Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 416: This Question Already Has the Correct Answer
"No!" Pei Qian refused without hesitation.
Li Yada sounded a little anxious. "But—"
Before she could finish, Pei Qian immediately interrupted, "—No need to say more. This is a matter of principle, there can be no compromise."
"Work progress is something that can never truly be 'caught up.' Even if I approve you to start work a week earlier, will that one week allow GOG to surpass IOI?"
Li Yada was momentarily at a loss for words. "One week really wouldn't be enough, but—"
Pei Qian immediately took over the conversation: "Exactly. That's the point. If I approve you to start a week early today and you still don't surpass IOI, then what—next you'll apply to work overtime on the weekend?"
"If you work overtime this week and still don't surpass IOI, will you then want to continue working overtime next week?"
"A thousand-mile dike collapses from an ant hole. You should understand the principle of preventing problems before they grow."
"If this continues, where will Tengda Group's rules and regulations stand?"
Li Yada: "Uh…"
Pei Qian spoke earnestly, "So, since working a couple of extra days won't make a decisive difference, then don't work overtime. Meaningless overtime wastes everyone's time and also wastes my overtime pay. Why bother?"
For a moment, Li Yada couldn't think of a good rebuttal, though the more she thought about it, the more something about it felt off.
"But President Pei, IOI keeps releasing new versions, and its expansion in Europe and America is very strong right now. Our GOG is a direct competitor with IOI. Falling one step behind means falling behind step by step."
"At such a critical moment, even a small oversight could lead to unbearable consequences!"
Her tone was extremely anxious.
Clearly, even while on vacation she had been closely monitoring IOI's developments. Seeing IOI's game quality improving rapidly with the naked eye made her restless.
Pei Qian couldn't help but sigh inwardly. Sometimes employees having too strong a sense of responsibility wasn't a good thing either!
Since GOG was already destined to fail from the very beginning, why go through all this trouble?
Working overtime and rushing the schedule, only to fail in the end—what a waste of emotions.
It would be better to just mess around from the start and spend the money—that would be enough.
Pei Qian cleared his throat and said, "I understand how you feel. But a matter of principle is still a matter of principle. It cannot be easily compromised."
"Yada, I think there's a small problem with your mindset."
"When you encounter problems at work, is your first reaction really to solve them through overtime?"
"Overtime isn't some miracle cure for every problem. On the contrary, it's like drinking poison to quench thirst!"
"Use it once and you'll start relying on it. The more you use it, the deeper you sink. Eventually, all your other skills will deteriorate, and you'll lose every ability except 'working overtime.'"
"You should think carefully about which is more important."
"Remember, what matters isn't working overtime—it's doing the right thing at the right time."
"Figuring out what the right thing is matters far more than simply working harder."
On the other end of the phone, Li Yada fell silent.
After a long while, her anxious mood gradually calmed down.
"President Pei, your words are truly enlightening. I really did fall into the wrong mindset."
"When encountering problems at work, I shouldn't try to solve them through overtime. On the contrary, I should strive to solve them using every possible method other than overtime."
"If all I know how to do is make employees work overtime, then that truly would be my failure as the person in charge!"
"Thank you, President Pei. I understand now! Happy New Year, President Pei!"
Pei Qian listened quietly. "Mm, Happy New Year."
After hanging up, Pei Qian couldn't help but sigh.
As expected of his own employee—her ability to infer things from one example was pretty strong. Her phrases came one after another.
With just a little guidance, she had completely given up the idea of working overtime.
Hmm, not bad!
"Fingertip Games, please step it up—try harder during the Spring Festival and crush GOG completely…"
Pei Qian silently prayed.
…
…
February 10th, the eighth day of the Lunar New Year.
The first official workday.
School hadn't started yet, so Pei Qian had returned to Jingzhou the previous afternoon as usual.
His parents knew that he had been making money at Feihuang Studio, and with the new movie about to be released and work being busy, they didn't try to keep him any longer.
They only repeatedly reminded him to take care of his health while working and never overwork himself.
Pei Qian silently thought to himself that overworking his health definitely wouldn't happen.
His job was actually quite healthy—sleep until he woke up naturally every day, go to work and slack off while drinking tea, and occasionally eat something good at Mingyun Private Kitchen.
Everything was quite comfortable.
Of course, it would be even better if his own employees would stop stabbing him in the back all the time.
…
17th floor, Tengda Group Game Department.
Cui Geng had already gone to Bao Xu again to continue gathering material.
The Terminal Chinese Web training class also resumed today. Although Cui Geng was still technically a member of the class, he already held an official position at Tengda Group—"Special Observer." Therefore, he no longer needed to stay locked in the "little black room."
The rest of the game department had already quickly entered work mode, completely focused as their fingers hammered on keyboards. Even taking a sip of water felt like a waste of time.
It couldn't be helped—the workload was heavy!
During the Spring Festival holiday, many people had been like Li Yada, constantly monitoring IOI's developments. Seeing the game release new versions made them wish they could immediately return to work.
But after checking with Li Yada, they learned she had been criticized and educated by President Pei, so they could only patiently wait for the holiday to end.
Thus, on the first day back at work, everyone immediately began modifying the game with great enthusiasm.
Most of the people in Tengda Group's game department had a fire burning in their hearts.
Tengda Group's games have always been an elite strike force capable of fighting tough battles, under President Pei's leadership, every game they made became a hit.
With such a golden reputation, they couldn't possibly let it be ruined in their hands.
If GOG lost to IOI, it would be too embarrassing!
Everyone threw themselves into work with full effort.
Before the New Year, Li Yada had already arranged the "aftercare" matters with the three "regent ministers", assigning each of them their respective responsibilities.
However, the three were still newcomers and needed some time to become familiar with the work and complete the handover.
From now until the end of the month, Li Yada needed to maintain development progress while gradually transferring responsibilities to the three of them to ensure a smooth transition.
After assigning Hu Xianbin the recent tasks for the lead executive designer role, Li Yada finally had a brief moment of free time.
She sipped her coffee and thought about the current situation.
Whenever she couldn't help but feel anxious, she would repeatedly recall what President Pei had said before—because she firmly believed that the secret to success lay within those words.
"President Pei said that what matters isn't working overtime, but doing the right thing at the right time…"
"So… what exactly is the right thing?"
"Diligently developing the game? That's just part of our job. It's the safest approach, but it can't really be called the 'right thing.'"
Li Yada thought about it for a long time but still couldn't figure it out.
Instinctively, she wanted to ask Bao Xu for advice. After all, Bao Xu had his own unique way of interpreting President Pei's thinking.
But Bao Xu was currently telling Cui Geng about Tengda Group's past, providing material for Cui Geng's new book, so Li Yada felt embarrassed to interrupt.
Since she couldn't ask Bao Xu, who else could she ask?
Huang Sibo? That might work, but Li Yada knew that Feihuang Studio was currently preparing a new movie, and Huang Sibo was probably extremely busy these days, with hardly any time to spare.
After thinking it over, Li Yada decided it would be best to ask Lin Wan.
Lin Wan also had her own way of interpreting President Pei's ideas.
Li Yada sent her a message explaining her confusion and asked, "President Pei said that what matters is doing the right thing at the right time. What exactly does that mean?"
Not long after, Lin Wan replied.
"You've asked the right person! I have the standard answer to this question!"
"President Pei once said something very similar to me!"
Li Yada immediately became interested and quickly called her.
"Tell me quickly—what exactly happened?" Li Yada felt as though she had suddenly grasped a ray of light.
On the phone, Lin Wan smiled and said confidently, "Do you remember what happened when Shangyang Games was making Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition?"
"After the micro-client version launched, the game kept losing money. So I asked President Pei what we should do."
"President Pei said we should quietly wait for the right timing. When the time comes, things will naturally get better."
"Think about it carefully. Doesn't that sentence have a similar meaning to what he told you? Don't they both emphasize the 'right time'?"
Li Yada suddenly understood. "Oh! You mean…"
Lin Wan laughed. "Exactly. President Pei already made it clear—working overtime is meaningless. No matter how much effort you put in, you'll only get half the result for twice the work."
"What he really meant is that there's a way to solve the problem without overtime!"
"If I were you, I wouldn't keep clashing head-on with IOI in the PC gaming field. No matter whether you win or lose, it'll end up being a mess."
"I'd switch to a different field, get ahead of them there first, and then come back for a counterattack!"
Li Yada's eyes lit up, and many of her doubts were instantly resolved.
Regarding what the "right time" meant, Lin Wan had already found the correct answer while working on Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition.
The upcoming mobile gaming boom was the right time!
That was precisely why Lin Wan had transformed the half-dead micro-client version of Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition into a mobile game, and by catching the fast track of the Shenhua mobile app marketplace, it had soared to success and made a beautiful comeback.
If she applied that same "standard answer" here…
Then GOG should also be turned into a game with cross-platform connectivity between mobile and PC!
President Pei had already said that IOI had started much earlier and was far ahead of GOG.
This kind of gap could never be bridged just by everyone in the Tengda game department working overtime like crazy.
Therefore, President Pei forbidding overtime wasn't just about enforcing rules. It was to prevent everyone from wasting energy on futile work, and instead guide them to invest their limited energy into something more meaningful.
What if GOG were turned into a mobile game?
That would mean overtaking on a curve!
Currently, there was no similar game in the mobile gaming field. If GOG were ported there—even if the gameplay wasn't as rich—as long as it ran stably, it could easily dominate the market.
Once GOG quickly established unquestionable dominance in the mobile gaming sector, it would naturally influence the PC gaming market in return.
Just imagine: if a player had already played GOG on their phone, and the first similar game they tried on PC was either GOG—with familiar heroes and plenty of unlocked skins—or IOI, where every hero was unfamiliar and everything had to start from scratch, which one would they choose?
The current consensus in the gaming industry was to convert successful PC games into browser games, and successful browser games into mobile games, gradually moving downward through platforms so that old games could gain a second life.
That had become a fixed way of thinking.
But things weren't that absolute.
If neither the PC platform nor the mobile platform had yet produced a dominant, giant blockbuster game, who said you couldn't launch on mobile first and then expand to PC later?
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