Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

"Qian'er, we're done!"

"I ran through it twice and haven't discovered any bugs."

"Can we publish it now?"

Ma Yang was way more excited than Pei Qian; after all, this was the first game that he had worked on.

Even though… all he did was fill up a requirement form.

The so called 'bug check' took around four hours but Pei Qian did not intend to waste anymore time.

The main reason was that the game came from a template and in itself, the template had already been through multiple checks and was an almost bug-free version.

Pei Qian merely tweaked some of the skills settings while changing the text descriptions. Other than that, he had not touched the other things and there would naturally not be any serious bugs.

But of course, even if there was any bug right now, Pei Qian wouldn't be able to fix it on his own and would have to go online to hire someone to do it.

"Published."

Pei Qian still went with the set workflow and submitted the game for the vetting process.

But before that, he had to determine the game's title and summary.

He decided to go along with his previous line of thought. The name and summary must be so simplistic that gamers would not be able to understand it or guess at the game's content.

It would be best if it did not contain any hot keywords as well.

For example, 'Three Kingdoms' must not appear in the game's title!

Otherwise, gamers who liked three kingdoms related games would be able to find this game by searching with those keywords and they might download it to play.

Thinking for a moment, an idea struck Pei Qian as he started keying in the name and summary.

Name: Ghost General.

Summary: This is a normal card game with nothing new.

Sale Price: 10 yuan + in-game purchases.

He was certain that gamers would not be able to guess at the type of game it was just by reading the name and summary!

At the same time, the 10 yuan barrier of entry would be enough to deter most gamers who might accidentally stumble across the game.

Compared to The Lonely Desert Road, the game this time round had a larger size - after all, this was a mobile game with more content as well.

As such, the vetting process should take slightly longer and it would most likely only be done by the next day earliest.

After settling everything, Pei Qian's worries of the previous day had disappeared entirely.

Even if the game's original arts had decent quality, so what?

How would the gamers see the original arts if they don't know about the existence of the game to begin with?

Pleased with himself, Pei Qian closed the back end with glee, full of hope towards the settlement a week later.

He could already envision himself in a bright future spending his days like a bum enjoying food and drinks after getting the 300,000…

…

…

That afternoon, Ruan Guangjian woke up from hunger.

The others had woken up as well.

Old Huang was packing the house as he cleared all the instant noodle cups and all sorts of rubbish in a huge trash bag, ready to throw it all away.

"Guangjian, you're awake? How was it, have you handed in the work? Did the client request for any amendments?" Old Huang asked as he packed up.

Ruan Guangjian flipped out of bed. "Nopes. Boss Pei said he was extremely pleased and there's no need for amendments."

"Extremely pleased?" Old Huang was surprised. "What sort of a godly client is this? He didn't even request for a single amendment?"

Ruan Guangjian nodded his head. "That's right. Even though, it's true that the quality of our original art has nothing much that needs to be amended,all these shitty clients would usually… eh, is there any cup noodles left?"

"Nopes, we finished them all. Let's eat out tonight to celebrate," Old Huang suggested.

Ruan Guangjian nodded his head in agreement. "Sure, that's what I thought too. We'll go out and have a good meal before splitting the money. It's been rough on everyone for the past few days."

"Gosh, you're the one who had it worst," Old Huang replied as he dragged a large trash bag out.

Ruan Guangjian had not expected that Pei Qian would accept the original art without any complaints.

Usually, even if the clients were extremely pleased with the project, they would nitpick on some small issues.

Rather than saying it was the fault of the client, it was fundamentally an issue with the workflow.

Most of the times, the client wasn't a single person but a unit or a company.

The person who came in contact with the freelancers would just be a single employee of the client.

If the freelancers were to hand in a project and the person in charge of it at the client side were to accept it without any issues, he would have a hard time accounting for it to his superiors.

The fact that the employee did not find a single mistake with the end product may make him seem useless, as though he hadn't done his job properly.

That was the reason why the clients would always nitpick on some small issues to make it seem as though they were doing something.

In fact, there would even be despairing scenarios such as… "Let's just use the first draft".

Ruan Guangjian was grateful as well that he had met with such an angel of a client this time round.

He was upfront with the payment and not only did he not bargain, he had even increased their pay!

The requirement form was casual - they could do what they wanted with the design!

No amendments were required of the designs that were accepted with satisfaction!

That had Ruan Guangjian feeling somewhat embarrassed.

However, when he thought about how much effort he had put in to provide those high quality original arts, Ruan Guangjian did not see an issue anymore.

All he could say was that working with straightforward people was a pleasant experience!

Having slogged their guts out for a whole three weeks, it was time for his roommates to have a good meal now that the money was transferred as well.

Ruan Guangjian brought the few of them to a small restaurant near the school and booked a suite while purchasing two cartons of beer from a supermarket nearby.

They were intending to stuff themselves completely and make merry till they were drunk.

"Right, Guangjian. Say, what sort of a game are we making with our original arts? When's the game getting published?" Old Huang suddenly recalled an extremely important question as he ate the side dish.

It was only natural for them to want to see the game they've worked in get published sooner.

If it got popular, that would be even better.

"I've got no idea when it's getting published too, I didn't ask. However, I think all these games can only get published after multiple rounds of testing, right? I don't think it'll get published anytime soon."

"Right, I could check it out."

Ruan Guangjian had an account at ESRO's resource website. He could check Pei Qian's account to find his company and check the games they had published previously.

"Holy f*ck! The Lonely Desert Road was made by this company?!"

Ruan Guangjian was stunned.

He had long heard of that messed up game. Even though he hadn't tried it himself, he had heard all sorts of things about it previously.

He then looked at the second game.

"It's called Ghost General. A mobile card game that's being vetted! This should be the game that our original art's used for."

"Wouldn't that mean we'll be able to play it soon?"

"Wait, isn't this a little too fast…? I've only just sent the original art this morning and it was sent for vetting this afternoon? That means, we'll be able to play it tomorrow night?!"

Ruan Guangjian was completely confounded by that lightning speed.

Most games would have to be tested for days or even a week, right? What if there was a bug in the game?

But yet, this game was published right that day?!

Old Huang chewed on his shelled peanuts. "That's normal. Maybe the entire process was completed long ago and they were just waiting for our art resources to add on and complete the job? What's so strange about it."

Ruan Guangjian nodded his head. "Hmms, true. We'll be able to download and check it out for ourselves tomorrow."

"Come on! Let's talk about the game tomorrow! A drink first!" Old Huang raised his glass as they clinked glasses merrily, intending to get completely drunk!