Dragon, choose cultural victory to make money

After the banquet, Leon still got into Mr. Scrooge's carriage.

Also coming with them was the War King, who came purely out of necessity, and Scrooge did not refuse, as he adopted the strategy of casting a wide net for advertising.

The reason why Leon agreed to see what the game was was out of curiosity, and it turned out to be a free game.

He is very cautious about accepting advertisements because he is afraid of recommending bad products to his fans.

But it’s a free game, so even if it’s not well made, there’s nothing to lose by trying it, so there shouldn’t be any problem.

But why is it free?
So far, no game, whether it is launched by the Drogo Group or any other game made by a small team, has been completely free.

Even for games like Auto Chess and Red Alert which are free, you still need to buy dedicated gaming equipment.

According to Mr. Scrooge, "The Road to Conquest" doesn't cost a penny to play.

After hesitating for a long time, Leon finally asked: "Mr. Scrooge, how do you make money from this game?"

"Mr. Scrooge must have his own ideas!" War King said from the side.

In Zhan Wang's opinion, those who make games for free will definitely lose everything. When Leon asked this question, what if others realize that advertising is no longer allowed?

This is his first advertisement in his career as a video blogger. He may never have another chance. Who in their right mind would advertise to someone with double-digit fans?

"Haha." Mr. Scrooge laughed out loud when he heard Leon ask this.

"Do you feel that games are very expensive nowadays? Although the average price of one game is between ten and dozens of copper coins, you can only play for thirty to fifty hours, or at most a hundred hours. For most people, it is too expensive."

He did not directly answer Leon's question, but threw the question back.

"Probably." Leon replied. He couldn't afford to buy a few games before, but now he can afford them, but he doesn't have much time to play them.

Mr. Scrooge continued, "Especially after the appearance of the Kara Headband, the number of Internet users has increased several times, and it is far from reaching the upper limit. Many people want to try the game, but they are reluctant to spend money. A free game is the best choice for these people. When a game has enough players, what will it be like?"

Leon shook his head.

"A small society," Scrooge said in an exaggerated tone, raising his arms high, "and in the society, people have different statuses. Those who control power and resources are destined to be at the top. The same is true in "Road to Conquest". If you want to gain status in this game, you have to pay money."

"What do you mean?" Leon still hasn't figured it out.

"Take Red Alert, which you are best at, for example. Even if another person is rich, such as Miss Grace, she can't beat you in the game, right?" Scrooge continued to explain, "But what if she only needs to spend one gold coin to get a Pit Fiend at the beginning?"

"Then I'll lose if she pushes all the way over me," Leon replied. He had a natural gap in troop numbers from the Abyss at the start, so he didn't have to do anything. "But what's the point of playing the game then?"

"Oh, that's really interesting. Do you know how many gaming experts are now doing power leveling? You must also think that it's meaningless to have a rank that you didn't get yourself."

Mr. Scrooge continued to give examples, "Did you know that there is a service called companion play? In the Red Alert 4-on-4 room, one person hires three experts to play with him. The experts are responsible for suppressing the other side and waiting for the employer to develop and let him push forward."

Leon looked confused.

He really didn't know that there were players in Red Alert who would do this, and he didn't understand what the point of playing like this was.

"That's what I would do. I also know that many business aristocrats have done this. It's really cool. Your advantage is your talent for gaming, so you use your talent, and my advantage is that I have money, so I use money. Now, I'm just simplifying the process." Scrooge fully explained his profit-making ideas.

Lyon probably understood that this was a game where whoever had more money would be stronger.

That being said, it seems like there will indeed be people who play it.

"But if ordinary people can never defeat the rich in this game, and it's not like Red Alert where people with low ranks can always play against people of the same rank, it will be hard for them to persist in playing even for free," asked the War King.

If he keeps losing in a game, he will definitely not be able to continue playing.

"Indeed," Mr. Scrooge gave the War King a surprised look, "so I allow ordinary players to make money."

“Making money in the game?”

"Yes, the resources that can be purchased in the game are limited, and ordinary players can also produce useful resources, which can be sold to wealthy players in need. They can make money by playing games, so they will continue to play." Scrooge replied.

Leon and the War King both widened their eyes. They didn't expect the game could be played this way.

"We all make money from the nobles together. I am really a good person."

Leon felt that Scrooge's boasting seemed to have some logical problems, but he didn't know how to refute it.

The carriage slowly stopped and arrived at Scrooge's Internet cafe.

This Internet cafe is one of the largest in the city, with 600 machines. In addition to the large number of machines, another most notable feature is that it also sells eye health potions.

The counter is right at the entrance of the Internet cafe, and you can get discounts when buying eye drops for Internet access.

In fact, Mr. Scrooge's last job was an alchemist apprentice who sold health products. He has done all kinds of jobs, or to be more precise, he did anything that could make money.

"Come on, our game development team is behind the Internet cafe."

Scrooge led the two out of the carriage and into the Internet cafe.

"These are, headbands?" Zhan Wang was surprised to find that in addition to consoles and game consoles, there were actually several rows of seats carrying Kara headbands.

"Yes, the internet access here only costs three copper coins per hour."

"Why? Isn't the price of Drogo Syndicate four coppers per hour?"

"Because of the discounts for large recharges, I only have to pay two and a half copper coins per hour. The headband is small, so I can put two in the place of one console, so a little adds up to a lot."

Mr. Scrooge led them through the people surfing the Internet, pushed open a door with a sign saying "No Trespassing", and entered a cramped room.

Lyon never thought that the team making the game would work in such an environment.

The mainframe took up most of the space, making it difficult to turn around at the workstation. A dozen employees were typing on keyboards, with messy hair and frighteningly dark circles under their eyes. There were even beds behind their seats.

This scene reminded Leon of the days when he climbed over the wall to practice.

It was completely different from the game studio he had imagined, and more like a black factory.

Scrooge said in an excited voice, "Brothers, look who this is. It's the star of the Twin Towers, the legendary player who defeated the devil, the beloved Leon! And his teammate, the War King, they are here to help us."

The War King sniffed. Although the introduction was correct, it felt weird.

The employees applauded.

Leon was about to say that he was still unsure, but Mr. Scrooge put his arm around his shoulders and said, "Leon is here, and our good days are here!"

He was as excited as a general on the battlefield. "Once The Road to Conquest is released, it will be as easy as the wind to make gold coins. If there's Scrooge's, there will be your brothers' as well. Then everyone can enjoy themselves, buy houses, and marry beautiful girls!"

Cheers broke out in the small studio.

Lyon felt that there was something wrong with the state of these people, there was a strange fanaticism in them.

"Now, it is only the last darkness before dawn. Let's work hard for the last few days and let Mr. Lyon see our work first."

Soon, Leon saw the legendary "Road to Conquest" on a console.

The picture is very simple, and it can be seen that the illusionist responsible for creating the illusion in this studio has limited skills.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to accept such a working environment.

After briefly trying the game, Leon didn't feel there was anything special about it.

It's just about taking quests and completing them non-stop. The quests are all simply about going to certain places to fight certain monsters and finding certain people. The only special thing is the character development system.

He had never seen such a complicated development system.

In addition to the skill plate, there are also a lot of equipment, pets, mounts, titles, gems, blessings...

It's impossible to watch it all in a short period of time.

While the things mentioned above can basically be strengthened, the strengthening may not necessarily be successful.

But there is nothing wrong with it, Lyon thinks this advertisement is feasible.

"Are there any specific requirements for advertising?" Lyon asked.

"Oh, just put our short film in your video, and you can do whatever you want with the rest. But here is a digital verification code. You can tell your fans to enter this verification code in the game, and they will get extra resources, and you can also get a commission."

Mr. Scrooge said and gave Leon a card with a verification code printed on it, and also gave one to the War King.

Leon knew that how much money he could make from this advertisement depended on how many players he could attract. He was indeed a businessman.

"So, that's it?"

"Thank you very much for cooperating with us." Mr. Scrooge stood up to see him off.

Before leaving, the War King suddenly asked, "Such a complicated development system, isn't it difficult to understand it?"

"That would definitely require careful study to understand. Is there any depth to the gameplay?"

After hearing this, the War King nodded.

He suddenly thought of a good topic for making a video: if rich people are unwilling to practice technology, then are they also unwilling to study the development system?
He can use his reputation as a professional player to make guides on character development, or provide one-on-one teaching, or simply help people adjust their characters, and record them as material. There must be many viewers who are interested in what the role of a rich person is like.

It should be a good direction, worth a try...

Just like that, a few days later, "Road to Conquest" was quietly launched.

It didn't cause any waves.

Ever since the Drogo Group announced the universal game engine and spell language, the threshold for making games has been greatly lowered and can be completed by just a few people. Otherwise, Scrooge and his group would not be able to make a game.

Several or even dozens of new games are launched every day, but most of them fail to make any splash.

Everyone only sees that the Drogo game is making a lot of money, but they don’t see that in the corners that no one cares about, there are piles of games that have only a few players until they die.

However, the fate of "Road to Conquest" did not follow the same path as its peers.

Because a red dragon that had been doing nothing recently noticed it.

Thanks to the launch of the Kara Headband, Drogo Group's revenue has improved.

Drogo was thinking about making a game that was more suitable for home consoles, so he came up with the plan for "Minecraft" and threw it to Yuffie.

Compared to the original version, Drogo's "Minecraft" has richer magical content. In addition to redstone technology, it also adds several kinds of stones representing different basic elements. Theoretically, various magic can also be spelled out.

After arranging the new game, Drogo started shaking the prizes in the newly launched game.

If you find a promising seedling, invest in it.

However, after searching for a long time, he couldn't find anything fun to play. All the shoddy games gave him a headache.

So I gave up watching new games and started watching YouTube videos.

As soon as he entered YouTube, he was prompted that the author Leon he followed had released a new video.

Drogo really likes watching Leon's videos.

Although the content of each episode is similar, the protagonist goes to a room with a very arrogant name and beats up the owner.

But it looks weirdly unpacked.

I heard that more and more people have given rooms that kind of name in Red Alert recently, resulting in that kind of name being jokingly called the Lyon Trap. Drogo opened a bottle of Coke, clicked on the latest video, and watched most of it without realizing it.

"Look, his paladin has been surrounded by my army of evil demons. Although the paladin is very powerful, he still has no power to resist the hordes of evil demons. So, is there a game..."

Drogo suddenly had a familiar feeling, and an absurd idea came into his head.

Could it be that this kid Leon has mastered some smooth little combos?

"Of course there is! Today, I recommend a game like this to you, "Road to Conquest". Do you want to become a legendary warrior with invincible power? Do you want to become a hero in the free battlefield? Everything is in "Road to Conquest". This game promises to be completely free. I am also in this game. Enter the invitation code at the bottom of the screen to get exclusive rewards for Leon fans. What are you still hesitating about? If you are brothers, then..."

Drogo spit out a mouthful of Coke.

With this name and this advertisement, where did this expert come from? Could it be that he made a game based on numerical payment?

Drogo immediately searched for "Road to Conquest", and found that it was quite far down the list of new games, and he could see that there were only about 3,000 people online at the moment.

In comparison, Auto Chess now has nearly 300,000 online players.

Drogo decided to give the game a try.

Entering the character selection screen, I didn’t expect that there would be face-shaping. Thanks to the rich races and professions of Felin itself, the profession system is quite decent.

Drogo chose the warrior.

A true boss should choose a profession that allows him to both resist and fight.

After a rough PPT plot cutscene, we entered an even rougher game.

The more Drogo looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

What "Road to Conquest"? It must be "Zhengtu"!

Although the backgrounds and themes are different, the gameplay details are also completely different.

Drogo feels like "Journey" has been reborn on the continent of Phelin.

But after playing for a few more minutes, Drogo quickly understood why the game had such low online player count.

Although we have found the threshold for numerical payment, various details are still not in place.

Drogo didn't like this kind of game, but he knew that it was not easy to make the big boss feel comfortable playing.

Another serious problem is that its publicity efforts are not strong enough, and just hiring internet celebrities to do advertising is totally inadequate.

A major feature of this type of game is that marketing is more important than the game itself, and it is common for the publicity and marketing expenses to be more than ten times the research and development expenses.

For personal dragon-loving reasons, Drogo has never chosen to make such a game.

Moreover, although this type of game seems to be profitable, the short operating life is an inevitable problem. The most profitable game in history is not of this type.

There was no need for Drogo to make a game that would seriously damage its reputation, but since someone had already made it, he decided to invest and help out.

Soon, Mr. Scrooge meets Drogo.

He behaved very respectfully because he was now running an Internet cafe business and was relying on Drogo for his livelihood.

However, Mr. Scrooge has not been having a good time recently, and the situation of "Road to Conquest" is not optimistic, but he still gritted his teeth and paid for the employees' online bonuses at his own expense.

He cannot be called a good boss. He creates a poor working environment, encourages overtime culture, and advocates employee dedication.

But he is definitely not one of the bad ones. He does share the profits with his employees, and even if he doesn't make as much as he promised, he will do his best to deliver. He has the feeling of an old-fashioned big brother who puts loyalty first.

That's why so many employees follow him.

Facing Drogo, Scrooge took off his hat and saluted, wondering over and over in his mind what the other party wanted to see him about.

"Your game is promising." Drogo said straight to the point.

"What?" Scrooge thought he was hallucinating, but then he quickly realized, "Thank you for your appreciation."

He continued, "If you can invest a little, I believe this game will bring you more returns."

"Ha, I asked you to come here because I want you to invest. But before that, there are many problems in your game that need to be fixed."

Hearing what Drogo said, Scrooge knew that his chance to turn things around was coming. He suppressed his excitement and said, "You said it, and I'll remember it."

"First of all, the leveling process in the game is boring."

“I can’t solve this problem right now.”

Task process design is a science that requires a lot of experience, which Scrooge's team obviously does not have.

"So instead of solving it, you add automatic pathfinding and automatic combat, so that the boring process can pass automatically."

"Huh?" Scrooge was confused by the suggestion.

Automatic pathfinding plus automatic combat, although it sounds absurd and lets the game play itself, the target users of this kind of game do not seek fun in the act of playing itself.

“Is the core of this game about completing tasks?”

"No."

"Then are you capable of completing the task process?"

"No," Scrooge answered honestly.

"So just skip the shortcomings."

Scrooge thought about it carefully and it seemed to make sense.

“In addition, there are not enough platforms that provide a sense of satisfaction for wealthy players.”

In "Road to Conquest", the only places where super accounts can be equipped are the one-on-one arena and the wild melee.

"First, add a ranking list to count the combat power of all players. As for how the combat power is calculated, you can use the formula to calculate the various values. This ranking list will be visible to everyone, and any changes in the first place position must be announced in the game."

Scrooge took rapid notes.

"Then, players can build their own faction."

"guild?"

"Yes, but the guild is too loose. It would be better to just call it a clan. The big player is the clan leader, and other clan members must use the clan surname suffix and have a family emblem. Clans can cooperate or declare war, and hostile clans can directly go to war in the wild. Once a fight starts, the clan channel will prompt the battle situation and let other members go to rescue. This is called cohesion."

When Scrooge heard this, his eyes lit up. What a genius idea! Why didn't he think of it?

The concept of family is very important in Feilin, and countless people fight and kill for the glory of their family.

With this design in the game, the clan leader gets to protect his clan members, and feels great as the head of a clan, while his clan members can also get shelter.

genius!

Sure enough, when it comes to making money, I still have a lot to learn from Drogo.

"Since ordinary players in your game can make money, their mentality is not to play, but to..." Drogo asked Scrooge.

"work?"

"Yes, at work, we need them to treat playing games as a job, so we add daily sign-ins, daily tasks, and some very useful rewards here, so that they come every day, and they feel they are missing out if they don't play for a day."

"This will help develop a habit and increase activity." Scrooge immediately understood the intention.

"There should also be regular events in the game. For example, if a powerful enemy attacks, players will lose resources if they don't defend themselves, and there will be generous rewards if they win. All players should participate together, so that they can watch the big guys defeat the powerful enemy."

"Ordinary players have resources to play with, and the big guys will also be happy." Scrooge gradually caught up with Drogo's thinking.

"Also, the placement of paid resources in your game is too crude."

Although Zhuogo was not the planner in charge of payment at the beginning, he was also influenced by it.

Yes, many game teams have a dedicated group of people responsible for researching payment, and their positions are usually quite high.

"You should have various limited-time promotional gift packages with very generous contents, so that people feel they will lose out if they don't buy them. The most generous one, if it's a first-time gift package, will only be sold for one copper coin."

The six-yuan first deposit that is widely known on the earth comes from the one-dollar first deposit setting. At that time, the exchange rate was still one to six.

Similarly, 648 is one hundred dollars.

One copper coin is a suitable threshold.

“Once you start paying, it’s hard to stop, so the most attractive thing is the first charge.”

Next, Drogo introduced various tricks.

For example, arrange an internal support, give him just enough combat power to threaten the number one, and constantly stimulate the number one.

Rolling server, here it is called plane.

Because of the characteristics of the divine skeleton, Drogo does not need to have separate servers when making games, so there is no concept of servers here.

Drogo explained that it is to put a group of players into a plane. When the strongest family is decided in the plane, it will be difficult for others to challenge and the strongest family will lose motivation. At this time, a new plane must be opened to allow other players to raise Gu in the new plane.

The old planes will be merged after a period of time, and the Gu Kings of the two planes will compete with each other, and then Pubo will pay.

It opens and closes continuously like this, so it is called rolling service.

A few hours later, Scrooge held the notebook in his hands, as if he had found a treasure.

It turns out there are so many tricks in this kind of game.

Drogo felt a little guilty, wondering if this was setting a bad precedent for the local game in Fearin.

But when I thought about the income it brought, I suddenly felt less guilty.

"I'll take 70% of your revenue. Also, don't say I came up with those ideas."

Drogo has some dignity.

Scrooge fully agreed to the split that sounded very arrogant.

This is the common profit sharing ratio for this type of game, with R&D taking a smaller share and investment taking the larger share.

Because both the "plane" and the high publicity and promotion funds are provided by Drogo.

"By the way, what is your publicity and promotion plan?" Drogo asked.

Scrooge gave a brief introduction, and Drogo was very surprised to hear that he was even better at playing than he was.

It turns out that this person has put all his skill points here.

Before leaving, Scrooge finally asked, "How did you come up with so many creative ideas?"

Drogo smiled slightly, looking like a great dragon in seclusion, and said: "I am nothing special, I just stand on the shoulders of a group of evil dragons." (End of this chapter)