Chapter 325: Three Logos
Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 325: Three Logos
November 9th, Tuesday.
Over the past week, Pei Qian has been busy with quite a few things.
On Feihuang Studio’s side, Zhu Xiaoce and Huang Sibo were still carrying out pre-production work based on Pei Qian’s script.
Zhu Xiaoce needed to expand the script to the length required for a full film, and also urgently recruit some personnel. Once the script and storyboards were finished, there would still be discussions about the script, casting, location scouting, and so on—there was no shortage of work ahead.
At Shangyang Games, everyone was still frantically playing horror games to look for material and inspiration. However, Pei Qian estimated that, given Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin’s work efficiency, a rough design draft should be ready within the next few days.
There wasn’t too much to prepare on the investment company side. With He Desheng’s help, Dream Fulfillment Ventures should be able to get on track very soon.
The detailed recruitment rules for the human resources department were also being formulated. The general process had already been decided, but the specific written tests and interview questions still needed to be finalized. This included arrangements for reception during the recruitment process, coordination between departments, measures to prevent information leaks, and so on—all of which still required careful preparation.
As for the mobile phone department, Chang You had already begun contacting his former colleagues from Hongcheng Technology. Once they found a suitable office building in Jingzhou, they could more or less officially start R&D.
After that, it would be time to transfer the money.
Yesterday, Pei Qian had already wired twenty million to Dream Fulfillment Ventures.
November 1st and 8th were both Mondays, the days when game revenue shares were credited.
When accounts were settled on the 31st of last month, the System Funds had been replenished to ten million, but that didn’t mean Pei Qian only had ten million at his disposal.
Ghost General, Ocean Fortress, Game Producer, Turn Back Before It’s Too Late (including the overseas edition), the mobile game Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition—this long list of games was still continuously generating income.
Take Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition as an example: its monthly net income was around four to five million, meaning about two million in revenue over two weeks.
The follow-up income from Ghost General and Game Producer was roughly on the same level. Turn Back Before It’s Too Late was currently at its sales peak; combining the domestic and overseas versions, its two-week revenue easily reached seven to eight million.
Ocean Fortress’s income was even more stable than that of Turn Back Before It’s Too Late.
In addition, businesses like Moyu Internet Café and ROF, which had previously been negatively impacted by aggressive spending, were also turning a profit this month.
Not to mention the rock-solid Mingyun Private Kitchen and the Terminal Chinese Web, which had just begun to show promising growth.
Adding all of this together, even after deducting expenditures from money-burning operations like Against the Wind Logistics, the company could still earn over ten million in about two weeks.
In a single month, the figure was heading straight toward thirty million.
This settlement cycle lasted five months. During those five months, the revenue from these games would fluctuate and rise and fall. The income from several single-player titles was bound to decline, but online games like Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition and Ocean Fortress had far too much staying power—they were the true pillars of revenue.
So Pei Qian’s goal was not to spend ten million over five months, but to spend 150 million over five months.
And that was only based on the income that was more or less certain at the moment.
What if some project suddenly exploded in popularity before settlement? He had to leave a buffer.
Even though the system allowed charitable donations up to 50% of the initial System Funds, that was only five million at most.
So Pei Qian had to spend—hard.
He roughly allocated the budget across the current businesses and decided to first transfer twenty million to Dream Fulfillment Ventures, letting Old Ma get some practice.
The main consideration was that Ma Yang was currently in the “newborn calf not afraid of the tiger” phase—exactly the best time for reckless spending.
If the initial amount was too small, even if Ma Yang lost money, it would only be one or two million.
But what if Ma Yang learned from those failures, and then, when given more money later, ended up investing in a successful project?
Wouldn’t that be disastrous?
So Pei Qian decided to go all in from the start and give Old Ma twenty million, letting him burn through it as hard as possible!
As the saying goes, one grows wiser after suffering a setback. As long as the losses upfront were big enough, there was no need to worry about Old Ma’s intelligence increasing too quickly later on.
As for the other businesses, their budgets all had to be maxed out as well, to help shoulder President Pei’s burden.
On Shangyang Games’ side, developing the horror game would need at least twenty million;
As for Tengda Games, although Pei Qian hadn’t yet decided what specific game to make, since it was the company’s flagship department, greater ability meant greater responsibility—spending fifty million wasn’t excessive;
For Feihuang Studio’s film project, although the content was limited and it was considered a low-budget movie, spending more on special effects and putting in thirty million was perfectly reasonable;
As for the mobile phone department, even though the plan wasn’t to mass-produce too many high-end phones, an initial investment of twenty million to get things started was still necessary. If the phones didn’t sell, then they’d have to keep pouring in money and continue expanding production.
In the end, if there was really no way to spend all the money, they could just increase investment in a department that hadn’t produced results yet and drag it out into the next cycle.
Of course, there was also the five-million charitable fund, which could serve as a last-ditch method for emergency spending.
All in all, after calculating everything, Pei Qian felt the situation wasn’t exactly optimistic, but it was still barely manageable.
These were all conservative, high-end estimates. If everything went smoothly, they would definitely be able to push the System Funds below ten million before settlement.
Pei Qian’s goal wasn’t particularly high—ending up with a small loss of four or five million, converting that into four or five hundred thousand for himself, and picking up a system reward on the side. Spread over five months, that worked out to about a hundred thousand per month—not a waste of effort.
Of course, this money wouldn’t be earned all at once. Every week, a sum would come in, so he still had to carefully arrange the order in which each project spent money and continue investing steadily. There was no way to blow all the money at once.
While Pei Qian was doing his calculations, someone knocked on the door.
He looked up—it was Li Yada.
“P–President Pei…”
“Um, should we be getting ready to develop a new game?”
“Or maybe release a DLC for Turn Back Before It’s Too Late?”
“Everyone’s… kind of idle right now.”
Coming to ask for more work—was that even acceptable?
Pei Qian was extremely dissatisfied with this kind of proactive attitude toward working.
But there was nothing he could really say. He could only put on a solemn expression and reply, “Don’t rush. Let everyone rest and recharge. In a while, there will be a very important task for everyone.”
Pei Qian himself hadn’t figured out what kind of task to assign to Tengda’s game department either.
As for the usual types of games, the chances of success were simply too high. Pei Qian couldn’t bring himself to be interested in them at all.
He absolutely couldn’t afford to dump fifty million into a project and end up creating another money-printing machine—that would run completely counter to his original objective.
Li Yada nodded. “Ah, okay. Then, President Pei, just call me anytime if you have a task.”
After Li Yada left, Pei Qian collapsed weakly back into his chair.
Being a boss was so hard!
Every day he had to rack his brains to arrange work for these employees. If he let them idle for just a couple of days, they’d come knocking on his door themselves.
This was truly unbearable!
Ding
A message came in on his phone.
Pei Qian picked it up and saw that it was from Chang You.
“President Pei, the team is more or less assembled now. I’ll arrange for someone to finalize the work location later this week, and we should be able to officially start work around next week.”
“Also, our designers got the relocation bonus and were so excited that they worked overnight to come up with Outu Technology’s logo. Please take a look.”
There were images attached below.
Pei Qian tapped them open and found the logo quite interesting.
At first glance, the outer shape resembled a rectangle, while inside were two circles stacked together in a complex way.
The rectangle and the circles overlapped in a special manner: one long side of the rectangle twisted and curved into the edge of a circle. You could vaguely tell that this was a transformation of two capital “T”s.
In other words, this graphic was the result of transforming and combining the four letters “OTTO.”
At a quick glance, it looked a bit like a rectangular eye, with twin pupils inside the eye socket.
Looking more closely, it also resembled a Möbius strip.
In addition, the way the two central circles overlapped was somewhat similar to the symbol used to represent “infinity.”
This logo was relatively minimalist, and on a solid-color background it looked quite stylish—very postmodern.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but sigh in admiration. This designer was truly talented.
Such a tacky brand name like “OTTO,” and yet they could come up with such a high-end logo?
When this logo was stamped onto the back of a phone, it might actually be able to bluff some people.
And this wasn’t the only logo.
The second logo was composed of two “+” symbols and two “○” symbols, forming a shape similar to a game controller. The “+” symbols were placed at the top left and bottom right, while the “○” symbols were at the bottom left and top right. The layout resembled a controller, with the two circles looking like analog sticks.
This logo was no longer monochrome. The shape was more complex, and the use of color was extremely bold, making it easy to associate it with game-related elements.
The third logo was the most conventional: a row of uppercase “OTTO” letters, rounded and well-proportioned. It looked decent enough and fit the typical style of a technology company.
The designer had produced three different proposals:
An abstract style;
A gaming style;
A letter-based style.
The intention was clearly for President Pei to choose one of them.
Pei Qian took a look and felt that all of them were pretty good, so he replied, “They’re all good. Let’s keep all of them for now. We can decide which one to use after the phone design is finished.”
…
…
November 12th, Friday.
Pei Qian planned to go to Dream Fulfillment Ventures to pay Ma Yang a visit.
He had originally planned to go yesterday, but it happened to be Singles’ Day. Pei Qian bought a bunch of random stuff online and ended up being delayed.
The packages hadn’t arrived yet today, so it was a good opportunity to swing by Old Ma’s place.
The twenty million for Dream Fulfillment Ventures had already been transferred on Monday. Five days had passed by now, so some of the money should have been spent already.
However, Pei Qian estimated that, given Ma Yang’s temperament, he was probably still hesitating. At most, he might have spent two or three million so far.
Even though Pei Qian had repeatedly emphasized to Old Ma that he should act when it was time to act and absolutely not hesitate, after all… that was still twenty million.
Pei Qian was worried that Ma Yang would be reluctant to spend the money, which was why he wanted to take a look at the situation at Dream Fulfillment Ventures and, while he was at it, give Old Ma another round of ideological encouragement.
Dream Fulfillment Ventures had already rented an office space, about a fifteen-minute drive from Tengda, also in a high-end office building.
Following the address, Pei Qian arrived at Dream Fulfillment Ventures’ office and quietly walked in.
Thick carpets covered the floor, so Pei Qian didn’t make much noise as he stepped inside.
The large company space was currently empty, but he could hear people shouting inside, their voices echoing throughout the entire office.
“Hurry, hurry, we can fight, we can fight!”
“Kill that squishy first!”
“Save me, quick!”
“Protect him! Protect him! Protect President Ma!”
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