Chapter 193: Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition
Pei Qian gently patted Ma Yiqun on the shoulder.
"You weren't appreciated at Infinite Chinese Web—I think it's because the editors were jealous of your talent. What you write is just too ahead of its time. If the readers don't get it, that's not your fault."
Ma Yiqun looked stunned. "President Pei… you've read my book?"
"Nope," Pei Qian shook his head. "But I can see your talent in your eyes."
"If we want our web novel platform to succeed, we absolutely can't copy Infinite Chinese Web's model. Even if we grow, we'd just become a smaller version of them. How would we ever overtake them?"
Ma Yiqun was a bit dazed.
It actually made a lot of sense.
He never thought his talent was being overlooked—after all, web novels were a highly competitive market.
If an editor didn't recognize you, maybe your talent was just buried. But if readers didn't buy in, that meant you were truly lacking.
To Ma Yiqun, his books flopping was clearly the latter. That's why he'd lost confidence in his own ability.
But President Pei made a good point.
If the website wanted to succeed, it couldn't just imitate Infinite Chinese Web. Otherwise, why wouldn't readers just go to the original? Why would they bother with a knockoff site?
So, to overtake them on the curve, the site had to innovate and do something new.
This meant President Pei really did have great vision—and high hopes for him!
President Pei wasn't aiming to settle for moderate success. He was aiming to surpass Infinite Chinese Web!
Ma Yiqun nodded earnestly. "Got it, President Pei! I'll give it my all to make this website a success!"
"Uh, President Pei… what's the site called?"
Pei Qian smiled faintly. "Terminal Chinese Web."
The idea was to make it a graveyard for web novels.
Ma Yiqun stood in awe.
So President Pei's goal was… to become the final stop for all web novels?
To gather every single writer onto this one platform?
Only President Pei could come up with a name so grand, majestic, and yet so fitting!
"Go on. If you run into any issues, keep me posted."
…
After sending Ma Yiqun on his way, Pei Qian turned his attention to Shangyang Games.
First, he checked the data on Blood War Anthem that Ye Zhizhou had sent over.
It was still as dismal as ever.
Consistent, at least.
Since the game had become so generous, all the old players were happily grinding away. There was no problem keeping it running for a few months.
But the revenue was still pathetically low.
So many monetization features had been removed that even the big spenders had nowhere to spend their money. The graphics were outdated, there was no marketing budget, and with no new players coming in—even with some veterans returning—the recharge income was nowhere near enough.
Now that the changes to Blood War Anthem were complete and the version had stabilized, he needed to give them a new task.
If they kept coasting like this, the system might issue him a warning someday.
But he had already planned for this.
He had laid out a two-step strategy for Shangyang Games:
Step one—remove all but one monetization point from their existing game.
Step two—make a new game.
All the employees had come up with their own game proposals, turned them into design drafts, and now it was time for him to choose one as Shangyang Games' next development project.
During this settlement phase, everyone at Shangyang Games had been busy preparing their designs, and now they were all done.
He had to pick one of the proposals, which would determine what kind of game Shangyang Games would be developing next.
With this move, Tengda Games and Shangyang Games would officially go down completely different paths.
Tengda Games was something Pei Qian personally oversaw—he would point them toward a highly likely-to-flop direction and try to guide the game into failing just the way he wanted.
Shangyang Games, on the other hand, was kept as untouched as possible. Minimal intervention, letting it run naturally.
So far, this hands-off strategy at Shangyang seemed to be working better, so he intended to stick with it.
He casually opened a random lottery app, numbered all the proposals, and ran a draw.
[ 6 ]
Pei Qian opened up the document labeled No. 6 and skimmed through it.
It was a 4-page concept for a strategy game, but the rules were clearly underdeveloped.
If we say that a complete design would require 100% of the systems to be detailed, then this document only had about 20% written.
Some gameplay features were merely mentioned in passing, with no detailed implementation at all.
"...Well, at least the attitude is decent, but this design isn't usable."
On the surface, it looked like the exact kind of "terrible game" he wanted. The problem was—it was too incomplete.
And he wasn't about to sit down and flesh it out himself.
Once Shangyang Games officially picked this concept to develop, everyone would start adding tons of content to it, fleshing out the rules, and in the end, the game would be totally transformed.
So this one was out.
Pei Qian couldn't even imagine what kind of mutated version this game would become in the end—it was just too risky.
He needed something with clearly defined rules that were obviously unremarkable—that would give him peace of mind.
Pei Qian tossed out Proposal 6 and drew again.
[ 13 ]
He opened up document No. 13 and found it was a single-player game concept with some fairly solid level design ideas.
A closer look showed it was written by Wang Xiaobin.
"Wow~ I didn't expect this from you. A numbers guy with a dream of revitalizing the domestic game industry?"
"Well… if I'm spending money anyway, I guess I could help you chase that dream."
"But the problem is, your design is a bit too safe. If we actually go ahead and build this game, it might not lose much money at all."
Pei Qian flipped through the document casually and decided to set it aside for now.
Sure, having Shangyang make a single-player game wasn't a bad idea—but he had two concerns:
First, single-player games tend to have a relatively low failure floor. With a fixed development cost, even if they don't go viral, they usually still sell a bit. Worst-case, you lose a little. If it's even slightly decent, you might break even.
Second, Wang Xiaobin's proposal was very polished. There were no risky or crazy ideas—just a collection of proven, safe designs that foreign developers had already validated.
With his visionary insight, he could tell at a glance that the concept wasn't especially brilliant, but it certainly wasn't disastrous either.
From his perspective, it was a mid-to-low-level proposal.
"One more draw. If something better comes up, we'll go with that. If not, I'll help Wang Xiaobin realize his dream."
Though he had said it would be a random pick, Pei Qian changed his mind and decided to be a bit more selective.
After all, the last time he took a hands-off approach, Bao Xu and Huang Sibo ended up creating Ocean Fortress, and they hadn't even managed to burn through the budget yet.
[ 2 ]
"Oh? A sequel to Blood War Anthem? Written by Ye Zhizhou?"
Pei Qian opened the design doc and read it carefully.
"The gameplay hasn't changed much—just some extra detail work and a slight progression of the story. It continues the previous payment model."
"Hmm? This one's actually not bad."
Pei Qian felt that both Ye Zhizhou's and Wang Xiaobin's proposals had their merits—but also their drawbacks.
The earlier No. 6 proposal was certainly unreliable enough, but too unreliable. The lack of detail made him uncomfortable using it.
He was afraid that the team at Shangyang Games would "fill in a billion little details" and end up transforming the game into something completely different.
By contrast, Ye Zhizhou's and Wang Xiaobin's designs were both quite complete, which meant they were much less likely to go off-track.
"Alright, we'll go with Ye Zhizhou's plan."
"Wang Xiaobin's proposal also had some highlights—its only flaw is being too safe and not bold enough. If his dream were just a bit wilder and more imaginative, it might've won me over."
Pei Qian finalized his decision to move forward with Ye Zhizhou's project. However, Ye Zhizhou hadn't yet come up with a name for this sequel.
Pei Qian quickly typed one in:
Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition!
Yep—if we're going to go full low-budget hype, then let's do it all the way!
For a game that was almost guaranteed to lose money, he already had the marketing plan in mind: burn as much money as possible, draw as much criticism as possible. It was perfect.
After making the changes, he sent the finalized design document back to Ye Zhizhou.
"This is the one we're making."
Then he added, "Also, tell Wang Xiaobin his proposal was good—but too conservative. During this development period, let him revise and improve it. It may come in handy later."