Chapter 145 Struggle

The members of the DGE club had planned to put on this show from the start, but they couldn't make it too obvious.

Their opponents weren't stupid. If they realized that DGE wasn't trying to kill them on purpose, they'd recklessly rush in to deal damage even with low health, which would make it impossible for DGE to complete their task.

If an opponent with low health comes at you, you either kill them, ruining the show, or they kill you.

So, to complete the task, they first had to act well, making their opponents think that DGE was playing seriously and that those with low health had narrowly escaped.

Because their acting was so good, they fooled not only their opponents but also the vast majority of viewers. Until the very last moment before the truth was revealed, the comments section flipped several times. One moment, people were spamming "DGE, the worst club ever," and the next, they were spamming "DGE, reverse invincible." In the end, everyone was slapped in the face, and the show was a complete success!

After the match, Huang Wang and his teammates slapped hands in celebration.

Perfect! A 100,000 yuan prize was in the bag!

Earning this kind of quick money was really satisfying.

Zhang Yuan watched silently from the side, also feeling gratified for his teammates.

Actually, occasionally playing in these kinds of exhibition matches was a good way to relax and adjust their mindset.

Moreover, Huang Wang and the DGE club were rapidly gaining popularity!

Jiang Huan's team was also warming up, silently choosing their own plans for putting on a show.

They definitely couldn't lose to the second team, or they'd have to do extra training!

…

…

Monday, August 15th.

Pei Qian arrived at his office as usual.

Over the weekend, Pei Qian had been paying close attention to ZZ Live's entertainment competition, focusing on the DGE club's performance.

The situation was not optimistic!

After watching the matches, Pei Qian realized that the true strength of these two teams was at this level???

Before, when the DGE club's two teams went out to compete, they came back dejected. Pei Qian had assumed they had lost badly.

Now it seemed that either he had misunderstood, or the two teams had made rapid progress in their strength during this time.

On closer thought, the former seemed more likely.

But Pei Qian was puzzled, why were these two teams so strong?

Didn't I arrange fitness training for you guys?

Judging from the muscles on these guys, their fitness training should have been completed with guaranteed quality and quantity.

Logically, their training time in the game should have been reduced, and their energy should have been divided. Their results should have been at the bottom, right?

But the result was that they were crushing those veteran clubs.

They could even win while putting on a show, which showed how big the gap in strength was!

Therefore, Pei Qian felt more and more that something was wrong with the situation at DGE, and he had to seize the time to think of countermeasures!

If this continued, Huang Wang's popularity would probably skyrocket, and he could just queue up with his teammates...

And they might all become popular.

It didn't matter if these people signed streaming contracts, but considering it from another angle, if the DGE club had five or six popular streamers, wouldn't DGE's reputation take off on the spot?

What would he do if some particularly wealthy sponsors came knocking on their door?

The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more worried he became.

Just as he was thinking, someone knocked on the office door.

He looked up and saw Hu Xianbin.

"President Pei, the development work for *Struggle* is basically coming to an end. Can we start developing a promotional plan?"

"Could you give me a general direction?"

"Or, should we not promote it and just let the players discover it themselves?"

Hu Xianbin was unsure about the game's promotion and had to confirm it with President Pei.

After all, President Pei was undoubtedly a marketing master when it came to promoting games.

"Promotional plan, huh..."

Pei Qian fell into thought.

For some independent game developers, not promoting their game was basically a death sentence.

But for Pei Qian, Tengda Games was no longer in that situation.

With the increasing number of successful games being developed, Tengda Games had a great reputation. As soon as a new game was released, players would definitely pay attention, the media would rush to report it, and everyone would shout, "I'm buying it!"

Now, hoping that "no one will pay attention if we don't promote it" was just an ostrich mentality.

But if he promoted it… wouldn't it become even more popular and earn even more money?

This was very awkward.

However, the current Pei Qian was different from before.

Because he had theoretical knowledge!

Teacher He had once explained an important theory: all aspects of a game must match.

In particular, the promotion must be consistent with the characteristics of the game itself, and there must be no mismatch between the promotion and the actual product.

The reason why Pei Qian's previous game promotions were successful was mainly because he was too lucky and happened to stumble upon it.

Strictly speaking, for single-player games that win by quality, false advertising was an absolute minefield. If you stepped on it, you would either die or be crippled!

At that time, Pei Qian was already considering that if he could use the knowledge he had learned before for *Struggle*, wouldn't he be able to successfully complete the loss?

So, this time Pei Qian decided to give up his illusions and start fighting.

He shouldn't think that not promoting was good anymore. Not promoting was far from enough. He had to do reverse promotion to dissuade players!

But how to do reverse promotion and create a mismatch between the promotion and the product was a difficult problem.

Because the System did not allow him to fake anything.

Pei Qian couldn't deliberately release false information or deceive players during the promotion process; that was not allowed.

But that didn't stump Pei Qian.

He couldn't tell lies, but he could only tell part of the truth!

Although it was the truth, as long as he hid some information, he could still mislead the players!

Pei Qian was very clear that the reason why the "mismatch between promotion and product" was so damaging to the product itself was ultimately due to the mismatch of the player base.

For example, if your game was clearly a casual game, but after promotion, few casual players were interested, and instead, a group of hardcore players ran over, that would be very awkward.

The people who liked the game didn't come to play, and the people who didn't like the game played the beginning and then left, also leaving you with a bad review. Wouldn't that be gg?

So, Pei Qian felt that he should also create this kind of mismatch.

Pei Qian thought silently.

"Now, start a comprehensive analysis according to Teacher He's theory."

"Which group of people should *Struggle*'s target audience be?"

"Well, it should be relatively overlapping with the player base of *Game Designer*, those players who don't need too much operation and focus on exploring and analyzing the game's connotation."

"So, I should do the opposite when promoting it."

"Make this group of people uninterested after seeing the promotional language and not want to play; and let another group of players who like operations and big scenes come in, curse a few times, and then leave."

"As long as this 'mismatch' is completed, then everything will be easy!"

Thinking of this, Pei Qian had a plan in mind and said to Hu Xianbin: "Write down a few key points for the promotion."

"When promoting it, we shouldn't use the name *Struggle*, but instead, we should use the game's English name: *struggLe*."

"Reveal to the players that this game has the following characteristics:"

"Diverse choices and rich strategies;"

"Beautiful graphics, all actions use real person motion capture;"

"Complex and gripping plot;"

"Moreover, it innovatively uses a dual-protagonist mode."

As Pei Qian spoke, Hu Xianbin quickly recorded.

After recording, Hu Xianbin looked up at President Pei and then looked down at the notebook in his hand, his face full of confusion.

Is this our game?

After carefully reading it, it seemed that every point in it was not wrong.

But when these contents were combined, he couldn't associate it with the game *Struggle* at all!

Hu Xianbin imagined that if he saw these promotional words, the first thing that would come to his mind would definitely be a large-scale single-player action game with a touching plot.

Look at these characteristics!

All actions use real person motion capture, which is mostly an action game;

Diverse choices and rich strategies indicate that the combat system is very complex and has high replayability;

The plot is gripping, which is also obviously emphasizing the plot packaging of the action game;

The dual-protagonist mode will make people think of two protagonists with different combat styles switching with each other in the plot of the action game.

Hu Xianbin hesitated a little: "President Pei, is this... statement not accurate enough? Should we specify that this is not an action game?"

Pei Qian smiled slightly: "Don't ask too many questions, just promote it according to this."

I didn't say a single lie!

The English name of *Struggle* is indeed *struggLe*, but the word struggle has multiple meanings such as "striving, resisting, fighting, wrestling, vying, and struggling to escape."

When it comes to "奋斗 (Fen Dou)", most people will associate it with realistic themes.

But when it comes to "struggLe," combined with the introduction of the game's features, most people will associate it with action themes!

As for the following points, I didn't say anything wrong either.

*Struggle* does have diverse choices and rich strategies, but no matter how you choose, there is only one ending, and no matter how hard you try, you can't change your fate.

It does have beautiful graphics and all use motion capture, but I didn't say that the captured motions were fighting motions, did I?

The dual-protagonist mode is even more flawless, and it's a very innovative dual-protagonist mode.

The dual protagonists of other games are under the same plot framework, with different combat styles, but there will be intersections, mainly used to adjust the player's game emotions.

And my dual protagonist is amazing, one poor protagonist and one rich protagonist, the gameplay is the same, they are not in the same plot framework at all, and even not in the same game, because the poor version and the rich version are sold separately.

I didn't say a single lie, no false advertising, it's not my fault if you have to understand this game as an action game!

Watching Hu Xianbin leave with a confused look, Pei Qian felt that this time he should be successful.

It was worth inviting Teacher He to give a lecture!

Although Teacher He often criticized me, there was still a lot of useful information in the course, and wasn't it being used now?

With the promotion problem of *Struggle* solved, Pei Qian's mood changed from cloudy to sunny.