Chapter 169 The First Day of Operation

July 8th, Friday.

As usual, Pei Qian had breakfast at Mo Yu Internet Cafe and then refined his mind map while drinking coffee.

"Huh, President Pei, isn't today the opening day of Thriller Paradise? Aren't you going over there to oversee things?" Xiao Peng, seeing President Pei so calm, couldn't help but ask curiously.

Pei Qian took a sip of coffee and chuckled. "No."

What was so interesting about an opening?

Anyone could guess that there would be a lot of people!

With the support of Tenda's reputation in Jingzhou, the promotion from Shared Phone Booth, Study Masters Come Quickly, and other investors, and the traffic driven by Tenda Games and "Everyone's Reviews"... if Thriller Paradise opened and no one cared on the first day, that would be too good for Pei Qian, too good to be true.

So Pei Qian felt that he shouldn't even think about such a good thing; he would just lie low for the first few days after the opening.

The key was to see how things developed after the first wave of enthusiasm passed.

Pei Qian hadn't given up on the Thriller Paradise project yet, mainly because the project still had a final line of defense, which was the pricing model he had initially set.

Of course, Thriller Paradise originally had three or four lines of defense, such as the remote location with inconvenient transportation, the lack of surrounding facilities, and insufficient publicity, but these lines of defense had already been broken before Thriller Paradise opened, which was a very sad thing.

But the last line of defense was still something to hope for.

Pei Qian's pricing strategy was: the first multiplayer project would be extremely cheap; the second project would be relatively scary and the price would be moderate, but if you wanted to clear it, you had to memorize the specific processes and operations of each project; the third project would be more expensive, and you must pass the second project to be eligible to challenge it.

In this way, most people would be attracted to the first project and stop at the second project. Only a small number of tourists would actually enter the third project for consumption, and most of them would not go a second time.

The construction and maintenance of Thriller Paradise required very high costs. The venue for the first project was limited, and even if it was fully loaded all day, it wouldn't make much money. If tourists didn't enter the second and third projects on a large scale and spend crazily in the Golden Maze, then Thriller Paradise would not be profitable.

In any case, the first wave of tourists was the most dangerous. This would include haunted house enthusiasts from all over Handong Province, old customers of Tenda, and even Tenda Games enthusiasts from all over the country.

But they certainly couldn't play haunted houses every day. Once this wave of enthusiasm passed, Thriller Paradise would be safe.

Therefore, Pei Qian planned to avoid the limelight for the next two days. Going to Thriller Paradise now would definitely not lead to good results.

However, seeing President Pei seemingly unconcerned, just silently drinking coffee and typing on his computer, Xiao Peng inexplicably felt a sense of "President Pei strategizing."

Such a major project with huge investment and a long duration, and President Pei could actually resist going on the first day of its opening?

What kind of willpower did that require!

Even, this wasn't just something that could be done with willpower alone; it also required absolute confidence in the Thriller Paradise project and a consistently calm mind.

Xiao Peng couldn't help but sigh; President Pei was no ordinary person!

Inspired by President Pei, Xiao Peng also silently found a quiet corner and began to seriously consider the next work of Mo Yu Internet Cafe, including how to arrange the specific site selection of a large number of new stores.

Pei Qian was organizing his mind map when his phone rang.

"Ding."

Pei Qian frowned, thinking, could it be that bad news had already come from Thriller Paradise?

That couldn't be?

He picked up his phone and looked at it. Pei Qian's expression was first of joy, then of surprise. He almost blurted out a "Damn!"

The joyful thing was that the skin revenue from Ruan had arrived!

The hero Ruan was launched at the beginning of last month, so it had been exactly one month.

Of course, it wasn't issued separately.

It seemed like exactly one month only because it was a coincidence. Such a sum of money definitely had to be carefully checked before it was issued, so it was delayed from the beginning of this month until this Friday, the 8th.

But this efficiency was already quite high; there was nothing to be dissatisfied about.

The reason why Pei Qian almost shouted "Damn!" was that he didn't expect the money to be so little!

The deposit information clearly stated that the total amount of money was 41366.4, with some odd change.

Pei Qian didn't see it clearly at first, but after carefully counting the digits, he confirmed that it was really a five-figure number, forty thousand yuan.

"Could it be that someone is embezzling my silver?"

Pei Qian instinctively thought this. It wasn't that he didn't trust his financial department, but the key was that it was much less than he had imagined, right?

He hurriedly opened the backend data and roughly checked it. After checking, Pei Qian found that it seemed like it really wasn't calculated wrong…

Currently, the concurrent online users of GoG had reached more than 1.7 million, accounting for more than 60% of the MOBA game market in China. This data was not much different from the data of LoL's national server in the first half of 2012 in Pei Qian's memory.

In other words, there were already many players.

The reason why LoL could become so popular later was mainly because of several years of development, which expanded the player base of MOBA games and attracted many players from other types of games.

At present, GoG, which was less than a year old, obviously couldn't reach that kind of popularity. More than one million concurrent online users in the national server was already a miraculous figure, and there was still a lot of room for development in the future.

Of course, these more than one million were concurrent online users; the actual number of players was much higher than this number. Some people who only went online once every two or three days would buy skins.

More than 400,000 players had purchased Ruan's skin. This was Ruan's first skin, an epic skin costing 18 yuan.

This skin was only available for sale two weeks after Ruan was launched, because the GoG project team was currently doing its best to develop new heroes, and the production priority of new heroes was far higher than that of skins. So, it was already not easy to squeeze out this skin after two weeks.

The price of the skin was set by Pei Qian himself: Brave skins were given away for free, Epic skins cost 18 yuan, and Legendary skins cost 45 yuan.

If it was 400,000 * 18 * 5%, that would be 360,000, but the problem was that there was also a rule when collecting heroes in the GoG Creative Community: after the new hero designed by players was launched, the first skin would be 10% of the original price, the second skin would be 50% of the original price, and the third skin would be 80% of the original price. All players could enjoy this, limited to one month.

If they were active users of the GoG community, there were other discounts.

In other words, players actually bought this skin for 1.8 yuan.

No wonder so many people bought it in proportion. Many players may not even play the hero Ruan, and even ban him before every ranked match, but because the price of this skin was so cheap, many people still bought it for collection reasons.

And the main source of income for GoG was still the skins sold by heroes that were not designed by players. Those skins did not participate in the GoG Creative Community's discounts, and they would not be split with the players.

Pei Qian was filled with mixed feelings.

Logically speaking, 40,000 yuan was already a lot for his current income level, but why did he still feel a faint sadness…

Was this the feeling of lifting a stone to smash his own foot…

Pei Qian had previously set the prices of all the skins to be very low in order to minimize the game's income as much as possible. Min Jingchao obviously implemented this idea as well, and the discounts were unprecedented in order to encourage players to actively participate in the game design of GoG.

As a result, Pei Qian found that the first month's share was only 40,000 yuan, and it had to be said that this was all the cause he had planted before…

Pei Qian took a sip of coffee to calm his emotions.

"Calm down, stay optimistic."

"Forty thousand yuan is actually not a small amount, and it will be more and more in the future."

"Actually, when I think about it carefully, I won't lose out no matter what."

"GoG is now burning money to expand its market share, which is beneficial for me to use losses to fleece the system; when GoG really becomes popular in the future, every skin of Ruan will bring me hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan in revenue."

"So, it's fine to treat this money as pocket money in the short term. Anyway, this money will be available every month."

Sure enough, considering it from a different perspective, Pei Qian felt much better.

"The first batch of tourists should have already entered Thriller Paradise, right?"

Pei Qian looked at his watch. "I wonder what the situation is over there now."

…

At the same time.

At the entrance of Thriller Paradise.

Qiao Liang got off the bus of Thriller Paradise, looking at the bustling crowd, he had the illusion that he was visiting an amusement park.

Uh, that's not right. Thriller Paradise was originally an amusement park, but it currently only had a haunted house project.

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

Stepping on the land of Jingzhou again, for some reason, he had a familiar sense of intimacy, as if two old friends who hadn't seen each other for a long time were meeting again.

Qiao Liang took out his phone, opened his fan group, and new messages popped up quickly.

"Brothers, gather at the entrance!"

"I'm on the next bus, I should be there soon, wait for me."

"Where's Teacher Qiao? Come over and lead the team! I'm under the tree next to the parking lot!"

Qiao Liang quickly found his fans and successfully joined them.

"It seems like there are fewer people than I thought. I remember when I went to Disney and Universal before, there were so many people that I almost died waiting in line," said one fan.

Qiao Liang smiled. "What are you thinking? How could it reach the level of Disney and Universal? Disney invests billions of dollars in an amusement park. How much did they invest here? Just treat it as a larger haunted house."

"However, I believe President Pei will continue to bring us surprises as always!"

For some reason, Qiao Liang felt that he always had a mysterious trust in President Pei.

The news of the opening of Thriller Paradise had already spread in Qiao Liang's fan group. As an old friend of President Pei, he had no reason not to come and see, even though he was relatively afraid of haunted houses.

If he was just a Tenda consumer, then of course he could come or not, but since he was a friend of President Pei, how could he not support President Pei's haunted house opening?

Qiao Liang cherished his friendship with President Pei very much.

As for what to do if the haunted house was too scary… Anyway, he would see how things were after arriving, and if it was too much, he would just give up.

Soon, Qiao Liang's fan squad was assembled.

These people came from all over the country, and they usually chatted and bragged online without the opportunity to meet. They took this opportunity to meet in person.

However, Qiao Liang soon discovered a sad fact: he didn't seem to have any female fans.

A group of men walked into Thriller Paradise together.

"Seriously, the scale is not small, and the supporting facilities are well done. The restaurants, hotels, shops, and parking lots are all complete. How much would it cost to add them all together, two or three hundred million?"

"It is said that President Pei didn't pay for it all alone. Many investors in Jingzhou paid for it together, each responsible for a part. If it was just Tenda, it would probably not be easy to bear such a large expense."

"Well, President Pei has to consider spreading the risk."

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

"It seems that each project sells and checks tickets separately. There are combination tickets, but I didn't buy them, because the combination tickets sell for 200, which doesn't seem to be much cheaper…"

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