In Pei Qian's previous life, smartphones became popular around 2010 to 2011. Due to this trend, some of the more popular mobile games such as mobile card games appeared around 2012.
However, the artificial intelligence in this world had been around for a long time. Therefore, similar card games had already appeared around the year 2008.
As of now, in 2009, mobile card games were pretty common in the market.
Indeed, mobile card games were rather innovative when they were first released and were popular for a long period of time.
But now, due to the appearance of a large number of different skin mobile card games, it had triggered a rebellious mentality among the gamers. The good old days where one could earn money simply by changing skin no longer existed.
In this world, the creator of mobile card games was Qute Three Kingdoms. There were only a few reasons for its success – cute cartoonish art style, traditional card gameplay etc.
Last year, the IPs of the three kingdoms weren't common yet and the gamers were still rather accepting of it.
However, this game made use of the popularity of smartphones to create a miracle for mobile games, earning a huge amount of money and leaving the industry's peers green with envy.
In this world, with the development of game editors, many independent game creators could enter the fray quickly as well. Therefore, all sorts of different skin mobile card games were popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain. Initially, mobile card games that could have been popular for three to five years were completely decimated within a year.
Right now, many gamers would have an instinctive sense of rejection and resistance when they saw mobile card games.
That was exactly what Pei Qian wanted!
Other than that, Pei Qian noticed that there was a huge difference between Qute Three Kingdoms and the mobile card games of his previous life.
The only difference was that it was more restrained in terms of payment.
The game had a buyout system in the mobile game market at 5 yuan. Other than that, the prices of the various items in the game were rather reasonable as well. Things like topping up 2000 yuan and getting a rare card for free didn't exist at all.
The upper limit of paywalls in the game was basically 1,000 yuan. Beyond that, there was nowhere to spend the money.
Even so, Qute Three Kingdoms was still criticized by gamers for cheating money every now and then.
That was because this world was different from Pei Qian's previous life.
Perhaps due to the strong awareness of copyright protection, the piracy in this world wasn't as rampant and standalone game manufacturers were doing rather well.
Thus, the single-player buyout system and the in-game point system were the main profit models. Players recognized and were used to this model.
When it came to Qute Three Kingdoms, the creator clearly did not dare to go overboard as well, merely setting up a buyout price of 5 yuan and adding in some in-game purchases.
Even so, he was scolded badly by the players.
After researching the market, Pei Qian started to think about how he could screw up the game.
The most direct way was to run into the muzzle!
If there was already an extremely successful game on the market, and it was the pioneer of this genre, then as long as they copied it completely, they would basically die a horrible death.
Mobile card games are currently in the Red Sea, so let's make mobile card games!
Qute Three Kingdoms is popular, isn't it? I'll do a Three Kingdoms theme then!
The gameplay would be the same, just buy a similar card game template on the resource site and spend a few hundred thousand.
Of course, art resources could not be copied. That would involve copyright infringement.
Pei Qian had no intention of copying the art style to begin with. After all, he was counting on the art resources to burn money. Otherwise, how could he burn through the 300,000 just to buy the template?
Another important point was the charging model of the game.
Qute Three Kingdoms had a very restrained charging model. If that was the case, shouldn't Pei Qian's game have gamers spending money to their deaths?
Wrong! Absolutely wrong!
Pei Qian did not think so.
He understood the mindset of gamers way too well – most of them were righteous in their words.
They would say that the game was a scam and that they would never play it again.
Yet, even when something new was sold at a sky-high price, the ballers would still spend money while cursing.
If Pei Qian were to really make the paywall of the game extremely high, such as tens of thousands of yuan, what if he were to meet a bunch of ballers?
A single baller's spending was equivalent to a few thousand ordinary gamers. By then, wouldn't Pei Qian be spitting blood if he were to turn the game's losses into profits?
Therefore, he had to do it the other way around!
In order to prevent ballers from spending money, the paywall of the game had to be low enough!
Pei Qian thought for a moment. Since the paywall of Qute Three Kingdoms was around 1,000 yuan, he would push it down to 500 yuan!
No, 100 yuan!
That wouldn't do. 30 yuan!
Ballers would have nowhere to spend their money!
Of course, as a card game, there had to be some normal and rare cards.
The usual method was to use the Rare Cards to draw with credit to generate income.
Pei Qian rejected that method because he didn't want to generate income – he wanted to lose money!
The most expensive item in the game was a permanent membership card that cost only 30 yuan! After buying it, you would be given a few additional chances to draw cards daily.
Other than that, there was nowhere else to spend money!
Giving money to Tengda? Dream on!
As for ordinary gamers, they would have a chance to draw cards even if they didn't spend the 30 yuan.
That way, there would be no reason for gamers to spend money at all!
As for the price of the game, Pei Qian wanted to make it free. However, on second thought, he felt that it wasn't a good idea.
That was because there weren't many free mobile games at the moment and most of them were priced at 1 yuan.
If Pei Qian's game was free, it might attract a huge group of gamers.
What if it got popular?
Therefore, Pei Qian did the exact opposite and set the fixed price of the game at 10 yuan!
It was even more expensive than Qute Three Kingdoms!
That 10 yuan was an extremely high threshold to dissuade 90% of gamers from buying it.
Think about it. A mobile game that was based on a card game template without any innovation and was priced 5 yuan more expensive than the most popular mobile card games at the moment – who would be dumb enough to buy it?
Of course, the threshold couldn't be too high.
That was because 10 yuan was enough to dissuade gamers from buying it. If the price was higher, Pei Qian would be able to earn more money with a similar number of gamers.
Earning more money equated to losing money – that couldn't be allowed!
Therefore, Pei Qian confirmed his goal.
Firstly, this was an imitation of a mobile card game that only had the most basic gameplay.
I definitely won't have any gameplay that other card games don't have.
I might not have any gameplay that other card games have either!
In any case, it was a lousy system that wouldn't allow gamers to see any new gameplay!
Secondly, this was a game that clashed horribly with Qute Three Kingdoms!
They were both based on the Three Kingdoms.
They were both mobile card games.
Theirs was the real deal and mine was a fake.
There was no reason for gamers to choose this game over Qute Three Kingdoms!
Lastly, this was a game with an extremely stupid pricing strategy.
First, he would use the 10 yuan threshold to dissuade ordinary gamers from buying it.
Then, he would use the 30 yuan ceiling to dissuade those ballers so that they wouldn't be able to spend money even if they wanted to!
"I'm a f * cking genius!"
"What a perfect plan!"
Even Pei Qian was impressed with himself. How could this game possibly earn money with this sh * tty design?
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