Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Chapter 135 Releasing New Editions!

April 30th, day of settlement…

The system screen automatically appeared in Pei Qian’s vision.

<Wealth Conversion System>

<Owner: Pei Qian>

<Profit Conversion Ratio 100:1. Loss Conversion Ratio 1:1>

<Settlement starting…>

<System Funds: 4,910,000 (13,910,000)>

<Personal Wealth: 44,896.2>

<This Week’s Special Task: The company needs to own a physical shop house that is situated near a bustling city district or a university. (Completed]>

<Special Task Completion Reward: Additional Ten Percent above the final converted amount.>

<Settlement in progress…>

<Conversion in progress…>

<System Funds: 4,910,000>

<Personal Wealth: 87,953.06 (139,142.6 x 110%)>

“I did not expect that just based on profits, almost forty thousand had been converted into my money…”

Pei Qian felt as if he couldn’t get a grip on this world.

A week before this settlement, that article regarding Tengda had made its games even more popular. With netizens discussing it avidly online, Tengda Games had attracted a huge group of new fans.

As a result, all the games under Tengda had experienced a huge influx in sales; even Boss Pei’s Daily Life’s viewership had increased rapidly!

The final amount in the System Funds had been more than two million one hundred thousand more than Pei Qian had estimated!

Pei Qian’s Personal Wealth had also reached more than eighty thousand yuan; it was at a record high.

The system screen continued to flash.

<Next Settlement: 60 days later>

<System Funds will be topped up. Target amount: 5,000,000>

<Topping up 87,482…>

<System Funds topping up completed.>

<System Funds: 5,000,000>

<Personal Wealth: 87,953.6>

Pei Qian was still waiting; however, the screen actually stopped here. After a few seconds, it automatically grew dim.

“There isn’t a Special Task this time while the cycle has been shortened…”

“Isn’t that increasing the pressure on me?!”

Pei Qian had been waiting for the next Special Task. However, the Special Task seemed to be issued at random, and it wasn’t ordered this time. The settlement cycle had also been changed from three months to two months now.

The initial System Funds had been increased from one million to five million. As Pei Qian already had profit of four million nine hundred and ten thousand, the actual top-up had only been eighty thousand. This made Pei Qian a little vexed.

If he had successfully managed to incur losses of one million the previous cycle, not only could he have converted one million into his Personal Wealth, the system would also have automatically topped up to five million in System Funds.

Rounding it off, he had actually made a personal loss of one million!

Pei Qian was a little dejected. However, he soon recovered himself. He had already done his best in the previous cycle and had left everything else to fate. By the time he had discovered profits were coming in too quickly, it was already too late.

When it was not even a month left till settlement, Pei Qian could no longer pump in more money for new products. He couldn’t have any unreleased products before each settlement. If not, the settlement would be delayed; and Pei Qian would lose even more money.

From the results this time, to actually be able to convert forty thousand into Personal Wealth was actually still acceptable.

The very least, Pei Qian was now around the level of a white-collar worker that had an average income of thirteen thousand a month.

“It’s only two months this time; to make all this money become losses gives a lot of pressure. I’ll follow my plan and stop developing new games. I’ll get Lu Mingliang and the others to work on updating the existing games. As for the internet cafe, I must open a few more chains and branches.

“En, I still have to think of other ways as well. Time is of the essence; this task won’t be easy.”

It was only five million in the System Funds on the surface-if Pei Qian wanted to successfully make a loss, he had to take into consideration the current profitable projects as well.

Ghost General was earning six hundred thousand, Ocean Stronghold three million and five hundred thousand, and Game Designer was bringing in one million and seven hundred thousand monthly.

These were the numbers post-article.

Although Game Designer was a new game, it was-after all—not as widely accepted as a game like Ocean Stronghold; and players wouldn’t play it for long. Furthermore, many people had chosen Cloud Clearance. Although its reputation was good, its profits were still not comparable to Ocean Stronghold.

Pei Qian only had one loss-making project: Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. However, only around three hundred thousand was lost monthly. Including the rental for the company office space, salaries, company benefits, and other expenses, that was at most one million monthly.

Calculating like this, it seemed as if Pei Qian was using a cup of water to put out a fire!

If Pei Qian did nothing, his monthly profits would be around four and a half million. Of course, this was a rough estimate. The sales for all three games would fluctuate monthly while he couldn’t precisely calculate company expenses that well. All in all, it was a ballpark figure.

In two months, Pei Qian needed to make a loss of two months’ profits plus existing money in System funds; that was fourteen million in total.

“Fourteen million yuan. Opening a new Fish-Catching Internet Cafe would cost three million. I can open another four branches then. When five internet cafes start to make losses together—besides the initial capital injection, I can still make losses of one and a half million. Perfect!

“Hold on.

“I have to make new editions for players this time; no matter how much I charge, I will definitely still make additional profits. It seems opening these new internet cafes might not be sufficient; I have to think of something else.”

Pei Qian thought for three minutes but to no avail.

“Forget it. I’ll start on the Fish-Catching Internet Cafes first. I’ll then slowly think about how to continue making losses.”

The office atmosphere was very good. Some people were playing games; some were yawning while others were snacking and watching shows at the same time. Perhaps they were searching for travel destinations online.

Pei Qian never cared that everyone used office hours to do their own things. While he appeared mum about this on the surface, he actually was very supportive of such acts internally. However, it was a pity that everyone gave it their all, and their morale was very high while working. That gave Pei Qian a headache.

Tomorrow was the start of the Labor Day holidays. Tengda always had a policy of giving more holidays than required by law, never less. Furthermore, as this coincided with the just-completed release of a new game, many people had made plans to head out for this holiday. Some were planning to head home while others were going to play a little.

Pei Qian called everyone to the conference room as he made plans for after the holidays. Soon, everyone had gathered.

If it was any other boss, the first order of business would be to motivate all the employees and brag about Game Designer’s success, to praise everyone for working hard, and then encourage them to continue doing so for new projects to achieve stellar results once more.

However, Pei Qian didn’t even mention any of these. He hadn’t completely recovered from his emotional trauma. Everyone also didn’t feel it was strange. After all, Boss Pei wasn’t a person who rested on his laurels!

Pei Qian thought for a moment and decided to first address the first place elimination system.

“First, I want to briefly mention the next best employee selection process. From now on, the best employee selection would be done twice a year, on February 1st and August 1st. Each best employee would be awarded a one-million Dream Fund while the second-best would be given a month of paid leave.”

After the previous round of selection, Pei Qian had not considered when the next round was going to take place. He had actually intended to do it more often to reap the benefits. However, Pei Qian had fixed it at twice a year mainly because Pei Qian realized that this first place elimination system didn’t seem to be very manageable.

Furthermore, Lu Mingliang had been doing a rather good job as chief planner, and Pei Qian was rather pleased. He didn’t want to let Lu Mingliang go. Now, Pei Qian was extremely careful when it came to similar manpower deployments or movements; he was worried that he would dig out yet another hidden talent!

However, he couldn’t completely abolish this system; and so Pei Qian had settled on it being a twice-a-year affair.

Regarding this, everyone didn’t have any comments. Everyone felt that even if they had to choose one person this time, they couldn’t think of anyone special to nominate. Most of them would just give their votes to Lu Mingliang.

However, strictly speaking, Lu Mingliang wasn’t really worthy of this award. After all, from the developing process to the release of the new game, Boss Pei had personally overseen everything.

Even Lu Mingliang himself felt this way Furthermore, as Boss Pei had also not previously dictated the period for each selection, everyone all accepted his decision. There were still three months till August 1st; many people were rubbing their hands together and raring to give it a shot!

Even if they couldn’t become the best employee and clinch the one million Dream Fund, even getting second place and having a month of paid leave was a very good thing! Only Bao Xu shivered a little and really wanted to ask Boss Pei if he could automatically be withdrawn from consideration.

Seeing that no one had any dissenting views, Pei Qian continued. “I’ll talk about the work plan for the next two months.

“Considering that the players of our existing games have a strong desire for updates and new editions, I have decided to temporarily stop the development of new games. We will spend these two months to update and refresh our current games to fulfill the wishes of our players.

“The rough plan is as such.

“For The Lonely Desert Road, there will be a new Endless Mode, multiplayer function, and a new map. They were to be priced at one yuan as new downloadable content.

“For Ghost General, there is going to be a new set of generals, priced at five yuan.

“For Ocean Stronghold, there is going to be a new epic weapon, priced at 888 yuan. We’ll set a limit of five hundred weapons for sale each month.

“For Game Designer, there is going to be a new language package and setting style, priced at five yuan.”

Everyone instinctively looked at each other, confused. They haven’t heard wrongly, right? So cheap?! Could they recoup their capital?

Just for Ghost General and Game Designer, as their animation had been done personally by Ruan Guangjian, even if he had a very good relationship with the Big Boss; he still had to be paid accordingly!

As for Ocean Stronghold, it was even more ridiculous. The new epic weapon was limited to five hundred pieces monthly?

Ocean Stronghold had around four hundred to five hundred thousand active players. To sell only five hundred pieces a month? Wouldn’t they only be able to earn two hundred thousand monthly?

Everyone’s expressions changed from shock to confusion and then back to admiration again.

Indeed, only Boss Pei could do something like this!

Pei Qian’s expression still looked very ordinary even though he was showered with looks of admiration and respect.

It couldn’t be helped. The five-yuan downloadable content for Game Designer and Ghost General had been the lowest price that the system was willing to accept. Also, he couldn’t use a downloadable content method to make profits from Ocean Stronghold and could only continue selling epic weapons.

The new epic weapon priced at 888… the system had not allowed a change in price. Pei Qian could only take another path and limit the number of sales a month. This way, only five hundred could be sold a month; wouldn’t he be able to suppress the income from it, then?