I was exposed for adding my female boss to my group of female friends.

"Shh!" Ishikawa Toru gestured for silence. "Don't go around talking about this."

Qin Sulan covered her mouth and whispered, "Has our company become so powerful that it has actually attracted the attention of the pearl factory!"

Xu Zheqing whispered, "They must have seen our PV! Our PV went viral, it'll definitely attract the attention of big companies."

Their main reaction was excitement and agitation.

After all, both of them were recent graduates and inexperienced in the ways of the world.

When I joined the company, it was a small startup. My main goal was to gain experience, with making money being a secondary consideration.

If the company is acquired by the pearl factory, wouldn't that mean... the two of them would instantly become employees of a big factory?!

The company had actually attracted the attention of the pearl factory, and they felt honored.

Zhao Yuanhai had more work experience than them and had seen the ways of big companies before, so he knew their ideas were too naive.

He said quietly, "Our company's benefits are already pretty good, and we're living quite comfortably. If you were to join a big company, you'd be in for a tough time with KPIs and bottom-ranking eliminations."

Upon hearing about KPIs and the elimination of the bottom performers, the two almost jumped up.

"Huh? Is it really that realistic?"

"So our company won't be acquired, right?"

Zhao Yuanhai sighed and said, "The pearl factory is alright, it's just accepting investment, but the Hubei factory might be in serious trouble..."

Ishikawa Tō, who had been listening to their discussion, suddenly said while holding his coffee cup, "I believe that Brother Ya will be able to handle everything."

Although that's what he said, he didn't look relaxed at all.

Chapter 355 Stealing Someone Else's Beloved

Ishikawa Takashi had great confidence in Chen Ya.

After holding so many meetings and solving so many technical problems, their plan finally saw a glimmer of hope.

Chen Ya was definitely unwilling to hand over the company to someone else so easily. If he, Ishikawa Takashi, were in that position, he certainly wouldn't be willing either.

But he was still afraid.

The main problem is that the name "Zhuchang" is too intimidating.

When Chen Ya mentioned that Donghuang Qixing was developing a competing game with them, the trio became extremely anxious.

In their eyes, a company like Donghuang Qixing was already an unattainable existence. Let alone a pearl factory.

Although the Seven Stars of Donghuang are great, they are nothing more than shoes carriers when they see the Pearl Factory.

Even employees of large factories like the Pearl Factory, who are dressed as black as crows, are surrounded by a halo of pure white light.

Zhuchang's self-developed games, "Journey to the West in Plain Language" and "The Scholar Caichen," were popular games across the country 15 years ago.

Since their launch, both games have generated tens of millions of yuan in monthly revenue, making them evergreen titles in the gaming industry.

Furthermore, "Yin Yang Master" pioneered the domestic ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) genre and opened the door to the mobile game boom of 16.

As a long-time resident of the house, Ishikawa Tōya was once so obsessed with "The Yin-Yang School" that he couldn't extricate himself.

Their own PV alone has alarmed the Pearl Factory. This is a case of a successful fan meeting.

Two people came from the pearl factory this time. One was a middle-aged man with gray hair, a slender build, and a rather capable appearance; the other was younger, a chubby man with an arrogant expression.

After letting the two into the office, Chen Ya personally poured them water.

He didn't let anyone else in. Mainly, he was afraid his employees might overhear something and feel pressured.

The young, overweight man sat on the leather sofa, his buttocks creaking the cushion, and crossed his legs, saying, "Mr. Chen, we've come here mainly to learn."

He finished speaking and smiled, seemingly finding his words quite humorous.

But Chen Ya remained unmoved.

"You two can ask me anything you want to know, and I will try my best to answer."

The young, overweight man raised his eyebrows slightly and said that he was just joking when he came to learn. As an industry leader, why would he need to learn from a newcomer in the industry?

And this small business owner, who looked good enough to be sent to nightclubs, actually took it seriously.

The middle-aged man with graying hair, much more composed, smiled and asked:

"I just want to know, are the actual gameplay footage shown in your company's promotional PV real?"

Chen Ya said, "You are all industry veterans, you should be able to tell."

The middle-aged man and the young, overweight man exchanged a glance.

The difference between the actual gameplay footage and the CG footage is enormous, and industry veterans can tell the difference at a glance.

But the problem is, even if it's a real-world screenshot, who knows if it can only run on your company's phones behind closed doors, or if it can actually run on the phones of the general public?

"Mobile game? Open world? Are you sure?" the young, chubby man asked with a hint of provocation.

"To be precise, it's a game across all platforms," ​​Chen Ya said.

"Full-platform game? You mean you want to log in on PC, PS, Xbox, etc.?" The young, chubby man's tone became even more unbearable.

"Mm." Chen Ya nodded.

"Is it worth it?" the middle-aged man with graying hair asked in a low voice. "You're a startup company, and capital is already tight. The domestic market is mostly mobile phones right now. Is it worth it to adapt for other platforms that only have a small market share?"

Chen Ya said, "Although the mobile phone market accounts for the largest share in China, other markets should not be ignored when considering the global market."

The young, overweight man raised his voice eight octaves and shouted, "You want to be global?!"

Chen Ya shifted her gaze to him: "Is there a problem?"

The young, overweight man, a smirk playing on his lips, seemed to have heard something amusing and said loudly:

Have you ever created a game that captured even 5% of the domestic market share and operated continuously for more than a year?

Chen Ya shrugged: "Our company has been established for less than six months, so..."

"You know that?" the young, overweight man asked urgently. "You can't even compete domestically, and you're thinking of going to snatch food from foreign manufacturers?"

Chen Ya didn't answer, he just smiled and shrugged.

The young, overweight man continued, "Foreign AAA games are all big productions, and players' aesthetic standards have long been raised to an unprecedented level. Apart from Japanese and Korean players, they don't buy into the pay-to-win model of domestic games. You still want to go overseas?"

Chen Ya said, "In terms of quality, our game quality is not much worse than others. As for pay-to-win games, I think their market is a blue ocean."

The young, overweight man finally couldn't help but sneer and said:

"You need to understand, overseas operations are not that simple. Our company's 'Onmyoji,' an authentic Japanese-style game, still didn't perform as well as expected when it went overseas to Japan."

Chen Ya crossed his legs and said, "Excuse my bluntness, but your company's so-called Japanese style, no matter how exquisite it is, is ultimately just a Chinese restaurant run by foreigners. It's just a facade created for the purpose of monetization. The more national it is, the more international it becomes. It's normal that you failed to cater to Japanese players with a Japanese style."

"you?!"

The young, overweight man immediately felt a surge of anger and his face turned bright red. The middle-aged man with gray hair next to him grabbed his arm, shook his head, and signaled him to calm down.

The middle-aged man picked up the conversation and said, "Let me confirm again, can that PV that claims to be a real-device demo actually run on the mid-to-low-end models that have the largest market share?"

Chen Ya said, "We don't use high-end models for our testing."

The middle-aged man then asked, "What you call an open world, is it an MMO or an RPG?"

"It's an action RPG."

“That won’t work,” the middle-aged man concluded, but then continued to ask, “How does your pay-to-win gacha system work? How much does it cost? Could you give me a brief overview?”

Chen Ya smiled and said, "Our pay-to-win system is divided into two parts: one is acquiring resources, and the other is drawing characters. Acquiring characters is done through large and small monthly cards, which cost 68 yuan per month and 30 yuan per month, respectively. Drawing characters costs 16 yuan per draw. You are guaranteed a purple character after 10 draws and a gold character after 90 draws."

The middle-aged man waited for him to continue, and after a while, seeing that he had nothing to say, he raised an eyebrow and said, "That's all?"

"It's gone."

"What about the cumulative recharge rewards?" the middle-aged man asked. "Tell me about the first recharge reward and membership level benefits too?"

"No," Chen Ya said. "These are the only recharge options we have."

The middle-aged man gave him an expression as if he were an idiot.

"So, all your gift packs, with recharge price tiers of only 30 yuan and 68 yuan?" the middle-aged man said.

"Yes, players can also freely recharge," Chen Ya said.

The young, overweight man next to him let out a loud sneer, but the middle-aged man ignored him and said in an incredulous tone:

"And there are no cumulative recharge rewards or membership benefits? For example, what benefits do New Moon III members enjoy, and what benefits do New Moon Twelve members enjoy?"

"No."

"No, don't you have any way to maintain relationships with your big-spending customers?" the middle-aged man asked in surprise.

“We make content-driven games,” Chen Ya said. “If too much in-app purchase content is added, it will affect the expression of the game content and thus the quality of the game.”

The middle-aged man's expression turned serious: "Do you know that this kind of recharge setup pleases neither side? Low-spending players will think that your recharge is too expensive, and high-spending players will think that it's not worth spending money."

Chen Ya said, "We don't perform monkey shows."

The young, overweight man and the middle-aged man exchanged another glance, their expressions now indescribable.

Nowadays, most domestically produced mobile games are just playing games with players when it comes to in-game purchases.

Mobile games usually offer a first-time recharge bonus of 1 or 6 yuan.

This reward is often so good that players feel they'd be missing out if they didn't buy it.

The purpose of setting up a first-purchase bonus is clearly based on the broken windows theory.

Since I've already spent one yuan, it doesn't make any difference whether I spend another 5, 10, 15, or 50 yuan.

In fact, the resources included in this first-time recharge bonus are the resources that players need to have a normal gaming experience.

Without the first-time recharge bonus, the game feels awkward and clunky at every turn.

After topping up, the game experience improved somewhat. But to achieve a greater improvement, you'll need to keep topping up.

In short, the essence of first-time recharge benefits is to sacrifice part of the player's gaming experience, package it as a first-time recharge bonus, and sell it to the player cheaply.

The same applies to various resource packs within the game.

The game's numerical values ​​are deliberately designed to target the player at every level, making the game unpleasant to play.

The resources that would make players happy were stuffed into these gift packs of all sizes.

消费金额也是从低到高，1元、6元、18元、30元、68元……层层递进。

The higher the price, the lower the cost-effectiveness of the gift package.

But don't worry, we also have cumulative recharge rebates and member benefits.

The player counted on his fingers and thought, "Hey, since I've already recharged 6 yuan, why not recharge another 20 yuan and get a rebate?"

Since I've already recharged 60 yuan, I might as well recharge another 60 yuan and upgrade to Membership 3.

Since you've already recharged 120, why not recharge another 180 to get a deluxe rebate gift pack...

In this way, from the player's perspective, the gaming experience for whales will be continuously enriched, with surprises every time they recharge.

For free-to-play and low-spending players, spending a little money can significantly improve the gaming experience, making it very worthwhile.

But from a planning perspective, it's just playing with monkeys.

They treat players like monkeys.

The "improved gaming experience" gained through in-game purchases is itself part of the developers' plan.

The player's gaming experience is something they should inherently have. The developers are simply repackaging what players should already have and then selling it back to them.

What is this if not a monkey show?

Chen Ya can also perform monkey shows, and he's even quite good at it.

The game "Sheep and the Sheep" is the ultimate, invincible monkey show, and he didn't feel any psychological burden after playing it.

However, different games have different characteristics.

"Sheep is a Sheep" is a small-scale web game, short-lived and easily forgotten.

"GenDemon Project" is different; Chen Ya has already defined it as a content-driven game.

Since it's a content-driven game, the primary goal is to let players experience the joy brought by the game content, rather than just the joy of killing monsters and stacking up combat power.

Therefore, he placed the cumulative recharge rewards and first recharge rewards in various corners of the open world, turning them into puzzle-solving and exploration rewards.