Losing Money to Be a Tycoon - Chapter 252

Chapter 252: This Game Looks Hopeless

The figures were all normal, but there was a huge problem with two of them.

Too many players were lost between clicking the advertisement and registering for the game. It added up to about six or seven times more than ordinary web-based games.

Apart from that, many players in the game purchased things. However, the overall income was still low.

The reason for these was simple.

The former was because mini-clients were too big. Most web-based gamers would not be used to downloading a 370 MB mini-client. That was why they did not even bother downloading the game and trying it out. They gave up almost instantly.

Many gamers were purchasing things in the game because the paywalls in the game were designed good-heartedly. Only strength potions were on sale.

Yet, it did not matter even if many people were purchasing the potions. This was because the game’s paywall was just too low. Even rich ballers did not have anywhere to spend their money. That explained the low overall income.

Pei Qian’s estimates were all accurate. Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’s advertisement was well-filmed, but the target audience was wrong.

Most people whom the advertisement attracted were traditional web-based gamers. Having to download a 370-MB mini-client turned most of them away. The low paywall also turned away many ballers.

Most gamers who sought fair gameplay were already playing client-side games.

They would not mind downloading a 370-MB game, but they had deep prejudices against web-based games. The advertisement had already turned them away, and they ran as fast as they could. Of course, they would not have registered for the game.

This was how they got into the predicament they were in.

Once he saw the figures, Pei Qian leaned back in his chair, feeling more comfortable than he had ever been.

This is it! This is a logical development! Something is finally developing as I expected!

Pei Qian had never felt this satisfied.

Recently, Ming Yun Private Kitchen had become popular out of nowhere. Pei Qian felt critically injured, and he became extremely anxious. However, seeing Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’s situation now, he felt much more relieved.

According to the traditional model of web-based games, the trashy opening that they had would never allow for the situation to turn around.

Most web-based games were profitable. Game manufacturers would put out as many advertisements as they could, hire celebrities as spokespeople, and then make the game popular. In just a couple of days, the game would be well-known all over the internet, and hoards of gamers would be registering.

However, gamers would go as quickly as they came. Their income would peak, but then it would also fall quickly. Then, the game manufacturers would start to continuously open new servers to earn as much money as they could.

Thus, as popular as a web-based game was in the beginning, it always had a probability of failing halfway through.

It went without saying that web-based games, which were not popular upon release, would remain that way the entire time.

On the first day of its release, Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’s figures were already so horrible. The chances of it recovering later on were negligible.

Most web-based gamers were turned away mainly because the mini-client was 370 MB big. How could they resolve this problem?

They could not possibly get rid of the 370 MB mini-client and then create a new game that players could play whenever they wanted. Wouldn’t that waste all of their hard work?

Thus, no matter how he looked at this situation, Pei Qian felt satisfied with the state of Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version.

Of course, he knew he could not let his guard down just yet.

Many times before this, his plans worked well in the beginning but fell through halfway. Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version had only been published for a day. He could not be too positive.

He had to observe the situation closely for a while before he relaxed completely.

…

…

At the same time, at Shang Yang Games…

Everyone was feeling low. One could say that the place had become a land of mourning.

Since Pei Qian could see the figures, Ye Zhizhou, Wang Xiaobin, and Lin Wan could as well. Of course, three of them could also infer the same problems that Pei Qian had inferred.

However, there was no way they could resolve them!

Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin sat at their desks, frowning and not saying a single word.

A 370 MB mini-client—this was the design plan everyone agreed upon. Even Boss Pei agreed to it.

Yet, now, reality had punched them in the face. Such a huge mini-client would never succeed in the circle of web-based gamers. The gamers would just not accept it!

Old players of Bloody Battle Song were more accepting. After all, they had developed a sense of attachment to Bloody Battle Song. What’s more, the 370 MB mini-client provided far better graphics and smoother gameplay. Of course, their gaming experience would be greatly improved.

However, Bloody Battle Song had already been pretty much abandoned by most people. How many old players remained?

Recovering the costs of research and development aside, the bit of income that they generated probably could not even cover the cost of the company’s daily operations.

Thus, they found themselves in a deadlock.

Wang Xiaobin knew full well how bad the current situation was. If the problem was with unimportant details, they probably could have salvaged it.

For instance, if the game’s daily retention rate was low and gamers stopped playing the game after the first day, they could reward players with items for logging in the next day. This would increase the daily retention rate.

Yet, there was no solution to the problems they were facing!

Most people did not even enter the game after clicking on the advertisement, purely because the mini-client was 370 MB big. How could they resolve that?

Wang Xiaobin and Ye Zhizhou exchanged a meaningful look. Both of them could reach the other’s mind.

We cannot just sit here and wait. We must think of a solution.

Boss Pei treated them so well. At a time like that, they would profit from widespread suggestions. They had to share Boss Pei’s burden.

Ye Zhizhou pondered for a moment and suggested, “Brother Wang, how about this? We can break the mini-client down even more. We’ll create a 5 MB mini-client which only includes the first part of the game. This would allow players to try the game out after clicking on the advertisement.

“After playing for about ten minutes, we can ask them to download the resources for the rest of the game. Otherwise, we could allow the rest of the game to download in the background while they are playing the first segment.

“Would that be better?”

This was the only solution Ye Zhizhou could think of.

Wang Xiaobin shook his head. “It’s a good idea, but it doesn’t seem possible.

“Initially, we designed the game so that players would have to go into a city shortly after entering the game. That would allow them to enjoy the beautiful scenery and backgrounds there and improve their first impression of the game. Many important resources have been placed at the beginning of the game.

“In order to play a mini-client for the first segment of the game, one would have to download many resources. What’s more, the characters, monsters, and the city itself were all done in 3D. This amounts to a lot of resources. The game’s procedure would also have to be included in that starting mini-client, right?

“All in all, the starting mini-client would add up to 70 to 80 MB at best. It’s impossible to reduce it to 5 MB.

“Figure-wise, 70 MB is a good distance from 370 MB. However, web-based gamers would still be unable to play the game upon launching it. They would still have to spend some time downloading resources. It would not make a difference to them.

“If we don’t have a better solution, we can try it out. However… I don’t think it would be that effective.”

Ye Zhizhou had nothing else to say.

The root of this problem was that nobody expected the mini-client’s repelling effect on traditional web-based gamers to be so strong!

At the time, everyone had been focused on turning 2D to 3D and making the mosaic look high-definition. Perhaps they had been too optimistic about the early stages of Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version’s release.

Thus, from when they designed the game’s initial gameplay to when they designed the backgrounds, nobody thought about the possibility of segmenting the game’s mini-client.

Now, to cut the mini-client into two meant that huge changes had to be made to the game itself. The amount of effort required aside, they could not even predict the results.

Ye Zhizhou felt disheartened. This looks like an impossible situation!

However, Boss Pei had agreed to this plan in the first place.

Could Boss Pei have made a mistake in his predictions as well?

Did Boss Pei expect the mini-client to fail like that?

Yet, Ye Zhizhou had always held Boss Pei’s design concepts in high regard. He found it hard to accept that Boss Pei would have made a mistake.

Wang Xiaobin sighed and comforted himself. “Let’s think positively. Even if the game fails, our bonus would not be greatly affected.

“From this month, our bonus will be issued based on the game’s reputation. Bloody Battle Song: The Powerful Version might not make a profit, but its reputation still looks good.

“We can calculate our bonus based on the amount of money Shang Yang Games invested in the game. I guess that we will each get quite a significant sum.”

Ye Zhizhou shook his head. “You may be right, but no matter how good the game’s reputation is—if it does not generate profit, we will not feel proud.

“What’s more, there aren’t just internal reviews and gamers’ reviews on TPDb. There are also netizens’ reviews. Many people who have not played the game might rate us with low scores based on our advertisement alone. In fact, that’s very likely.

“If netizens don’t rate us well, our overall TPDb rating would still be low.

“For all we know, not only would the game not generate profit, but it might also have a bad reputation.”

Wang Xiaobin remained silent for a long time. Finally, he said in a low voice, “Sh*t… that sounds about right…”