Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

April 3rd…

Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd….

Bao Xu, Lu Mingliang, and all other employees were paying close attention to Game Designer. The atmosphere in the company was very tense. Everyone looked very upset. Three days passed. Yet, judging from all aspects, Game Designer had a very bad start!

Not only did the game’s initial publicity not have a positive and encouraging effect, but it had also discouraged many players from playing the game. The first group of players who experienced the game did not have great reviews for the game. The reviews were pretty mixed.

Game Designer was different from previous games. Ghost General and Ocean Stronghold had garnered immense popularity for the company. Therefore, many players had anticipated the release of Game Designer.

However, after going through the comments section, one would realize that many players did not care about the deeper intentions behind the game itself. After skimming over the game, many of them would leave a bad review and forsake the game!

“What on earth was that? It wasn’t fun at all. Are you sure this is produced by the same R&D team as Ocean Stronghold? Why did the quality drop so evidently?”

“I think the game’s only attraction is its graphics. There is only one game mode and that makes it quite boring. The voice-over especially. Was that made deliberately to gross us out?”

“I feel like I was cheated. This is not my cup of tea!”

“I can’t understand the game. It seems as though it was produced by a primary school kid.”

“Is the design team overconfident, or are the players not threatening enough? Did the success of Ocean Stronghold give them the illusion that the players would pay for anything that they produce?”

Everything else was similar to the above.

What made most players apprehensive was the initial experience in the game. Few players could truly persevere through the game and understand its deeper intentions. That caused the reviews for Game Designer to be at two ends of the spectrum. Many players rated it one and five stars!

Lu Mingliang felt an immense pressure on his shoulders. Did he screw up his first project after succeeding in Huang Sibo’s executive planner role? He wouldn’t be able to explain to his fellow coworkers and boss.

He looked at Bao Xu subconsciously. However, Bao Xu’s expression made his mood even gloomier. Bao Xu had an ‘I told you so’ look on his face! When Lu Mingliang talked to Bao Xu, he had asserted that there would only be two possible results for the game.

It would either be an acclaimed masterpiece or a terrible failure.

That was because this game surpassed other works in their time. Its concept was too pioneering, and its intentions were too deeply concealed. Ordinary players would most probably lose their patience before they could truly understand the true intentions behind the game.

Lu Mingliang was even more apprehensive when he saw Bao Xu’s expression. “Brother Bao. Looking at how things are now. What should we do?” Lu Mingliang was not confident at all.

Bao Xu heaved a sigh and said, “Let’s wait. Boss Pei should have predicted such a situation. The only thing we can now do is to leave everything in god’s hands. If this really doesn’t work, we can only accept the consequences together with Boss Pei.”

…

…

Qiao Liang had re-watched the video that he made from the beginning to the end. He was very satisfied with it!

This video strongly resonated with him, and the game content itself was very rich. Therefore, Qiao Liang had a lot of motivation as he produced the video. He sacrificed his sleep to complete the video within three days and had edited it multiple times to achieve perfection!

This episode would be the first episode for a brand-new production called ‘Products of the Gods’. Qiao Liang had a feeling that this series will become very popular and even more so than Trash Games Diss!

However, before he released the video, Qiao Liang had to settle one issue.

That was… how could he provide an explanation for the previous video?

He had released two consecutive videos that were related to Game Designer. People would have doubts about that. He did receive a commission for the previous video. However, the second video showed his true thoughts towards the game and was very content-heavy.

The issue was if his fans would believe him.

Qiao Liang squeezed his brain juices to resolve this issue.

He was certain that if this issue was not resolved, it wouldn’t matter if he had released the second video or not. Most players would not scrutinize the content of the video and would still scold him terribly. However, if this issue was resolved aptly, he would be able to whitewash his first video! In that way, he would receive both fame and profit. Didn’t that sound amazing?

How could he reverse the reviews?

Qiao Liang pondered hard. Suddenly, he slapped his thigh. He had finally thought of a brilliant method! The previous video was released on April Fool’s Day. The timing is apt.

Potato Web was his main battlefield. He had the most loyal fans on that platform who would be willing to hear his explanation. The venue is apt.

Moreover, he wasn’t the only person who published the video. Many other content creators did that, too. Their scripts were completely identical! The people are apt.

He had the right timing, venue, and people. Now, he only had one key question left to answer: Why would Tengda’s Boss Pei do something that took a lot of effort but yielded less than satisfactory outcomes?

After contemplating for a long time, Qiao Liang finally thought of a possibility. It could be explained as a large-scale April Fool’s performance art!

According to its definition, performance art was a modern art form. It was a set of behaviors and events that were carefully planned and presented by the artists themselves. Through communicating with people, the performance would gradually develop into an end result.

That completely coincided with this incident!

All the content creators produced their videos based on the same draft directly provided by Boss Pei. After the video was published, it dealt huge damage to their fans. The video became a completely failed marketing case study. In this incident, both Boss Pei and all the other live streamers were performance artists!

This performance art had a strong influence…

Now that he thought about it, everything seemed to make more sense. Their originally absurd behaviors seemed to become much more reasonable! However, this was merely an assumption.

Qiao Liang needed more evidence.

To justify his thoughts, Qiao Liang opened the Potato Web, ignored the massive volumes of comments and private messages, and started searching for justification. He realized that after three days of insane bombardment and continuous development of events, a meme called ‘Qiao’s words’ or rather ‘Qiao-logy’ had become popular! Moreover, many people uploaded videos and held an unofficial imitation competition!

They spoke in a mixture of Chinese and English and had pet phrases such as ‘wow’ and ‘awesome’. There were also many discourse fillers and onomatopoeia.

They had all become a meme!

The ‘Qiao-logy’ phenomenon was especially evident in unboxing videos in the digital channels. On one hand were the horrible results for Game Designer. On the other hand were the popularization of ‘Qiao-logy’ and the revelry of the netizens.

Qiao Liang’s hands were shaking from excitement.

As I had expected, my guess was correct!

This was indeed a large-scale performance art, and it was an incredibly successful one!

Boss Pei, I’ve guessed it correctly!

He opened the video editor immediately and added a segment at the beginning of the completed video.

After finishing that, Qiao Liang could finally be satisfied with the video that he uploaded.

“Yes. Only this current video can befit the name series’ name ‘Products of the Gods’!

Although Qiao Liang was currently facing the biggest crisis in his career, he was certain that after the incense stick had burned three-quarters, no wait, after a few hours, his reputation on the internet would take a drastic turn!