novelraw Chapter 353 : Have the Potential to be a Shady Businessman
Chapter 353 : Have the Potential to be a Shady Businessman
Chapter 353: Have the Potential to be a Shady Businessman
The exam results before the summer vacation came out quickly.
Some were delighted, and some were worried.
Chen Fan passed without failing any courses.
His scores were either sixty or sixty-one, barely scraping by.
After seeing Chen Fan's results, Luo Wenjie shouted that it was unfair. He said Old Chen must have secretly made an unspeakable deal with those few professors.
It's not surprising that Brother Jie was jumping up and down. Last semester, he set a new record again, failing four courses in a row and having to retake them.
However, Brother Jie had already become numb to it and didn't care at all.
But Wu Di unexpectedly failed one course this time, which made him a bit depressed.
Chen Fan didn't care about the results at all. As far as he was concerned, as long as he obtained that graduation certificate from the university, he could give his parents an explanation.
Chen Fan spent most of his university days accompanying Su Ruochu, fulfilling a dream from his previous life.
Now, he devoted most of his efforts to the construction and renovation of the club.
During these past few days, he had a meal with Pang Longhai, reconnecting their relationship, after all, the latter had helped him out a few days ago.
At the dinner, Pang Longhai boasted to Chen Fan, saying that from then on, if there were any troubles, as long as he was still in the development zone, he would definitely help.
As long as he could cover for it, no one with bad intentions would dare cause trouble at Chen Fan's club.
Chen Fan smiled and gave a toast, then filled his cup and drank it all in one gulp in front of Pang Longhai.
Everything was left unsaid between them.
He also found time to visit Feifan Technology.
Liang Shichu had allocated a meeting room at the end of the company's corridor and reorganized it as the office space for the Starry Sky Game Studio.
On this day, Chen Fan came to the studio for a meeting.
At the meeting, Liang Shichu brought a few game developers to give Chen Fan a demonstration of a small sample of their game production.
After watching the game demo, Chen Fan put down his pen, cleared his throat, and began to speak.
"First of all, I want to commend everyone for their hard work during this period."
"The game is progressing quickly, and everyone has done a good job. The game demo I just watched was not bad. But..."
"I have a 'but' to say." Chen Fan smiled at the people in front of him.
"But I think there are still some issues. Let me briefly explain them to you."
"First, the game graphics are too exquisite. Both the character modeling and the environment are too exquisite."
The few developers present looked puzzled.
Finally, Liang Shichu spoke up, "What's wrong with having exquisite game graphics?"
Chen Fan smiled, "There's nothing wrong with having exquisite game graphics. However, the game I want you to make is not meant to be a AAA blockbuster, but rather a simple, mindless, and purely relaxing small game."
"Therefore, I hope the game you make will only need to have the following few features. That is, it has a small enough memory footprint, and the gameplay is simple and mindless enough."
"As for character modeling and environmental rendering in the game, those can be ignored."
"You can even make them even simpler."
Chen Fan walked over to the opposite side of the PPT as he spoke.
"For example, here, the main character doesn't need to move. You only need to create a paper figure, or even just a pair of hands, mindlessly shooting at the enemy soldiers. The focus is to give players a first-person experience..."
Chen Fan listed several requirements one after another. Finally, he summarized, "Of course, my requirement is only one thing, which is that the memory footprint should be small enough, the smaller the better."
The few developers left the meeting room looking puzzled, and someone even shook their head in silence, completely speechless.
They were probably cursing in their hearts, thinking the boss didn't understand games at all, yet he was pointing fingers and drawing circles here.
It seemed like the game they would make would flop as well.
When only Liang Shichu was left in the meeting room, Chen Fan walked back and sat down.
"Old Liang, following my requirements, how long do you think it would take to produce the game?"
Liang Shichu smiled bitterly, "If we really follow your requirements and don't care about environmental graphics or character modeling, it would be much simpler."
"I estimate it would take about one to two months."
In fact, one to two months was still a conservative estimate from Liang Shichu.
According to his own thoughts, if they really made the game following Chen Fan's requirements, would the end result even be a game?
Could such a game be played?
Liang Shichu held a pessimistic attitude.
However, since the boss was always very enthusiastic about this matter, he had no choice.
Chen Fan smiled and began to speak, "I suddenly thought of a new method. It might be able to reduce piracy and bootlegs. It might even help promote our company's other products."
Liang Shichu inwardly smiled bitterly, thinking, "For such a simple, no, the simplest game, is piracy really necessary?"
Chen Fan briefly organized his thoughts and said to Liang Shichu, "I plan to turn the game into a web game."
"A web game?"
Liang Shichu was puzzled and didn't immediately understand.
"Yes, a web-based game."
"Have the developers modify the game settings, and then we can directly host the game on Go Navigation Home for players to download."
"Players only need to click a button to download it, and it will generate a new webpage. With just one cache, they can log into the Go Navigation Home account and play the game."
Liang Shichu was somewhat surprised to hear this.
"This... from a technical standpoint, it's not difficult. But... what are the benefits of doing this? If someone wants to pirate it... they might still be able to do it, right?"
Chen Fan smiled, "That's precisely why players need to log into their Go Navigation Home or Feifan Antivirus account to play."
"This will increase the difficulty for anyone who wants to pirate the game."
"Additionally, I have another method that can greatly prevent piracy."
Chen Fan looked at Liang Shichu with a slight smile.
"I've decided that when the game is launched, players can play it for free."
Liang Shichu was puzzled again.
"Play for free?"
"This... why would it be free? Don't you plan to make money from this game?"
Chen Fan smiled and shook his head, "Making the game free is the fastest way to attract more players."
"We won't make money from game sales but from selling in-game items."
Liang Shichu's eyes widened.
"Sell items? Then... would that still be considered a single-player game?"
Chen Fan smiled, "It's somewhere in between."
"It's more like a single-player version of a web game."
"Since Go Navigation Home doesn't have a payment system, you'll need to have your employees develop a separate game section on the Feifan Antivirus official website. Players can then pay on the official website to purchase items, and the company will issue them redemption codes."
"Players can then use those redemption codes in the game to redeem the items they need."
Liang Shichu was no fool. After Chen Fan's explanation, he suddenly understood.
"You... You want to use this game to drive downloads for Feifan Antivirus and Go Navigation Home?"
Chen Fan nodded, "That's one of the goals, but the actual results will depend on whether the game your team develops can attract people."
Liang Shichu opened his notebook and began recording the requirements Chen Fan had just mentioned.
After finishing, Liang Shichu looked up at Chen Fan again.
"You mentioned making money by selling items earlier. What kind of items did you mean, Boss?"
"Guns, grenades, knives... even clothing."
Chen Fan smiled, "Let everyone use their imagination. The more players recharge, the better and more accurate guns we'll reward them with... they'll love that."
"Of course, we'll also need to put thought into the design of the enemy soldiers. We need to make them challenging enough but still allow players to kill them enjoyably and endlessly..."
"For each level, we'll slightly increase the difficulty at certain points. When players can't get past it, they'll want to purchase better guns..."
Liang Shichu listened with his mouth agape.
"This... I have to say, this tactic is really... too... too despicable."
"Boss, we're going to get cursed at."
Chen Fan smiled.
"As long as the players have fun, what does it matter if we suffer a little criticism?"
Seeing the boss's smiling expression, Liang Shichu thought to himself, "The boss is indeed worthy of being called Old Boss Li. He truly has the potential to be a shady businessman."
However, Chen Fan found it amusing in his heart.
This was nothing compared to the tactics used by the big gaming companies in the future to make money from games.
He had already been quite gentle.