Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 437: This Game Isn't for Ordinary People
"The biggest highlight of BE QUIET is that it's a multiplayer cooperative horror game. There hasn't really been anything like it on the market yet, so I think our early promotion should emphasize this point as much as possible."
"As for marketing, we should stick to traditional methods—buying video and web ads, getting content creators to promote it, and so on."
"I've already talked with Teacher Qiao. He'll play our game right away and release a video to help promote it."
"At the same time, we can cut together a cool trailer to build hype in advance…"
Lin Wan carefully went through the promotional strategy she had prepared.
After finishing, she looked at President Pei with a hint of nervousness.
Although she had spent several days refining these plans—and they were all solid, reliable, and effective—presenting them in front of President Pei still made her uneasy.
After all, President Pei's mastery of game marketing had practically reached perfection. This kind of conventional approach might not even catch his interest.
After listening, Pei Qian silently sighed.
Especially when he heard the name "Teacher Qiao," his body involuntarily trembled, triggering something like a PTSD response.
His employees seemed to be growing at an alarming rate—he was starting to lose control over them...
When Lin Wan first joined, she was just a newcomer quietly assisting in the project team. But after some experience, she had clearly grown into a capable department leader.
Take this marketing plan, for example—it could be summed up in one word: solid.
Pei Qian was certain that if they followed Lin Wan's plan, BE QUIET would attract plenty of players right from the start. Sales would definitely be strong.
So this absolutely couldn't happen!
But what should he do instead…?
Pei Qian felt troubled.
He knew very well that Tengda Group now had too many successful games under its belt, with a huge nationwide fanbase. Even official platforms were giving them special attention.
Games like Game Producer, Turn Back Before It's Too Late, and Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition were constantly gaining visibility on official platforms. Once BE QUIET went up there, even minimal promotion would lead to a large number of purchases.
The old days—when a lack of promotion meant staying obscure—were gone.
Now, simply wasting money on ineffective marketing wasn't enough. It had to produce the opposite effect!
It sounded difficult, but after careful thought, Pei Qian already had a plan.
His ultimate goal was to discourage players before they even paid.
Previously, he tried to drive players away by extending refund periods and increasing game difficulty.
But it didn't seem very effective.
There was no helping it—players nowadays had a strong rebellious streak. The more you encouraged them to refund, the more they refused.
Now, Pei Qian had come up with a better idea: stop them from buying the game in the first place.
You want to buy the game?
Sorry, I won't even sell it to you!
Who says every game must be freely available for purchase?
Just because something is customary doesn't mean it's reasonable.
BE QUIET would become a game that only those who proved themselves worthy could buy.
Ordinary people wouldn't qualify to play this game!
If anyone had objections, he'd just give them a six-word mantra.
Pei Qian decided to design numerous challenges right into the early promotional phase. Only players who passed these trials would earn the right to purchase the game.
This way, even if ordinary players had money, they still wouldn't be able to buy it, they'd need to qualify first.
And qualifying wouldn't be easy either. They'd have to pass multiple layers of trials.
People are naturally lazy. If players realized they had to go through eighty-one trials just to buy a game, most would probably give up.
Moreover, if the puzzles were complex enough, players might spend an entire month solving them—meaning no revenue would come in during that settlement cycle.
In the worst-case scenario, even if the revenue is delayed to the next cycle, it's still better than making money in this one!
This was Tengda Group's new-era marketing strategy: discouragement-based promotion!
Of course, Pei Qian couldn't say this to Lin Wan. He had to phrase it in a more convincing way.
He lightly tapped the table and said in a deep voice, "Your promotion plan doesn't have any major issues, it's just too conservative."
Lin Wan's eyes lit up.
As expected, President Pei had a better plan!
She quickly focused, ready to listen carefully.
Pei Qian continued, "I'll personally handle this promotional campaign. None of you need to get involved. We'll still buy ads as usual, but I'll decide what kind of ads we run."
"We're going to play a simple ARG game with all the BE QUIET players."
Lin Wan froze for a moment. "Huh?"
She had already prepared to take notes and execute President Pei's suggestions seriously.
But instead, President Pei planned to handle everything himself—and didn't seem to intend to explain further.
Looking on the bright side, that meant this promotion would definitely be a big move!
Lin Wan felt even more excited. "Alright, President Pei, I'll look forward to it!"
…
After sending Lin Wan away, Pei Qian glanced at the time—there was still a while before the end of the workday—so he immediately began arranging the discouragement-style promotion for BE QUIET.
He hadn't revealed any details to Lin Wan at all, because this campaign was essentially a puzzle-solving event and needed to remain as confidential as possible.
Pei Qian brought in the programmer responsible for the Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test on the TPDb website to handle all the technical work.
That test hadn't been leaked at all so far, proving the programmer was highly reliable. So Pei Qian entrusted him with this task as well.
The workload wasn't heavy—just some minor adjustments to the website and a few in-game details.
"Hm… it seems this invitation is still missing a signature from the inviter."
"Getting someone to design a new logo now might be too late."
"I'll just use something ready-made."
Pei Qian searched through his computer and pulled up the already completed logo for Fright Hostel.
…
…
Thursday, March 3rd — BE QUIET officially launches!
Qiao Liang had been sitting at his computer early in the morning. He had even prepared snacks and drinks in advance, ready to grind the game as soon as it released and put out a video immediately!
This time, unlike with Turn Back Before It's Too Late, he hadn't received an invitation from President Pei.
But that didn't matter—being invited by President Lin worked just as well!
Even before the game's promotional campaign began, Lin Wan had already contacted Qiao Liang and asked him to make a promotional video once the game launched.
As President Pei's close ally, Qiao Liang naturally accepted without hesitation!
Although BE QUIET was produced by Shangyang Games, the TPDb website clearly stated that Shangyang Games was now a subsidiary of Tengda Group.
Considering that Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition (mobile) was also a high-quality, player-friendly game that even received recommendations from official platforms, Qiao Liang had every reason to believe that Shangyang Games' releases were also completed under President Pei's supervision—with guaranteed quality and creativity.
In short, one sentence:
Definitely worth playing!
Clearly, many players shared Teacher Qiao's thinking—this was evident from the discussions in his fan groups.
Everyone was talking about the game, waiting to purchase it the moment it became available.
At 2 PM, the game officially went on sale!
Qiao Liang clicked immediately with the hand speed of someone who had been single for over twenty years!
However, the expected payment screen didn't appear.
Qiao Liang froze.
"What's going on? A bug right at launch?"
"That can't be… how could Tengda Group make such a low-level mistake?"
Confused, Qiao Liang noticed that after he clicked, the purchase button had simply turned gray.
On the game's detail page, beneath the slightly eerie key visual, a line of small text appeared after the click:
"The invitation has been lost in a past journey."
There was also a bloody handprint and a red logo.
The upper part of the red logo was an obtuse triangular roof shape, and beneath it were two English words: Palpitation Hotel, seemingly the name of a hotel.
However, the lower halves of the letters looked as if they were dripping with blood, giving off a chilling feeling.
Qiao Liang was puzzled.
What was this supposed to be?
He carefully examined the artwork. It looked like a scene from BE QUIET, possibly a remote countryside inn.
Under the pitch-black night sky, the shabby inn was almost entirely hidden in darkness, like a monster with a gaping maw, eagerly waiting for prey to fall into its trap.
After studying it for a long time, he couldn't find much useful information in the image itself.
That line of text—"The invitation has been lost in a past journey"—seemed more like the real clue.
Of course, there was also the possibility that downloading the image and opening it in a .txt or other format might reveal hidden information—a classic trick.
Qiao Liang glanced at his fan group chat. Clearly, his situation wasn't unique—everyone else had encountered the same issue.
A game that had already launched… couldn't be purchased!
After a brief moment of confusion, Qiao Liang suddenly became excited.
You actually had to solve a puzzle before buying the game?!
"President Pei, oh President Pei—how do you always come up with such new tricks? This is amazing!"
Even though he was eager to play the new game but couldn't, Qiao Liang wasn't angry at all. Instead, he found it fascinating.
Meanwhile, the group chat was already exploding with discussion.
"What does this mean? Is the image hiding something?"
"No idea, clicking it doesn't do anything!"
"I saw the same image in web ads too—this must be a puzzle!"
"You can download the image from the web page. I tried converting it into different formats, but found nothing useful."
"I think you're overthinking it. The clue is probably that sentence."
"Does 'invitation' mean the qualification to buy the game? Then what is 'past journey'?"
"Could it be a real-world location? Anyone in Jingzhou want to go check?"
"Past Journey is actually an indie game on the official platform—maybe it's a crossover?"
"Come on, when have you ever seen Tengda Group collaborate with another studio? That's definitely just a coincidence!"
Qiao Liang's fan group already had a lot of people, and now the messages were flooding in so fast it was impossible to keep up.
Not only that, when he checked a few other player groups, many people were discussing the same issue.
But after skimming their conversations, Qiao Liang felt they clearly didn't understand President Pei at all.
To solve this puzzle, you needed insight from someone like him—President Pei's confidant!
Qiao Liang believed the puzzle wasn't that complicated. For a game producer, what did "past journey" refer to? Obviously, the games you had developed before!
After thinking for a moment, he first opened Turn Back Before It's Too Late to search for clues. And after that, he planned to check Ocean Fortress.
Because in his view, if President Pei wanted to do a crossover, it would definitely be with his own games. And Turn Back Before It's Too Late and Ocean Fortress were currently two of the more successful titles.
Linking with these games would further enhance the Tengda Group brand and even boost their sales a bit. Why wouldn't he do it?
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