Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

There were no updated versions for Ocean Stronghold, too.

However, Ocean Stronghold had the 888-yuan Red Kilin. Moreover, the game had just been released for a month. Therefore, there was not much unhappiness among the players. Meanwhile, players of Ghost General expressed that they had never seen such a pure and unpretentious game producer!

Other game producers would be covered in makeup and would try their best to seduce their customers. Tengda was the complete opposite. Apart from being barefaced, it tried its best to kick you away!

“What exactly is Tengda thinking? Why won’t it come up with a new purchasable option? Does it have enmity with money?”

“There is nothing else I can spend money on after buying the permanent card!”

“Did the company go on the run after profiting?”

“I’ve only heard of companies which lost money going on the run. I’ve never heard of a profiting company doing that!”

Some players could not stand it anymore and could only AFK temporarily. There was nothing else for them to play in the game! After buying the permanent card, players had additional chances to draw cards every day. After two months, they had almost drawn all the rare cards available. The next thing that they would do was to upgrade their cards.

Most players would merely go online to draw cards and run the Chapters and Battles on auto mode. There was nothing for them to do in the game!

As time passed, many players chose to play other games instead.

However, most players did not delete the game. That was because it was the most conscientious mobile game on the market and had unparalleled graphics! As long as there was an update, the players could happily return to the game again!

Delete it? Who would bear to do that?

Then, a new post appeared on Tieba.

“A Touching Move! The Game Had A Secret Update!”

Then, the players clicked into the post.

“I had coincidentally found today that the heavily-criticized problem with the overly-low damage for Guan Yu’s continuous slashes has been resolved! Guan Yu’s ‘continuous slashes’ has been boosted. I can finally use that warrior again!”

“Furthermore, the overly-low probability of Zhao Yun flanking the ranged opponents seemed to have been resolved, too!”

After careful observation, the players noticed that the post was true! Many little problems that existed in the game had all been resolved! There was no version update or notices. No one knew when the alterations were completed.

When other game companies fixed bugs, they would always list them out in the notices as though they were afraid that the players would not appreciate the efforts of the game designers. Tengda was the complete opposite. It did not seem to care about that and appeared very nonchalant.

The entire Tieba was boiling with excitement!

“Tengda has not given up on Ghost General!”

“Other game companies would first come up with top-up activities and events that encouraged players to spend money in the game before fixing the bugs in the game. However, Tengda did it the other way. It did not have any top-up activities and upgraded the game first. I’ve wilted!”

“Does this mean that there is hope for a new version of the game?”

“I have recovered my motivation all of a sudden!”

“The producers are so sincere. I’m so touched!”

“As long as Tengda does not give up on Ghost General, we will always stay with the game!”

“Let’s collate a ‘blood-written letter’ from ten thousand players begging the producers to come up with a new purchasable option! (1/10000)”

“I’m begging the producers to seek profits! We have the money for that!”

…

…

March 7th…

“What?! The customer service hotline had been bombarded by players of Ghost General. The forum is also filled with posts requesting a new purchasable option in the game? Are you sure you’ve got that right? They are requesting a new purchasable option?”

In the car, Pei Qian looked at the screen of his phone in disbelief as he replied to Lin Wan’s private chat.

He was originally in high spirits today as the renovations for Fish-Catching Internet Cafe had been completed. The company had deducted a large sum from its ledger to purchase computers, furniture, drinks, and more. He had also hired some people.

Pei Qian was in a good mood as he thought of the beautiful future ahead of the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. Therefore, he ordered Assistant Xin to drive him to the internet cafe to have a look.

He inspected Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan’s work and had timely corrected some of their mistakes.

However, when he was on the road, he received a sudden private message from Lin Wan and found out that the players of Ghost General were planning to collate a ‘blood-written letter’ from ten thousand players!

Currently, the only channel for players to communicate with the producers was via customer service.

Previously, in order to lose money, Pei Qian outsourced the customer service job to a company that was good with ‘tai-chi’.

In short, Pei Qian outsourced the job to an external company that had no idea what was happening at the R&D team. No matter what the players asked, there was no way the customer service officers could answer their questions.

The only thing that it would do was to pacify the players with the usual formalities.

“We have received your suggestion. We will reflect this to the design team, my dear!”

“We are so sorry about the problems you have faced. We are trying our best to fix that now, my dear!”

Their response went something like that.

There were not many players who would dial the customer service hotline to start with.

Most players would not specially call up the customer service hotline when they experience insignificant problems in the game. There were not many players who would go all out to reflect those problems.

Normally, players would only call up the customer service hotline to scold them when they faced problems when topping-up money. Ghost General only had one function that was related to topping-up money—the permanent card. There was no way they could be a bug with such a simple function.

Therefore, the customer service team did not have much to handle.

However, in the past two days, the players bombarded the customer service hotline for an unknown reason! They only had one request—for the producers to come up with a new purchasable option!

Moreover, those calls were continuous. Different players took turns calling up the hotline!

This was also the most popular topic in other platforms such as the forums and Tieba. There were also many players spamming the forums!

Pei Qian was completely dazed.

His first reaction was that he thought that the players were requesting a new version of the game and new game modes. That was normal. After all, Ghost General had been released for about three or four months. The players were sick of the old game content for a long time.

Yet, the players were requesting a new purchasable option?

Pei Qian was a little confused. He asked Lin Wan, “Do you know what exactly happened? Why will the players request for a new purchasable option? This doesn’t make sense!”

Lin Wan replied, “It seems like the players are worried about Ghost General going downhill. They hope to support the game by spending money on it.”

Tss…!

Pei Qian took in a cold breath.

This… had the players gone mad?

Pei Qian had originally hoped for Ghost General to perish by itself by not updating newer versions of the game. As long as the players did not make a fuss about it and allowed Ghost General to continue operating without updating newer content, the game’s popularity and sales figures would naturally decline.

The players were originally very cooperative. After all, the players had gathered together because of the game. Without special reasons, it was hard for them to develop a sense of unity.

Yet, what was happening this time?

They seemed to be beckoned by some mysterious calling!

After a moment of consideration, Pei Qian replied, “Tell the customer service to standardize their reply. Have them tell the players that we are in the process of planning a new version! It will approximately be out in… umm… either May or June!”

“Ah? We are planning a new version? Why haven’t I heard of that?” Lin Wan asked.

Pei Qian replied, “Please don’t misinterpret my words. I said that it was in the planning stages!”

Even if it was merely planned in my brain, it could also be considered to be in the planning stages!

“…” Lin Wan responded, “Okay, Boss Pei.”

Pei Qian felt that he had been f*cking unlucky.

After he had started producing games, he had been facing all sorts of anomalies and eeriness.

What happened was just abnormal!

He had originally wanted to find a way around it, but the players were not that easily fooled. They had actually created such a commotion.

Pei Qian could not pretend to be oblivious of what was happening anymore.