System: Master Your Life

Chapter 826 - 203: Xu Lin’s First Money-Making Game, Breaking Out of the Niche

Xu Lin returned home, took a shower, and then went back to his room to prepare for work.

Two days ago, he invested a sum in North America, 150 million.

Xu Lin now has just over 3.2 million left in his pocket; he hadn’t experienced having this little money left for a long time.

Investment requires a certain cycle to get returns; now the development trajectory of the potential company has changed, Xu Lin estimates that the money can’t be retrieved within half a year.

However, just consider this money temporarily stored overseas.

Therefore, Xu Lin still needs to think about how to get money through other channels, and preferably through channels that can provide a substantial income while lying down.

Xu Lin opened the backends of two software programs to check the latest number of paying users.

Academic Browser: 969,532 people.

Download Engine: 832,569 people.

Currently, with so many people, it can increase Xu Lin’s income by nearly 23 million a month.

But this isn’t the limit, because new users are added every day.

It’s now early November, and there’s still more than a month left this year; within this remaining month, like the Academic Browser, it might further increase Xu Lin’s paying user base by another million.

The popularity of this software is quite surprising to Xu Lin.

Unlike the Download Engine, Xu Lin occasionally has to throw in some Douyin ads or web ads for promotion.

The Academic Browser was only promoted once in the beginning by Xu Lin, and then not managed again, but netizens themselves would promote it.

And as Xu Lin expected, the Download Engine software now has quite a number of users downloading explicit content using it, so Xu Lin can’t promote it on Weibo.

"Need to develop another money-making software."

Xu Lin began contemplating.

He opened the app store on his phone, deciding to look for inspiration.

Software?

Games?

Xu Lin noticed games.

Without a doubt, games are the most lucrative.

However, Xu Lin couldn’t possibly develop those large-scale games in the market.

Operating games is much more troublesome than software.

Moreover, even for software, Xu Lin doesn’t develop large-scale ones; like the Academic Browser, the user base is limited, while other software often has millions to tens of millions of users, and a company manages just one or two software programs at most.

He also doesn’t have the conditions for it.

Thus, Xu Lin thought it was sufficient to employ small measures to earn some money, more than that he couldn’t figure out, those dealing with monthly revenues of billions or even tens of billions don’t relate to him.

"Games, what kind of games could they be?"

Xu Lin thought for quite a while; the game market is already saturated, dominated by those big companies, making it challenging for newcomers to earn money.

Moreover, the target audience is also crucial.

Games are usually played more by young people.

When it comes to middle-aged people, they’ve got to deal with life and family.

That’s it.

Middle-aged people?

Suddenly Xu Lin had a flash of inspiration.

In this society, middle-aged people always have the most money; they are the backbone forces.

And it has to be middle-aged men.

Middle-aged women?

Look at the world’s top 500 companies; how many women are in charge, among 500 people, only about twenty women.

So, Xu Lin thought of middle-aged men.

Question: Are there games that middle-aged men play?

Of course, there are.

Like Legend, or some war strategy games, such as "Land of the Long River," there are countless middle-aged men there, and their spending on in-game purchases is intense.

Thus, Xu Lin’s game player positioning needs to be aimed at middle-aged men.

But even among middle-aged men, the group is vast, with many types, successful middle-aged men, who keep interacting with young beauties, ordinary middle-aged men, there are countless, varied.

Yet successful middle-aged men will always be a minority; ordinary middle-aged men are the vast majority.

Xu Lin must target the vast majority.

Then, what kind of game should be developed?

Xu Lin felt he must take a new track; various game genres are already saturated, he’s unlikely to develop a Three Kingdoms strategic game loved by middle-aged people and then compete with other similar games in the market; frankly, he wouldn’t even be in stone position.

Xu Lin pondered.

What matters are related to middle-aged men?

And it must involve emotional triggers.

Emotions are crucial, only with emotions can there be consumption.

He pondered for a few minutes; his thought speed is very quick now.

Middle-aged men: unemployment, humiliation, divorce, wife cheating, children looking down, parents old and ill...

These can all touch the most sensitive emotional nerves of middle-aged men.

This is the state of a middle-aged man, not everyone, but it applies to quite a few.

Right?

Inspiration suddenly struck.

This year, you’re thirty-eight years old, still in your prime; Liu Bang started at forty or fifty, became the Emperor of Han at over fifty, commanding the empire, starting a four-hundred-year glory of Han, leaving a rich mark in history.

But today, at thirty-eight, you’re fired; you went drinking—not at a bar, but at a stinky street-side barbeque stall—your reflection in the cheap drink, your face shiny with oil, sitting there with a bulging belly; the more you think, the more miserable you feel, despairing with life, drunk back to the community, in a daze, only to find your wife cuddling with a young man, he’s even handsomer than you were.

Actually, you’ve been a bit suspicious that your wife was cheating; lately, she’s started wearing makeup, now you finally caught it firsthand.

At this moment, you wish to rush up and give that young man a good beating.