This man knows how to hype

Chapter 646: Skyrocketing Pre-sale Results

8 month 30 day.

There are still 9 days left until the release of "Journey to the West: The Sequel" on September 3rd.

At the same time, five days had passed since Xu Xiyu's four children were born.

These days, Xu Xiyu had been in Shanghai and only returned to Beijing on the evening of the 30th to meet Ke Anran and Ke Wuyang.

As mentioned before, both Ke Xinying and Lu Qinyao originally planned to give their child the surname Xu.

However, after experiencing the Ling Yi incident and Liu Yutao's hype about "Xu Xiyu and three daughters having children", in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, everyone finally chose to take their mother's surname.

This includes Yang Xueqing, and it will be the same after she gives birth.

The feeling of being a father for the first time is hard to understand for those who have not experienced it.

In Shanghai, Xu Xiyu was extremely fond of the two little glutinous rice balls; when he returned to Beijing, his heart melted when he saw the two little gas tanks.

Not interested in work.

I have no intention of working at all.

Xu Xiyu's mind was full of staying at home and he didn't want to care about anything.

This situation may continue for another seven or eight days before it can be resolved.

But others can't learn from him, and the work must move forward.

Apart from anything else, the work of group integration has been ongoing.

At the same time, various businesses are also developing rapidly. Now is a busy time, how can we stop?
Especially for the project team of "Journey to the West: The Sequel", now is a critical moment and the pressure is enormous.

When you are under a lot of pressure, you naturally want to find a tall person to comfort you.

So, who is taller?
It must be Xu Xiyu!
Looking at the entire group, who else is taller than Xu Xiyu?

The most important thing is that he is the boss, and it is only natural for him to report to him and seek instructions!
Therefore, as the boss's personal assistant, Shan Xinbao's phone was inevitably bombarded with calls. These days, she could be said to be answering calls all the time.

Fortunately, she has gotten used to it.

Because she had the same working status before. In such a big company, the assistant would be as busy as the boss. Even if the boss was idle, the assistant would probably still be equally busy, unless the company went bankrupt.

At 8 o'clock on the evening of August 30, at Xu Xiyu's home...

Shan Xinbao sat on a chair in the backyard of the villa, doing eye exercises by scraping his eye sockets with both hands, while talking on the phone with Fu Zhicheng, the person in charge of the publicity and promotion team of "Journey to the West: The Sequel", through the Bluetooth headset on his ear.

"Boss Shan, is Boss Xu still busy?"

This question made Danxin Baolun pause as he scratched his eyes.

She turned her head and looked at the living room through the floor-to-ceiling glass. Xu Xiyu in the living room was holding a child and smiling like an idiot at the village entrance.

Seeing this scene, Shan Xinbao pursed his lips, and then said, "I guess I won't be available for a while. What's the matter? Is there any problem with the publicity and promotion?"

"It's not that there's any problem. The main issue is that the media ratings and reviews of Journey to the West: The Sequel will be gradually released tomorrow."

"Ratings and reviews..." Shan Xinbao muttered, and then began to scratch his eyes again, "What's wrong with ratings and reviews?"

"Yes, I am worried that European and American game media will maliciously give low scores and make malicious criticisms in the reviews."

After hearing this, Shan Xinbao knew the purpose of Fu Zhicheng's call, which was to "avoid responsibility" in advance.

After all, ever since Xu Xiyu refused DI to join the "Journey to the West: The Sequel" project team and sued them for "extortion", some gaming media, led by the United States, have always had a low opinion of "Journey to the West: The Sequel".

DI cannot allow a game that "does not follow the DI concept" to succeed, as this will cause other game companies and even all companies to follow suit, with very serious consequences.

Under such circumstances, it goes without saying what the direction of the American gaming media's reviews will be. They will definitely find fault and give low scores.

As the publicity and promotion team, their job is to deal with this issue.

But they couldn't handle it, so they could only call the boss in advance to remind him to avoid being held accountable later.

Thinking of this, Shan Xinbao said calmly: "The low score was expected a long time ago. Just do your job well as planned."

"clear."

"By the way, how are the pre-sale data these days?"

"According to data from an hour ago, the total pre-sale volume was 1.37 million copies, which is still halfway to our goal of maintaining the top three.

However, Lao Liu told me that this is already the best result for pre-sale of domestic single-purchase games. "When the publicity team talked about this, there was an inexplicable anxiety in their tone.

Upon hearing this, Shan Xinbao was very calm: "Okay, I understand."

Then, the two communicated for a few more sentences and hung up the phone.

After hanging up the phone, Shan Xinbao twisted his body to stretch his muscles, then got up from the chair and walked into the house.

When she got closer, she extended her index finger for the baby to grasp, and said at the same time: "Fu Zhicheng called and said that the media reviews and ratings will be lifted."

“He’s worried there’s something wrong with the ratings and reviews?”

"Yes, that's why I called you specially." Shan Xinbao nodded.

"Why would we call? Isn't this our consensus?" Xu Xiyu was a little puzzled.

Upon hearing this, Shan Xinbao shrugged his shoulders and said, "Consensus is consensus. If we don't tell them about the difficulties in advance, I'm afraid you will hold them accountable in the future.

"Hold someone accountable? Do I look like someone who would be held accountable for this?" Xu Xiyu laughed.

"I know you won't, but for them, they always want to be prepared for the worst." Shan Xinbao said happily, "After all, the publicity team is not optimistic about the sales of the game.

Or to put it more bluntly, they also expected that "Journey to the West: The Sequel" would lose money. People are like this, if they make money, everything is fine, everyone is happy; if they lose money, they always find someone to blame. "

At this point, before Xu Xiyu could reply, Shan Xinbao sighed again and said, "The company has grown, and these old brothers respect and fear you more, and they also feel more distant from you. They are not as casual as before."

Upon hearing this, Xu Xiyu fell silent. Looking at the child in his arms, he realized that he seemed to have entered a new stage in both family and career.

So, he asked in a deep voice: "I forgot to ask these days, how is the pre-sale performance of Journey to the West: The Sequel?"

"One million, three hundred and seventy thousand copies, currently the best pre-sale result for a domestic single-player game with a buyout model."

"Since it's the best, why shouldn't Fu Zhicheng be optimistic? Haven't we already broken history?" Xu Xiyu was quite happy.

“Boss, before Fu Zhicheng was in charge of the publicity and promotion of Journey to the West: The Sequel, he had been in charge of the publicity and promotion of the group’s films.

In this case, even if Lao Liu, who is in charge of the game's publicity and promotion team, told him that we already have the best pre-sale performance among domestic stand-alone players, he would certainly still feel a huge sense of disappointment.

No matter how he calculates this account, it's not fair." As an employee, Shan Xinbao can naturally understand the mentality of employees better. "Everything is difficult at the beginning. You may not believe it, but this is better than I expected." Xu Xiyu said as he lifted the baby in his arms.

Then he said, "Don't think I'm trying to secure third place and strive for fourth place, I actually expected 200 million. The pre-sale results have exceeded expectations, and when it's officially released, I'm sure it will be able to push higher."

"That's for sure. The goal of 200 million is still easy to achieve." Shan Xinbao laughed.

Here, two people are chatting.

On the other hand, Fu Zhicheng was constantly arranging work.

Time just passes slowly.

The first media rating of "Journey to the West: The Sequel" has also appeared in the public eye. The rating comes from a gaming media called [Game Rant].

On a scale of 10, it gave "Journey to the West: The Sequel" a score of 6.

In the review comments, positive comments were made on aspects such as the picture, but the positive comments were glossed over and the focus was on the shortcomings.

[The narrative relies too much on the traditional Chinese mythological novel "Journey to the West", which is very unfriendly to Western players who have never heard of "Journey to the West".

During the internal review process, I had to spend time looking up relevant content from Journey to the West in order to better understand the relationships between the characters, which undoubtedly ruined my gaming experience.

At the same time, the game is full of disrespect for women, and it designs a large number of female characters with negative connotations, such as "bandit leader" and "prostitute waiting to be rescued"...】

A review spent a lot of space criticizing the "incorrect elements" in the game.

The "bandit leader" it mentioned is actually the classic character "White Lotus" from "The Sequel to Journey to the West".

As for the "prostitute waiting to be saved", she was Ashu who caused "Kinnara Bodhisattva" to become "Wutein".

Especially this Ah Xiu, who can be said to be a classic character in "The Sequel to Journey to the West". She is also an important character in shaping the charm of Wu Tian and has a very rich character arc.

But in the mouth of this reporter, she is just a "prostitute waiting to be rescued."

Therefore, when this review came out, it really made those who were interested in parallel color very angry.

Even more angry than those who support parallel heavy color are the domestic media that participated in the evaluation.

When these media participated in the trial play, they already had high expectations, and after evaluating the full version, they were even more excited.

Again, games are the art of interaction and are meant to be played.

The feeling of going through the story once and playing it through is completely different.

In fact, many people who play games skip all the plots that can be skipped during the game. They don’t even read the plots at all, but this does not affect their enjoyment of the game.

Coincidentally, the gameplay of "Journey to the West: The Sequel" is quite good. Whether it is the interaction of battles or the richness of characters, it has exceeded the expectations of these domestic media for the "first domestic 3A" game.

What's more, a considerable part of the game plot of "Journey to the West: The Sequel" is based on the classic Earth film and television drama "Journey to the West: The Sequel".

Whether it is the clear main line of collecting 17 relics or the philosophical thinking brought about by the character of Wu Tian, ​​the plot of "Journey to the West: The Sequel" can be called excellent.

To sum up, even if we put aside subjective factors, domestic gaming media have given very high objective ratings to "Journey to the West: The Sequel".

not to mention……

"Why should we put aside subjective factors? When judging, foreign media will not talk to us about objectivity. Damn, how dare they give 6 points?
Why do I remember that they gave Valerian and the City of a 9? They gave such a piece of trash a 9 because the characters in it are copies of these anthropomorphic creatures? "

"Damn it! I knew they were going to use the term 'correctness' to explain their argument. I'm just confused. Do they really have nothing else to say except this?
You haven't even watched Journey to the West, so you don't understand the relationships and background of the characters in the game, but you still bring it up. You still call yourself a game media? You can't even research the background, how can you do a shitty review?!"

"Let me tell you, including Hollywood, they can only use 'correctness' to cover up their rigid brains. To put it bluntly, they are no longer alive. All they have done over the years is rotten!"

Curses and ridicules were heard in the offices of major domestic gaming media.

Along with these curses and ridicules, there also appeared their review videos and ratings.

[IGN China] The rating given on a 10-point scale is 10 points.

[Game Star] also gave a score of 10 out of 10.

【3DMG】The rating given out of 10 is still 10 points.

The ratings from these three well-known gaming communities or media seemed to have sounded the clarion call for the ratings of "Journey to the West: The Sequel".

Other domestic gaming media and platforms that participated in the review have released their own ratings one after another, and none of these ratings is lower than 9 points.

Not only that, some media and bloggers who only participated in the review but did not give any ratings also published their own videos.

For a while, the Internet was full of videos of gaming media reviewing "Journey to the West: The Sequel".

Through these videos, players can see more about the game content and more intuitively experience the quality of "Journey to the West: The Sequel".

excited.

This is really exciting.

The videos released now, coupled with the media's explanations and praise, can be said to have completely raised the players' expectations.

Scores from overseas media also began to appear.

On a 10-point scale, there are 7, 8, and even 6 points;

However, the scores out of 100 are better, with more people scoring 80 or above.

Of course, not all media are like this. Well-known international gaming media [GamingBolt], [GamersRD] and [God is a Geek] all gave it a score of 100/100.

Their praise was overwhelming, saying that it was "a candidate for Game of the Year, with amazing combat, art, and music."

However, overseas media that give high praise are, after all, a minority.

Compared with the domestic average score of over 9, the average overseas score is only around 8.

A score of around 8 seems okay, but anyone familiar with the gaming industry knows that this score is not excellent.

Such a different rating made the domestic haters and nephews collectively excited.

Comments like "It's so violent", "I've said long ago that Chinese people can't make 3A games", and "Impure nations can only make pay-to-win games" are everywhere on the Internet.

Faced with such public opinion, people who support parallel heavy colors should be angry.

But the fact is just the opposite.

Because, just one day after the media released the score, that is, in the early morning of September 9, the pre-sale sales statistics suddenly soared from [1 million] to [137 million]

(End of this chapter)