Chapter 217 515 Game Festival

The next morning, Pei Qian finished breakfast and went straight to the company.

It was Friday, and tomorrow would be a day off, so the money-burning arrangements had to be made as soon as possible.

After watching the press conference held by Finger Company and Longyu Group yesterday, Pei Qian had already come up with a counterattack plan in just half an hour.

Anyway, when it came to spending money, Pei Qian was more proactive than anyone else. His original procrastination immediately disappeared, replaced by extremely high efficiency!

Because this plan involved many departments, Pei Qian directly called Assistant Xin over.

"This is a rough plan for the '515 Game Festival'. Take a look, refine it a bit, and then arrange for the relevant departments to handle it."

Pei Qian handed a document directly to Assistant Xin.

Assistant Xin reached out to take it and quickly browsed through it.

Her usually calm expression showed a slight fluctuation.

Assistant Xin asked, "President Pei, is this a measure taken in response to the price war launched by Longyu Group?"

Pei Qian nodded, "Yes, you can understand it that way."

Assistant Xin hesitated slightly and then said, "President Pei, I think it's necessary to remind you that if we follow this plan, our cash flow will be at a certain risk."

"My idea is that this series of activities can be done, but it's best to combine them with some revenue-generating activities, which would be more stable."

"Of course, the specific implementation is up to you."

Assistant Xin usually didn't express her opinions in most cases, but this plan made her feel a little uneasy, so she couldn't help but offer a very restrained reminder.

The plan given by President Pei could be seen as a variation of the previous "1024 Digital Festival," but with a different focus.

The previous 1024 Digital Festival could be summarized in three words: "grand sale." It subsidized customers in various industries, burning money to gain popularity and enhance brand awareness.

However, the 1024 Digital Festival mainly focused on physical industries, such as: discounted dishes and free delivery for Mofish Takeaway; reduced delivery fees and cancelled commission fees for other courier companies when using Upwind Logistics; free on-site service and installation fees for ROF assembly, with random upgrades available...

The 1024 Digital Festival in subsequent years was basically carried out according to this plan, with some new content added, such as subsidized phone purchases during the 1024 Digital Festival after the Otto E1 phone was launched.

Because the official promise was that the E1 phone wouldn't be discounted, it was still purchased at the original price, but some gifts were given with the purchase.

For example, after the launch of the managed gym and Sloth Apartment businesses, customers could also enjoy certain discounts when spending in these industries during the 1024 Digital Festival.

But even though the 1024 Digital Festival had undergone some changes, its main focus was still on brick-and-mortar stores and digital products.

This time, however, President Pei's "515 Game Festival" shifted the focus of promotional activities to games and game-related industries.

The specific rules were as follows.

The 515 Game Festival would last for a week, from May 15th to May 22nd.

During this period, anyone who played online games such as *Sea Fortress* and GOG with friends could receive a gift pack every day, randomly obtaining in-game items, including epic weapons and rare skins.

During this period, anyone who purchased single-player games such as *Turn Back the Shore*, *Struggle*, and *Mission and Choice* had a certain chance of receiving a free order.

Accumulating online time in any Tenda game for one hour each day would earn a random red envelope cashback, with a minimum of 0.1 yuan and a maximum of 888 yuan, and it wasn't in-game currency, but direct cash!

Watching GPL matches on Rabbit Tail Live would reward viewers with website gifts for tipping. All of these gifts were paid gifts, and the streamers would receive real money after being tipped.

Attending GPL matches in person also had a chance to win prizes, such as free tickets on the spot, or rare skins or limited-edition figurines, etc.

Another crucial point was the requirement to stock up on a large quantity of G1 phones and smart fitness drying racks.

In addition, there were some miscellaneous details, but these were the main points.

For Assistant Xin, she could see that these rules were clearly intended to counter the price war launched by Finger Company and Longyu Group.

Finger Company and Longyu Group had come on strong at yesterday's press conference, and it was normal for President Pei to respond quickly.

However, there were two very obvious problems with President Pei's series of measures.

The first problem was that almost all of the activities were without any threshold, and these activities were not discounts, but freebies.

There was a big difference between discounts and freebies!

Taking games as an example, whether it was the game itself or the skins and items in the game, if they were discounted, even by 90%, the game company would still make money.

After all, once a game was developed, there was no cost to selling more copies. It was simply copying and pasting the same code countless times.

Therefore, most game companies often have promotional activities, and even with significant discounts, they still make money.

It was even possible that the larger discounts and the greater number of attracted players could result in more profit than selling at the original price.

But President Pei's actions weren't discounts at all, but freebies!

There was no discounting or promotional activity at all, but rather giving away items upon login, or even giving cash directly!

And while giving away free items may not seem to have any cost, if a player who originally intended to buy a certain item happened to receive that item for free, it meant that they wouldn't spend that money anymore, which still meant the game company was drawing on future revenue.

In short, it was all about burning money to buy popularity. This behavior was basically impossible to recover from, and the popularity gained might not translate into revenue in the short term. It might even make many people feel too good about getting freebies, stifling their desire to spend.

The second problem was why President Pei specifically emphasized that G1 phones and smart fitness drying racks should be stocked in large quantities. What did this have to do with the "515 Game Festival" event?

And these two problems ultimately boiled down to one: the pressure on money was great!

Assistant Xin was well aware of the company's current financial situation. Although Tenda Group had always been well-funded, recently *Mission and Choice* had invested a large amount of money and had yet to recoup it, then Chihsing Studio had put in a large sum of money, plus the miscellaneous expenses of the artificial intelligence laboratory and other projects, the company's available funds were not as abundant as before.

The "515 Game Festival" was subsidizing with real money, which wouldn't stop at ten million, but would probably be measured in hundreds of millions. If you add the stocking of phones and smart fitness drying racks, the amount of money required would be even more terrifying.

Although Tenda's various industries were still making money steadily, this behavior was like dancing on the edge of a knife. It was easy for a problem to occur if a sum of money wasn't turned over smoothly.

What's more, if Finger Company and Longyu Group held another press conference and burned even more money, would Tenda follow suit or not?

Although this risk could be resolved, the bottom line was: it wasn't necessary.

Since it was all about burning money, why take risks when you could burn money steadily?

So Assistant Xin couldn't help but mention it, hoping that it could be combined with operational activities, both recovering and injecting funds, which would be safer.

Pei Qian smiled slightly, "Combine with operational activities? Of course not!"

"What is a 'festival'? A festival means universal celebration and happiness. If we engage in a lot of marketing activities, are we celebrating the festival for the customers, or are we indirectly taking money from their pockets?"

"We can have promotional activities at other times, but during the '515 Game Festival' and the '1024 Digital Festival,' what we need to do is completely subsidize and give back to customers, paying out of our own pockets to ensure that customers get 100% real benefits!"

"If we secretly engage in operational activities, subsidizing while making money, that would violate the original intention of this festival. This so-called 'festival' would not be highly recognized by customers, and would eventually be reduced to a 'big promotion' like other ordinary merchants, and no one would remember it."

"Wouldn't that be penny-wise and pound-foolish?"

"As for the funding problem, there's absolutely no need to worry."

"Tenda's various industries are still making money steadily, and even if there are some funding problems, there are ways to solve them. For example...selling a building or something like that would do the trick, right?"

Pei Qian's calculations had been made long ago.

Of course, he knew that this set of combined punches would put a lot of pressure on Tenda's finances, but the problem was that if Tenda's finances weren't under pressure, then he would be under a lot of pressure when it came to settlement!

When other people calculated these problems, they would subconsciously add a little extra headroom.

For example, if the company had 100 million yuan in its account, they would only dare to spend 60 million yuan at most, and would have to leave at least 40 million yuan for emergencies.

What if something happened that required urgent use of funds?

But Pei Qian considered problems in the opposite way.

If the company had 100 million yuan in its account, then it had to spend 130 million yuan.

Because the facts had proven that Tenda Group's ability to make money inexplicably was too strong. As soon as this 100 million yuan was spent, Tenda Group might have already earned another 50 million yuan!

Therefore, Pei Qian had given himself plenty of headroom this time.

As for the risk, it was nothing more than insufficient funds, and some activities getting stuck halfway and unable to continue.

But this little risk was nothing to Pei Qian, because he had bought several buildings to build the Sloth Apartments before, and these buildings had all appreciated in value.

According to the system's rules, fixed assets were like a large reservoir. When Pei Qian had too much system money on hand, he could quickly spend it by buying buildings; and when Pei Qian didn't have enough system money on hand, he could sell these buildings to turn them back into money.

The only problem was that if too many buildings were bought, it might lead to the proportion of fixed assets in the system's funds being too high, causing the personal property converted from losing money to shrink.

Selling one or two buildings could also reduce this risk, so why not?

What's more, Pei Qian had a backup plan, which was the mysterious reward of this cycle: consuming personal property could increase the profit margin of a certain industry at a ratio of 1:100, with a maximum consumption of 100,000 yuan.

In other words, if he couldn't spend all the money, Pei Qian would grit his teeth and slam down 100,000 yuan, and then instantly increase the profit margin of a certain industry by 10 million yuan, giving it all away for free.

This 10 million yuan was a pure profit giveaway for no reason, and even if he gave cash directly to customers, the system would not stop him.

And currently, Pei Qian hadn't used this rule yet.

Because that was 100,000 yuan. If he could spend all the system funds without using this rule, why would he pay out of his own pocket?

The current money-burning policies were all within the scope allowed by the system. Because Tenda Group was facing external competition, it was normal to be forced to burn some system funds as a counterattack. The system, after dynamically evaluating, believed that this was a reasonable behavior.

In other words, without the money-burning competition from Finger Company and Longyu Group, the system would not have approved an activity like the "515 Game Festival."

That's why Pei Qian was so grateful to Eric, because Eric's behavior was like sending charcoal in the snow!

Pei Qian was even looking forward to seeing Eric burn more money, because the more money they burned, the more money the system would allow Pei Qian to burn. Coupled with this 10 million yuan in pure, unconditional profit-sharing, President Pei was going to lose a lot of money!