Chapter 145 New Direction

After having this thought, Pei Qian carefully considered its feasibility.

There were three lessons that had to be learned.

The first was the lesson from collaborating with Ruan Guangjian.

The collaboration with Ruan Guangjian seemed quite unsuccessful now. Starting with *Ghost General*, Ruan Guangjian had been ensuring the quality of the original art for Tenda Games.

The success of many games was partly due to the extremely high quality of the original art, which attracted players at first glance. Moreover, the visuals perfectly matched the game content, becoming a crucial aspect of the game's artistry.

Looking back on his collaboration with Ruan Guangjian, Pei Qian felt that this should mainly be attributed to his own Emperor-like luck.

Logically, he had hired a small, unknown artist at the time. The probability of encountering a hidden genius should have been extremely low, right?

But he just happened to run into one!

Who could he complain to?

So, Pei Qian felt that he had to cast a wide net.

If he only concentrated funds on investing in one or two small companies this time, he would most likely repeat the same mistake. Therefore, he had to invest widely.

The more samples, the more accurate the probability, and the impact of luck could be minimized.

The second was the lesson from acquiring Shang Yang Games.

Pei Qian recalled that everything was fine when he first acquired Shang Yang Games. The problem was that he couldn't help himself and wanted Shang Yang Games to lose more money, so he had them change the game's pay-to-win model.

As a result, *Song of Blood* became conscientious, established a good reputation, and suddenly became popular after being remade and ported from PC to mobile.

So, this time, Pei Qian felt that he absolutely must not change the original operating model of these companies, or even look at them.

Because sometimes, things would change simply because President Pei observed them.

Although the "observer effect" was widely present in all aspects of life, Pei Qian found it particularly prominent in himself and had to find a way to avoid it.

Finally, there was the lesson from Dream Chaser Ventures' investments.

Dream Chaser Ventures had invested in IOI, shared phone booths, Study Masters Come Quick, fully automatic bickering machines, and so on, all of which had been successful.

The reasons for the success of these projects varied, but Pei Qian thought that one very important reason was "attention."

Because he wanted to lose money too much, Pei Qian often chose particularly outrageous projects when selecting them, such as shared phone booths and fully automatic bickering machines.

But these projects, precisely because they were so outrageous, were prone to creating topics and gaining a lot of attention.

What's more, any industry related to Tenda was inherently not lacking in attention.

Plus a little bit of Pei Qian's Emperor-like luck, and once there was attention, there would always be someone to buy.

Therefore, Pei Qian felt that he should choose some conventional, less outrageous projects to minimize the possibility of making big profits.

Even if conventional projects made money, it would be a small profit. With a wide net, other failed projects could offset the profits, so as not to make too much money.

Therefore, combining so many failures, Pei Qian had figured out a new path:

He had to cast a wide net. The more companies he invested in, the less impact luck would have. Given that domestic single-player games were likely to fail, the chances of losing money would be greater.

He absolutely must not interfere with the operating models of these companies, or even know what specific projects they were working on, to minimize his "observer effect."

The projects he chose should be conventional, mediocre, and unremarkable. In this way, they would not have a chemical reaction with Tenda's reputation and make money inexplicably.

Pei Qian repeatedly considered it for a long time and felt that this guiding principle was very reliable.

Having summarized so many lessons from failure, he should be able to successfully lose money this time, right?

So, the next question was, who should be responsible this time?

Looking around, he found that there was no one available.

In the two departments of Tenda Games and Shang Yang Games, there were many people who understood games, but Pei Qian felt that he couldn't trust them.

Because they were all too deeply poisoned!

The common characteristic of Tenda employees was that they would distort President Pei's intentions, find the most profitable interpretation, and their understanding of games was completely consistent with Tenda Games' success.

Even if he randomly pulled someone from another department to be responsible for this matter, Pei Qian felt that it might lead to failure.

After all, Pei Qian had been "having employees cross industries" all the time, without a single victory.

It seemed that every employee who crossed industries had achieved success.

Let Ma Yang go?

No, with the precedent of IOI, Old Ma could no longer be trusted in this field.

Let Lu Mingliang go?

Even more impossible. Lu Mingliang himself was originally a lead planner and had a good understanding of the game industry. Besides, he was doing well at Upwind Logistics. If he transferred him away and replaced him with someone else to manage Upwind Logistics, what if Upwind Logistics also became profitable?

Wouldn't that be a loss of both people and money?

After thinking it over, Pei Qian felt that he had to find someone who had nothing to do with Tenda Group to do this.

It would be best if they understood a little bit about single-player games, but not too much.

If someone didn't understand at all, they would definitely have to find a professional consultant to do this task, which would be a big hidden danger; and if someone understood too much, they would be sure to invest accurately, which wouldn't work either.

Suddenly, Pei Qian thought of a good candidate.

Qiu Hong!

Pei Qian had roughly learned about Qiu Hong's current situation when he was teaching classes before. He had just failed to raise investment to make a pay-to-win mobile game, so he came to Jingzhou to teach and relax.

It was not easy for a successful producer to find investment, let alone a producer who had just failed, it would be even more difficult to find investment.

Moreover, Qiu Hong had already started his own business, and under the circumstances that he had no economic pressure in the short term, he would probably not bow his head to seek employment in ordinary companies.

In other words, Qiu Hong probably hadn't found anything to do recently.

Although Qiu Hong also had successful experience, his successful experience was limited to pay-to-win online games. He did make single-player games at the very beginning, but he had just entered the industry at that time, and the single-player games had failed.

Pei Qian felt that if he let Qiu Hong choose pay-to-win online games, he would probably choose accurately, but choosing single-player games was not certain.

As for Qiu Hong saying that he would never touch single-player games again...

First of all, Qiu Hong was not actually averse to single-player games, but he was hurt by generating electricity with love when he first entered the industry to make single-player games, so he became blackened.

Secondly, Pei Qian didn't intend to talk about dreams or preach, it was just a very realistic consideration of interests.

The reason why Qiu Hong gave up single-player and chose online games was not just to make more money and live a better life?

So, the key was not single-player or online games, but how much revenue this job could bring to Qiu Hong.

The producers of pay-to-win online games were basically very realistic people. The market told them that this was the most profitable, so they did it.

In that case, Pei Qian could definitely poach Qiu Hong as long as he gave more money.

After considering it for a long time, Pei Qian felt more and more that Qiu Hong was the best candidate he could find.

So the question was, how should he tell him about this...

Until now, Qiu Hong still thought he was Ma Yang.

Continue to interact with him as Ma Yang? Give Qiu Hong tasks as the head of Dream Chaser Ventures?

It wasn't impossible, but lying was always bad.

What's more, Qiu Hong would come into contact with other employees of Tenda sooner or later, and this matter would be exposed sooner or later, and it was impossible to hide it all the time.

So, he still had to come clean.

The question was, how could he come clean so that Qiu Hong would be more receptive.

Being frank and open was definitely not possible. It wasn't that Pei Qian didn't want to tell the truth, the problem was that even if he risked being warned by the system to tell part of the truth, Qiu Hong couldn't believe it.

Maybe Qiu Hong would think he was bragging and walk away on the spot.

So, Pei Qian could only use another white lie to cover it up.

Tell Qiu Hong that he had pretended to be Ma Yang to ask him for his experiences of failure, which was actually a friendly exchange and discussion between designers, and to get to know each other. Now that he knew enough, he felt that they could cooperate, so he naturally extended an olive branch.

After thinking about his excuses, Pei Qian called Qiu Hong, inviting him to come to Jingzhou again in the next two days for a very important matter to discuss in person.

...

...

October 12th, Wednesday.

Wang Xiaobin was racking his brains to plan the DLC update plan for Tenda's old games.

There were too many old games. With a total of four months, it was obviously unrealistic to update a DLC for all the games. He could only pick and choose.

Moreover, the content of the update must also consider the cost performance.

Some DLCs developed by manufacturers could be completely regarded as independent games, with large capacity, high prices, and long development times.

President Pei had only given about four months in total, so it was impossible to achieve this level.

Although President Pei never hesitated to give money, money was not a panacea, and money could not buy time.

Therefore, the difficulty was still very high, and Wang Xiaobin had rarely been responsible for such work, so he felt a lot of pressure.

"*Lonely Desert Road*, make an online mode? You can drive with other players and become an unlonely desert road?"

"Add a 'You Can You Up' mode to *Game Producer*? Let the narrator choose the route himself, and the players in turn ridicule the narrator?"

"Add another paragraph to the *Sea Fortress* plot? This doesn't seem necessary, so add an epic weapon? President Pei seems to prefer the former."

"As for *Repent and Be Saved*, it seems that many players feel that it is a bit boring after clearing multiple weeks, although there are still new players joining, but the stickiness of old players is basically gone. Why not make a challenge mode starting from scratch to find something for old players to do?"

"Um..."

"The content seems a bit simple, will the players buy it?"

Wang Xiaobin did have some ideas, but he didn't have much confidence in himself.

Some conventional updates, such as adding a few new generals to *Ghost General* and continuing to release some epic weapons for *Sea Fortress*, felt uninspired; but the ideas he came up with were a bit too small, and he was afraid that the DLC would definitely not be priced high, and maybe it would lose money and earn a shout.

"The former is stable but not interesting, the latter is interesting but a bit risky..."

"If it was President Pei, what would he choose?"

"President Pei would definitely choose the latter."

"Since President Pei has entrusted this important task to me, I can't be afraid of taking the blame, I must find a way to make something new!"

Wang Xiaobin continued to bury himself in thinking about the plan.

...

...

October 13th, Thursday.

Zhu Xiaoce came to the hotel where Lu Zhiyao was staying.

It had been three days since he had tricked Lu Zhiyao into coming to Jingzhou and stuffed him with a gaming laptop to "experience the script".

Zhu Xiaoce felt that he should come and see.

It wasn't for any other reason, mainly because the script had to be released in the next two days, and could not be delayed any longer.

Zhu Xiaoce had no clue, so he could only try to see if Lu Zhiyao had any good ideas.

Arriving at the door of Lu Zhiyao's room, Zhu Xiaoce knocked gently.

After two minutes, the door opened.

Seeing Lu Zhiyao's appearance, Zhu Xiaoce couldn't help being stunned.

The once radiant, suave, and handsome movie star had become disheveled, with short blue stubble growing on his chin, drowsy, and with dull eyes.

Zhu Xiaoce was a little confused: "What's wrong? How did playing a game make you so depressed?"

Lu Zhiyao was very helpless: "Director Zhu, your method doesn't work at all!"

"I've been playing games day and night these past few days, trying hard as you said, but I don't feel anything at all."

"I've given up."