Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 460: They Moved Over This Quickly
Friday, March 18.
Shangyang Games.
Lin Wan was playing with an OTTO E1 phone in her hands, clearly unable to put it down.
"Actually, once you get used to it, it doesn't feel that heavy anymore."
"At first, the large screen felt impossible to control with one hand, but now small screens feel unbearably cramped instead."
"The high refresh-rate screen and huge battery are the kind of things you can never go back from once you've experienced them."
"It really seems President Pei thought things through very carefully and had incredible foresight when deciding on the phone's development direction."
Before this, Lin Wan had been using a flagship Shenhua phone. After switching to the OTTO E1, she initially felt somewhat uncomfortable with it, but over the past few days she had gradually adapted.
She had even spent several days playing GOG and casually bought a full-skins account along the way.
Looking back on this phase of work, Lin Wan was filled with emotion.
These past few months had not been easy for her at all. Simultaneously managing both Shangyang Games and OTTO Technology had truly stretched her to her limits.
Especially since the project at Shangyang Games was a horror game, which made things even more difficult.
Fortunately, after bringing several core team members overseas to repeatedly experience famous haunted houses, combined with Ruan Guangjian's assistance and President Pei's final masterstroke at the critical moment, BE QUIET had ultimately succeeded.
Although the game's sales hadn't exploded massively, its reputation was excellent, allowing it to generate long-term steady income. President Pei would probably be satisfied with that, right?
As for the phone division, because she simply couldn't split herself apart, Lin Wan had no choice but to trust Chang You.
Still, Lin Wan had proposed the plan of stacking Tengda Group's various benefits to increase the phone's premium value, while also coordinating with all the other departments. In that sense, she had also made tremendous contributions toward the phone's success.
All in all, Lin Wan felt fairly satisfied with her work during this phase!
Of course, there were still a few small flaws. For example, BE QUIET hadn't become a massive sales phenomenon, and the OTTO E1's primary customer base was still concentrated in Jingzhou—especially among players of Tengda Group's games—rather than becoming a legendary nationwide "god-tier phone" or "nail household" device that users refused to replace for years…
But after all, people should leave themselves at least a little room for improvement.
Lin Wan felt that, in terms of business ability, she was merely an ordinary person. Just because she was President Pei's subordinate didn't mean she should compare herself to him in every aspect. Doing so would only leave her discouraged and destroy her motivation.
After all, no matter how hard she tried, she would never reach President Pei's level anyway. So she might as well stay grounded and steadily do her own work one step at a time.
The recent development work had basically been completed, though there were still some finishing tasks left to handle.
For instance, since BE QUIET was an online game, they needed to continuously fix bugs and optimize system functions while also steadily releasing new content to ensure players wouldn't lose interest.
Meanwhile, the OTTO E1 phone also required ongoing updates and maintenance.
Of course, the workload was incomparable to the original development phase.
As a result, Lin Wan had naturally become much more relaxed recently. Every day she browsed shopping websites, bought bags and other things, or occasionally took time to play games. Life had become extremely comfortable.
Naturally, she was also constantly waiting for President Pei to assign new tasks.
Thinking back to the beginning, when President Pei had entrusted both the massive burden of Shangyang Games and the phone business to her, Lin Wan had instinctively felt she couldn't do it and would definitely mess everything up.
But now, everything seemed to have gone very smoothly!
Lin Wan could not help but marvel.
Did President Pei really possess some miraculous ability to see the absolute limits of an employee's potential?
It was simply incredible!
Lin Wan had already begun imagining how she would show off to her family members—especially Lin Yu.
"Can your Shenhua phones sell flagship models in the 8,000-yuan price range? Can they?"
"Our Tengda Group can!"
Just imagining Lin Yu being rendered speechless felt unbelievably satisfying!
As Lin Wan was happily daydreaming, a message suddenly arrived on her phone.
"Our studio is officially moving to Jingzhou tomorrow. From now on we'll be neighbors, so please take care of us!"
The message was from Ruan Guangjian.
Lin Wan's eyes lit up. The master had finally finished handling everything related to his Shanghai studio?
That was fantastic news!
As early as last December, when Ruan Guangjian came to Jingzhou to help design GOG's hero concept art, President Pei had already shown strong intentions of recruiting him.
Whether it was inviting Master Ruan onto the roller coaster, showcasing Tengda Group's employee benefits, or even specially building a haunted house for him, all of it subtly conveyed the same message:
Come to Jingzhou. Jingzhou is a great place!
And as expected, Master Ruan Guangjian had indeed gotten the hint. After completing the art requirements for the two game projects, he returned to Shanghai and spent some time arranging matters related to his studio.
And now, everything has finally been settled. He could officially relocate!
Lin Wan guessed that Ruan Guangjian had probably already returned to Jingzhou for quite some time. However, knowing that Tengda Group was extremely busy, he likely didn't want to create additional trouble, so he quietly handled things like renting a place and purchasing office equipment on his own without mentioning anything.
Only now that everything had been settled had he formally informed them.
Lin Wan quickly asked, "Does President Pei know about this yet?"
Ruan Guangjian replied, "I sent him a message, but President Pei is probably very busy and hasn't replied yet."
Lin Wan nodded silently. President Pei was probably genuinely busy. Otherwise, he definitely would have immediately given Master Ruan a warm welcome and arranged a whole series of reception plans.
Who knew what President Pei was busy with.
In that case, it was better not to disturb him for now.
Ruan Guangjian had also helped quite a bit during the development of BE QUIET, so as the person in charge of Shangyang Games, Lin Wan naturally should express both gratitude and welcome toward him.
"Where's your studio located, Master? I'll bring Ye Zhizhou and the others over to visit right away," Lin Wan asked.
Very quickly, Ruan Guangjian sent over a location pin.
Lin Wan opened the map and froze for a moment.
"Huh? Isn't this… directly across the street from the Handong University branch of Moyu Internet Café?"
…
A two-story commercial building stood directly across the street from the Handong University branch of Moyu Internet Café.
The location had originally been a bookstore. Relying on its proximity to Handong University, it had made profits by selling popular books, tutoring materials, and similar items. However, with the rapid rise of online shopping in recent years, the bookstore's business had steadily deteriorated.
Among the many bookstores, this one had actually lasted comparatively long, yet it still could not resist the overwhelming wave of e-commerce and quietly shut down.
At this moment, all the bookshelves, furniture, and remaining inventory inside had already been completely cleared out. After some simple renovations, sets of high-end office desks and chairs were moved inside.
A few pedestrians stopped to watch for a moment, but after realizing it didn't appear to be some kind of retail store, they quickly lost interest and dispersed.
Inside Moyu Internet Café across the street, Pei Qian was drinking coffee while contemplating life.
His conversation with President Li yesterday had dealt him a severe psychological blow, to the point where he had once again spent an entire day absentmindedly playing games.
He no longer even felt like settling scores afterward with He Desheng and Yu Ping'an.
Thinking about it carefully, with so many successful projects under the company, only punishing those two somehow didn't seem very convincing anymore.
As the saying goes: "When there are too many lice, you stop itching; when there are too many debts, you stop worrying."
Likewise, when too many employees stabbed him in the back, even his grudge-holding mentality gradually became diluted.
Pei Qian had discovered a serious issue in the company's management system.
The Top-Ranking Elimination System no longer seemed sufficient…
In the face of countless profitable projects, merely eliminating the person in charge of the single most profitable project was already far from enough to influence the overall situation.
He needed to think of another method.
While sipping his coffee, Pei Qian contemplated countermeasures with a trace of melancholy.
During the time he spent disappearing into gaming, quite a few people had tried to contact him. But Pei Qian neither checked nor replied to any of the messages.
Mainly because he was afraid of seeing some terrible news that would completely shatter his mentality and interfere with his efforts to figure out a way to turn profits back into losses.
Meanwhile, his subordinates had clearly already grown accustomed to President Pei's elusive, dragon-like style of appearing and disappearing without warning. Even if President Pei didn't reply, they would still complete their tasks on their own initiative.
Pei Qian had noticed the activity coming from the two-story commercial building across the street.
The bookstore there had already shut down completely two weeks ago, but renovations had begun again a few days earlier. He had no idea which brave warrior had decided to become the next unfortunate successor.
In truth, this location had never been considered especially good in the first place. Otherwise, when Pei Qian originally chose the site for this Moyu Internet Café, he never would have selected this area.
It was only because Moyu Internet Café had recently boosted the popularity of the surrounding neighborhood that some people now believed opening a business there might be profitable.
But Pei Qian still wasn't optimistic about it.
"Maybe it'll go bankrupt again within three months and won't stay my neighbor for long."
"Sigh… I'm jealous."
Pei Qian had previously considered taking over the bookstore himself.
However, after several business cycles of experimentation, he had gradually grasped a fundamental truth:
It seemed that most losing projects, once he took them over, would eventually start making money sooner or later.
Shangyang Games had been like that. Top Student, Come Quickly had been the same.
It was almost as if, so long as he merely observed from the sidelines, a project would continue losing money. But once he personally stepped in and intervened, the project would begin turning profitable.
Considering that a tiny bookstore could never lose that much money anyway, Pei Qian ultimately never made up his mind to take it over.
And so, someone else had beaten him to it.
"Forget it. Whoever opens a business there has nothing to do with me anyway."
"The amount of losses I need to achieve this cycle definitely can't be solved by merely taking over a small bookstore."
"I should focus on figuring out how to lose money this cycle instead…"
Pei Qian took another sip of coffee and turned back around.
But at that very moment, from the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed several familiar figures arriving at the entrance of the two-story building.
Lin Wan, Ye Zhizhou, Hu Xianbin, Chen Kangtuo…
"Hm?"
For a second, Pei Qian thought he was hallucinating. He turned his head and looked carefully again.
No mistake—the one leading the group really was Lin Wan!
What were they doing here?
Just as Pei Qian was wondering, he saw Ruan Guangjian walk out, warmly welcome them, and usher everyone inside.
Pei Qian: "???"
The scene before him suddenly felt bizarrely surreal.
He rubbed his eyes and immediately noticed the freshly installed signboard hanging on the second floor. On it was an artistically styled logo along with several decorative characters.
Halo Studio!
The hand holding Pei Qian's coffee suddenly trembled slightly.
Holy crap— they already moved here this quickly???
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Tn: I updated the story once a day, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 536: Still Going with the "Bare Walls" Style[1]
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284
[2] https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284