Chapter 140: New Store Locations!
Chapter 140: New Store Locations!
Pei Qian was generally satisfied with the update plans.
After all, Lu Mingliang had a key advantage over Huang Sibo: he listened and didn’t try to “creatively interpret” instructions.
Whatever Pei Qian told him to do, he’d just obediently go and do it—no flair, no overthinking. Not aiming for excellence, just aiming not to mess up.
But that also brought a downside: lack of ambition.
Take this update plan, for example—it just wasn’t burning nearly enough money.
Now that the pricing had already been decided, the only strategy was to spend as much as possible on development!
Pei Qian paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.
“For Lonely Desert Road, three new map themes is far too few. Make it ten.”
“Ghost General only gets ten new generals? That’s not even close. Make it fifty.”
“As for Game Producer, even if it’s just one new scene theme, it needs to be on a completely new level compared to the existing ones.”
“Ruan Guangjian might not have time to do the Ghost General illustrations since he’s busy. So, get another big-name artist at the same price level, and double the work hours. Make sure the new theme is crafted with meticulous detail—go beyond what the last version achieved!”
“And for Ocean Fortress… hmm…”
“In addition to the new epic weapon, add two more hours of story mode, one new map, three new characters, and ten new guns.”
“That’s it. Final decision. Start development ASAP—we need to get this all released before June 18th.”
Lu Mingliang was stunned.
The reason his update plans were so modest was because he was worried the DLC wouldn’t sell enough to cover the development cost!
From his point of view, there was a natural cap on how much should be invested.
Take Lonely Desert Road, for instance—each scene template costs 20,000 yuan. Originally, with three new scenes, that would’ve been 60,000 yuan total. But with the DLC priced at just 1 yuan, it would need to sell 120,000 units just to break even!
Now, President Pei was saying to add ten scenes—that would cost 200,000 yuan, meaning they’d need to sell 400,000 DLCs to break even!
Wasn’t that completely absurd?
Ghost General’s original general art was done by Ruan Guangjian—each general had four pieces of art, priced at 3,000 yuan. Now that his reputation had grown, and because President Pei insisted on paying full market rate with no “friend discounts,” the new price was at least 5,000 yuan per set.
Fifty new generals? That’s 250,000 yuan.
Selling the DLC for 5 yuan means they’d need to sell at least 50,000 copies just to make the art investment back—and that’s not even counting the dev time and other costs.
And Ocean Fortress? All those new story elements, maps, characters, and guns—basically given away for free. The only monetized content was the new epic weapon, and that was limited in quantity!
"President Pei, this... we might not be able to recoup the cost..."
Lu Mingliang glanced at the numbers he’d quickly calculated in his little notebook, feeling more and more uneasy.
Pei Qian smiled calmly.
"No, we will."
"Remember, treat people with sincerity. If you show sincerity to the players, they'll naturally respond with sincerity in return."
"Besides, so what if we don’t recover the cost? Players have already given us so much money. It's only fair we take a bit of a loss to give back to them."
Lu Mingliang blinked in confusion.
President Pei's words sounded so righteous… and somehow heartwarming.
But still… something felt off.
"Alright, time is tight and the task is heavy. Hurry up and assign everything. We must finish before June 18th."
Pei Qian had chosen June 18th because it was the last workday of the second-to-last week before system settlement.
June 19–20 was the weekend. June 21–23, Pei Qian planned to keep it as a buffer in case anything unexpected happened.
Everything—development and DLC updates—had to be fully completed by the 24th, otherwise it could impact the final accounting.
Pei Qian strode confidently out of the meeting room.
Lu Mingliang hurriedly began assigning tasks in a panic.
The workload was significantly larger than the previous version of the plan, but most of the burden was on the design team. As long as they worked efficiently, it should still be doable before the deadline.
The only issue… was how much money it would all burn.
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May 6th, Thursday.
Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan came to Pei Qian’s office to present the shortlist of new store locations.
Ma Yang connected his laptop to the projector in the office. The screen lit up with the candidate locations and detailed info for each.
This time, Zhang Yuan had done most of the work, scouting out several prime spots.
Ma Yang had contributed a few more casual entries just to meet the quota.
Pei Qian had asked them to find ten candidate locations from which four would be chosen. Now they had all ten.
This time, Zhang Yuan was determined to prove himself.
Why was it that every other project President Pei launched was a huge success… but only "Moyu Internet Café" kept losing money?
So embarrassing!
And on top of that, President Pei had placed such trust in them—how could they not repay that with effort?
Now that they had the chance to expand with new branches, it was time to turn things around.
In Zhang Yuan's eyes, the main reason the first store had consistently lost money was location.
There were no major commercial areas nearby, no upscale office buildings, no high-end residential districts.
There just weren't enough high-spending customers in the area.
Who were they expecting to pay for the premium experience?
It’s not like the wealthy would drive across town just to have a cocktail in some hybrid café-bar-net café.
Well, okay, some high-end bars were fancy enough to attract that kind of attention. But Moyu Internet Café wasn’t a real bar—it was a mashup of internet café, cocktail bar, coffee shop, diner, and bookstore.
There were no standout advantages at these locations—it was impossible to attract people to come from far away just to spend money. That’s not how you make a profitable business.
That’s why, after some reflection, Zhang Yuan decided this time the key was location—they had to open in a popular commercial area!
“President Pei, I have three locations I strongly recommend this time.”
“First, this one—right by the south gate of Handong University, very close to several male dormitories, and there’s a high-end residential community across the street.”
“There are already quite a few internet cafés here, but they’re often completely full. With our better environment and higher-end computer setups, we can definitely attract the more affluent and environment-conscious students—the second-generation rich kids.”
“The location used to be a coffee shop, so its layout matches our needs perfectly. It’s also a decent size. This is my top recommendation!”
Pei Qian didn’t say anything. He knew this area very well. After all, he studied at Handong University, and the apartment Assistant Xin rented for him was right across the street.
Zhang Yuan wasn’t wrong—the net cafés here were always packed.
But… He definitely wasn’t going to choose this spot.
If it ended up making a profit, whose fault would that be?
Seeing that Pei Qian had no particular reaction, Zhang Yuan nervously moved on to the next option.
“This next one is inside the biggest mall in Jingzhou City, on the ground floor. The downside is that the rent is extremely expensive. But I did some research—there aren’t many places in the mall where people can sit and rest.”
“A lot of guys shopping with their wives or girlfriends have nowhere to sit and take a break. It’s tragic.”
“If we open a net café here, these successful men can come in, play a few games, drink some coffee while their wives shop—perfect. Their spending power is guaranteed.”
“With this kind of foot traffic, the high rent is worth it!”
Pei Qian still didn’t react.
Zhang Yuan was starting to panic but kept presenting the remaining options one by one.
By the time he got to the last few, the locations had gotten progressively worse—run-down neighborhoods, obscure back alleys, commercial failures waiting to happen.
But there was no helping it. President Pei had restricted the new cafés to Jingzhou City only, and the conditions were strict. Finding even this many commercial spaces up for lease was already difficult.
When he finished, Zhang Yuan nervously looked at Pei Qian.
President Pei hadn’t said a word throughout the entire presentation.
What did that mean?
Was he not satisfied with any of them?
Pei Qian nodded approvingly.
“Not bad. Good work.”
Zhang Yuan let out a long sigh of relief.
Thank god President Pei wasn’t dissatisfied!
Pei Qian looked at the projection screen with approval.
“I think the last four locations you introduced—those are all great.”
The last four?!
Zhang Yuan turned to look at the screen, then looked at President Pei, and for a moment his brain couldn't process what he’d just heard.
Those were… the filler ones!
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