Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Fish-Catching Internet Cafe, Handong University branch…

Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong sat in the coffee area, drinking coffee in silence. They were dumbfounded. There was not too much difference in what they experienced.

They were working hard, carefully revising the design plan of GOG and Be Quiet respectively on Tuesday. They were kicked out of the company and looked at each other speechlessly at the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe today.

They were equally shocked when they heard the news of the transfer.

Did they do something wrong?

That did not seem like it. It was obviously a promotion. Their positions and salaries had both risen. They should be very happy about that, right?

However, both of them could not find it in themselves to rejoice.

Boss Pei only mentioned that he wanted to create a haunted house in the old industrial zones of Jingzhou City. The initial investment amount would be 10 million yuan.

There was no other information other than that!

He gave no direction on how much land they should rent, which workshops should be renovated, what kind of plan they should use, how many employees should be recruited…

There was zero progress on all these.

In other words, there was nothing apart from the 10 million yuan capital, Chen Kangtuo, and Hao Qiong.

That… made them feel lost.

They decided to meet at the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe to discuss their next steps when they found out that the other was the only other colleague on this project.

Both of them thought the other party had more information or special advice from Boss Pei. They only realized that both of them were as lost when they met. Boss Pei didn't say a thing!

Therefore, they could only drink coffee in silence.

Chen Kangtuo decided to break the silence after a while.

Boss Pei attached so much importance to this project, having handed over 10 million yuan to him after all. He definitely could not disappoint Boss Pei.

Chen Kangtuo thought for a while and said, "I'll post some job postings online from tomorrow. We'll recruit some people with relevant experience, contact a construction company, and come up with a design plan by hook or crook."

Hao Qiong nodded. "Okay, there are some ready-made art materials from Be Quiet and the materials we collected previously when playing the horror games. We can consider using it in the design of the haunted house…"

The two of them discussed the details of the project while drinking coffee.

You don't say. A framework emerged from the haunted house project during the discussions.

However, both of them felt that something was still missing despite coming up with all sorts of problems. They felt that their conversation was not that practical.

Chen Kangtuo frowned and thought hard. "What exactly are we missing?"

Hao Qiong thought about it for a long time before he suddenly slapped the back of his head in realization. "I know! We are missing the guidance of Boss Pei!

"We can leave out anything else, but Boss Pei's guidance is absolutely indispensable!

"I don't know if you remember, but most projects in Tengda succeed because of Boss Pei's planning. Boss Pei simply pointed out a few simple directions most of the time, but we can definitely find the right path as long as we continue in his direction!

"Boss Pei has yet to issue us any guidance for the haunted house project so far. We have to first figure out Boss Pei's attitude towards this project before we can decide on a specific plan!"

Realization dawned upon Chen Kangtuo. "That's it!"

He had never been in-charge before. Boss Pei had always issued the tasks via Li Yada which was why Chen Kangtuo had never considered such issues.

Fortunately, Hao Qiong had heard from Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin about the standard process for understanding Boss Pei. Only then was he able to keenly discover this blind spot.

"In short, let's do the preparatory work, hire more people, or request for more people from Boss Pei. After that, let's find an opportunity to ask Boss Pei his views on this project.

"The success rate of this project could be greatly improved if we can understand Boss Pei's intentions!"

The originally confusing project seemed to have a vague direction after the discussion between them.

The general direction was the guidance of Boss Pei.

Both of them firmly believed that all these problems would be solved as long as they could obtain guidance from Boss Pei!

…

…

December 10th, Friday…

Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd….

"Brother Bao, GOG released a version. Please take a look."

Bao Xu signed silently seeing the message sent by Li Yada.

Sigh, what a difficult project.

GOG had a rough shape now even though it was still a lump of mess from all aspects. However, it could run at the very least.

There was Gods Rising, a ready-made game with a high degree of completion for reference after all. It was not difficult for GOG to have a framework up in a short time. However, they were still too far off as far as the degree of completion was concerned.

Bao Xu played GOG secretly when no one was watching and found a ton of shortcomings.

Many bugs…

Poor balance…

The gameplay was nothing new…

Too few heroes…

In short, it was worlds apart from Gods Rising.

Bao Xu was in a dilemma. Li Yada would probably not be able to deal with these problems by himself if he didn't lend a hand. He could almost see the African savannah and the Sahara desert beckoning him if he were to lend a hand.

Bao Xu sighed after weighing it over and over again. He opened the game editor again and secretly started modifying it.

"Forget it, there's no way I can just stand by and watch. Should I help one last time?

"However, it cannot keep going on like this. I cannot keep solving similar problems, right?"

Bao Xu was a little helpless as well. The entire design team might have been playing games to enrich their gaming experience, but game IQ was not something that could be cultivated overnight.

Bao Xu's sensitivity to games was unmatched to others as a hardcore gamer.

Therefore, some very professional tasks—such as adjusting the balance of the game—could only be done by Bao Xu.

Of course, the systems designer could also do it, but Bao Xu often needed to be the final gate.

Those standalone games that did not require much balance were still alright, but GOG was a multiplayer game. Balance was very important.

Bao Xu gave it some thought and felt that he would go on like this again.

That was too close!

He had to think of a way to distribute the work early and let others hold some responsibility as well. There wasn't anyone like that in the company. Where should he search for then?

He suddenly had an idea.

Fish-Catching Internet Cafe was Tengda's own business. Could it be utilized?

Put the trial version of GOG in the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe so that the customers of the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe could be the test players of the game. They could leave their opinions and suggestions after experiencing the game.

Of course, that could bring problems of its own. For example, information about the game might be leaked in advance, causing spoilers.

However, it was not too big of a problem for games like GOG. To put it bluntly, they would be putting a special game test server at Fish-Catching Internet Cafe to collect player data and modify the game based on this data information.

Bao Xu sent a message to Li Yada immediately.

Let the players in Fish-Catching Internet Cafe participate. Bao Xu felt that it could be of some help at the very least!

…

…

Dream Realization Ventures…

Ma Yang did not come today since he had class. Moreover, Dream Realization Ventures had no more capital to invest in other projects ever since Ma Yang poured all the money into Finger Games.

The only job left for everyone to do was to accompany Boss Ma in games.

Boss Ma might have been carrying them every round, showcasing all sorts of super skills. However, too many of such 'professional rounds' were boring as well.

Ma Yang was bored by such rounds recently so he had stopped coming to Dream Realization Ventures too often.

He Desheng and the other professionals were gathered together at this point, discussing the issue very seriously.

"Boss Ma's happiness threshold is rising too much. He will probably lose interest in our rigged <anno data-annotation-id="d9dbfd37-84ea-4a8c-b5f4-85353f93b37f">match</anno> after a while.

"What should we do?"

He Desheng raised a very glaring question.

One very important job of these professionals was to accompany Boss Ma in playing games so that he could maintain happy, relaxed, and in the best condition to work.

In the beginning, Boss Ma could kill a dozen professions and carry them by himself. He was of course very happy about that.

However, that happiness threshold increased as time went by. Purely killing people was not enough to satisfy Boss Ma. Frequent victories became dull.

The experience of each game had become more similar to Ma Yang.

Even if the other nine had arranged a script in advance and did their best to act in accordance to the script so that it would bring different gaming experiences to Boss Ma…

It would still become boring after a while.

Everyone gathered now to discuss this problem.

"I feel that we cannot be blamed for lack of imagination; neither could we blame Boss Ma for his lower level.

"We can only blame the setting of the game! The game settings are a little complicated which is rather unfriendly to rookie gamers. Boss Ma had been targeted by the game so it was difficult for him to play to 100% of his strength.

"We can only lower ourselves to Boss Ma's level to coordinate with him. It was obviously pretty fake. It's only a matter of time before Boss Ma realizes it."

"I agree, I also feel that Boss Ma has been targeted by the game." Others nodded and agreed. "Boss Ma's strength can definitely be better unleashed if we can change the game settings!"

'What should we do then? We are not designers; we're unable to change the game settings." Someone pointed out.

Another person raised his hand and suggested. "We cannot change Gods Rising, but… we should be able to change IOI?"

He Desheng thought for a while. "That's hard to say. We only bought shares of Finger Games. We cannot interfere with their operations or research and development. We can make some suggestions to them as their shareholder and local agent. They might not necessarily listen to us.

"Let's try it out."

<annotations style="display: none;"><ol class="tinymce-annotation-container"><li data-annotation-id="d9dbfd37-84ea-4a8c-b5f4-85353f93b37f">This is a game where one celebrity was set to particularly stand out with the help of nine other actors in a 5v5 match.</li></ol></annotations>",