Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 451: Reinforcements Arrive, Reinforcements Collapse
March 13th, Sunday.
Pei Qian once again came to OTTO Technology to personally supervise the situation on-site!
Although his supervision probably wouldn't actually accomplish much, Pei Qian still felt more reassured seeing things in person.
Today was Sunday, but since the phone launch was such an important matter, everyone was working overtime. Of course, overtime pay was fully provided.
For Chang You, however, the pressure was overwhelming.
President Pei personally showing up meant he clearly attached great importance to the sales performance of the OTTO E1 phone.
But there was absolutely no way today's stock would sell out!
Even now, reservation numbers had only just barely surpassed 5,000 units, while they had prepared a stock of 9,000 phones.
Consumers who had made reservations still had two or three days to pay the remaining balance, so naturally they wouldn't rush to purchase immediately.
As for everyone else, there was even less reason to rush, because anyone truly interested had already placed a reservation long ago.
In short, today's sales numbers were probably going to look terrible.
If President Pei got angry later, the situation might become impossible to handle.
But at this point, Chang You had no other choice. He could only brace himself and wait for sales to begin.
At 10 a.m., the phones officially went on sale again!
The sales numbers initially rose rapidly, but soon the growth slowed down dramatically. It was obvious the momentum had run out.
Watching the constantly changing sales numbers on the product page, Pei Qian became happier and happier the more he looked.
Excellent. This matched his predictions perfectly—if anything, things were going even better than expected!
After making reservations with deposits, many people no longer felt any urgency to rush and buy immediately. In addition, the available stock this time was much larger, so the level of hype was nowhere near the frenzy of the previous two sales waves.
An hour later, sales had only just reached 4,100 units, and the growth rate had already become painfully slow.
Pei Qian felt that was probably about it. Even if the remaining people who had reserved phones remembered to complete their payments a few hours later, total sales today would likely still struggle to surpass 5,000.
The goal of leaving 4,000 units sitting unsold in inventory had been achieved with ease!
Seeing President Pei stand up, Chang You became extremely nervous.
He also knew there was little point in continuing to watch the sales numbers. Hurriedly, he said to President Pei:
"President Pei, don't worry! I'll continue monitoring sales closely and think of other solutions! I'll definitely solve the inventory backlog problem!"
Chang You figured he needed to quickly express his determination.
The corners of Pei Qian's mouth twitched slightly.
"Think of other solutions"?!
Please, no. Absolutely not!
The current situation was perfect. Nobody wanted the phones anymore, so stop messing with them already! Wouldn't it be nice to let these lovely little phones lie peacefully in the warehouse and slowly grow old together in romantic harmony?
Can't you feel the suffering of such an adorable phone being endlessly subjected to marketing schemes? No, you can't. You only care about yourself!
Pei Qian shook his head.
"There's nothing wrong with our marketing strategy. Your top priority right now isn't that. Don't waste time and energy on marketing."
"Your primary task is still increasing production capacity!"
"Take all the remaining funds and use them to prepare more inventory. Before next Wednesday, I want to see 14,000 OTTO phones sitting in the warehouse!"
Chang You's mouth fell open slightly, speechless for a moment.
More inventory?
The phones were already not selling!
And 14,000 units? We'd be lucky just to sell off the current 4,000 units in stock. We could always produce more later if needed!
Seeing Chang You frozen in shock, Pei Qian asked, "Can you do it?"
Chang You instantly snapped back to reality and hurriedly replied, "Yes! No problem!"
…
After returning home, Pei Qian felt much more at ease.
The pressure of taking losses this settlement cycle had been greatly reduced!
Pei Qian had long since realized that the system's method for calculating profits and losses was extremely simple and crude—it only tracked changes in system funds.
Converting money into physical goods or virtual assets wouldn't count toward the system's calculations. Only large-scale real estate counted, and even then only at 10% of its value.
Pei Qian had even been tempted to transfer all surplus funds from other departments into OTTO phone inventory.
But he resisted the temptation because he clearly understood that such behavior also carried huge risks.
Just like the ROF computer assembly business back then—a single fire had caused all the inventory to be bought out instantly, turning what should have been losses into disastrous profits…
Now it was the same situation. If these phones somehow ended up selling even half their stock for some inexplicable reason, then all of Pei Qian's stockpiling efforts would be wasted.
So he decided to wait and observe a bit longer. Once he was absolutely certain the phone business was completely safe, he would continue building up inventory.
After returning home, the first thing Pei Qian did was open the Gouyan app to check the box office performance of Journey of the Flying Star.
1st Place: Journey of the Flying Star — current-day box office by noon: 164.93 million yuan.
2nd Place: The Pursuer — current-day box office by noon: 32.17 million yuan.
3rd Place: A Better Tomorrow — current-day box office by noon: 28.74 million yuan.
Three giant question marks instantly floated above Pei Qian's head, and his heart turned cold.
Something about this situation was seriously wrong!
Journey of the Flying Star would probably reach around 32 million yuan for the day, which was significantly higher than yesterday. However, it still matched Gouyan App's box office projections almost perfectly—and the projection had even dropped slightly.
In other words, this movie would probably only make around 300 million yuan domestically… and that was in RMB.
Gouyan App had very forcefully proven to Pei Qian that its projections were extremely accurate.
But that was exactly what left Pei Qian baffled.
Wasn't this supposed to be a huge blockbuster? Why the hell was it so weak?
If the movie really performed like this, it would lose its underwear at the box office. Worldwide losses would probably head toward four or five hundred million dollars!
"I'm so jealous!"
"Ah, forget it. It has nothing to do with me anyway."
"I don't care how much money you lose. Just help suppress A Better Tomorrow's box office!"
Seeing that Journey of the Flying Star had already become a hopeless case, Pei Qian naturally lowered his expectations for it.
Originally, he had hoped it would completely drain away theater screenings and audience attention during this period. But now, that seemed impossible.
Then he looked at The Pursuer, which only made him even angrier.
"And what's wrong with you?"
"It's only your third day in theaters, and your box office has already dropped this much? Aren't you also supposed to be a major production?"
"You've disappointed me too much!"
Then he looked at A Better Tomorrow again.
Its box office performance had actually become even stronger than yesterday's, rising against the trend!
It even looked like it was about to overtake The Pursuer and reclaim second place.
Pei Qian was utterly speechless.
"There's definitely something wrong here. Absolutely something wrong!"
"Even if Journey of the Flying Star is bad, it's still a newly released Hollywood blockbuster on only its second day! And how is A Better Tomorrow's box office still increasing? This makes no scientific sense at all!"
Whenever something abnormal happened, there was always a hidden reason behind it. Pei Qian hurriedly browsed through various movie forums and entertainment websites, determined to uncover the truth!
Finally, in a movie review for Journey of the Flying Star, Pei Qian found the answer.
"Journey of the Flying Star: Like Eating Stale, Damp Sunflower Seeds"
"I heard this movie had a 170-million-dollar budget, was adapted from a famous work, featured a star-studded cast, and before release it shamelessly compared itself to a bunch of famous foreign sci-fi IPs. So I excitedly bought a ticket, but after watching it, I only had one feeling: this movie was surreal in the worst way."
"The original novel was written a full 100 years ago. I'm not denying that the source material is a classic, but looking at 100-year-old science fiction through modern eyes, times have completely changed—it just doesn't hit the same anymore. If this movie had been made twenty or thirty years ago, I absolutely wouldn't deny it could've become a legendary classic in film history. But come on, it's already 2011! We already watched Avatar the year before last, and now you're showing us this?"
"The protagonist gets transported to another planet inhabited by two factions of aliens that basically look like humans, along with green-skinned four-armed savages. These savages somehow haven't gone extinct despite having no modern weapons, while the two alien factions possess advanced technology yet remain fascinated by the protagonist—a mere Earthling who can only jump a little higher than normal. Even the alien princess falls in love with him at first sight. On top of that, the movie's explanation for the dimensional travel is incredibly lazy, and the conspiracies in the film are about as sophisticated as children playing mind games,"
"Of course, I'm not criticizing the original author. After all, he was someone from a hundred years ago. But the director should've realized that adapting this story into a movie today is completely out of touch with the times."
"Recently, a lot of people have been comparing Journey of the Flying Star with A Better Tomorrow. Even though this might make me sound like I'm awkwardly overpraising a domestic film, I still have to say this: although A Better Tomorrow also has many illogical aspects, its plot, worldbuilding, details, and overall sci-fi atmosphere are all vastly superior to Journey of the Flying Star!"
"To use a metaphor, Journey of the Flying Star feels like throwing a bunch of premium ingredients into a pot and boiling them recklessly over high heat. Everything going in is good, but somehow all the flavor gets cooked away."
"Meanwhile, A Better Tomorrow is more like using simple, ordinary ingredients to create a dish nobody has ever tasted before. The ingredients don't look complicated, but the more you savor it, the more unforgettable it becomes."
"So if anyone still hasn't watched A Better Tomorrow and feels that Journey of the Flying Star was painful to sit through, I strongly recommend giving it a try. Of course, if you've already seen it and want to watch it a second time to cleanse your eyes, I've got no objections to that either."
…
Pei Qian finally seemed to understand where the problem lay.
Still unconvinced, he browsed around the forums some more. This time, he completely believed it.
There really were people going to theaters to watch A Better Tomorrow specifically because of Journey of the Flying Star!
People who hadn't watched A Better Tomorrow before became curious after seeing so many others criticize Journey of the Flying Star while praising A Better Tomorrow, so they decided to check it out.
Meanwhile, many people who had already watched A Better Tomorrow wanted to watch it again as a way to "cleanse their eyes."
But the most unfortunate victim in all of this wasn't Journey of the Flying Star. After all, it was still a star-studded blockbuster backed by a 170-million-dollar investment. Even though it now looked like it was heading toward catastrophic losses, it still wasn't something ordinary movies could easily bully.
The real victim was actually The Pursuer. Once Journey of the Flying Star and A Better Tomorrow started fighting for public attention, the popularity of both movies rose together. Their attendance rates and box office numbers both increased, which meant The Pursuer's theater screenings got squeezed out instead…
Originally, Pei Qian had hoped that Journey of the Flying Star would thoroughly crush A Better Tomorrow after release and help reduce some of his financial burden before the movie left theaters.
But now things had gone completely the other way—A Better Tomorrow's box office numbers had actually started climbing against the trend!
Judging by the current situation, the movie's earnings were probably going to continue rising!
Pei Qian tossed his phone aside and slumped lifelessly in despair.
The reinforcements that had traveled all the way from overseas were simply too weak. They got flattened in just a single day.
Not only had they failed to damage A Better Tomorrow's box office performance, they had actually produced the exact opposite effect instead.
This was unbearable!!!