I am a Big Player
Chapter 200 - 198, Money-gathering Expert, Xianxia Demon Edition Kunlun! (Fourth Update)_1

Chapter 200: 198, Money-gathering Expert, Xianxia Demon Edition Kunlun! (Fourth Update)_1

At this moment, Ren He wasn’t paying attention to what was happening online. School had just started, and their class didn’t even have a group chat yet, so nobody notified him to join in the onlookers, as he was busy holding a meeting with everyone at Qinghe Games via a messaging app.

Within the first 24 hours of Kunlun’s open beta, the peak number of concurrent players reached 50,000, and this number was still rapidly increasing. According to two game planners with amazing insights, at this rate of growth, it’s not a dream to reach 200,000 concurrent players within a month, and the total number of users is very likely to exceed one million!

The game planners were reflecting in the group chat, "Free games really do have great appeal these days, but it’s not just about appeal, we have both appeal and content! It has to be said, the big boss’s game planning skills are truly strong."

As they spoke, they also took the opportunity to give Ren He a virtual pat on the back. With a boss who handed out double salaries at the drop of a hat, how could they not hold on tight? Xu Nuo was now referred to as the little boss in their discussions, while Ren He was the big boss, to make a slight distinction between the two.

Another game planner said, "But a large part of these players came for the authentic Kunlun game, and they’ve found an issue after joining—the question of why a martial arts world has so many demons and ghosts. They don’t quite understand. It’s fine for Heaven Secret Pavilion to be in the sky, but why should the Mongolian Soldier be a tiger-headed monster... There are even complaints to customer service, and some even called 110 to report that our game is a fake... However, surprisingly, the user churn rate is not high! This shows that Kunlun’s user retention is very strong!"

"It just goes to show how good the game mode is. It’s fun to play," someone sighed.

"Within the 24-hour open beta, income from in-game item purchases was 130,000 RMB..." the new finance manager at Qinghe Games reported, "And in just the 8 hours after the initial 24, we’ve already made another 150,000 in revenue from in-game item purchases. The growth is simply terrifying!"

"It’s still a bit less," Ren He typed with a twitch, "Those who aren’t busy now can create a few alts to act as shills. Don’t make them too strong or too weak, just strong enough to beat those mid-tier spenders."

"Is that appropriate..." the game planners tentatively asked.

"Of course it’s appropriate, where’s the issue! Register to become a shill!" Ren He didn’t see anything wrong with having a few shills in a game. Which game didn’t have them?

At that moment, everyone started to sign up. Who wouldn’t want the opportunity to play for free and beat the mid-level tycoons? They were getting a bit addicted to playing Kunlun themselves, and now with the chance to become a little badass without spending a penny, who would pass that up?

"But let’s get one thing straight, you all have to sign a nondisclosure agreement before becoming shills, and Xu Nuo will control all the accounts. I don’t want to be sprayed," Ren He said cheerfully. Although he wanted to make money, he didn’t want the fact that company employees were acting as shills to get out. It was still okay to talk about these topics in the group, considering it as a kind of informal reward for the veterans. After all, those accounts weren’t that powerful and would still have to bow down to top-level tycoons. Later on, once Kunlun really took off, having shills could go either way—it wouldn’t be necessary, and even if it was, it wouldn’t be something to openly discuss. It had to be done covertly.

In Ren He’s eyes, this had nothing to do with a sense of justice; it was purely a means of making money.

Although Qinghe Games was still small, it was fully equipped with administrative and financial positions. After all, now that there was an income, taxes had to be considered, and it wasn’t possible to have Xu Nuo run these errands, especially since he wouldn’t know how!

Kunlun was already showing its strong potential for attracting players. This might be the most profitable project before Dota officially went operational. The first month could bring in a few million in revenue, and in a few months, surpassing ten million wasn’t impossible!

This freemium game model might not seem as profitable as the subscription card model, but before a gaming titan like World of Warcraft emerged, it was the best money-making scheme! However, Ren He was even considering whether he should eventually create World of Warcraft himself...

That game was not just a money-making machine like Dota; it also carried a sense of nostalgia: the memories of many people’s youth...

It really seemed like a good idea to give it a try—for the Horde.

"I’ll consider that later. The pressing matter hasn’t been finished yet," Ren He typed, "Start preparing the server. Owning a high-standard server is the only way to ensure a stable user experience. During the initial operating period, Xu Nuo can directly sign off on funds below 20,000. Finance should send me a memorandum. For anything above 20,000, I’ll sign off. The financial manager can take a flight to the Capital. Communicate with me in advance before coming."

The Capital? The big boss went to the Capital? Could there be another major move in the works? Everyone started to get curious, as Ren He still retained a sense of mystery in their eyes. Nobody really knew what his background was.

"The production of Dota needs to be prioritized. It’s imperative to complete the bundling before Kunlun’s user count reaches its peak. This way, when Dota is released, we won’t have to spend money on publicity anymore."

Having said that, Ren He closed the communication software and started to work on the stockpile of his divine novel. Consistently updating two Chapters every day for more than an hour left the readers speechless.

Yet, under such circumstances, the average subscription of the divine novel soared. Within half a year, it had reached over 30,000. And ever since it broke into the top ten in the monthly ticket battle, it had never fallen out again, becoming quite the legend...

It seems that the progenitor of feel-good novels for new readers still had some aura of bonus. Their reputation was excellent among the newbies.

It was only then when Ren He, with time on his hands, bothered to check out the forum of No. 4 Middle School, which was typically lively. But today, it was even more lively—damn lively!

Someone had taken screenshots of Principal Liu and various teachers’ forum posts and created a separate thread. The students from No. 4 Middle School were almost laughing their heads off. When Ren He saw the original post, he realized, oh, it turned out they were damn looking for him...

At that time, there was no one else in the piano room except for him, and the Croatian Rhapsody fit exactly the unknown piece they were talking about...

But taking on an apprentice? That’s a no-go. It’s not that he couldn’t teach; after all, the skills the Divine Punishment System gave him were directly infused into his mind. These skills felt as if he had trained hard for them; teaching them wouldn’t feel out of place at all.

However, there was no significant point in Ren He, unrelated and idle, rushing to say, "I’ll teach you," with all the things he still had on his plate.

He didn’t mind playing piano in front of his classmates. This kind of thing was fundamentally different from extreme sports and the nouveau riche. Even if Ren and Mrs. Ren found out, it wouldn’t matter—it was something for parents to be happy about.

Ren He didn’t mind revealing things in public if Ren and Mrs. Ren wouldn’t fuss about them. Especially in No. 4 Middle School, a place full of demons and monsters—if he didn’t show off his skills to awe them, how would he have fun there in the future?

Military training was about to end, and there would be a true freshmen orientation on the evening of the military parade. There would be performances by senior students and new students who signed up on their own; in short, it was a show of talents among the elite.

But that was all trivial. What mattered was that Ren He had already learned from Yang Xi that she had been invited by the student council to sing two songs at the orientation.

The day of reunion was finally approaching. Ren He and Yang Xi, the two brightest stars in the night sky, were destined to blind a bunch of single dogs from No. 4 Middle School in the days to come.

...

Bonus Chapter as a reward