Chapter 136: A Brand-New Version!
Chapter 136: A Brand-New Version!
April 30th—Settlement Day.
In Pei Qian’s field of vision, the system interface automatically appeared.
[Wealth Conversion System]
[Host: Pei Qian]
[Profit Conversion Ratio: 100:1 | Loss Conversion Ratio: 1:1]
[Settlement Processing—]
[System Funds: 4.91 million yuan (↑ 3.91 million)]
[Personal Funds: 44,896.20 Yuan]
[Special Task This Cycle: Own any physical storefront under the company name, located in either a commercial hub or university district. (Completed)]
[Special Task Completion Reward: +10% personal fund conversion bonus at settlement.]
[Settlement Processing—]
[Calculating Wealth Conversion—]
[System Funds: 4.91 million yuan]
[Personal Funds: 87,953.06 Yuan]
“I can’t believe I managed to convert almost 40k yuan just from profit alone…”
Pei Qian felt increasingly disconnected from reality.
Just one week before the settlement, that vague exposé on Tengda Games had exploded online, landing the company on Weibo’s trending topics. Curious netizens began to flock to Tengda’s games, turning into fans.
The result was that every game under Tengda’s name experienced a surge in sales, and President Pei’s Daily Life saw a huge spike in viewership as well!
That last-minute wave meant Pei Qian's actual system funds ended up 2.1 million yuan higher than expected—bringing his personal convertible wealth to over 80k for the first time ever!
The system screen refreshed again.
[Next Settlement Date: 60 days from now]
[System Funds Being Replenished, Target Amount: 5,000,000 yuan]
[Replenishing 87,482 Yuan…]
[System Funds Fully Replenished.]
[System Funds: 5,000,000 yuan]
[Personal Funds: 87,953.06 Yuan]
Pei Qian was still staring at the system interface, waiting for more, but the light screen disappeared after a few seconds—that was it.
“No special task this time... and the cycle’s only two months long…”
“Isn’t that even more pressure?!”
Pei Qian had been expecting another side task from the system, but apparently, those were randomly assigned. This time—nothing.
What’s more, the settlement cycle had been shortened from three months to two, while the starting funds had gone from 1 million to 5 million.
Because he had earned back 4.91 million yuan last cycle, the system only had to top up an additional 87k yuan—which Pei Qian found painfully wasteful.
“If I’d managed to actually lose the full 1 million last time,” he muttered, “not only would I have converted it all into personal funds, but the system would’ve still bumped me up to 5 million anyway.”
“Which means... I basically missed out on a million!”
He sighed heavily—but soon collected himself.
Last cycle, he’d honestly done everything he could. Once he noticed the games were trending, it was too late to course-correct. He couldn’t invest in new products so close to the deadline, because unfinished or unreleased projects delay settlement, which would only make things worse.
From that perspective, being able to convert nearly 40,000 wasn’t bad at all.
At the very least, Pei Qian now had the equivalent income of a white-collar worker making over 13,000 a month…
“Only two months this time… and I’ve got to burn through all this cash…”
“The pressure is insane.”
“According to the original plan, all in-house game development will be suspended for now. Let Lu Mingliang and the others focus on updating the older games. As for the internet café business—we must open more chain stores.”
“Hmm, I’ll also need to come up with additional methods.”
“Time is tight, and the mission is tough.”
Although on the surface Pei Qian only had 5 million in system funds to burn, if he really wanted to lose money, he had to factor in the monthly profits from his existing revenue-generating projects as well.
Ghost General brought in a net profit of 600,000/month
Ocean Fortress generated 3.5 million/month
Game Producer averaged around 1.7 million/month
These were the numbers after the infamous article sent Tengda trending.
Although Game Producer was a new title, it lacked the widespread appeal and replayability of Ocean Fortress. Many players “cloud-cleared” it (watched others play instead of buying), so while it had great word of mouth, its profitability couldn’t compare to Ocean Fortress.
Currently, Pei Qian only had one project that was actually losing money: Moyu Internet Café—and that only lost about 300,000 per month.
Even when combining company rent, staff salaries, and benefits, monthly expenses only amounted to about 1 million total.
When put into perspective—that’s a drop in the bucket.
If Pei Qian did absolutely nothing, his projected monthly net income would be around 4.5 million.
Of course, these were rough estimates. Game sales could fluctuate, and actual expenses might vary. But overall—that was the ballpark.
That meant over the next two months, Pei Qian had to find a way to lose:
4.5M × 2 months + 5M = 14 million
“14 million... Each Moyu Internet Café costs about 3 million to launch. That’s enough to open four more branches.”
“Once five cafés are running simultaneously and bleeding money, they’ll burn through a combined 1.5 million monthly… Perfect!”
Then Pei Qian froze.
“Wait… no.”
“This cycle, I have to deliver new game updates for the fans. No matter how I price them, there will be added revenue.”
“Just opening three more cafés probably still won’t be enough. I need more ways to lose money.”
He sat still for three minutes.
Nothing came to mind.
“Forget it. Let’s just get the cafés opened first, and we’ll figure out the rest of the money-burning strategies later.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, in the office…
The mood was cheerful.
Some people were gaming, others were yawning. A few were watching dramas or looking up travel plans while munching on snacks.
Pei Qian had always turned a blind eye to gaming during work hours—in fact, he openly supported it.
It was only when employees entered “work mode” that they suddenly turned into overachievers—which frustrated Pei Qian deeply.
Tomorrow was Labor Day, and Tengda had always been generous with vacation, often granting more time off than even government regulations.
And with the current development cycle reaching a temporary conclusion, many staff had travel plans—some going home, others planning vacations.
Before the break, Pei Qian called everyone into the meeting room to outline post-holiday work plans.
Soon, the employees gathered.
Now, any other boss in Pei Qian’s shoes would probably give a big motivational speech: Praise everyone’s hard work, celebrate Game Producer’s success, and fire them up to keep the momentum going.
But not Pei Qian.
His emotional wounds still hadn’t healed from the last cycle.
Thankfully, no one found this unusual. After all, President Pei was never one to bask in past glory!
After some thought, Pei Qian decided to begin with something light: the Employee Awards system.
“First off, let’s talk briefly about the Best Employee selection process.”
“From now on, we’ll hold the selection twice a year, on February 1st and August 1st. The first-place winner will receive a 1 million dream fund. Second place will receive one month of fully paid vacation.”
After the last "Best Employee" selection, Pei Qian hadn’t really thought about when the next one would be. Originally, his plan was “the more, the merrier.”
But this time, he decided to fix the schedule to twice a year, mainly because he realized that this “Top-Ranking Elimination System” wasn’t as effective as he had hoped.
Also, Lu Mingliang had been doing quite well in his role as the Lead Executive Designer, and Pei Qian was actually quite satisfied with him—he didn’t want to let him go.
Now, Pei Qian was extremely cautious when it came to personnel changes, terrified that if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up discovering yet another hidden talent!
Still, canceling the Best Employee selection altogether wasn’t an option. So Pei Qian settled on holding it twice per year.
No one had any objections to this.
To be honest, even if they did hold the selection right now, no one could really think of a particularly outstanding candidate—chances are they’d just vote for Lu Mingliang.
But strictly speaking, even giving the award to Lu Mingliang would feel a bit undeserved, since the entire game—from development to marketing—was handled directly by President Pei.
Even Lu Mingliang himself felt like he had just been a bystander.
Since there hadn’t been a fixed schedule for this evaluation before, everyone accepted the new rule without issue.
With three months to go until August 1st, many people were already gearing up and raring to go!
Even if they didn’t win the 1 million dream fund, getting second place with a month of paid vacation would be more than worth it!
Only Bao Xu trembled a little. He really wanted to ask if he could voluntarily withdraw from the selection.
Seeing that no one raised any objections, Pei Qian continued, “Next, let’s go over the two-month work plan.”
“Given the players’ strong demand for updates to our older games, I’ve decided to pause new game development. For the next two months, we’ll focus on updating the old titles to satisfy our player base.”
“The rough plan is as follows.”
“The Lonely Desert Road will get an Endless Mode, Multiplayer Mode, and a New Map—all sold as a DLC for just 1 yuan.”
“Ghost General will get a new set of generals, priced at 5 yuan.”
“Ocean Fortress will receive a new epic weapon, still priced at 888 yuan, but only 500 units will be sold per month.”
“Game Producer will get a new voice pack and scene theme—priced at 5 yuan.”
The crowd looked at each other in disbelief.
Did they hear that right?
That cheap?!
Can we even recover the cost with that kind of pricing?
Forget everything else—for Ghost General and Game Producer, Yuan Guangjian had personally illustrated the character art. Even if President Pei and Yuan Guangjian were close friends, that kind of work still had a price!
And Ocean Fortress? That was just absurd! Only 500 copies of a new epic weapon sold per month?
Currently, the game has an active user base of 400,000 to 500,000 players. Out of that huge crowd, only 500 weapons a month? That’s just 20,000 monthly revenue for a new item?
Everyone’s expressions shifted from shock, to confusion, and finally to awe.
As expected, only President Pei could have the courage and vision to pull this off!
Under their collective admiring gazes, Pei Qian remained calm and composed.
He had no choice—5 yuan was the lowest DLC price the system would allow for Ghost General and Game Producer
As for Ocean Fortress, the system wouldn’t allow him to monetize via DLC. The only permitted method was selling epic weapons.
The price of 888 yuan for an epic weapon was non-negotiable. The system wouldn’t allow changes.
So Pei Qian had to think outside the box and go for limited-time sales.
No matter how powerful the weapon, if only 500 are sold each month, revenue is capped!
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