573 Good News—the Largest Haunted House in Jingzhou has Opened!

July 8th, Friday…

As usual, Pei Qian had breakfast at Fish-Catching Internet Cafe and then drank coffee as he perfected his mind map.

"Hey, Boss Pei, isn't today the opening of the Thriller Hostel? Why aren't you watching over it?" Xiao Peng couldn't help but ask curiously when he saw how calm Boss Pei was.

Pei Qian sipped his coffee and smiled, saying, "I'm not going."

What's so interesting about an opening?

One doesn't even have to think to know that there would be many people!

With the backing of Tengda's reputation in Jingzhou, the advertising done by the shared phone booths, 'Top Student, Come Quick', and the other investors, and the traffic directed by Tengda Games and Quanmin Reviews… it would be perfect—and too good to be true—to Pei Qian if the Thriller Hostel was deserted on this opening day.

Therefore, Pei Qian didn't see a point in hoping for that. He just had to lie low in the next few days after the opening. More importantly, he had to observe the developments after this first wave of customers visited Thriller Hostel.

Pei Qian had not given up on the Thriller Hostel yet… mainly because this project had its last line of defense, which was also the first line of defense: its sales model.

Of course, Thriller Hostel had had three or four lines of defense, such as its remote location, inconvenient transportation, the lack of surrounding facilities, insufficient publicity, and so on. However, those lines of defense had collapsed even before Thriller Hostel opened. It was very sad indeed.

Still, Pei Qian could rely on the last line of defense.

This was Pei Qian's pricing strategy: the first project—where many people would go—would be extremely cheap; the second project would be scarier and moderately-priced, but if one wanted to complete it, they would have to memorize every project's procedures and operations; the third project would be more expensive, but only those who passed the second project would qualify to enter.

That way, most people would be attracted by the first project but stopped at the second project. Visitors who entered the third project and ended up paying for it would be very few, and most of them would not visit again.

A lot of money had gone into the construction and maintenance of Thriller Hostel. The first project had limited space, and even if it was fully packed throughout the day, it would not make much money. As long as visitors did not enter the second and third projects on a large scale and they did not spend crazily in the Golden Maze, then Thriller Hostel would not be profitable.

In any case, the first wave of visitors would be the most dangerous. There would be haunted house enthusiasts from Handong Province, old customers of Tengda, and even enthusiasts of Tengda's games from all over the country.

However, they certainly could not visit haunted houses every day. Once the novelty and popularity passed, the Thriller Hostel would be safe.

That was why Pei Qian intended to stay away from the limelight over those two days. Going to Thriller Hostel now would definitely result in nothing good.

Yet, looking at Boss Pei's nonchalant expression as he silently drank coffee and typed on his computer, Xiao Peng could not help but feel like the former was planning for possibilities.

How could Boss Pei resist going to Thriller Hostel on its opening day even though the key project had required such a huge investment and had taken such a long time to build?

What kind of perseverance did that show?!

Moreover, that was not something that could be done by perseverance alone. Boss Pei had to have absolute confidence in the Thriller Hostel project to maintain such a calm demeanor.

Xiao Peng could not help but sigh. Boss Pei was extraordinary!

Inspired by him, Xiao Peng found a quiet corner and began to seriously consider the upcoming work that he had to do for Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. That included the locations and preparations for the new branches.

As Pei Qian continued working on his mind map, his cell phone rang.

Ding.

He frowned and thought to himself: could there already be bad news from Thriller Hostel? It couldn't be.

When he picked up the phone and saw who it was, Pei Qian rejoiced inside. However, he soon became startled and almost couldn't stop himself from blurting out a 'holy sh*t'.

He had rejoiced because he had just received the income from Ruan's skins! Ruan, the hero, had only been released at the beginning of the previous month. Until now, exactly one month had passed.

Of course, this would not be the only time he would receive the income.

It seemed like exactly a month had passed, only out of coincidence. It just so happened that the team had to review the sum of money before distributing it. Thus, payment had been delayed from the beginning of the month to this Friday, which was the 8th.

Still, that was already considered quite efficient. There was nothing to be unhappy about.

What caused Pei Qian to nearly mutter 'holy sh*t' was that he had not expected to receive so little money.

The message clearly stated that the total amount he had received was 41,366.40 yuan. It was a proper account. At first, Pei Qian did not register it clearly. After counting the digits, he finally confirmed that he had received a five-figure sum—just 40,000 yuan.

"Did someone steal from me?"

The thought sprang up in Pei Qian's head instinctively. It was not that he did not trust his own finance department, but that amount was much less than he had expected, wasn't it?

He quickly accessed the platform and checked out the data. After checking it, Pei Qian realized that everything seemed correct.

At the moment, GOG had more than 1.7 million players online simultaneously. The local MOBA game market accounted for more than sixty percent of that. Those numbers were not that far off from that of LOL's national server in the first half of 2012, as Pei Qian remembered.

In other words, there were a lot of players.

LOL subsequently became so popular, mainly because of its development throughout a couple of years. It pushed the boundaries of MOBA games and caused many players of other types of games to enter the pit.

GOG had only been released less than a year ago. Of course, it could not achieve that kind of popularity yet. The fact that there were more than a million players simultaneously online in the local server was already a miracle, and there was a lot of room for the game to develop in the future.

Of course, that was just one million people online at the same time. The actual number of players was much higher than that. Some people only played the game once in two or three days, and they would buy skins as well.

More than four hundred thousand players had purchased Ruan's skin. That was Ruan's first skin, which was an epic skin sold for 18 yuan per piece.

That skin had only been sold two weeks after Ruan was released because GOG's project team was investing all of their efforts into developing new heroes. Producing new heroes was of a much higher priority than producing new skins. Thus, releasing a new skin two weeks after the hero's release was already considered a feat.

Pei Qian had been the one to set the price of the skin. Brave skins would be distributed for free, epic skins would be sold at 18 yuan, and legendary skins would be sold at 45 yuan.

400,000 x 18 x 5% amounted to 360 thousand yuan. However, the problem was that there was another rule for collection of ideas for heroes on GOG's Creative Community: Once the new heroes designed by gamers were launched, the first skin would be sold at a ninety percent discount, the second at fifty, and the third at twenty. All gamers would be able to enjoy that promotion for up to a month.

Active users in GOG's community would have more benefits.

In other words, gamers could buy that skin for about 1.8 yuan.

It was no wonder that a proportionately larger number of people had bought it. Many players in the game would not play Ruan. In fact, before each ranked game, it would be the first to be banned. Many people were only buying it as a collectible because it was so cheap.

The main source of income for GOG was from the skins of heroes that had not been designed by players. Those skins would not be sold at the discounts of GOG's Creative Community, and profits would not be shared with players.

Pei Qian had mixed feelings inside.

Logically speaking, forty thousand yuan was a lot for his current income level. Yet, why did he feel a faint sadness in his heart…?

Was this what it felt like to shoot himself in the foot…?

To minimize the game's income, Pei Qian had set extremely low prices for all the skins. Min Jingchao had obviously implemented his suggestion, thinking that unprecedented discounts were being given just to encourage players to actively participate in design work for GOG.

As a result, Pei Qian found that his income for the first month was only 40,000 yuan. He had to admit that he had caused all of this.

Pei Qian sipped his coffee and tried to calm himself down.

Calm down and stay optimistic. Forty thousand yuan is quite a lot. What's more, it would only increase.

Think about it carefully—I won't lose out in any way.

GOG is burning money to fight for a greater market share, and that would help me incur losses and take advantage of the System. In the future, once GOG becomes popular, I would earn hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan from each type of Ruan's skin.

It'll be good to take this money as pocket money in the short term. Anyway, I'll receive a certain sum each month.

Indeed, after taking another perspective, Pei Qian felt much better.

"The first group of visitors should have entered Thriller Hostel by now, right?"

Pei Qian glanced at his watch. "I wonder what the situation is like over there."

…

At that moment…

At the entrance of Thriller Hostel…

Qiao Liang got off Thriller Hostel's bus and scanned the surrounding crowd. He had a strange feeling that he was visiting an amusement park.

Er, that was not right. Thriller Hostel was an amusement park to begin with. It was just that it only contained a haunted house at the moment.

"Jingzhou! I, Teacher Qiao, am back!"

He was setting foot on Jingzhou's soil once again. For some reason, he felt a sense of familiarity and warmth. It was like saying hello to an old friend whom he had not seen in a long time.

Qiao Liang retrieved his cell phone and clicked on his fan group. One by one, messages quickly appeared.

"Brothers, gather at the entrance!"

"I'm on the next bus, and I should be arriving soon. Wait for me."

"Where's Teacher Qiao? Come and lead the group! I am under the tree in the parking spaces!"

Qiao Liang quickly found his own fans. They had successfully met.

"It looks like there are fewer people than I imagined. I remember Disney and Universal Studios being very crowded. The lines were so long that I thought I would queue to death," said one of the fans.

Qiao Liang laughed. "What are you talking about? How could it be possible to reach the standard of Disney and Universal Studios? Just one of Disney's amusement parks cost billions of US dollars to build. How much had gone into this one? Take this as a slightly bigger haunted house, and that would be good enough.

"Still, I believe that Boss Pei would surprise us as he always does!"

For some reason, Qiao Liang felt a strong trust in Boss Pei.

News of the Thriller Hostel's opening had long been circulating in Qiao Liang's fan group. As an old friend of Boss Pei's, Qiao Liang had no reason not to come and see it for himself even though he was terrified of haunted houses.

If he was simply a customer of Tengda, of course, it would not matter whether he came or not. However, he was also Boss Pei's friend. Now that Boss Pei had opened a haunted house, how could he not visit it?

Qiao Liang treasured his friendship with Boss Pei a lot.

As for what he would do if the haunted house was too scary… he would decide what to do when he came to it. At most, he could grit his teeth and go.

Very quickly, Qiao Liang's fans gathered.

Those people came from all over the country. Usually, they talked and bragged to one another on the Internet but never had the opportunity to meet. This time, they jumped at the opportunity.

However, Qiao Liang soon discovered an upsetting truth: he did not seem to have many female fans.

A group of impressive men walked into Thriller Hostel together.

"Frankly, this is not small at all, and the supporting facilities are not bad. There are restaurants, hotels, shops, and parking. It must have cost two or three hundred million altogether, right?"

"I heard that Boss Pei was not the only one who paid for all of these. Many other investors in Jingzhou pooled their money together and played their part. I'm afraid that this expenditure might have been too huge for Tengda to bear on its own."

"Well… Boss Pei has to think about diversifying his risks after all."

"Huh? Aren't they checking our tickets at the entrance? We're already in."

"It seems like the tickets for each project would be sold and checked separately. There are joint tickets, but I didn't buy them because they cost two hundred yuan. They're not that much cheaper…"

"Let's go in and see which project looks fun, and then we'll decide how to buy tickets."