Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Chapter 757: IOI’s Version Update

The progress of these companies were all different. Some were progressing quickly, some were progressing slowly, some were working hard on their products, and some were racking their brains every day to think about how to market them.

The company naturally did things differently with different founders.

Based on the current situation, Meng Chang was indeed quite capable. To be able to open his first store in such a short period of time, do well in all aspects, and become quite popular on the internet, that was enough to explain the problem.

Among all the projects that Dream Realization Ventures had invested in, the Cold-Faced Lady had the best performance. What’s more, it burnt money the fastest.

Soon, all the projects were reported. Jing Haibing pointed out some small problems with the finances of the two companies. They were recorded and ready to be corrected.

The conference ended and the video signal was cut off.

He Desheng said, “Boss Pei, should we continue to follow the previous plan strictly? If we continue investing after we burn the money, then... We might have to invest next month according to Cold-Faced Lady’s current spending rate.”

Pei Qian nodded. “Ok, keep the original plan unchanged. invest if we have to! Just keep me posted the next time you invest in the cold-faced lady.”

He Desheng nodded. “Alright, Boss Pei.”

...

...

November 25th, Friday...

After lunch, Pei Qian specially went to his office to look at the results of the Tengda Spirit compatibility test.

The Tengda Spirit compatibility test had a total of four chances. The new employee would enter the probation period after entering the company for a month. There would be one test every Friday.

The candidate would be officially hired after passing any of the four tests. If he failed all of them, he would have to leave.

However, because these new employees took different times to complete their resignation procedures, they had to enter Tengda at different times.

About one-fourth of the people who failed the Tengda Spirit compatibility test this time were those who failed the previous test. The rest were those who took the test for the first time.

At first, Pei Qian did not have much hope. After all, it had only been a week since the last test. What changes could there be?

Even if what he had said at the gathering of the person-in-charge had subtly influenced the atmosphere of the company, it should not have been so immediate.

Pei Qian opened the platform to take a look.

“Hm?”

“The passing rate seems to have dropped, right?”

“It has indeed dropped!”

Pei Qian could not help but smile. This was a pleasant surprise!

The back end platform of the Tengda Spirit compatibility test would show the passing rate of each test. There would also be the passing rate on the first, second and third try.

In other words, the ratio of people who passed the test on the second try would also be calculated among the new batch of employees.

He could clearly see the trend of the decline.

“Could there really be such a good thing?”

“No, we can’t get carried away.”

“The passing rate for this week has indeed decreased but the people taking the exam are different after all. The passing rate will naturally fluctuate.”

“We have to observe this for the long run and not jump to conclusions.”

Pei Qian read the data again silently, preparing to observe for a while longer. He would wait for all the new employees to complete the Tengda spirit test and see the final passing rate before making a decision.

After closing the backend platform of the Tengda Spirit compatibility test, Pei Qian casually browsed the latest news online.

All of a sudden, he saw a keyword at the bottom of the hot searches: “IOI’s New Version”.

“Eh? Are you saying that news of IOI’s new version has been leaked?” Pei Qian immediately opened it.

Shang Yang Games had already found out about some changes to IOI’s local server strategy some time ago. Shang Yang Games had more sources of information in the industry than ordinary netizens after all.

However, since Shang Yang Games was able to obtain this information, it meant that the changes were already in the production process. It was basically set in stone. Therefore, it was not surprising that this news would be leaked and exposed on the internet.

Shang Yang Games was indeed more well-informed, but it was only a week or two ahead at most.

Pei Qian searched for information about IOI’s new version online and found that the news had been released because IOI had updated the changes on the test suit.

The moment the testing server was updated and changed, it immediately caused a huge controversy among the gamers. The various media outlets also reposted it.

Even though IOI was already considered to be on the backseat in the country, its market share in the world was still considerable. There was no reason for the game media to miss such a huge piece of news.

The changes to the IOI testing suit this time were mainly related to the gameplay, including the adjustment mechanism, changes in the hero’s bounty, rich map resources, and so on. It was slightly different from the changes that Lin Wan had mentioned before, but they were similar.

However, the old gamers did not buy it after the update. Finger Games’ official social media account was instantly flooded with the old gamers’ objections.

Waves came one after another before Finger Games could explain.

Some games media had obtained some internal information from some unknown source, revealing Finger Games’ strategic adjustments to IOI’s local server.

Changing the local server to the low-priced zone, the price of heroes and skins would be lowered to about one-third of international server;

The local server, IOI, would be working with the local Long Yu Corporation. The Long Yu Corporation would be in charge of the localization of IOI’s local server;

In addition, it was said that Finger Games had finally decided to start preparing for the first world finals. Furthermore, the high-level executives of IOI’s local server, Chrétien, and Long Yu Corporation were contacting local clubs that still had IOI branches.

When Pei Qian noticed this, the news had already spread like wildfire in the IOI players’ circle.

“They actually go exposed so quickly, so poor at secrecy.”

“That’s not right. It could also be voluntarily released to test players’ reactions.”

“They could have released some news first without any concrete evidence. If the players’ reactions were not adverse, they can stand up and admit it. If the players’ reactions are adverse, they could change a relatively conservative plan based on public opinion.”

Pei Qian had thought that the news would only be released in another week. He had not expected it to spread so quickly.

Long Yu Corporation was one of the top gaming companies in the country in terms of size. The public relations department was not to be trifled with. Once this news was released, they could definitely suppress it if they wanted to.

However, the news did not stop there. Instead, it spread rapidly.

Pei Qian would not believe that no one was behind this.

The main point was that Tengda was IOI’s only competitor in the country. Pei Qian knew very well that it was not Tengda who did it. That meant Finger Games had to do it themselves.

On further thought, this was not a particularly difficult operation.

The reason why Finger Games had decided to make such changes was mainly to get more new players to join them. However, that would definitely change the gaming habits of old players.

Once this was done, they would definitely be scolded. The only question was how badly would they be scolded.

If they could generate popularity while being scolded and cause more new players to fall into the pit, it would be worth it.

Thus, Finger Games decided to release some news that had not been confirmed yet. They would allow the game media to repost it and see how public opinion would react.

If the reaction of public opinion was not too adverse, they could continue to push it; if the reaction was particularly intense, the part that everyone strongly resisted could be temporarily put aside, and only push ahead with a part of it.

To put it bluntly, they were trying their best to leave a way out for themselves through this method. Otherwise, if they were to update the game without any care, and then change it back in the midst of a wave of criticism, they would lose face.

Of course, Pei Qian welcomed these changes with open arms.

A highly resistant and struggling IOI was a good IOI. Otherwise, if GOG continued to expand its market share, wouldn’t it be harder to incur losses in the future?

However, the gamers’ reaction was different.

Of course, the public opinion online was not one-sided. There were also many players who supported such changes. Both sides were arguing intensely.

“Don’t change the gameplay. Is the designer out of his mind? I know you’re envious of GOG, but if you change it to something like this, I can just play GOG directly, right?”

“Objection to all changes other than rich map resources! The game would definitely be different after the changes!”

“You people are so hard to please. You were the ones who said that the game was not exciting enough and that there were not enough ways to play it. Now, the game has changed and you are also the ones who are against it. I think this change is quite good. You don’t have to be so tired after playing it. If you really want to criticize, you have to wait for the effect of the testing uniform to be out before you criticize, right?”

“Sigh, the IOI in the local server has already gone down the drain. I, a loyal old gamer, no longer have any hopes of it becoming popular. I didn’t expect it to become a hot search just because I saw it. Changing it to a low-priced area would indeed allow new gamers to enter the pit. What would happen to us old gamers who had been charged large sums of money?”

“F*ck, the skins that we bought yesterday are going to be depreciated? It would be best if they were cut in half at the waist, and at the worst, only one-third of its value would be left? I’m not asking you not to lower the price, but why are you lowering it so ruthlessly? Are you really not treating old players like humans?”

“You’re so hard to please. You make it sound like you old gamers won’t benefit from the price reduction. You’ll be cheaper buying skins in the future.”

“It’s said that the foreign websites have exploded. Many people are saying that Finger Games is unfair and that they are sucking up to local players.”

“They probably feel imbalanced.”

“That’s not all. GOG is cheap both domestically and overseas. If not for GOG, Finger Games would not have been criticized by so many people. However, there is a problem with this comparison...”

“Finger Games has finally figured it out. Hurry up and start the global finals! It’s not like Dayak Corporation doesn’t have money. Don’t continue to delay this competition. GOG’s first international invitational tournament was completed more than two months ago. GPL would be starting soon! Finger Games is really too slow!”

“Are there still clubs playing IOI in the country? I’m quite suspicious...”

“Yes, yes. I heard that the IOI branches of a few established clubs are still around. I heard that Long Yu Corporation will fork out a sum of money to support these people.”

“I think these actions are a good thing. It’s obvious that IOI cannot defeat GOG. Not making any changes, would mean a slow death. They might as well take a gamble.”

“If they have the ability, unify the local server and the world server. Give all the heroes for free. The skins to be priced lower than GOG’s. Burn money to make leagues, promote, and even collect skins for games. Then, you can reward old gamers with exclusive skins or voucher compensation. No one will scold you then! Dayak Corporation is so rich. They should be more than happy to spend money on advertising. Now, you want to take money from the players’ pockets and ask them to support you. What the hell?”

“That’s right. If you want to expand your market share, you have to sell your own blood. Why are you sucking blood from old players?”

Players with different opinions were arguing online to no rest.