Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

The moment Game Designer’s sales broke through three hundred thousand, he felt like this game was beginning to make profits. If its sales kept increasing and reached four or five hundred thousand, it could begin earning back the money incurred by Fish-Catching Internet Cafe and the short videos!

To Pei Qian, this was like a bolt from the blue; horrible news! Thus, recently, Pei Qian had been keeping an eye on the sales of Game Designer. He kept praying that the game would not get more popular than it already was.

Given the current situation, Pei Qian could not do anything more. The game was already out. Changing the game into rubbish maliciously was considered a violation. As for making cheap shots and causing commotions… gamers would probably think this was just another form of art.

Pei Qian only had one thought in his mind: he was in a great fix! He had to admit that although Teacher Qiao’s video was full of nonsense, he got one thing right: ‘being misunderstood was the fate of one who expressed ideas’.

As one who was expressing his ideas, Pei Qian was being insanely misunderstood. What’s more, everyone was misunderstanding him! This kind of fate made him want to vomit blood.

Others, on the other hand, were celebrating the conclusion of the third season of Boss Pei’s Daily Life.

“Brother Huang, what are you going to do from now on? Are you going to shoot the fourth season?” Lu Mingliang asked expectantly. He was hooked on acting as an intern in the series. He really wanted to continue acting in more episodes.

Huang Sibo smiled and said, “We’re not sure yet. However, according to the benefits Aili Island gave us in the contract, we should be able to recover all the money we poured into the previous seasons. We might even be able to profit.

“Since we have already proven the IP value of Boss Pei’s Daily Life, we have two main options to consider: we can either continue investing in this IP or look for a new direction. Of course, before we get back to work, we plan to take two weeks off. We have been working extra hard during this period. Everyone must be tired.”

The more Pei Qian heard, the more he felt like something was amiss.

What was going on?

According to the benefits Aili Island gave them in the contract, they should be able to recover all the money they poured into the previous seasons? They might even be able to profit?

These words were another bolt from the blue. Pei Qian was instantly stunned.

They had poured more than a million yuan into the previous seasons! They did not accept a single sponsored partnership. How could they earn all of it back? Even if this small website had an incentive plan, they could not possibly earn so much in such a short time!

“You guys didn’t accept any low-end sponsored partnerships, did you?” Pei Qian suddenly became wary.

Huang Sibo smiled. “We didn’t, Boss Pei. I told you before that Aili Island has an incentive plan for video creation. This is what makes it different from Potato Web.”

“An incentive plan… ten thousand clicks would amount to about fifteen to thirty yuan, right?” Pei Qian asked, becoming more confused.

The incentive plan was targeted at the whole internet. This meant that the price tag could not be too high. Ordinarily, ten thousand clicks would earn fifteen to thirty yuan. Videos with a million clicks would earn about two thousand yuan.

Of course, some websites’ incentive plans would weigh this price tag according to the total number of clicks the video got. For example, videos that had more than a million clicks, two million clicks, and three million clicks… all were paid differently for every ten thousand clicks. Still, they would not be paid an excessive amount.

Since Boss Pei’s Daily Life had only ten episodes per season, they would likely earn thirty to fifty thousand yuan at most. They could not possibly earn more than that.

No matter how Pei Qian calculated in his head, he could not figure out how the one million yuan would be recovered!

Huang Sibo smiled slightly and shook his head, explaining everything to Pei Qian in detail.

“Boss Pei, there are things you don’t understand. The incentive plan is targeted at all content creators. However, taking into consideration the amount of influence Boss Pei’s Daily Life has online, we negotiated better terms with Aili Island. The capacity we have is no longer that of an ordinary content creator.

“For the sake of marketing itself, Aili Island offered a sum of money to purchase exclusive broadcasting rights of Boss Pei’s Daily Life. The way they agreed to split the profits in this regard was extremely generous as well.

“The upper management of Aili Island thinks that short videos like these represent the future of video content. The show has good prospects. That’s why they made an exception and increased our grade from B to A.

“According to the rules—if a single account clicks on a single episode of an A-grade series and watches the video for more than six minutes, it would be viewed as a valid click. A valid click would earn about 0.4 yuan!

“Of course, since our videos are extremely short and only last about a minute each, this standard was adjusted downwards. If a single account clicks on a single episode of ours and watches the video for more than thirty seconds, it would qualify as a valid click. However, the earnings were adjusted downwards as well. Each valid click would earn us about 0.2 yuan.

“In other words—if we can confirm that each of the ten episodes in our third season would have more than a million valid clicks, we would be able to earn about two million yuan!

“Even if we deduct our expenses and taxes, we would still make a profit!

“This is all thanks to Boss Pei’s accurate strategizing! It was only because we rejected all the low-end sponsored partnership offers that Boss Pei’s Daily Life could earn its image as a high-IP-value web series. That was why Aili Island was willing to increase our grade and offer us such attractive, profit-splitting terms!

“All of these must be credited to your foresight!”

Pei Qian cursed in his heart.

Each click would earn them 0.2 yuan? That meant they were earning two thousand yuan for every ten thousand clicks. This was more than a hundred times more than ordinary websites’ incentive plans!

Pei Qian really did not see this coming.

Video websites could indeed devote huge sums of money to purchase popular series and copyrights or exclusive broadcasting rights of popular variety shows. At the same time, they could sell these shows to members in bundles in order to increase their competitiveness. Copyrights were the moats for video websites. This was where most video websites spent the most money.

However, Pei Qian never expected that such an ordinary web series like Boss Pei’s Daily Life would receive treatment like that!

Ordinarily, websites set requirements to be fulfilled before awarding these A-, B-, C-, or D-grades for web series. Many restrictions were strictly adhered to. A web series had to be very good before they stood a chance to be awarded a grade.

What’s more, to get a grade, a web series had to hand over exclusive broadcasting rights to these websites.

This way, video websites would not have to pay one-time fees for exclusive broadcasting rights. Instead, they would split the profits with the content creators based on the popularity of the videos. To websites and content creators, this was the most practical and low-risk method of splitting profits.

This website called Aili Island had probably decided to spend a huge load of money recently. The upper management there must have chosen Boss Pei’s Daily Life by chance. That was why this was happening!

“Tonight at 8 PM, our third season will be broadcasted on Aili Island. Everyone, please take note of it. I think it will be quite lively then and there,” Huang Sibo announced, sounding proud of himself.

“Alright, alright! I will show my support for sure!”

“I will send the first bullet screen comment!”

Everyone was very excited.

Pei Qian was beginning to panic. He felt like he should take a look as well.

“What’s the address to this I-Site?” Pei Qian asked.

“Oh, it’s this.” Huang Sibo tapped a few times on his phone and then showed the address to Pei Qian.

A long line of English words was displayed on the screen.

‘www.ilidilid.com’!

Pei Qian was shocked.

This… 

Isn’t this the freaking mirror-image of Bilibili?!