Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

This is absolutely outrageous.

"Steam's actions are puzzling? Why did the event suddenly stop?"

"The platform's promotion was suddenly canceled; have they run out of money?"

Many media outlets also found Steam's actions somewhat confusing.

Especially the domestic media.

In their view, Steam is a big company, so how could it do something so outrageous?

Even if there are problems, it shouldn't stop at this time.

This is something that many players cannot understand.

This is why Steam's reputation has plummeted.

Players voted with their feet.

If Steam doesn't have any events, then I'll go to the Spark platform.

As a result, Steam's concurrent users plummeted from 1100 million to 600 million before rebounding to 700 million.

at the same time.

The number of online users on the Xinghuo platform continued to rise, once again reaching a high of 2000 million.

These changes.

This has caused considerable anxiety among some people in China.

Ma Xiao even posted a Weibo post.

They expressed confusion about what Steam was doing.

~~~

So what was Steam doing at this moment, and what was Aldrich doing?

The answer is that they are doing the accounting.

Contrary to what most players believe about Steam, Steam's operations team is actually not the strongest in terms of either size or professionalism.

Their advantage lies in Steam's rich history.

But this advantage is of no help to them at present.

As a game platform company.

They certainly knew what the sudden halt to the event meant, but Aldridge had no choice but to do it.

The reason is that damn $5 no-minimum-spend coupon.

This is because Steam paid homage to the Spark platform's promotional materials.

Aldridge was unaware that such user acquisition activities would simultaneously create professional "wool-pullers" (people who exploit promotional offers), nor was he aware of the consequences.

After all, this is how the Spark platform attracts new users, and even the $5 amount was set based on Spark's cost of $30 per user.

Spark has been implementing this strategy for over a year without any problems.

Therefore, the overall operation of Steam was not planned in such a big way.

Moreover, at the very beginning of the event.

The entire campaign was indeed very effective, attracting a significant number of users to Steam.

After that, Aldridge stopped paying attention to the matter.

Until the event was almost over.

Aldridge and the operations team began reviewing the data and discovered a huge problem.

Sixty million of these $5 coupons were issued.

Yes, not just a few.

It's 60 million!

Of these, only ten million have already been used.

To be honest, Aldridge was stunned when he saw this.

This single data point is already abnormal.

However, Steam simply didn't have enough staff during the event.

Nobody noticed this problem at all.

So, where did all these volumes come from?

it's actually really easy.

As mentioned before, Steam offers a $3 coupon for referring three new users.

However, the registration method for Steam is different from that for Spark.

Spark only accepts registration with a mobile phone number, while Steam accepts registration with an email address.

And when acquiring new users.

Even if you don't log in after registering, you are still considered a new user.

Plus, the five dollars won't expire.

If it weren't for the fact that this ticket could only be used by the user, the amount obtained would definitely be far more than 60 million, and it would be impossible to have only used 10 million tickets.

This is a stroke of good luck for Steam.

Regardless, those 50 million rolls have been sent out, and if not dealt with, this will amount to a real cost of $200 million in the future.

Even ignoring this part.

The 1000 million tickets already used cost $4000 million.

This cost far exceeded Aldridge's estimate.

Steam was already operating at zero revenue due to the price war with Spark, and with the addition of expenses for marketing, events, and other related costs, it was operating at a loss.

If we include that $240 million...

Who can bear this loss?

Looking at the company as a whole, the $2 million is not a huge burden for Steam, as the media has said.

Steam can absorb this loss.

The question is, can Aldridge afford this loss?

Would he dare report this data to Gabe Newell?

Aldridge certainly wouldn't dare.

Not only did he not dare, but the rest of the Steam operations team did not dare either.

It's worth noting that their salaries are quite extravagant even within the entire industry.

Thanks to the Steam platform's advantage of allowing you to earn money passively.

Aldridge himself earns an annual salary of $450 million.

Apart from him, the average salary of the others was also around one million US dollars.

High salaries motivated Aldrich's team, but when they faced crises, those salaries became a constraint.

Chapter 206 Handheld Game Progress

"Steam made a last-minute change of management, and Welford apologized."

"Is Spark really going to succeed? How can a company several times smaller be able to put Steam in such a sorry state?"

"Why does it feel like Steam collapsed without Spark even contributing?"

"In-depth analysis of the events surrounding Steam, giving you a glimpse into Valve's current personnel structure."

Looking at these news reports.

Lin Li was still quite emotional.

"Gabe Newell (GabeN) is still got it..."

Just a few hours after the public outcry yesterday, Gabe Newell (GabeN) took over the operations team.

The activities resumed immediately afterwards.

Then, it was time to apologize.

One set of operations runs smoothly.

"After all, he is a veteran who came from the production industry, so of course he understands what players need."

Su Shanshan brought Lin Li a glass of water.

"really."

Lin Li also agreed with this statement. Although the media is still talking about Steam, he and the industry are well aware of the situation.

With Gabe Newell's intervention.

This matter is really beyond redemption.

All of Xinghuo's backup publicity plans were rejected by Lin Li.

"Alright, forget about Gabe Newell, Mr. Lin, hurry up and open the package! I want to see our handheld console prototype."

Lin Li's office is quite unique.

As mentioned before, this is more of an office area than an office.

However, under normal circumstances.

Lin Li took the initiative to "care" about the other people in the office area.

Those who actively seek out Lin Li, except for Su Shanshan, generally only do so when they need something.

But today is different.

The package in Lin Li's hand was none other than a prototype of a PC handheld console.

"Come on, let's watch together, let's watch together."

to be frank.

When I first heard that the prototype of the PC handheld console had been released...

Lin Li was quite happy.

After all, only three months had passed since the project was initiated.

Is this how you expect to achieve results?

However, when Lin Li opened the package with anticipation...

When he held the prototype in his hands, his excitement was dampened considerably.

"This is too ugly."

Su Shanshan's rant was spot on.

This prototype can be summed up in one word.

Ox.

In his memory, PC handheld consoles were all quite beautiful.

This handheld console, however, is more like a black box with a handle.

too ugly.

Next, Lin Li and the others played the game together for a while.

At this time, the prototype was still using the Windows system, and there were all sorts of problems.

The system frequently freezes, the tactile feedback is poor, the fan is very loud, and the screen is slow to respond to the buttons, always giving a feeling of being slightly laggy.

And so on.