Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Chapter 738: Three Questions

Pei Qian answered, “That’s very simple. There can only be one MOBA game that dominates the world. This is a competition where the winner gets everything.”

“To me, this is not a matter of whether I dare to burn money or not. It’s because I have no other choice. If I don’t persevere, all the money I spent previously would be wasted.”

“What I want to ask is, what is the upper limit for Dayak Corporation to burn money for IOI?”

Eric took a sip of his tea and said after some consideration, “I don’t have a definite answer to this question, and I can’t guarantee its accuracy.”

“The senior executives of our company do not share the same opinion on similar issues. No one knows what the outcome would be before the meeting.”

“What’s more, the company has a department that is in charge of data analysis to provide evidence for higher management decisions. The data in this department is also very important. That is fine because I have a new and very important task for you!”

“If I were to judge, this number would fluctuate according to the situation. If we invest a large amount of resources without seeing any effect and the market share were to increase slowly, it would not be impossible for us to give up.”

“If I had to estimate a number... I would guess 100 million US dollars.”

“Our company only spent about 250 million US dollars on acquiring Finger Games. This has already brought us a certain amount of pressure. We can’t burn money indefinitely, especially if we can’t see a clear future.”

“My second question is the same as you, Boss Pei: What is the upper limit for Tengda Corporation to burn money for GOG?”

Pei Qian smiled. “The upper limit is all the funds that Tengda can use.”

“My third question, 100 million US dollars is obviously not the limit of Dayak’s ability. Then... do you think there is a possibility of Dayak burning more than 100 million US dollars?”

Eric considered for a moment. “I personally think that this possibility exists, but the odds are slim.”

“Everyone knows that our company has always been a company that focuses on short-term interests and immediate gains. This has nothing to do with whether the concept is right or wrong. It’s just our company’s way of thinking.

Lin Wan nodded subconsciously.

The reason why Dayak Corporation was so notorious in the gaming circle was because they displayed the ruthlessness of investment to the extreme.

They bought over many game companies with potential, quickly overdrawing and squeezing out all their potential. That process destroyed many outstanding games companies.

This showed that Dayak Corporation was indeed an investment company that only cared about immediate gains, not long-term interests. There was indeed a very high possibility of Dayak Corporation giving up and stopping their losses if the market share of Finger Games continued to decline and burned money like a bottomless pit without producing any results.

Eric said, “My last question is: Boss Pei, you said that you would use all of your funds to market GOG. However, the problem is that with Tengda’s current size, doing so would definitely put huge pressure on your capital. If there are any uncertain factors, it could cause huge losses and drag down the entire organization.”

“Boss Pei, where did your courage come from?”

Pei Qian remained silent for a moment and sighed. “My luck has always been good.”

That seemed to be a very empty answer, but Eric did not feel dissatisfied. Instead, he fell into deep thought.

A moment later, he smiled and raised his glass. “Boss Pei, I think we have all obtained the information we wanted. Let me toast you.”

Pei Qian raised his glass and smiled. “Mr Eric, I hope we can meet again if fate allows it.”

...

After the meal, at the entrance of the Great World...

Everyone from Tengda watched Eric leave.

Pei Qian could not tell what kind of information Eric would be able to summarize from his own words. He was only sure of one thing: their topic was always on burning money.

As long as Eric could influence the upper echelons of Dayak Corporation to continue burning money happily after he returned, that would be enough. Nothing else mattered.

“Boss Pei, do we need to coordinate with Shang Yang Games?” Lin Wan probed.

Pei Qian shook his head. “There’s no need. Everyone has worked hard today. Go back and rest.”

Little Sun was already waiting in the car. Pei Qian had a few drinks at the dining table and was naturally a little sleepy in the afternoon. Thus, after bidding everyone farewell, he took the car back to rest.

After watching Boss Pei leave, Lin Wan, Zhang Yuan, and Min Jingchao gathered together to discuss what had happened at the dining table.

Zhang Yuan looked confused. “What did Boss Pei and Eric’s three questions mean?”

“None of the three questions they asked seemed to be very important;”

“The answers were quite ambiguous as well, there was no telling which was real and which was fake.”

“Yet, both of them are very satisfied with the answers to the questions. This...”

“It looks like a riddle. I can’t figure it out.”

Zhang Yuan was really confused.

Min Jingchao nodded in agreement. “That’s right. The two of them seemed to have talked about many things, but they didn’t seem to have said anything.”

“Some information might seem important, but based on both parties’ ability to obtain information, this information should be able to be obtained sooner or later.”

“What’s more, everyone at the dinner table was actually in a chain of suspicion. Even if Eric told us the truth, we would not believe it. Instead, we would think in the opposite direction...”

“I don’t understand it at all.”

Lin Wan shook her head as well. “I’m not sure either. However, I’m guessing that the focus of both parties’ questions should also be hiding some information. It’s just that we can’t understand or interpret it.”

“As expected, Eric is not a simple person. Anyone who can reach the upper echelons of a multinational company is not ordinary.”

“At the end of the day, we were only able to beat him because of Boss Pei. Our thinking is still too low.”

“In short, we should trust Boss Pei. I think Dayak Corporation will not let this go.”

...

On the plane, Eric pulled down the window cover and closed his eyes to rest.

During the long flight, he had a lot of time to slowly organize the information he had gathered in his mind and dig out useful information from the three questions.

At the dining table, both Boss Pei and him asked and answered three questions each.

Eric knew very well that they were both sly old foxes. It was impossible for them to take each other’s words seriously.

However, Eric knew very well that both of their aims were to dig out some useful information from the other party’s fake answers.

“Boss Pei asked me three questions: the new person-in-charge of IOI’s domestic server, the upper limit of Dayak’s spending, and the possibility of breaking this upper limit.”

“Obviously, he is still curious about his new opponent, but he is not very concerned. He is more concerned about how much Dayak Corporation will burn.”

“This means that... burning money is the crux of this commercial war.”

“The three questions I asked were actually related to Tengda’s marketing strategy. Boss Pei’s answer might be true and false, but if you analyze it seriously...”

Eric thought hard.

In the past few months, he had done a lot of research. Apart from some details on the execution of the game, he had also done a lot of research on GOG’s operations.

It was nothing more than burning money like crazy!

At first, Eric thought that Tengda was only willing to spend money on marketing. However, he later realized that making less money was actually a form of burning money.

All of GOG’s heroes were free, and their skins were dirt cheap. The first skins designed by gamers were sold at a 90% discount... It was no different from giving them away for free.

A very important reason why IOI had never been able to defeat GOG was the pricing of heroes and skins.

A price war was of low taste but it was very effective.

Eric knew this, but he had no way to change it. It was difficult for him to convince Dayak and Finger Games’ executives to change the price of skins to dirt cheap prices like GOG. The profits involved were too huge.

Therefore, the question that Eric wanted to ask the most was, why did Tengda dare to burn money?

One had to know that Tengda was not publicly listed. There was no such thing as burning investors and shareholders’ money. It was burning the company’s money. More accurately, it was burning Boss Pei’s money.

That was why Eric was confused. Boss Pei was burning his own money, wouldn’t he feel painful?

Boss Pei’s answers to all three questions could be summarized into one point.

MOBA game was a winner-take-all model, that was why they had to keep burning money, otherwise, all their efforts would be wasted;

They would use all of Tengda’s funds to burn money to promote GOG;

As for the risk of rupture in the capital chain, Boss Pei’s answer was “believe in his own luck”.

He was a gambler!

Eric rubbed his temples.

“Based on the current information, Boss Pei’s actual actions are exactly the same as what he said. It’s not too much to call him a gambler.”

“If this information is true, Boss Pei might have two motives for saying all that:

“The first possibility is to scare away Dayak Company and tell them that this war is a bottomless pit. If they don’t dare to follow him to the end, then please give up as soon as possible.”

“It’s like placing all your chips on the poker table, creating huge psychological pressure for the other party, betting that the other party would not dare to follow and take away all the chips on the table.”

“The second possibility is to goad Dayak into burning money, including lowering the price of the skin. That way, both parties would be caught in a dangerous melee, but the entire MOBA group would expand rapidly.”

“Once the cake becomes bigger, the winner will be able to eat it all, and would be able to obtain greater benefits.”

“However, the latter is obviously too risky. It doesn’t seem like a rational course of action.”

“What if Boss Pei intentionally released fake news?”

“That means that Boss Pei is not a gambler but a bluff. That means that he still plays the role of ‘intimidation’. To put it bluntly, he wants to scare Dayak Company away.”

“Indeed, it’s too difficult to guess Boss Pei’s mentality.

“However, I can bypass this problem and start from the real world problem.”

“Boss Pei’s answer to these three questions has actually inadvertently confirmed one of my suspicions. That is...”

“Tengda is burning money ruthlessly, but the flow of funds is not particularly healthy. In other words, Tengda Corporation is dancing on the edge of a knife.”

Eric had long analyzed the situation. He felt that with Tengda’s investment and returns, it was very likely that it would maintain a small amount of profit or even a small loss. In other words, Boss Pei seemed to place too much emphasis on the speed at which money was being transferred, causing the company’s ability to resist risks to be weak.

Tengda was indeed willing to spend money, but there was a limit to it.

Once the rate of spending money exceeded Tengda’s profitability, Tengda’s capital chain would be in danger.

When Eric asked about the capital chain, Boss Pei’s answer was ‘depended on luck’.

Eric already had an answer. “In other words, I don’t need to worry about what Boss Pei’s mentality is. Whether he’s a gambler or not, Tengda Corporation’s capital chain is in a relatively tense state.”

“In other words, Dayak Corporation’s burning of money would have a ‘limit’. That limit would be the profitability of all of Tengda Corporation’s businesses combined and the upper limit of the funds that Tengda Corporation could obtain through various means.”

“It would be useless no matter how much money we burn if we don’t exceed this limit. GOG’s pre-emptive advantage cannot be shaken. However, once it exceeds this limit, Tengda Corporation might collapse!”

Eric could not help but smile.

He had said a number when he answered Boss Pei’s question: 100 million US dollars. He had said that this was the upper limit of the amount Dayak Corporation could afford.

Dayak Corporation would only burn so much money if it did not produce obvious results.

It was hard to tell whether those words were true or false. However, whether or not Boss Pei believed it or not, it would create an anchor point in Boss Pei’s mind and serve as a psychological hint.

What’s more, Eric’s hypothesis was that Dayak Corporation was not very clear about Tengda Corporation’s situation. They would only give in when they burned money to their bottom line.

However, the problem was, what if Eric shared this information with the upper echelons of Dayak Corporation?

Chrétien would adopt a different operational strategy from Eric. He might make some modifications to IOI itself. He might even cooperate with local games companies to operate it.

However, Eric judged that the results of this series of actions by Chrétien would not produce any better results than him.

Eric could take the opportunity to report this information to the upper echelons of Dayak Corporation when Chrétien fails. There was a high chance that he could make a comeback.

At that time, Dayak Corporation would either give up on the money-burning war with Tengda Corporation or listen to Eric’s advice and burn their money until Tengda reached its limits!

There was no need to think about anything anymore if it was the former; however, if it was the latter, Eric would have the chance to turn the tables!