Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

November 18th, Monday.

A new Monday, a new set of worries for Pei Qian.

He summoned the system and checked on the System Funds.

<Wealth Conversion System>

<Owner: Pei Qian>

<Profit Conversion Ratio 100:1. Loss Conversion Ratio 1:1>

<Next Settlement: 73 days later.>

<System Funds: 971,634.3 (↑471,634.3)>

<Personal Wealth: 1,322.8>

Pei Qian always felt as though he had to rethink life each time he saw the difference between the huge figure of his System Funds and the miserable 1,000 odd yuan on his Personal Wealth.

Why were things as such?!

The last he checked, he had already reduced the System Funds to a mere 20,000 yuan or so.

Why had it increased once again?

His gross income for the two weeks ranged around 900,000. After it was topped up into the System Funds, Pei Qian could not manage to spend much of it despite massive purchases of snacks, coffee, useful and useless office stuff!

That gave him a headache.

Was it truly so difficult to lose money?

He wished that he could take Ghost General off the market so that it could stop earning him money!

However, there was no way he could do that due to the existence of system violations. As such, he could only suck it up.

Thankfully, there were still two more months till the next settlement date - there were many ways for him to spend money in the two months.

Come month end, he would have to pay off his apartment rental as well as employee salary and overtime pay - that would cut off another chunk from the System Funds.

Other than that, starting that week, they would be embarking on massive purchase of resources for Ocean Stronghold.

That included art resources, programming functions and sound effects et cetera - all of them would be c.

Since this was a client-side game unlike Ghost General which was a mobile game, they had to follow the strict requirements of client-side games!

Pei Qian could not want more than to have higher requirements so that he could spend more money!

He wondered how much resources they would have to purchase based on Huang Sibo's requirements and how much money they would get to spend.

The thought had him brimming with excitement.

…

"Boss Pei, this is the current list of resources that we have to purchase. Please take a look."

Huang Sibo handed the long list over to Pei Qian.

Reaching over, he browsed through it briefly before eyeing the final price.

670,000.

He could not help but frown.

That frown caused Huang Sibo to feel nervous from head to toe.

'Does Boss Pei feel that we're being too wasteful? It can't be that, right?'

'I've already calculated our budget with serious restraint!'

Pei Qian did not say anything and Huang Sibo could only wait.

Those figures displeased Pei Qian immensely.

It was too little!

This was a client-side game, but they were only spending 700,000 for the game resources and custom-made functions? What was this? Giving scraps to a beggar?

This was way too stingy!

How was he going to lose his System Funds with such watchful spendings?

Pei Qian did not reply right away and instead continued looking through the details of the price list.

Shooting games basic template (Precise modification version) - 120,000

Settings template, secret base style - 50,000.

Three differing styles effects and various degrees of destruction within the settings - 50,000

Character, zombies and mercenaries universal models including movements and minor custom-made modifications capabilities - 80,000

Little girl model including custom-made movement modifications - 60,000

Various gun models including trajectory and casing visuals - 90,000

Various game mode functions and employing of 5 programmers for 2 months - 70,000

Other than that, there were other expenses for sound effects and commonly used character dialogue et cetera.

The usage of rental cloud services was not included into the calculation - that would be an issue to consider depending on the game's popularity post production.

Pei Qian was completely dazed.

What was going on?

He felt that 670,000 was too low of a price based on the figures alone.

But, through the checklist, the prices seemed to be within a reasonable range albeit slightly lowered.

They had not decided on cheap resources to purchase intentionally either - why was the expended sum so low then?

Pei Qian's confusion was only normal.

That was because he did not have a deep understanding of Ocean Stronghold!

Bao Xu and Huang Sibo had gone about it with the idea of saving as much resources as possible; the story was done using a single setting style; the only side character was a little girl; all the other zombies and mercenaries were produced using modifications of universal templates.

Since there wasn't much custom-made content, the price was naturally low!

However, Pei Qian was naturally unable to comprehend all of that with a single rough browse, merely feeling displeased that the money spent was too little.

"Go back and redo it. Double the budget estimate at least," Pei Qian returned the checklist right to Huang Sibo.

Huang Sibo was stumped.

Double the budget estimate?

"But, Boss Pei…"

He wanted to continue, but Pei Qian's eyes were resolute.

'If I ask you to double it, double it! There's no buts about it!'

That was roughly the idea of it.

Swallowing his words instead, Huang Sibo went out with the checklist.

Pei Qian leaned back against his chair and calculated.

600,000 was far too little.

Doubling that to the range of 1,200,000? That's more like it.

Otherwise, there was truly no way to spend the System Funds entirely!

There were two more months before the next settlement and even though Ghost General's income had started to dip, it was still providing a consistent flow nevertheless.

If they didn't spend more, he would have to eat grass come the next settlement!

As to what resources Huang Sibo would buy with the money, Pei Qian could not be bothered.

That guy could buy anything he liked as long as they were not deemed as system violations!

…

Huang Sibo returned to his desk in a conflicted state of mind.

Double the budget estimate?

Previously when he looked for resources online, he did it through looking at the prices.

Most of the resources had decent quality with affordable prices.

There were some with excellent quality but because their prices were slightly higher, Huang Sibo disregarded them.

But now, Boss Pei was displeased with the sum they were spending!

"Is it because he thinks the resources I've sourced are of inferior quality?"

"Yes, that's a possibility. Boss Pei is someone that seeks to be perfect."

"Ghost General's original art is a good example of that."

"Alright, since that's the case, let's change all of these to high quality resources! We'll use the best for everything!"

"To be responsible to the gamers, to be perfect… that should be Boss Pei's intentions."

Huang Sibo opened up the resource website and redid the entire proposal.

All of the resources, including the art and programs that they had sourced initially, were all changed for the best ones.

With double the budget, Huang Sibo had much more room to play with and it was only through splurging freely that he had barely managed to reach Pei Qian's requirement.

The final estimate was set at 1,260,000 and much of the content that Huang Sibo had axed initially were also added in.

After an intense rush, he finally managed to amend the proposal at around 3pm in the afternoon.

Heaving out, Huang Sibo lamented, "Phew. Boss Pei should be satisfied now, right?"

He took the new proposal and looked for Pei Qian once more.

Pei Qian retrieved the document and scanned through it quickly before eyeing the final price.

1,260,000!

That was finally something he was pleased about.

With his decided amount reached, Pei Qian could not be bothered to check what it was spent on.

"Yes, not bad. Go look for Assistant Xin."

"Divide the purchase into two batches and get the more important ones first. The less important stuff, leave them for the next week."

Even though Pei Qian was in a rush to spend money, he had to take into consideration his future income.

That was why he decided to divide the purchase into two or the System Funds would not be able to handle it on paper.

Huang Sibo took back the proposal - this was the final version now.

Pei Qian emphasized. "Also, if there are places where you can spend money on in the future, feel free to do so! Don't compromise on quality with your proposal. Let me know at the first notice, got it?>"

Huang Sibo nodded furiously. "Yes, Boss Pei! Understood!"