Chapter 3  : The Lonely Desert Road

The current ecosystem in the games industry was similar to 2009 in Pei Qian’s previous life.

For example, the hottest internet games had gone from World of Warcraft to Fantasy World, CS to Counter Strike, DOTA to Gods Rising. They may seem different on the surface, but their gameplays were about the same.

There was a clear improvement for mobile games probably owing to the faster hardware development here compared to his previous life.

For example, in Pei Qian’s previous life, mobile card games only started gaining traction in 2012 thanks to the smartphone trend. However, due to the earlier development of smartphones in this world in 2008, similar games have already appeared since then and the game genre have already matured by now.

“If that’s the case, the situation’s rather optimistic.”

“All I have to do is to spend the 50,000 yuan completely on the website to purchase templates and art resources. I’ll then create a game that nobody wants to play and can’t sell out! Two weeks later, this will count as a loss!”

“Perfect!”

Decided, Pei Qian started searching for templates that he wanted on the website.

“Driving simulator basic template. 20,000 yuan with a complimentary drawing of a car’s exterior and interiors.”

“Background template – desert road template. 15,000 yuan. If I want the environment to change accordingly, I’ll need another 8,000 yuan. That adds up to 23,000.”

“A little expensive, but that’s exactly how I want it to be!”

“I’ve still got some money leftover.”

“Radio music. Choose 30 out of 100 songs or allow it to play randomly from the system’s song library. 6,000.”

“1,000 yuan left, hmm… I’ll get a simple ranking function then. Can’t afford anything else anyways.”

After contemplating, Pei Qian placed the orders furiously on the website and wiped his 50,000 yuan clean.

In truth, these resources were not expensive.

Inserted into the game editor, the driving simulator template would be able to create the basic functions of a driving simulator game.

Accelerating, braking, turning and crashing et cetera – they were all complete.

As for the desert road background, the game editor supports editing of its distance that causes the desert background to appear with random changes as well.

Coupled with the environmental change function, there’s sunsets, sunrises and sandstorms alongside other changes.

Because these were universal templates, many indie game creators would purchase them as well so there was a 100% chance that there would be similarity clashes.

In order to not have clashes, some creators would customize some art resources to create variations. Naturally, that translates to an increase in investment costs.

However, that wasn’t something Pei Qian was concerned about?

Clash? Go on! I’m here to lose money anyways! If gamers choose not to play this game because of clashes, I couldn’t be happier!

Pei Qian began to create his game.

Even though his aim was to lose money, the game had to be good enough to pass through ESRO’s vetting approval before it can be sold successfully.

If it’s a half-finished product because of functional deficiencies and failed ESRO’s vet, the system may judge it as Pei Qian’s violation of the rules.

As such, no matter how messed up the game is, it has to be functional.

After inserting the basic and background template into the game editor, the framework of the game was done.

Upon entering the game, players would be able to start driving on a desert road.

However, the purchased resources must not be wasted.

Pei Qian added a radio function to the cars such that players were able to turn on the radio while driving to listen to music.

They were all simple or old and classic tunes – the trending songs couldn’t be purchased so cheaply.

Thereafter came a crucial problem.

What should be the core gameplay of this game?

Pei Qian had no idea at all.

Should it be a racing game?

Nah, no way. He had no money for that.

All he could afford was a basic template with an image of a car and a background.

As for those complex racing tracks and flashy cars along with the algorithms for competitive racing, he couldn’t afford them!

How could he create those gameplays if he couldn’t afford it.

Slapping his head, Pei Qian got it.

The core gameplay of the game was simple – to just drive!

One would complete the game just by driving from the start to end point!

However, that alone wouldn’t work. Since everything was compiled together with universal resources and there wasn’t any innovative breakthroughs in gameplay, he wouldn’t be able to make it through the vetting process.

He had to make some changes to ensure that the game got through the vet. Yet, the changes mustn’t be too spectacular – he still had to ensure that no one would want to play the game such that it would lose money!

Pei Qian pondered over it and decided to extend the desert road’s background indefinitely… and extend the gameplay to eight hours!

That’s right! The players would have to drive for eight hours before they could reach the end point! Also, there would be a turn every now and then along the way!

That would make it impossible for the players to pass the game by pressing just a single button!

That way, he should be able to pass the vetting process since the gameplay differed from the existing driving simulators in the market.

Besides, with such a messed up gameplay, wouldn’t he just be lambasted by the gamers? There’s no way this game would earn money!

Pei Qian was overjoyed and lamented over what a genius he was.

Finally, he created an endgame interface with an extremely simplistic method that merely displayed a single line of words: “Congratulations for wasting eight precious hours of your life!”

Even if someone were to complete the game, Pei Qian had to ensure that they would be so pissed that they wouldn’t want to play any games from his company ever again!

In order to not waste the ranking function he bought, he created a ‘Time Wasters Ranking’ to tabulate the ‘Number of Completions’ as well as ‘Effective Game Time’ of every player.

This was a useless ranking system which purely exists because money was spent on it.

Before long, he was done with it.

All of the functions were considered basic functions of the game editor and required simple drags and changing of parameters to execute – basically, anyone with hands could do it.

It took Pei Qian less than two hours to complete the self-learning of the game editor, purchasing of resources and creation of the game.

“This retarded game is definitely going to lose me some money!”

After he was done with creating the game, Pei Qian tested it on his laptop.

After five minutes, he exited the game and was close to barfing.

The only thing he did was drive, drive and drive! It was bloody boring!

Satisfied, Pei Qian published the game right away.

Game Title: <The Lonely Desert Road>

Game Summary: Driving for a couple of hours on a lonely desert road will bring you some realizations about life.

When he wrote the summary, Pei Qian was conflicted.

Should he brag about it? No, what if he were to attract a bunch of people to discuss on the title and he were to make less of a loss?

Should he talk bad about it? No, that would be too obvious. On the one hand, the system may rule it as a violation. On the other hand, gamers might see it as reverse psychology – what if they were more tempted to play the more he talked bad about it?

Therefore, he decided on writing a summary so honest that gamers should not feel the slightest bit of interest just by reading it!

Next up, it was to set the price.

Pei Qian decided on a sale price of 1 yuan.

He did not want to set it too high lest some brain-dead idiots really decided to buy it – he would then be losing less money!

By setting the price low enough, Pei Qian was ensuring that it wouldn’t affect his loss even if a few dozen gamers were to buy it.

After settling everything, Pei Qian uploaded the game. Once it passes the vetting process, it would automatically be published on the official games platform.

The entire process would usually take between a couple of hours to a couple of days.

The platform uses an automated recommendation system. New games of the same batches are recommended according to tracking of background data changes and unless there is intentional manipulation of rankings, admins wouldn’t interfere in it.

Pei Qian was completely unworried.

Such a trashy game was bound to disappear from sight soon after it gets published. Once the two weeks deadline is up, the 50,000 yuan would be his! Amazing!

Closing his laptop, Pei Qian was relaxed as blissfulness spilled from his heart!