October 13th, Thursday.

Tengda headquarters.

Assistant Xin led Qiu Hong to the reception room and prepared tea.

"Please have some tea. President Pei will be here shortly."

Qiu Hong nodded quickly, "Okay, okay."

After Assistant Xin left the reception room, Qiu Hong drank his tea, a sense of longing for Tengda Games growing within him.

After lecturing "Boss Ma" some time ago, Qiu Hong began preparing to reconnect with his friends in the industry, wanting to start another company to develop a new project and regroup.

However, he couldn't decide what the new project should be, and naturally, he couldn't convince investors to put money in.

For Qiu Hong, he did have deep experience in pay-to-win online games, but he had essentially exhausted it during his last failed venture.

The cultural industry is a highly subjective one, and the gaming industry even more so.

When you're successful, you're full of ambition and feel like everything you do is right. But when you fail, you fall into deep self-doubt, feeling like you're worthless.

Qiu Hong was currently in this struggle. He wanted to start a new company and develop another successful game, but he wasn't prepared enough, so he felt lost.

Just then, "Boss Ma" called again, inviting him to Jingzhou, saying that there was a cooperation matter with Tengda's official team that needed to be discussed in person.

The details weren't mentioned on the phone.

If it had been another company, Qiu Hong might not have considered it. After all, going from being your own boss to being managed by someone else would always feel a bit like "living under someone else's roof."

But since it was Tengda Group, and with Boss Ma's connection, Qiu Hong decided to come.

Before, when he came to Jingzhou, he went straight to the cafe near Handong University, but this time, Qiu Hong finally entered the interior of Tengda Group.

The spacious workstations, the enviable benefits, the employees' energetic state...

All of this filled Qiu Hong with sincere envy.

Because he ran his own company, he knew the hardships involved and how difficult it was to build a group as large as Tengda.

To be able to provide such a good working environment and relaxed atmosphere, while also ensuring the enthusiasm and fighting spirit of all employees, was even more unbelievable.

In short, after seeing the scene inside Tengda, Qiu Hong felt that he hadn't come in vain.

As for what specific cooperation they were going to discuss?

Qiu Hong really couldn't imagine.

Because Qiu Hong was very clear about his own position. Although he had a little fame in the domestic game circle, it was only limited to the field of pay-to-win online games. He may have made some money, but in all aspects, he was incomparable to Tengda.

Tengda didn't seem to need him at all.

As he was considering this, there were slight footsteps outside the reception room, and he vaguely heard Assistant Xin saying, "President Pei, President Qiu is already waiting in the reception room."

Qiu Hong immediately straightened up subconsciously.

President Pei was here!

Qiu Hong had only heard of this legendary figure but never seen him. He didn't know why, but he felt a little excited.

Hearing a knock on the door outside the reception room, Qiu Hong quickly said, "Come in."

Assistant Xin opened the door to the reception room, and "Boss Ma" walked in.

"President Pei, call me anytime if you have any questions." Assistant Xin said, closing the door as he left.

Qiu Hong had already stood up, ready to shake hands with President Pei, but seeing the current situation, he was stunned for a moment.

His head was filled with question marks.

???

Pei Qian looked at Qiu Hong, who had just stood up, his expression dazed and at a loss, and smiled slightly: "President Qiu, long time no see."

Qiu Hong didn't react for a moment.

Wasn't this Boss Ma?

Then why did this assistant, who seemed to have a high position in the company, call him "President Pei"?

Qiu Hong vaguely realized something, but he found it a little unbelievable, because he couldn't figure out the reasons and logic behind it.

Pei Qian sat down on the sofa. At this point, there was no need for Qiu Hong to guess anymore. He could just say what he had prepared and get to the point as soon as possible.

"President Qiu, first, I want to apologize. My real identity is not Boss Ma of Round Dream Ventures. I am Pei Qian himself."

"As for why I called myself Boss Ma... the main reason was to contact you with a different identity, to communicate, explore, and understand each other, to determine whether there was any possibility of cooperation between us."

The question marks above Qiu Hong's head decreased, and a look of realization appeared on his face.

In other words, President Pei wasn't actually listening to my lecture before, but was conducting an anonymous inspection and interview?

Like a principal sitting in on a teacher's class to understand the teacher's true level?

This explained why President Pei contacted him wearing the "Boss Ma" disguise.

However, Qiu Hong still had questions.

He was just a very ordinary game producer, although he could be considered slightly famous, but there were a lot of people like him in the domestic game circle.

What exactly made President Pei go to so much trouble to test the possibility of cooperation? President Pei even paid tuition at the time!

What kind of cooperation was it exactly?

Pei Qian didn't intend to dwell on this topic for too long. He had to hurry up and move on.

"President Qiu, let me first talk about our cooperation plan, and you can consider it."

"The project I want to do is called the 'Dead-End Plan'."

"This is a support plan for domestic standalone games and independent game developers. It is dedicated to finding those domestic standalone games and independent game development teams that need help and providing them with the necessary development funds."

"I want to invite you to be the person in charge of this 'Dead-End Plan' and become a senior executive of Tengda Group. All salary and benefits will be on par with those of other department heads, but one thing must be emphasized: your bonus income will not be linked to the profits of the 'Dead-End Plan'."

"Your bonus depends on: the ratio of the number of profitable projects to the total number of projects. The lower this ratio, the higher your bonus."

"As for the specific amount, I can't reveal it yet, but I can guarantee that it won't be lower than your bonus income when you were the main planner of a successful project. Of course, I must also be very honest and say that it won't reach the income of a successful startup."

"Of course, if you are not satisfied and want to leave or request a salary adjustment in the future, we can discuss it."

"That's about it. If President Qiu has any questions, feel free to ask."

Pei Qian took a sip of tea and looked at Qiu Hong with a smile.

As for why it was called the "Dead-End Plan" instead of something like the "Angel Plan" or the "Savior Plan," it was obviously because Pei Qian hoped that this plan would quickly come to a dead end. It had to have a good omen from the name.

Qiu Hong was silent.

It wasn't that he had no questions, but that he had too many questions and didn't know where to start!

In fact, many companies in China are doing similar things.

The two types of companies that do it the most are investment companies specializing in the gaming industry or so-called "incubators," and game channels and platforms.

Although ESRO's official platform is the largest and most authoritative platform, it doesn't mean that other game platforms don't exist. For example, Shenhua Mobile's application market is also a type of game channel and platform.

These two types of companies are carrying out similar support plans, obviously because there is profit to be made.

There are many startup companies in the gaming industry that become overnight successes, especially in the past two years, which have been a boom for the mobile internet. The myths of mobile game companies getting rich overnight have been staged repeatedly. If you really invest in a successful mobile game company, the return on investment will be something that all investors will covet.

Although there are many investment companies, investing also has a threshold. Some investment companies don't understand the gaming industry and naturally don't dare to randomly invest in these small game companies.

Therefore, investment companies specializing in the gaming industry have emerged.

Platforms support some newly established game companies, basically for similar purposes: to put it mildly, it's to win more and better games for their own platforms, but in the end, it's still to make money.

Therefore, these companies have one thing in common: they do invest in and support many companies, but the vast majority of them are online game companies and mobile game companies.

The reason is simple: that's where the money is!

Investing in such companies is high-risk, high-return.

Investing in standalone games and independent games is high-risk, no-return.

Investment companies have a natural instinct to seek profit and avoid harm. Investing in online games and not standalone games, investing in mobile games and not independent games, is a very normal phenomenon.

However, President Pei's "Dead-End Plan" was specifically aimed at standalone games and independent games?

Moreover, as the person in charge, the bonus and performance were not linked to the project's income?

Instead, it was inversely proportional to the value of "number of profitable projects / total number of projects"?

Wouldn't that mean that the more projects you invest in and the fewer profitable projects there are, the more bonus you get?

Reverse incentives, huh?

Wasn't this encouraging him to invest in a lot of garbage projects without screening?

This made Qiu Hong feel confused.

As for the income, the sincerity was already at its maximum.

Before starting his own business, Qiu Hong was once the main planner of a project with a monthly revenue of over 100 million, which was the highest-earning stage of his career, but his monthly bonus was only a little over 100,000.

Because the company's bonus rules were that the entire development team could only get 3% of the project's net income, and these so-called "monthly revenue of over 100 million" projects were mostly bragging, and not really a pure income of over 100 million.

After deducting the share with the channels and platforms (the channels take the big share), deducting the marketing expenses (a large part of this data was faked by his own company), and at that time, there were more people in the development team, these bonuses were divided by the entire project, everyone got a share. Although the sharing ratio of the main planner would be higher, it was also limited.

After all kinds of calculations, the money actually received was a drop in the bucket compared to the money the project made. It wasn't even enough to get a sip of the soup.

That's why Qiu Hong was so eager to jump out and start his own business.