Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Qiao Liang was confounded.

That's it?

He had cleared the game?

That line of words was the only thing he received?

Shouldn't you at least make a trophy for me? Make a podium!

Even if you don't have those art resources, make me a sound effect of people cheering!

How much does cheering sound effects even cost? Must you be that stingy?!

I spent eight hours clearing this and all you gave me was a black screen and a mocking remark?!

Qiao Liang could not take it any longer, be it physically or mentally.

He had truly invested deeply and he was so pissed at this game that he wanted to cry!

However, despite his despair and infuriation, there was a slight consolation in his heart. A slight… relief?

It wasn't that he was a masochist; he knew that this was precious material for him!

Wouldn't his audiences click for more likes and shares seeing their UP Master in such misery?

Qiao Liang checked for a moment - his eight hours of journey had been recorded completely.

"Just you wait! I'll settle you after I wake up!"

Qiao Liang said to the game harshly before saving his recording properly and sinking into bed for a deep sleep.

…

Three days later.

Pei Qian woke up naturally in his dormitory, feeling happiness in his life.

He had adapted himself to university life once more during this period of time.

He could wake up naturally everyday without having to worry about work, the pressure of hitting KPIs or facing the temper of his superiors.

All in all, there was only a single word for it - contentment!

But of course, things would be better if he was richer.

First thing to do upon waking up - summoning the system!

<Wealth Conversion System>

<Owner: Pei Qian>

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

<Next Settlement: 11 days later.>

<System Funds: 0 (↓50,000)>

<Personal Wealth: 367>

When he saw the 0 in the system, Pei Qian felt a sense of satisfaction.

Amazing!

As for the pathetic figure behind his Personal Wealth status, there was nothing he could do about it.

He was already trying his best but he couldn't save any money at all!

He only had 1,000 yuan monthly for living expenses. Even if he were to eat in the canteen daily, it still wouldn't be enough.

After all, he couldn't use all his money just for food - there had to be other daily expenses, right?

Pei Qian could not wait for the settlement 11 days later where his System Funds' loss would be converted to his Personal Wealth entirely. That would be amazing.

The System Funds was still at 0 because the profits of the gaming platform hadn't been shared to the company's accounts yet.

ESRO's game platform processes payment weekly using its intelligent system automatically - the creators and the platform split the profits evenly.

If one wishes to check on their income and the download figures before payment day, they could inquire at the back end of the game editor.

During the first two days when the game was uploaded, Pei Qian was sneaking peeks at the back end all the time only to find out that there were dozens of unlucky fools who had bought and downloaded the game.

Since it was a new game after all and there were occasional recommendation spots every now and then, it was only normal that some stupid gamers would download and try it.

A dozen of downloads… after splitting profits with the platform, it would just be a couple of yuan earned and wouldn't affect the big picture.

Besides, all of those gamers had naturally given it a 1 star review as well. With that, The Lonely Desert Road's ratings were absolutely horrendous and there shouldn't be more stupid gamers who would download it.

After being affirmed that his game was bound to fail, Pei Qian spent his day in joy and hadn't checked the game editor anymore.

Even though he was certain that checking the game editor today wouldn't make any difference, he still did it instinctively.

He was approaching it with an attitude of curiosity.

While other creators would always be hoping for greater results for their games and even wish that there could be tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads with every refresh, Pei Qian on the other hand was hoping for atrocious results and even a big, fat zero as the best possible outcome.

"If I'm not wrong, the downloads should still be in two digits…"

"Holy f*ck?!"

"What happened?!"

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

He was shocked at the download volume - it had reached four digits and was even climbing towards five!

Piak!

Slapping his forehead with his right hand, Pei Qian nearly thought that he was seeing things.

"How could there be 8,000 plus downloads?!"

"It's about to break through 10,000 soon!"

"There's still 10 days to the settlement date!"

Pei Qian was flustered, completely panicked.

Things had gone far beyond his expectations!

This was a math problem that even an elementary school kid could solve. A download volume of over 8,000 means an equivalent gross of over 8,000 yuan as well. After the 50% deduction from the platform, he would have a net profit of over 4,000!

ESRO stipulates that most of the games would have to pay a tax rate of around 5%. However, indie games as such on their platform would receive a tax rebate such that it was almost negligible.

That means to say that the amount of money paid out by the platform to the company's accounts this week would increase the System Funds to over 4,000!

What would that imply?

That Pei Qian earned an additional 4,000?

No!

On the contrary, he would have made a loss of 4,000!

Initially, Pei Qian would have made a clean profit of 50,000 to his Personal Wealth from the System Funds that he had spent.

With the additional 4,000 gained, he would have only made a net loss of 46,000 - that would shrink his possible earnings from 50,000 to 46,000!

And that's the least of his worries - the download volume was still climbing steadily!

Each time Pei Qian refreshed the platform, the numbers would jump once more; dozens at times, hundreds at others.

Every increment was akin to rubbing salt on Pei Qian's wounds!

That's because however much he earned equates to a shrinking of his Personal Wealth gained!

Furthermore, there were still 10 days to the next settlement date. If the download volume was to climb by 10 fold during this week…

Tss…!

This is bad!

Pei Qian could no longer sit still.

"What's the meaning of this? Is the editor's back end bugged?"

"How could such a trashy game get a couple thousands of downloads? Are you bloody messing with me?"

He was in disbelief as he hurriedly opened the official games platform and searched for the comments section of The Lonely Desert Road.

To his astonishment, while the ratings had not changed much, the comments section had exploded with additional hundreds of new ones!

"Teacher Qiao's sightseeing group!"

"Teacher Qiao's sightseeing group +1"

"I'm dying of laughter. To think that such an anti-mankind game would actually exist. This has truly widened my perspective!"

"I downloaded, I challenged and I left in defeat after five minutes."

"1 yuan isn't even worth my effort of asking for a refund. Let me leave a ball of spit before going, poo… tui!"

"I recommended this game to my friend and told him he had to persevere to the end for an enormous surprise and easter egg. Now, my friend wants to cut off all ties with me. What should I do?"

"The person who made the comment above, are you even human? I told my friend with absolute honesty that there's nothing at the end of the game but a black screen and a single statement. In fact, I told him word for word what the statement said but guess what? He thought that I was lying to him and insisted on checking it out for himself! He still hasn't cleared the game but he's already smashed three controllers. I think we're close to cutting off ties soon as well."

"Anyone knows the address of the creator? I'm just asking for fun so that I can mail him some special local products of mine."

"I suggest all of you should stop playing it and just check out Teacher Qiao's walkthrough. He recorded the entire eight hours…"

"Fu, I'm telling you, this game can truly invoke some realizations about how. That's something you won't experience through watching a video."

"Lie more, lie more."

"For real! Tripitaka had to go through 81 tribulations to obtain the sutras, isn't it? Do you think you can become a Buddha like Tripitaka just by watching Journey to the West alone?"

Pei Qian was completely dazed.

What the hell were all these?

Where did these comments come from?

"Teacher Qiao's sightseeing group???

Could some Big <anno data-annotation-id="5c7394ec-3bc0-4321-ab6c-8b6746a7184c">V</anno> have taken a liking to him?!

Absolutely befuddled, Pei Qian ran a search for Teacher Qiao online.

Before long, he found Teacher Qiao's personal page on Potato Web and discovered a video that was posted a day earlier.

<Trash Games Diss Episode 64: I spent eight hours continuously just to clear a trashy game, only to find…>

The number of views had already broken through 200,000.

Pei Qian was speechless.

He seemed to have found the culprit.

<annotations style="display: none;"><ol class="tinymce-annotation-container"><li data-annotation-id="5c7394ec-3bc0-4321-ab6c-8b6746a7184c">The V refers to a Verified person on Weibo. It's the equivalent of a tick for Instagram or Facebook. Big V in this case refers to super popular personalities</li></ol></annotations>",