Chapter 427 Situation Update

April 23rd, Monday.

At Moyu Internet Cafe, Pei Qian sipped his coffee while reviewing work reports from various departments on his laptop.

The situation with *Mission and Choice* was still very bad.

The movie's opening weekend box office numbers were out, reaching 170 million. While the opening day only brought in 22 million, the box office continued to climb afterward.

Other movies had their highest box office on the first day, then plummeted rapidly. But *Mission and Choice* was the opposite. After a 20 million opening day, it still had impressive staying power!

Many theaters were constantly increasing the number of screenings for *Mission and Choice*, but the amazing thing was that no matter how many screenings were added, the occupancy rate of *Mission and Choice* didn't drop significantly. Many people were wondering where these new viewers were coming from.

What pained Pei Qian even more was that even professional movie-watching apps like Dog's Eye App were finding it difficult to predict the final box office for *Mission and Choice*.

When *Mission and Choice*'s opening day box office of over 20 million came out, Dog's Eye App estimated the total box office at only 350 million, a sure-fire recipe for losing everything.

But by the third day, *Mission and Choice*'s box office suddenly started to rise against the trend, and Dog's Eye App raised its estimated box office to 500 million.

And a week later, *Mission and Choice*'s daily box office even increased instead of decreasing! This completely stumped Dog's Eye App's box office prediction algorithm. Clearly, an estimated box office of 500 million was not enough, and Dog's Eye App directly raised the estimated box office to the 800 million level!

Many people online expressed confusion about this number, believing that Dog's Eye App probably underestimated the box office at the beginning. After being proven wrong, they felt embarrassed and just gave up, giving a very excessive number.

Currently, the peak of domestic movie box office was a very excellent comedy that, thanks to perfect timing and favorable conditions, exploded at the box office, directly raking in 1.1 billion. The previous years' box office champions were generally in the 600 to 800 million range.

Many film critics believed that a box office explosion of 1.1 billion was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Dog's Eye App's estimated box office of 800 million for *Mission and Choice* basically reached the level of this year's domestic film box office champion. Even if it didn't win the championship in the end, it would be a strong contender.

And in recent years, the box office of Hollywood blockbusters was about 600 to 1 billion. Dog's Eye App's estimated box office for *Mission and Choice* could even be compared to those highly anticipated Hollywood blockbusters.

This made many people feel a bit outrageous because, although they also felt that *Mission and Choice* was of excellent quality, the key was that the opening day box office was too low, and the publicity was completely inadequate. Just relying on word-of-mouth to reach an 800 million box office? Wasn't that a bit too fantastical?

Because there seemed to be no precedent for a domestic movie that relied solely on word-of-mouth to become a box office champion!

Moreover, the real investment in the *Mission and Choice* movie also sparked online discussions.

Some people revealed that the investment in *Mission and Choice* was at least in the 200 million range, if not more, and almost all of the money was poured into the movie's production. The actors' salaries and publicity costs were almost negligible.

If the final box office was 600 million, it would mean that the movie was a waste of time, neither making nor losing money. If it reached 800 million, then it would be considered a small profit.

However, this number was not confirmed. Some people thought it was bragging, while others saw the special effects in the movie and felt that the number was probably true, and couldn't help but worry about Fei Huang Studio, fearing that the movie would be critically acclaimed but not commercially successful, and ultimately fail to recoup its costs.

As for the game, the first week's sales were also out, reaching 800,000 copies!

Based on 158 yuan per game, Tenda's net income had already reached more than 80 million.

This number also surprised many professional media people in the country.

Because although the sales of domestic single-player games had improved, they were indeed difficult to compare with the foreign market. *Mission and Choice* was a real-time strategy game, and the player base was relatively limited. Getting this sales figure was already a pleasant surprise.

Many people said that Boss Pei's god-level marketing before the game's release had a good effect. Many domestic game enthusiasts who didn't play real-time strategy games still bought *Mission and Choice* without hesitation to express their support for domestic games, which was very touching.

Moreover, the lifespan of a game was longer than that of a movie. A movie could only be released for a month, and most of the income was generated within that month, while the lifespan of a game could reach one or two years or even longer. Afterwards, it could continue to generate subsequent income through discounts.

What's more, both the movie and game of *Mission and Choice* were big productions, and both had the potential to impact the overseas market. When the movie was released overseas and the game was also sold on overseas game platforms, they could earn another sum of money.

In short, from the current situation, the prospects for *Mission and Choice* were very bright!

Pei Qian silently took a sip of coffee, feeling inexplicably melancholic.

How could things have turned out like this...

He didn't understand.

If he had time, Pei Qian planned to thoroughly review the events that occurred during the long development period of *Mission and Choice*, and carefully look for the mole to see which link went wrong.

But now was obviously not the time to review. He still had to save the situation first, and consider the review after the vital signs had stabilized.

In order to spend money, Pei Qian had made a series of arrangements last week.

The sales team had already found a person in charge. Tian Mo was now reciting the details that Boss Pei had given him every day, and the experience store was also handed over to Liang Qingfan to design.

The preliminary preparations for Chi Xing Studio had also been basically finalized. After the funds were in place, they would wait for Lin Wan's design plan to come out and the team to be recruited before they could start development.

Of course, the most optimistic was still Rabbit Tail Live. Since the "mandatory one hour" rule was launched, the website's popularity had been greatly reduced, and Pei Qian could confidently pour money into it again.

After finishing his coffee, Pei Qian decided to go to Rabbit Tail Live to see how Lao Ma and Chen Yufeng were doing, and by the way, approve a sum of money for them to spend to share some of his pressure.

...

Half an hour later, Pei Qian arrived at Rabbit Tail Live.

As soon as he entered the Rabbit Tail Live office area, Pei Qian clearly felt that the atmosphere was significantly different compared to the last time he came.

It seemed that everyone's morale had been hit hard.

In fact, the popularity of Rabbit Tail Live and the number of viewers would not affect everyone's salary at all, but after all, most employees had a strong sense of belonging to Tenda, and they all regarded Rabbit Tail Live as their own career. In this situation, morale would definitely be affected to some extent.

Pei Qian couldn't help but feel a little guilty.

So he went straight to Chen Yufeng's office and said, "Recently, I've seen that everyone has been working very hard, so this month, I'll give everyone an extra 30% of their salary as a reward."

Chen Yufeng hurriedly said, "Thank you, Boss Pei!"

Ma Yang was not there today, but there was nothing for Ma Yang to do today anyway, so Pei Qian didn't ask any further questions.

Having Chen Yufeng was enough.

Pei Qian sat down on the sofa and noticed that Chen Yufeng's expression, although he had some joy because of the salary increase, was still relatively lonely.

Pei Qian asked, "How is the website doing now? Are there still so many people scolding online?"

Although Chen Yufeng's mood was a little low, he would still do his job conscientiously and responsibly, and immediately replied, "The current situation of the website... is okay."

"In the first two days after the 'mandatory one hour' rule was launched, the website's popularity did drop very sharply. Some live broadcast rooms dropped by two-thirds, and some live broadcast rooms with fewer people directly went to zero."

"Some streamers who were using love to generate electricity couldn't stand it, scolded a few times and ran away, but there were also some who stayed."

"Now, the situation has stabilized a little bit, and the data has recovered slightly."

"Many old viewers have found ways to adapt to the 'mandatory one hour' rule. Some open the webpage and hang it there when they have nothing to do, filling up an hour; some have set up a study plan, studying a series of videos, watching one hour a day; and some use the focus mode on their mobile phones for an hour, concentrating on doing their own things."

"After everyone slowly got used to it, there weren't many people scolding anymore."

"Other live broadcast platforms are very happy, and basically don't regard Rabbit Tail Live as a major competitor anymore. Many live broadcast platforms had plans targeting Rabbit Tail Live before, but those plans should all be abolished now. Some live broadcast platforms that imitated Rabbit Tail Live's functions have also stopped, and are no longer continuing to develop them."