Chapter 12: Card Gas, I Choose You!
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
In his previous life, smartphones had started getting common and trending during 2010 to 2011. Alongside the wave, so of the popular mobile gas such as card gas started appearing around 2012.
However, smartphones had appeared earlier in this world and so by 2008, there were already card gas.
By now, 2009, card gas were commonplace.
When they were just introduced, card gas were truly innovative and were popular for a long ti.
However, due to the large amount of copycats, gars were already sick of it and sothing as simple such as earning money just by creating sothing similar was no longer existent.
In this world, the progenitor of card gas was called Qute Three Kingdoms. The reason it was popular was due to the sa few reasons – cartoonish and cute style, traditional card gaplay et cetera.
In 2008, back when the Three Kingdoms’ IP wasn’t commonplace yet, gars were more accepting of it in general.
However, thanks to the trend of smartphones, the ga singlehandedly created a miracle and earned the creators a huge pot of gold such that their competitors were brimming with jealousy.
In this world, the ga editors were extrely advanced and many indie creators can enter the playing field with ease. With that, all sorts of copycat card gas started spouting out, causing the initial craze for card gas that could have lasted for three to five years to burn out within just one.
As of now, gars viewed card gas with a sense of disdain and reluctance.
That was exactly what Pei Qian wanted!
Other than that, he had also noticed a huge difference between Qute Three Kingdoms and card gas in his previous world.
In terms of paywalling, it was the complete opposite.
The ga could be purchased with a fixed price of 5 yuan. Other than that, the in-ga items were sold at a rather fair price. The concept of receiving a rare card by topping up 2,000 yuan or the likes of those did not exist in this world at all.
The in-ga paynts were basically capped at 1,000 yuan or so. Beyond that, there was nowhere else to spend the money on.
Despite that, Qute Three Kingdoms was still lambasted by the gars for being greedy.
That’s because the ecosystem of this world was different from Pei Qian’s previous one.
Piracy wasn’t so rampant in this world owing to the strong IP Rights protection, so standalone ga creators were having quite a good life.
Because of that, single purchases or top up refill cards were the main profit models that gars have acknowledged and gotten used to.
When it ca to Qute Three Kingdoms, it was clear that the creators did not dare to go overboard as well. They rely implented a 5 yuan purchase price along with so slight in-ga purchases.
Even then, they were lambasted to hell.
After researching through the market, Pei Qian started contemplating on how he should ss the ga up.
The most straightforward thod was to have a direct clash!
If the market already has an extrely successful ga that’s practically the founder of the genre, all Pei Qian had to do was to copy it wholesale and he was almost guaranteed to be dood!
Since card gas were sunsetting right now, it’s ti to create card gas!
Qute Three Kingdoms is popular, isn’t it? I’ll create a ga based on the three kingdoms too!
Gaplay shall be the sa and a card ga template on the resource website would be perfect to spend dozens of thousands on.
Of course, art resources can’t be copied blindly – that would result in copyright issues.
Pei Qian had not intended to copy the art style to begin with. After all, he was counting on burning money for the art resources. How else would he burn the whole 300,000 with just the template alone?
There was another important point – the paywall of the ga.
Qute Three Kingdoms was really restrained in implenting their paywalls. As for Pei Qian’s ga, should he have the gars die in a huge paywall?
No! Hell no!
That was not what Pei Qian felt.
He understood gars way too well – these were all hypocrites.
They may scold the ga for being a scam and a money pit, threatening to never play it again.
However, when a new astronomically priced item appears, the whales were still going to pay for it even if they may complain.
If Pei Qian were to make the paywall of the ga extrely high such as in the levels of dozens of thousands yuan, what would he do if he t a bunch of whales?
The spending power of a whale was equivalent to thousands of normal gars. Wouldn’t he have to puke out blood if the ga had turned profitable with just a small number of whales?
So, he had to reverse his way of thinking!
In order to prevent whales from splurging, the paywall of the ga had to be sufficiently low!
Pei Qian thought about it. Since the paywall of the Qute Three Kingdoms was around 1,000 yuan, he’ll just have to lower it to... 500 yuan!
No, 100 yuan!
No, that’s not good enough. 30 yuan!
He’ll make it such that the whales won’t have a place to spend on!
But of course, as a card ga, there must be common and rare cards.
The common thod to it was to lock rare cards behind paywalls in order to increase the profit margins.
Pei Qian rejected that thod. After all, he was here to lose money, not profit!
The most expensive in-ga item shall be a permanent mbership card that costs 30 yuan! Those who buy it will get a few additional card draw chances daily.
Other than that, there will be no other place for people to spend money on!
You guys want to donate money to Tengda? Dream on!
As for normal gars, even if they don’t purchase the 30 yuan card, they would have card draw chances as well, albeit less.
That way, there won’t be enough reason for gars to want to pay money!
As for the price of the ga, Pei Qian really wanted to set it to be free. However, he decided against that on second thought.
There weren’t much free mobile gas nowadays and most of them were priced at 1 yuan.
If Pei Qian were to make the ga free, he might end up attracting a bunch of players.
What if it suddenly got popular?
Therefore, Pei Qian decided to go against the trend and set the purchase price at 10 yuan!
That’s more expensive than Qute Three Kingdoms!
As a super high barrier of entry, that 10 yuan will do its work to dissuade 90% of the potential players.
Think about it. A mobile ga that’s completely based on a template without any innovative traits and a purchase price that is 5 yuan more expensive than the hottest ga available – who would be stupid enough to buy it?
Of course, he mustn’t set that barrier too high either.
That 10 yuan was enough to achieve its intended effect of dissuading gars from buying it. If he were to set it any higher, Pei Qian was going to earn money with just a diocre number of gars.
The more he earned, the more he lost. That won’t do!
With that, Pei Qian was decided on his goal.
Firstly, this would be a ga with the most basic operational techniques.
Gaplays that other card gas do not possess? You won’t find it here!
Gaplays that other card gas possess? You might not find it here either!
All in all, the gaplay would be completely similar to everything else out there and have nothing new!
Not only that, this was a ga that clashed directly with Qute Three Kingdoms!
They both revolved around the three kingdoms as topic.
They were both mobile gas.
Theirs was authentic while Pei Qian’s was a counterfeit.
There’s no way anyone would choose this ga instead of Qute Three Kingdoms!
Finally, this was a ga that had an extrely stupid profit strategy.
First, the 10 yuan barrier of dissuading the normal mobile gars.
Next, the 30 yuan paywall to stop whales from splurging on the ga!
“I’m a bloody genius!”
“What a perfect plan!”
Pei Qian was totally impressed with himself. How could this ga earn money with such a shitty design?
No way! There was absolutely no way!
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