454 Start Scattering Coins
"Sold out?
"We had over ten thousand cell phones. We've sold them all?
"In a single day?"
At that moment, Pei Qian was finding it difficult to accept reality. He had thought that the stocks would last two or three days at least and that he would be able to reserve one for himself by calling Chang You directly.
However, he was still too late!
Chang You quickly explained himself. "I'm sorry Boss Pei, I did not think about this either. It's my fault!
"Other cell phone manufacturers would manufacture hundreds of thousands of pieces. Even newer cell phone manufacturers would prepare thirty to fifty thousand pieces. We only manufactured 14 thousand pieces, and yet they managed to last us an entire day. That's not bad!"
Pei Qian was speechless. "That's not bad?! That's not what you said two days ago! You kept saying that all of these stocks would just take up space in our warehouses!"
Chang You quickly apologized, "I'm sorry, Boss Pei. I was short-sighted. It looks like you were right to tell me to stock up as quickly as possible. Ten thousand cell phones were too little!"
Pei Qian, "…"
F*ck you! It's not the time to show off!
According to Chang You, GOG had been released at 8 AM this morning. The official games platform, Shenhua's application store, and various other channels had given the game a good recommendation spot. Thus, the game became extremely popular since it had been released!
The reviewing team had already completed the main bulk of their review. However, when they saw that GOG's mobile game had been released, they had decided to test it out.
Then, they attached the footage to the back of what they had already prepared. After a lot of rushing, they finally managed to upload their video onto Aili Island at noon.
As the video became increasingly popular and as GOG and Bloody Battle Song's mobile versions kept recommending Otto E1, the cell phone's sales volume naturally increased. At last, it peaked an hour ago, and all the stocks that Chang You had worked so hard to manufacture were finally sold out!
All in all, the situation was completely different now.
Although Pei Qian had already expected the sales volume to peak after the release of GOG's mobile game, he had not expected it to happen so soon.
Hearing no response from Boss Pei, Chang You quickly said, "Rest assured, Boss Pei! I already told the manufacturer to keep manufacturing cell phones. Once the new stocks arrive, I'll send one over to you!"
Pei Qian, "…Alright."
Pei Qian hung up reluctantly and then leaned back in his seat, falling into deep thought. Still, he regained his composure quickly.
"How can I be defeated by such a small problem?! I have to hang in there, in case things have not become completely hopeless!"
At that moment, Pei Qian felt like he had been renewed with encouragement.
"According to what I understand about the System's character—each time it closes a door while I wasn't looking, it sneakily opens a window where I haven't been paying attention. The more I earn, the more avenues the System would provide for me to spend money.
"Thus, I have to find a new avenue to get rid of all of this money!
"A threat can be transformed into an opportunity. It's just like when ROF Computer-Installation became popular; I could use 1024 Digital Day to spend as much money as I could.
"Although this would create more problems for the next cycle, I can always start more loss-incurring businesses at the start of the next cycle. That'll give me more ways to get rid of money…
"That's right! I'll do that!"
The success of GOG and the cell phone threatened to give Pei Qian a lot more funds. If Pei Qian sat back and did nothing about it, he was bound to end up with profits during the settlement.
However, Pei Qian refused to give up. He believed that there was still something he could do!
"The real challenge has begun. If I want to lose money, I have to reduce inflow and increase outflow.
"Reducing inflow means minimizing the profits generated by GOG and the cell phone in the short-term. At the very least, this should last until after settlement.
"I can create a 'delayed payment' function in GOG. Gamers can pay one-tenth of the price for all the skins in the game, which would last them a month.
"That way, I can get rid of ninety percent of GOG's revenue… wait, that won't do. People might start buying the skins with a vengeance. Perhaps only eighty percent of the revenue would be done away with after all.
"Players can decide not to pay the remaining price for the skins if they don't like it. It'll be like they had spent one-tenth of the price to rent the skins for a month. If they like it, they can pay the remaining price at the end of that month.
"We might end up making more sales in the end, but at least the revenue would only be earned after this settlement.
"For the cell phones… most of the profit comes from the other departments. Once Otto Technologies takes care of cash flow, it can transfer those profits to the other departments, which can then take charge of spending them all…
"There's strength in numbers after all.
"At the end of the day, I'll give strict orders to all businesses to spend all the profits before the end of the month—not to leave a single cent untouched. Of course, they can only burn the money and not develop any new products.
"Then, there's increasing outflow.
"There are still slightly over two weeks to settlement. In other words, I have another week before I have to complete all my projects. Time is tight. It'll be too late to ask Chang You to invest a huge sum into research and development now.
"Still, spending the money on rewards would still work!
"First of all, GOG could spend more money on expanding the game's cloud server and bandwidth. That would give gamers a better online experience and minimize the risks of lagging. It's reasonable spending, isn't it?
"On top of that, I can think of more ways to spend money on the cell phone. We could rent a cloud server for users to make use of free of charge. That could add storage space for photos or videos that they can upload onto Otto's cloud.
"For cell phones that are damaged due to no human fault, not only would we provide a free exchange, but we could also provide monetary compensation…
"Lastly, we can set up a reward system in GOG. The first prize would be a hundred thousand yuan, the second to tenth prize would be fifty thousand yuan, 11th to 50th would be thirty thousand yuan, and 51st to 200th would be ten thousand yuan.
"That would add up to 3.25 million yuan each time… that's not enough.
"I'll give something to those who proudly place 201st to 500th as well. If I give them a thousand yuan each, it'll only add up to three hundred thousand yuan… no, I'll give them five thousand yuan each. That'll add up to 1.5 million yuan.
"Altogether, that would be 4.75 million yuan at one go.
"Yes… that's almost as much as I can donate to charity.
"This could potentially aggravate the problem we have with performers, but it doesn't matter. Whether we distribute prizes or not, we would face the same problem. We can deal with these performers using some other method.
"Oh, that's right! Players on the two devices are matched separately. That means we have to distribute two sets of prizes to double the happiness! The total sum has to be multiplied by two!
"However, there's another problem. I have to distribute this sum of money before March 31st, or I would not make it in time for settlement.
"How about this? Each year could count as a competition season. It's now the Year 2011; that's Season One. To spend the money before the end of the month, I could split each competition season into four stages.
"The Spring Competition would last from January 1st to March 31st. The Summer Competition would last from April 1st to June 30th. The Autumn Competition would last from July 1st to September 30th. The Winter Competition would last from October 1st to December 31st.
"At least, that would be so for normal players. I'll have to make time for the world championships for professional players… pui, pui, pui! Why would this game be a part of the world championships?!
"The dates do not exactly coincide with the seasons, but I have no other choice if I want to make it in time for settlement. I'll see how things go. The players should get used to it in time.
"The last three days of each stage would be used to calculate points, collate the data, and distribute the prizes. All prizes must be paid out before the last day.
"That way, I would be able to spend close to forty million yuan each year. I should be able to spend almost all the revenue that GOG would generate…
"I'll just be making GOG more popular and intensifying the competition at the top. That'll give GOG a clear advantage over the other games.
"It's reasonable, right?"
Pei Qian tested his plan out and made sure that the System did not give him any warnings. Obviously, it was allowed.
He decided to do just that!
Pei Qian glanced at the calendar. Settlement was set for March 31st. He had to spend the money before that. In other words, at midnight on March 29th, the rankings on GOG would be locked in.
It would be easier to deal with the mobile game. There were still two weeks to March 29th; players would still have time to fight it out with one another.
However, GOG's client would only be released next Monday. That meant players would only have one week to fight for the prizes.
The player that could make it to the first place in one week would get a hundred thousand yuan. Those who could make it to the 500th place would get five thousand yuan, at the very least.
That was five thousand yuan for a week's worth of work. Essentially, they would be paid seven hundred yuan per day. How exciting!
Based on the original plan, they should only get to earn that sum after working hard for three months. However, the circumstances were special; time was too tight.
It was too bad. Boss Pei was too anxious, and so the masses could benefit.
Still, the people who would win the prizes in the end would surely be gaming talents.
After settling all of those matters, Pei Qian finally relaxed.
Indeed, the brain was like a sponge when it came to thinking of ways to spend money; one had to squeeze as hard as they could to come up with something.
Many problems in this world could be solved by scattering coins or scattering more coins.
Until now, Pei Qian was not sure if he would be able to get rid of all the money. However, at least… he would be able to get rid of a good part of it.
He could mindlessly invest the remaining sum into Thriller Hostel. Provided that Thriller Hostel would be completed before the end of the next cycle, Pei Qian could always invest millions or tens of millions of yuan into it.
Once he made sure that there were no other problems, Pei Qian tasked Assistant Xin with informing the other departments.
Since the games department still had many things to tend to, Pei Qian organized the plan and sent it to Hu Xianbin alone.
…
Hu Xianbin was no longer keeping an eye on GOG's mobile game. Instead, he had moved on to finish up work on GOG's client. If possible, he wanted to release it one or two days earlier.
Nevertheless, Hu Xianbin continued to worry about things outside of work.
The mobile version of GOG is a huge success, and yet Boss Pei did not praise me!
It was no big deal, but Hu Xianbin continued to feel upset. He was still worrying about this when he received a document via the chat software from Tengda's headquarters.
What's more, it was from Boss Pei himself!
After recovering from the initial shock, Hu Xianbin quickly downloaded it.
"This… this is…"
The document contained a detailed follow-up publicity plan for GOG. It included expansion of the server, delayed payment for skins, competition stages, prizes, and the like.
Once he finished reading the document, Hu Xianbin fell into deep thought.
So that was why! It was no wonder that Boss Pei did not praise me; there were still many holes in the project!
This follow-up publicity plan plugged those holes perfectly!
They would spend money on increasing the bandwidth of the server to prevent the game from lagging after becoming so popular. They would introduce delayed payment functions to promote the skins and cultivate vain customers' habit of spending money.
They would introduce competition seasons and prizes to create an excellent competition ground within GOG, so that it would be more exciting for high-end players, more popular among the public, and more competitive for all.
Hu Xianbin immediately felt guilty. He had wronged Boss Pei!
Boss Pei had not praised him because he had not done well enough. There was still a lot of room for improvement!
Moreover, Boss Pei had just solved all of those problems on behalf of Hu Xianbin, hadn't he?
Ai, I'm really not fulfilling my duties! I have to work harder; I can't afford to let Boss Pei down!
