Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Old Zhou laughed. "The H4 Club will be doing extra training soon. None of you will be able to escape it if you are to follow the DGE Club's model exactly."

"I'm very happy! Do you know how uncomfortable it has been for the past few days without exercise? I will add on to my training tonight! Also, my teammates have such poor constitution; we have to get Coach Yaling to train them well!" Huang Wang replied.

The DGE Club's new midlaner and the members of the H4 Club showed an 'oh sh*t' expression after listening to that conversation.

Pei Qian watched all this silently and was lost.

What was going on?

The GOG division with the H4 Club was moving to Jingzhou?

I did give you money to provide a better training environment for Huang Wang, but I did not allow you to come to Jingzhou!

What the hell, I sold one club member, but I obtained an entire club back!

"Boss Pei! I haven't had the time to thank you. If it were not for your generous funding, we would not have enough financial resources and not made up my mind to come to Jingzhou. In short, please take care of us in the future!" Team Leader Su came to Boss Pei and spoke with emotion.

Pei Qian: "…"

Why the f*ck was it my fault again?!

However, Pei Qian could only smile, unable to say anything.

"Don't stand outside. Everyone, go inside and have a seat. Jiang Huan, you all help out with their luggage." Zhang Yuan called out.

Everyone entered the DGE Club one after the other. Zhang Yuan greeted Manager Cui of Ming Yun Villas and asked him to find a vacant villa to rent. There would definitely be no discounts, but it would definitely still be cheaper than in Shanghai to the H4 Club.

They would still have enough for tables and chairs, ROF computers, and gym expenses since Boss Pei gave them 2.2 million yuan to 'improve their training conditions'. There were abundant funds.

Pei Qian realized that this money went one whole big round but a huge part of it seemed like it would be back into his pockets soon…

In addition to the rental of the H4 Club, fitness, buying of computers, food delivery… all of these would be earned by Tengda!

"You continue your work, I'll leave first." Pei Qian could not take this scene of them moving in and chose to slip away.

"Why do I feel like Boss Pei isn't very happy?" Team Leader Su asked Zhang Yuan after Boss Pei left.

Zhang Yuan was stunned for a moment. "Really? Oh, it might be your illusion. Boss Pei was originally a person who guards his emotions.

"In fact, Boss Pei attaches great importance to esports. He might not say it, but you can tell from his actions.

"Today, for example, he heard that we have new members today so he came over amidst his busy schedule to take a look, worried that this new member may not be able to get along well with the team."

"That's it! Boss Zhang, we have just moved to Jingzhou and are not familiar with this place. We need Boss Pei and your support. Please also share more information about Boss Pei with me." Team Leader Su realized something.

Zhang Yuan patted his chest. "Of course!

"By the way, Team Leader Su, what do you think about the other clubs moving to Jingzhou?"

Team Leader Su smiled. "Still wondering about it.

"In fact, these clubs are also watching our every moment and looking forward to playing mock competitions with us. They want to see the effect of us buying the player and changing the training methods before they follow."

"That's good. We can take advantage of this time for mock competitions and widen the gap between us. The gap between us will be so big that they would be shocked!"

…

…

August 28th, Sunday…

In a coffee shop near Handong University, in Qiu Hong's last lesson…

"Boss Ma, I have basically taught my experience of failure. Uh… there is one last one."

Qiu Hong paused, seemingly thinking that 'taught' was not very appropriate. However, for the lack of a better-fitting word, he still used it.

"This last one might not be right, but it is definitely the last item I can mention."

Pei Qian nodded. "Please continue."

Qiu Hong was silent for a moment and said, "Pursue your dreams."

Pei Qian froze for a moment. "Is this… a failure experience?"

Qiu Hong nodded, his voice a little sad. "Yes."

"Has Boss Ma ever seen my resume? You should be able to find it online. I had been a systems designer as early as 2001 in a fairy-themed game with paywalls.

"Boss Ma, don't you find it strange that I can be a chief systems designer of a large-scale client-side game when I just entered the industry?"

Pei Qian gave it a thought and did find it a little strange.

That was because Tengda had always promoted people in an exceptional way, be it systems designers or chief planners. They were always newcomers from the bottom-most staff. Pei Qian, therefore, did not think there were any problems with Qiu Hong's resume at the beginning.

However, now that Qiu Hong took the initiative to bring it up, Pei Qian realized that it was really quite strange for an ordinary game company to make a newcomer a systems designer when he first joined the industry.

The systems designer was only secondary to the chief systems designer in domestically-produced games with paywalls. That was because the most important part of the game was the combat system, paywall system, game experience, etc… they were all closely related to each other.

The systems designer could be regarded as the right-hand man of the chief systems designer. Many chief planners were promoted from systems designers.

Generally speaking, even a graduate from a top university could only start out as an ordinary administrative planner. Such a person would only be promoted to a systems designer after one to two years.

Such a situation would only be more obvious in large companies and projects.

He was a systems designer for large companies and projects when he first entered the industry. He was fully responsible for the system of the game. Disregarding the possibility that he might be related to the boss of the company, the second most likely situation would be that he had actually had experience previously.

Even if the previous work experience was not successful enough, but as long as he was outstanding enough, he would be able to obtain the position of the chief systems designer.

Pei Qian thought for a while. "So you actually did not enter the industry in 2001, but earlier?"

Qiu Hong nodded. "Yes, I entered two years earlier."

"It was the golden age of domestically-produced standalone games when I entered. 'Magical Swords, Deity Fate' sold 300,000 sets with an income of 10 million yuan; the popular 'Dark Age 2' was introduced to China and sold for about the same amount of money.

"It might not be comparable to their performance overseas, but it was a record-breaking figure. 'The Heroes' was also selling well.

"The people who entered the industry at the same time as I had dreams. We all thought we should sell domestically-produced standalone games internationally. We'll be able to stand on the international stage one day and win awards.

"However, everything changed in a mere two years.

"I was fortunate to meet the President of a standalone game company then. He told me that standalone games had no hope and that I had to quickly transit into online games. I did not listen; neither did the producer of our project."

"Then, in 2001, all the standalone games could not be sold. The first game we worked so hard to develop was not even published at all.

"The company did not pay wages. Our company hung on for two months before our producer gave up.

"Therefore, I submitted my resume everywhere. Many companies called me up for an interview because I'm in systems. Their first question would always be: do you have experience in internet game development?

"Why did that happen? Why did domestically-produced standalone games die out in just two years?"

Pei Qian was a little confused. "Die out? Not so bad, right? Aren't the standalone games doing alright now?"

He was a little pissed off. If the standalone games really died out, then there was no reason why the standalone games he made became so popular, right?

Qiu Hong smiled. "Boss Ma, you are still young. You might not be even 10 years old by then so you wouldn't know about it. Domestically-produced standalone games did die out during that time.

"The reason why domestically-produced standalone games are doing well now because the official ESRO platform was established in 2006. Piracy was strictly prohibited in various fields so domestically-produced games slowly regained traction.

"However, even so, there was a vacuum of about five to six years. That opened a huge gap between our domestic game industry and the international industry. We have not been able to catch up even now.

"Then, why did the golden age of domestically-produced standalone games die out in just two years?"

Pei Qian thought for a while. "At that time, it should be the rapid popularity of online games. It seized the market for standalone games and a large number of games companies transited."

Qiu Hong nodded. "Yes, the transformation of numerous standalone game manufacturers to online games was a direct cause of the demise of domestically-produced standalone games. Then, the question was 'why didn't international standalone games die under the impact of online games?'

"Moreover, even if online games made more money than standalone games, they would not lead to the death of standalone games because not all companies were good at making them.

"There would always be companies making standalone games as long as there was money to make.

"In fact, it was a very complicated problem. It was definitely not caused by a single thing. It was just like the death of a dynasty would not be solely because of a flood, a plague, or a war.

"All disasters would always happen together.

"That era happened to be the time when overseas game system units were booming. We did not have system units locally, only personal computers. The computer is a platform that is easy to write and modify so it quickly entered the era of piracy."