Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

That was not how Huang Sibo thought of things but after Bao Xu's comment, he found himself agreeing to it.

Everything till that point seemed as though they fell into pieces perfectly - it was as though Pei Qian had planned for it intentionally!

He had set the condition that the game must have a story mode despite its genre and under that prerequisite, Bao Xu's idea was the perfect solution!

Not only was it acceptable, it was the best fit for the situation!

Could it have been a coincidence?

Of course not! The reason why Boss Pei could have created two successful hits previously coupled with the fact that he had set those three conditions before the game's development meant that he must have wanted things to steer in this direction to begin with!

Indeed, Boss Pei was truly a mysterious man who had everything under his control…

Huang Sibo could not help but feel shivers run down his spine - was this the world of the truly great designers?

"Hold on, there's another problem," Huang Sibo suddenly recalled. "How are you planning to resolve Boss Pei's two other demands? One of it is to lower the difficulty level for newbies and the other one is to sell epic weapons where the permanent use price would be set at 888."

Bao Xu was confident. "I've thought about those two points as well."

"Lowering the difficulty level to make it suitable for newbies, that's an issue with sensitivity. As long as we were to adjust the hitboxes of the players, trajectory speed of the bullets and the speed of zooming, that will do. We don't have to worry about those, we can adjust it along the way."

"As to why we're doing that, I'm still unable to understand Boss Pei's intention for now. However, since he was the one who made the demand, he can't be wrong. Let's just follow along."

"As for the part about epic weapons, that's actually part of Boss Pei's lofty ambitions!"

"Initially, I could not understand it as well, thinking that it was to merely just sell expensive weapons."

"However, I started asking myself why Boss Pei would come up with such a simple demand. There must be a deeper reason for us to dig out behind his words!"

"After a long time, I finally understood."

"Epic weapons where the permanent usage price was set at 888… what about the price of the non permanent trial use period?"

"If we have epic weapons, does that mean we must have normal, elite and hero weapons too?"

"How should the gamers obtain all those different types of weapons? Through a permanent use pass as well? No, absolutely not!"

"Boss Pei only said that the epic weapons would cost 888 for a permanent use pass. That means that the other weapons are not for selling!"

"In other words, Boss Pei's hinting to us that the in-game weapons must have different tiers such as normal, elite, hero and epic et cetera! All of those weapons will then be divided into two types, those that are available for permanent use and those for limited time use."

"Other than the epic weapons where permanent usage cost 888, we can let the gamers obtain the other weapons through various methods!"

"For example, if gamers were to clear a certain stage within the story, we'll give them one!"

"If they were to clock a number of games in the PvP mode, we'll give them one!"

"If they were to log in for a certain number of days, we'll give another one!"

"I think… that should be what Boss Pei's referring to!"

Huang Sibo was enlightened. "Oh, I see! I was wondering why Boss Pei would come up with such a brainless demand. It's actually because he has other intentions for it!"

Bao Xu then continued, "Besides, during the story conceptualization, I've got some leftovers that we can make use of as special gameplay components."

"For example, during my initial consideration, the game would consist of many evolving zombies. We can come up with a biochemical mode!"

"Also, some of the employed mercenaries in the game were modified by the evil corporation to be half invisible apparitions. We can then come up with an apparition mode!"

"Coupled with our initial deathmatch, co-op and bomb diffuse modes, the game will contain many different modes!"

"Besides, all these modes will not require much art resources. Most importantly, all of them are within the budget for the programming and creating them won't delay our schedule by much as well. We can still make it on time!"

Huang Sibo's hand was typing furiously as he recorded all these mind-blowing ideas.

Perfect, it was way too perfect!

When he had just received the assignment from Boss Pei, Huang Sibo was befuddled and did not know how he should proceed.

It was especially the case after he heard the three demands that Boss Pei gave them.

But with Bao Xu's explanation, everything became clear as day!

Boss Pei was not trying to make things difficult for them - he was hinting to them indirectly!

Suddenly, Huang Sibo was extremely touched.

Clearly, Bao Xu knew that Huang Sibo and Bao Xu were limited in their capabilities - it was easy to steer off track creating a game in a field they had no experience in.

Once the game's direction went off course, it would be akin to a death sentence and they would just stray further off the more they invested.

Therefore, Boss Pei was actually trying to fix the direction of the game through the three demands!

"I see… Boss Pei was actually concerned about our feelings…"

"He did not want to take complete charge of the project because he knows that it wouldn't help with our growth."

"He chose to hint to us in such a subtle way so that we'll be able to make use of our brains to go ahead with the design process and create an exceptional game…"

"Boss Pei… he's truly well intentioned…"

Huang Sibo's eyes were brimming with tears.

He was determined to write a proper design draft so that they could create this game perfectly and not let Boss Pei down!

…

…

November 14th, Wednesday's afternoon.

Pei Qian had lessons for the past two days and had not appeared at the office.

It was also because they were mainly waiting for the design team to come up with the draft. Before that, not much work could be done.

Since Pei Qian's presence at the office wouldn't amount to any productivity and might even cause the other employees to skive off, he decided against returning.

Today's lesson was by that 'I'm not taking attendance, I merely want to get to know everyone' male teacher. Pei Qian could recall it clearly because he fell into the trap of trusting this man.

Therefore, he must not commit the same mistake this time round!

But to be honest, the lesson was truly boring…

Pei Qian yawned as he whisked out his phone to check how long more the lesson lasted.

However, he found out that Huang Sibo had pinged him in the company's group chat.

"Boss Pei, the design draft's almost done. Do you want to take a look and make sure we're heading in the right direction?"

He had attached a document as well.

"Two days. Is this considered fast or slow? Pretty fast, right? Forget it, let's take a look first."

Pei Qian had not much experience as to how fast a design draft should be produced. The only thing he knew was that based on this speed, it wouldn't be an issue having it completed by the end of the week.

This was a new employee after all and there was no reason for him to skive off with the newfound enthusiasm for work.

'Yes, I truly hope that you guys can understand as soon as possible that it's fine to skive off…'

Pei Qian then opened the file.

"My eyes…"

Pei Qian had not written nor seen a design draft before - this was his first time.

His first thoughts were… dizzying!

There was too much content!

This was a massive design draft where every single turn was by a couple of pages with over hundreds of thousands of words and lines of content written all over!

Every single line was possibly important and not a single word could be overlooked.

Not just that, Huang Sibo had mentioned that this was a first draft; that meant to say that it wasn't modified yet.

Some parts were overly verbose while others were overly simplistic - all of them would require fixing in the future.

Huang Sibo's consideration was to have Pei Qian look through the document to ensure that there is nothing wrong with the general direction they were headed for before making further amendments.

Otherwise, if they were to discover that there's an issue with the course of direction post amendment, it would be a waste of time to do everything from scratch.

In the end, Pei Qian was stumped.

There were already a lot of messy details to begin with, and he had to look through everything on the small screen of his phone…

He was even having suicidal thoughts.

The only thing he could do was to look through everything quickly and roughly.

He wanted to check if Huang Sibo had fulfilled his three demands!

As though Huang Sibo knew what Pei Qian wanted, he had even outlined those portions specifically so that Pei Qian could find them with ease.

First, story mode. Yes, it was present and there were around four hours of it planned - that was long.

Second, lowered difficulty level. Yes, it was present too.

Third, epic weapons. They had followed Pei Qian's fixed price demands of 888 for permanent use.

"Not bad! They've fulfilled my demands!"

Pei Qian was delighted.

He replied immediately, "Not bad. Let's continue in this direction."