films that had rich value but brought in little in monetary benefits!

After experiencing so many failures, Pei Qian now knew something: making losses was not as easy as he thought.

The system had many restrictions in place to prevent Pei Qian from maliciously creating losses. For example, the system mandated he could not produce anything of slipshod quality or anything shoddy, the games he created had to have selling points, etc.

In other words, the products that Pei Qian launched had to be quality ones; he could not purposely make them badly.

However, Pei Qian had realized something else: the system actually didn't only consider 'quality' to only mean profitability; it also included reputability!

For a documentary like Coming Out of the Cocoon as a Butterfly—although the probability of it making money was very low, the system had not stopped this.

Also, when Pei Qian had started the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe business, although the chances of losing many were high; the system too didn't put a stop to this plan.

This meant that 'reputation' was a very important benchmark for the system. As long as a gain in reputation could be actualized, the system would recognize products of the sorts and would not think that Pei Qian was purposely trying to make losses.

Pei Qian had vaguely gotten an inkling of this before but had not delved deep into this. The ways of making money from games and videos were very different.

For games, if one had a good reputation, that normally meant huge sales. As the system mandated that games had to have a selling point, the odds of games with good reputation making losses were very low.

Although historically, there have been games that were of great quality but of little monetary value; compared to videos and films, they were very few and apart.

However, videos were different. Even if one's reputation was good and viewership was high, that might still not translate into profits. This documentary was a case in point.

"Hence, as long as I continue letting Fei Huang Workspace film this kind of clips, I could steadily create losses!"

Pei Qian instantly found a new direction for Fei Huang Workspace.

The next time he saw Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce, he had to think of a way to bait them into continuing on this documentary path and not turning back at all. This way, he would have found a steady loss-making source; how good would that be?!

However, Huang Sibo and the others probably wouldn't be shooting this eSports genre anymore; as for what theme they should do next, this still required further discussion.

During the final week before settlement, there couldn't be any unannounced and unreleased products.

In other words, Pei Qian couldn't do much now; he could only continue embarking on a spending spree by shopping or increasing benefits and pray that there wouldn't be any sudden developments.

Pei Qian looked at the System Funds; it was still in a state of losses.

"I have done more or less everything I could. The only problem now is how to maintain the existing state of losses."