Monday, afternoon.
Most of them were high from the team building activity last Friday. After resting for two days on Saturday and Sunday, they were even more relaxed.
Other than Bao Xu who came to the office on Sunday, no one else worked overtime and enjoyed the weekend.
After all, there was no reason for them to work overtime now that the development of the game was completed!
Even though they would be paid for working overtime, a leisurely holiday was much more attractive.
On Monday, many of them were still basking in their happiness.
However, Huang Sibo was not blindly optimistic – his expression was stern.
"You've noticed the statistics for Ocean Stronghold as well, right?" Huang Sibo came to Bao Xu's desk and realized that Bao Xu was paying attention to the statistics for Ocean Stronghold as well.
In short, it was terrible!
The game was reviewed on a Friday and passed on Saturday night. However, there were only a few hundred downloads by the end of Sunday.
That was way too little!
FPS games were different from other games – they could be viewed as competitive online games that could only be played with a sufficient number of players.
The basic gameplay of FPS games was players battling against each other. Yet, there were only a few hundred downloads and dozens of active players – what sort of battle was that? Forget about being matched with an evenly matched opponent, it was hard to say if he would even be matched with a living person!
They couldn't possibly get all the players to play computer games, right? That would be ridiculous.
Of course, the difference between Ocean Stronghold and other FPS games like Bullet Hole was that it had a story mode and could be played as a standalone game.
However, the story mode would not be able to sustain the game for long and players would get sick of it quickly.
Furthermore, most of the players who liked to play Counter Strike preferred the PVP mode and were not interested in the story mode.
All in all, the situation was not looking good!
The few hundred downloads were achieved under the premise that Ocean Stronghold was free to download. If Ocean Stronghold was priced according to standalone games, it would have to be priced at 30 or 50 yuan at the very least and the download numbers would continue to plummet.
As for why Ocean Stronghold was made a free game …
It was because Pei Qian had learned his lesson from Ghost General.
Due to Ghost General's conscientious nature, the user base for the game expanded rapidly and there were hundreds of thousands of new active players every month!
Each new active player would bring Pei Qian 10 yuan in income – that caught him off guard …
Originally, the price of 10 yuan was just a threshold to stop those free players, but he didn't expect himself to fall into a trap of his own making. Instead, he achieved the effect of small profits but quick turnover …
Thus, Pei Qian learned from this painful experience and finally reversed Ocean Stronghold's pricing strategy.
The game was completely free. That way, even if something unexpected happened and the game had a certain number of downloads, Pei Qian would not be able to earn a single cent from these ordinary gamers!
What's more, the requirement for an epic weapon that cost 888 yuan was very high. On one hand, it attracted criticism, damaged Ocean Stronghold's reputation, and dissuaded ordinary players. On the other hand, it made it so that most players could not afford it.
As for why not make it completely free …
Didn't Pei Qian want that?
The key was that the system wouldn't allow it!
If the game itself was free, and there were no in-game purchase services or advertisements, it would be unreasonable. It would be equivalent to Pei Qian spending money to produce a product, only to give it away for free.
This was obviously an act of taking advantage of loopholes and maliciously incurring losses. It was forbidden by the system.
Otherwise, it would be too easy for Pei Qian to incur losses. As long as he bought a batch of goods at the original price and sold them at a low price, he could incur as much as he wanted.
The system wouldn't leave such an obvious loophole for Pei Qian to take advantage of.
Thus, Pei Qian had to design a profit model for the game. Be it selling by units or adding in in-game purchases, he had to ensure that there would be profits so that he wouldn't be warned by the system.
All in all, as of now, Ocean Stronghold's situation was still within Pei Qian's control.
Pei Qian had set three lines of defense for Ocean Stronghold.
First, there would be no early publicity and no one would be interested in the game.
Second, the game's pricing strategy would be a huge failure. The epic weapon that cost 888 yuan would ruin the game's popularity and cause Ocean Stronghold's reputation to collapse.
Third, there would be an excellent competitor, Bullet Hole, that would suppress Ocean Stronghold from all sides.
Now, the first line of defense was working.
As for Huang Sibo and Bao Xu, they were worried about this as well.
The two of them were also paying attention to Ocean Stronghold's performance. After all, this was a product that they had worked hard on for a long time. What's more, this game was entrusted to them by Boss Pei.
If the game were to fail, wouldn't they be letting down Boss Pei's trust?
Absolutely not!
Huang Sibo was a little hesitant as if he didn't know what to say next.
However, after hesitating for a long time, he still opened his mouth.
"Brother Bao, do you think Boss Pei didn't promote Ocean Stronghold at all? No matter what, the download figures shouldn't be this bad, right?"
Although it was a little disrespectful to Boss Pei to say this, it seemed like that was the case from all aspects …
In this day and age, the success of a domestic game depended heavily on marketing and distribution channels.
Many trashy games relied on brainwashing marketing methods to trick a large number of players into their games.
Of course, whether or not the trashy players could be retained was another matter.
However, at the very least, no matter how trashy a game was, as long as it was marketed properly and they were willing to spend money on marketing it, there would still be people interested in it.
It had been online for a day and only had a few hundred downloads. That didn't make sense at all!
Bao Xu looked at Huang Sibo and said, "Brother Huang, don't doubt Boss Pei. Boss Pei is a master in this field since he could think of using Weibo to market Ghost General. How could he not know the importance of marketing? "
Huang Sibo scratched his head.
That was true.
However, it was obvious that Ocean Stronghold was not doing any marketing at all given its half-dead state …
Huang Sibo even went to do some research. Ocean Stronghold was not on any other gaming platforms, nor was it advertised or promoted in any other way.
Boss Pei couldn't possibly be waiting for a big move, right?
As if sensing Huang Sibo's doubts, Bao Xu said, "I think it's enough to trust Boss Pei completely. Since Boss Pei didn't tell us to worry about marketing, we don't have to."
"Yes, you're right." Huang Sibo thought about it and felt that it was the same.
Boss Pei was such a genius. Why should I worry about him?
Therefore, Huang Sibo turned and left.
However, ten minutes later, Huang Sibo returned.
"It's not about marketing the game this time," Huang Sibo explained, "It's about the modifications to the later versions."
"Oh? Tell me, Brother Huang, "Bao Xu nodded.
Huang Sibo paused for a moment and said, "It's like this. The official version of Ocean Stronghold has been developed. According to the normal development process, we should be preparing to develop the next version. "
"Yes, so?" Bao Xu seemed to understand.
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