Chapter 164: New Version, New Weapon
Chapter 164: New Version, New Weapon
Pei Qian didn’t give the three of them any time to hesitate—he jumped straight into assigning tasks.
“Alright then, Chef Lin, you’ll be in charge of piloting this idea at our current internet café.”
“As for the menu, delivery range, how the ordering website or app should be built, how to do the initial marketing—”
“Those are on you two—Ma Yang, Zhang Yuan. Come up with a proposal for me soon. Ideally, I want a rough plan this week and for us to go live next week.”
Ma Yang patted his chest. “Don’t worry, Brother Qian—leave it to me!”
This kind of delivery service wasn’t actually a new concept. After all, Moyu Internet Café was already handling work meals for all Tengda employees, and they had to be delivered anyway.
Now it was just a matter of refining some details and hiring a few more delivery staff to cover the surrounding neighborhood.
Of course, Moyu Delivery would be centered around the café, gradually expanding its reach outward.
Initially, it would only serve a 2-kilometer radius around the café. As more branches of Moyu Internet Café opened in the future, city-wide coverage would come naturally.
Strictly speaking, this kind of “all-in-one” hybrid model wasn’t very cost-effective—or logical.
But that’s exactly what Pei Qian wanted: something inefficient and impractical. After all, he was still relying on Moyu Internet Café to help him lose money!
If a physical store only focused on one thing—say, just being an internet café, or just a restaurant, bar, or delivery service—then even with Pei Qian’s reckless spending, it might eventually become profitable.
After all, the system placed strict limits on him: he couldn’t cut corners or offer low-quality goods or services. No matter how much he spent, the quality would stay within a reasonable range. Whether prices were high or low, there would always be a matching target audience.
By turning Moyu Internet Café into a chaotic mash-up of functions, he ensured the different parts would drag each other down—exactly what he needed to keep the business from making a profit.
As things stood, Pei Qian was very satisfied with the café’s current condition.
Of all its departments, he was especially pleased with the catering side—so he naturally wanted to scale that up.
Hiring a few more chefs wasn’t expensive. But what about hiring more delivery drivers, more dishwashing and sanitization workers, and more developers for the website and app?
Once there were a few more branches of Moyu Internet Café, the losses could be multiplied several times over. Where else could he find such a perfect money sink?
Handing this task over to Old Ma was a sign of how much Pei Qian trusted him.
And it gave Old Ma something to do too—so he wouldn’t keep binge-eating over Chen Lei’s departure. It’d be a problem if he gained too much weight.
With the next stage of tasks all arranged, Pei Qian could finally relax.
That little spark of potential at Moyu Internet Café had been spotted and promptly stamped out by him before it could spread into a wildfire. Perfect!
. . . . . . . . . . . .
June 10th.
Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd.
Pei Qian turned his attention to the development progress of several games’ upcoming versions.
There was still a little over a week left until the original deadline, and they’d need a few extra days for testing. So by now, most of the core development work was already wrapping up.
Only the art assets were still lagging slightly—particularly because all the concept art for Ghost General had been handed off to Ruan Guangjian, and that kind of craftsmanship took time. It couldn’t be rushed.
As long as all the art assets are in place before the June 18th update, everything will be fine.
After all, art resources aren't like programming functions—they don’t contain bugs and won’t affect the player’s core gameplay experience.
Pei Qian skimmed through the new features in each of the upcoming game updates and glanced over the new in-game items slated for sale.
He already knew that these new versions were, more or less, going to make money—and within predictable limits. So, he wasn’t too invested emotionally.
The updates were fairly content-rich, but most of the changes were in the art department.
The Lonely Desert Road Added 10 new maps and an endless mode.
In Pei Qian’s eyes, this one had the lowest probability of making money. Although the DLC was very reasonably priced at just 1 yuan, he doubted many players would be willing to spend money just to race through a different scenery.
Ghost General added 50 new generals as part of a DLC pack priced at 5 yuan.
Pei Qian viewed this as moderately likely to earn revenue. However, the development costs were high—250,000 yuan in total—so they’d need to sell at least 100,000 units just to break even.
His estimate: break-even is probable, but turning a significant profit? Unlikely.
Game Producer is also selling DLC for 5 yuan, likely to hover around the break-even mark—neither a major loss nor gain.
As for Ocean Fortress… Its update brought new storylines, maps, characters, and weapons, all free—except for a single monetized item: a limited-edition epic weapon.
That weapon?
Barrett · Destruction
Priced at 888 yuan, limited to 500 units per month.
Even with platform cuts and taxes, Pei Qian would at most earn around 200,000 yuan from it monthly.
That’s nothing.
The main revenue from Ocean Fortress came from the game’s rapidly growing user base and the sustained sales of the Fire Qilin. Tens of thousands of new players joined each month, and a small portion of them bought Fire Qilin—making it a major revenue stream.
In this context, the epic weapon’s earnings were just a drop in the bucket.
From a single-month perspective, that 200,000 yuan wouldn’t even cover the new version’s development cost. However, the system didn’t flag it as a violation—because this was clearly a long-term investment.
Once the new content launched, it would keep generating steady revenue for months, while the development costs were already sunk. The version update would also help maintain player interest, attract returning players, and serve as promotional material.
From a big-picture perspective, this wasn’t deliberate money-losing behavior.
So yes, the new epic weapon in Ocean Fortress would definitely be sold out by eager players, but no matter how desperate they were to get one, it wouldn’t earn Tengda a single extra cent—which meant Pei Qian had nothing to worry about.
After the Fire Qilin, this time’s new epic weapon was:
Barrett · Destruction
When Pei Qian saw this flashy sniper rifle, he couldn’t help but smile to himself.
He could almost feel the deep resentment radiating from Lu Mingliang, the designer.
Previously, Lu Mingliang had already reported that the news of only 500 units per month had stirred intense protests among the player base. He had asked if they could raise the limit to 5,000 units—but Pei Qian had firmly rejected the proposal.
It was clear that Lu Mingliang had poured a lot of effort into this gun, going all out to make money for Pei Qian.
As a sniper rifle, the Barrett · Destruction surpassed the Fire Qilin in both design and practicality—but so what if it was better?
Pei Qian didn’t care at all. “Five hundred units means five hundred units. If we sell even one more, I lose!”
It was a limited edition. Surely it couldn’t keep making him money now, right?
After checking all the new version updates, Pei Qian felt quite satisfied. At least with Tenda, everything was still under control.
As for Shangyang Games, their old game had somehow made a miraculous comeback in reputation. But since they’d cut most of the monetization, it was still hard to turn a profit. Pei Qian figured that before this profit settlement period ended, nothing unexpected would happen over there.
Moving forward, as long as he kept a close eye on the revenue data and stayed on high alert, there shouldn't be any issues.
Then there was Huang Sibo, who was working on a documentary. Even if that somehow made money, Pei Qian had five consistently money-losing Internet cafés to offset any profits. That should be more than enough to cancel things out.
Add in the daily operating expenses, staff benefits, and a final emergency spending spree...
Pei Qian felt he could probably manage a loss of one to two million this time without a problem!
Of course, he couldn’t let his guard down.
Every time Pei Qian thought he was definitely going to lose money, his employees would always give him some “unexpected surprises.” His poor heart couldn’t take much more of those shocks.
This time, he would tread carefully—until the final moment of profit settlement, he absolutely couldn’t relax!
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