Wen Lingwei stared at her best cards, not wanting to depart with them.
“I just thought of something. Should we spend money on this game when we are officially testing the game?”
Jia Peng grinned, “Huh? Spend money on the game? I can’t even draw good cards using the resources that were given out for free. Spending my own money would be the same as pouring it down the drain.”
Wen Lingwei rolled her eyes, “The unlucky star showing off his skills again.”
Chang Xiuya said, “Spend money? Uh, don’t think I’ll be able to keep up. Millions of RMB come and go just like that in this game. How much would we need to spend to reach this level when the game is officially released?”
Wen Lingwei shook her head, “I’m not talking about playing up to this level. Look, no matter if you spend one RMB, ten RMB or a hundred RMB, you’ll receive your respective VIP levels as well as other top-up bonuses, and you would immediately have an advantage over players who don’t spend any money.”
Chang Xiuya nodded as if she understood, “Mm, so you’re saying that we spend less, maybe around a hundred? That still feels a bit… expensive.”
Wen Lingwei said, “But if you think about it, more than half the players might never spend any money. If you spend a hundred RMB, you should be stronger than the majority of the players right? Think about the arena ranking bonuses, as well as receiving dungeon rewards earlier, among other things”
Chang Xiuya nodded, “Yeah, seems like… we would be slightly better than others.”
Wen Lingwei said, “Right? No matter what we should spend a small amount of money. This game is free to play anyways, spending ten RMB on it doesn’t seem like a huge cost anyways.”
Wen Lingwei started to investigate how much money she should spend in order to get the best value for money in terms of benefits.
Chen Mo said, “Just saying, you drawing a card for me is enough to buy an Elder Sister card.”
Wen Lingwei rolled her eyes again, “What are you trying to say? Are you still thinking about how much I charge for artwork? There’s nothing to discuss in that department!”
Chen Mo laughed.
The thing he was most worried about wasn’t the popularity of the animation, nor the amount of players, but if the players weren’t willing to fork out money.
After all, it was difficult to manipulate the willingness of the players to spend money. If the majority of players weren’t willing to fork out money to spend in game, and if there weren’t enough whales, spending money in game wouldn’t provide too much excitement either. This would cause the monthly income of the game to remain low.
However, after noticing Wen Lingwei’s reaction, Chen Mo gained confidence in the game’s ability to rake in money.
Once the majority of players get a taste of the thrill of spending money in game, they would struggle to stop themselves from spending a second time. And the players who weren’t willing to spend money would feel more inclined to spend money for the first time.
As long as there are enough of these two types of players, the profitability of the game was more or less guaranteed.
—
As the release date approached, the advertisements for Guardian of the Holy Spring were being advertised more and more by Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.
The advertisements weren’t exactly everywhere, only present on a few key advertisement spaces on the Emperor Dynasty gaming platform. They also arranged for a few video game media to announce the game and wrote a few advertorials.
After all, it was only a mobile game. As Emperor Dynasty Entertainment had a rough estimate of how profitable the game could be, there was no way they would spend all their resources on advertising it, as it costs money to put the game out there.
Even the promoted spaces on the Emperor Dynasty gaming platform weren’t exactly free. If the space was given to another better game, they would be able to profit more from it, which in a way would be money lost.
Therefore, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment couldn’t put down everything and give Guardian of the Holy spring all of its resources, and would only give it some of the better ones.
However, in the eyes of the higher ups in Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, a few adverts like these was enough to compete with a nobody videogame designer such as Chen Mo.
Qiu Bin also had an idea of what Chen Mo was planning, likely using the animation to hype up the game, giving it publicity by proxy.
However, Qiu Bin was comforted by the fart that the animated series haven’t gained so much traction to become a tier one phenomena. Moreover, if Chen Mo’s game was a one time pay game, the conversion rate from viewer to player wouldn’t be high.
Moreover, could Chen Mo’s game recreate the expansiveness depicted in the series? Qiu Bin had his doubts. If Chen Mo didn’t do the game justice, the ratings would drop, which would directly affect the sales.
No matter which train of thought he followed, Qiu Bin felt that Chen Mo had no outs.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. We’ll just have to wait until the games go live!”
Qiu Bin did a once over on the contents of Guardian of the Holy Spring, and uploaded it to the official app store.
——
I Am MT and Guardian of the Holy Spring were now live on the app store at the same time!
Many gamers had their eyes on these two games ever since the bet. After simmering for four months, the moment of truth finally arrived!
Other than being released on the official app store, Guardian of the Holy Spring was also released on the Emperor Dynasty gaming platform. Just using the platform as well as Emperor Dynasty Entertainment’s huge distribution, the sales in the first day skyrocketed!
Guardian of the Holy Spring were priced the same as Plants vs Zombies, at ten RMB. Qiu Bin didn’t dare to set the price too high, mainly because Guardian of the Holy Spring didn’t have massive changes from Plants vs Zombies, and if the price was set at twenty, it might cause the number of sales to drop drastically, affecting the monthly income.
Soon, the sales of Guardian of the Holy Spring was released, quoted at one thousands two hundred and ninety!
Qiu Bin breathed a sigh of relief after seeing this number.
Qiu Bin’s assistance also had their eyes on this number alongside Qiu Bin. They couldn’t help but smile after seeing that number, “Not a bad result, congratulations!”
Qiu Bin had a smile on his face, but still didn’t dare to step out of line, “Don’t let yourself go so soon. Have you downloaded Chen Mo’s new game? Let me see.”
The assistant replied, “Not yet. I’ll do that now.”
Qiu Bin waved his hand in dismissal, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll do it myself.”
Qiu Bin launched the appstore and searched for Chen Mo’s new game.
The assistant said, “Don’t worry too much, you’ll still be able to show your face in Emperor Dynasty Entertainment with a result like this. This number was almost double what Plants vs Zombies achieved when it first came out.”
Qiu Bin nodded, “Of course, but this still isn’t a confirmed victory.”
The assistant laughed, “Still isn’t a confirmed victory? You’re too humble. Even if Chen Mo was given a miracle, his monthly income wouldn’t even come close to this level!”
Just the first hour sales have already exceeded Qiu Bin’s expectations.
If this game was able to double Plants vs Zombies, then it should be possible to sell around a million copies, meaning more than ten million in income.
(Income meaning the gross income generated by that user, before the cuts are taken.)
A game would be considered amazingly popular with tens of millions in income, and climbing on to various leaderboards were only a matter of time, it might even stand a chance at the total sales leaderboards.