Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 491: You Missed a Hidden Condition
Pei Qian arrived at the office building of Dream Fulfillment Ventures and quietly slipped inside, his footsteps making no sound on the carpet.
Although Dream Fulfillment Ventures had expanded over time, growing in both size and staff, the large office space still felt oddly empty.
The entire area echoed with shouts and calls:
"Go in! I have my ultimate!"
"Focus the squishy first!"
"The Hedgehog popped his ult! That's hard to deal with—back off for now!"
"Protect President Ma! Protect President Ma!"
Pei Qian stopped in his tracks.
Watching Ma Yang passionately hammer away at his keyboard and mouse in the middle of the office, he suddenly felt as though time had turned back.
Wasn't this exactly what it had looked like the first time he visited Dream Fulfillment Ventures?
Back then, Ma Yang had led everyone in a marathon session of Divine Revelation. Pei Qian had been so touched that tears nearly came to his eyes—only for Ma Yang to immediately turn around and buy a 20% stake in Fingertip Games, complete with the operating rights for the Chinese server, nearly causing Pei Qian to faint from anger on the spot.
But after that, Dream Fulfillment Ventures had started doing actual investment work.
Granted, the projects they invested in were all rather unconventional, but every single one had succeeded.
To President Pei, this was an incomprehensible series of failures.
To outsiders, however, it looked like the company had finally gotten on the right track.
As a result, it seemed that Dream Fulfillment Ventures hadn't gathered en masse to play games in a very long time.
Looking at Old Ma—who had once solemnly vowed to help shoulder his burdens, but was now fully immersed in the battlefield of GOG—Pei Qian felt deeply moved.
Old Ma really is helping me carry the burden. What a brother!
By keeping all the Dream Fulfillment Ventures employees busy with games instead of running around making profitable investments, wasn't he helping Pei Qian perfectly?
The two brothers might have had completely different intentions, but the result was exactly what Pei Qian wanted.
However, less than five seconds after feeling happy, a sense of danger suddenly arose, and the smile vanished from his face.
Wait.
Whenever something looks this good, you have to check for hidden traps first!
Last time, he had lowered his guard and ended up with the disastrous Fingertip Games investment.
Immediately becoming serious, Pei Qian raised his vigilance to maximum and walked behind Ma Yang.
Before he could say anything, however, he spotted another familiar figure.
Zhang Yuan was sitting diagonally across from Ma Yang, equally focused on the game.
Wait a second.
What's he doing here?
Confused, Pei Qian asked, "Zhang Yuan? Aren't you busy setting up the club? Why are you here?"
Zhang Yuan had been completely absorbed in the game and only now realized that President Pei had arrived.
"Ah, President Pei!"
The others also finally noticed him and hurriedly stood up.
Pei Qian waved his hand.
"Sit down, sit down. Don't sabotage your teammates."
Ma Yang grinned.
"It's fine, Brother Qian. We're playing a custom game."
Pei Qian: "..."
Right.
Classic Old Ma style.
Nine people protecting one.
No, wait.
Given the current lineup, it should be eight protecting two protecting one.
Judging from the situation, eight highly skilled players were carrying both Zhang Yuan and Ma Yang, while Zhang Yuan also had to protect Ma Yang in-game because he was his former boss.
"Brother Qian, did you come all the way here because you have some instructions for us?" Ma Yang asked expectantly.
Pei Qian: "..."
Under normal circumstances, shouldn't you be the one reporting your investment projects to me?
Apparently, Ma Yang had completely forgotten his earlier promise—made while eating potato chips—that he would help ease Pei Qian's burdens.
Of course, Pei Qian had no intention of reminding him.
In fact, letting Old Ma continue being this forgetful seemed pretty good.
However, at that moment, He Desheng stepped forward.
Seeing that President Pei remained silent, He Desheng quickly stepped in to smooth things over for Ma Yang.
"President Pei, I can vouch for President Ma. He's actually been seriously screening investment projects this whole time!"
"It's just that President Ma has faithfully remembered your teachings and has been holding every project to a strict standard of 'dream value.' As a result, he still hasn't found a single project suitable for investment."
"President Ma has actually done a lot of work—he just never took credit for it!"
Pei Qian: "..."
He hadn't even wanted to bring this up.
Ma Yang immediately caught on.
"That's right, Brother Qian! I really did look at a lot of projects, but I couldn't find any suitable ones! You can't blame me for that!"
Pei Qian patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, Old Ma. I trust you completely."
"You're not the kind of person who lies. If you say you've looked, then you've definitely looked."
Of course, Pei Qian also knew that having seriously searched for projects in the past and happily playing games now were not mutually exclusive.
Most likely, Old Ma had spent some time looking, failed to find anything suitable, given up, and then completely forgotten about the matter.
Pei Qian turned to the others.
"Everyone should learn from President Ma."
"When it comes to investments, we should maintain a mindset of better none than bad ones. If there aren't any truly suitable projects, then even taking a break and playing games is far better than investing in questionable opportunities."
He Desheng and the others all nodded.
As expected of President Pei.
What a brilliant point!
At the same time, they became even more convinced that President Ma had probably once taken a nuclear blast on President Pei's behalf.
Receiving praise, Ma Yang was delighted.
"Brother Qian, why don't you join us for a game?"
"You play Coin-Spraying Hedgehog and you'll definitely carry the whole match! Come on, come on—we'll start another round!"
Pei Qian's face darkened.
Old Ma was great in every way except that his emotional intelligence was occasionally a little lacking.
Then again, after thinking about it, that fit both his intelligence level and his established character perfectly.
Pei Qian waved him off.
"No, I still have actual business to attend to."
He looked at He Desheng.
"Dream Fulfillment Ventures hasn't invested in any new projects recently, right?"
He Desheng nodded.
"No."
"President Pei, don't all investment projects require your approval now?"
Pei Qian was very satisfied with that answer.
It seemed there were no problems on Dream Fulfillment Ventures' side.
At the same time, he became even more convinced of the importance of the Jinyiwei. In the future, all these oversight tasks should simply be handed over to the claims-adjustment trainees.
Then he turned toward Zhang Yuan.
"What about the club?"
Zhang Yuan sighed softly.
"I'm sorry, President Pei, but there hasn't been any real progress yet."
Pei Qian became even happier.
It was rare to see Zhang Yuan operating at such low efficiency!
The Best Employee Selection Process had already concluded back in February.
More than two months had passed, and Zhang Yuan's esports club still hadn't materialized.
How delightful!
Sure enough, Zhang Yuan's real interests were still focused on the internet cafés and the ROF PC-building business. Even after being "first to be eliminated," he remained attached to those operations and couldn't let them go.
This proved that the Best Employee Selection Process had achieved unprecedented success!
Pei Qian was in a great mood.
Neither Dream Fulfillment Ventures nor the esports club had caused him any trouble.
What a comforting thought.
Still, even in his happiness, Pei Qian didn't forget to carefully eliminate the final remaining risk.
"Then why did you come to Dream Fulfillment Ventures today?"
Zhang Yuan looked troubled.
"It's like this, President Pei."
"I've spent this whole period thinking about the esports club, but I still haven't come up with any particularly good ideas."
"Just deciding which game the club should focus on kept me agonizing for more than a month."
"Right now, the esports industry is in a transitional period."
"If we're talking about esports titles, then real-time strategy games and first-person shooters have more mature competitive scenes and are easier to build teams around."
"The problem is that those genres seem to be declining. They're no longer attracting many new players..."
"If I were to build a team around an RTS game right now, wouldn't that basically be the equivalent of becoming a eunuch at age twelve?"
Pei Qian's expression grew somewhat serious.
It seemed that Zhang Yuan's analysis of the current esports landscape was actually quite reasonable.
Zhang Yuan continued, "So I figured I should look for an up-and-coming game with strong future prospects."
"After looking around, GOG seemed like the best choice."
"Coincidentally, GOG was running its ranked ladder promotion event, so I started contacting the players at the top of the rankings one by one. I figured I could recruit at least a few of them into the club."
"But after contacting several of them, I got rejected."
"Some had already signed with other clubs—I was too late."
"But others weren't signed to any club at all. They simply weren't interested in my offer."
"I thought the package I was offering was already quite generous."
"I included full social insurance and housing fund contributions, various employee benefits, a high base salary, and performance bonuses. The package was already far better than what most domestic clubs were offering."
"So why were they still refusing?"
"Eventually, one person finally told me the truth."
"They already had a proper job—at an investment company."
"At that point, I felt something was off."
"So I asked a few more questions and, sure enough, it turned out to be Dream Fulfillment Ventures."
"That's why I came here."
"Then President Ma became extremely interested in the esports club idea. We talked for a long time, and he invited me to play some games."
"And... that's how things ended up looking the way you see now."
After listening to Zhang Yuan's explanation, a question mark practically appeared above Pei Qian's head.
?
The chain of events was so convoluted that he couldn't process it immediately.
He Desheng quickly stepped in to explain:
"President Pei, what President Zhang said is completely true."
"But we only play during our spare time after work."
"We just happened to earn the Master-tier ranking rewards by accident. We definitely weren't intentionally slacking off!"
Pei Qian finally understood.
Previously, in order to throw money around, GOG had introduced a ranked-ladder reward system where players who reached Master rank could earn cash rewards, encouraging massive participation.
But who would naturally be able to reach Master or even King-tier ranks?
Obviously, the answer was the high-ranked veterans from Divine Revelation.
Although the three games differed in some aspects of gameplay, they were still fundamentally the same genre.
Experienced Divine Revelation players understood MOBA games far better than newcomers. Their mechanics were better as well, so naturally they could climb the ladder much faster in a short period of time.
Therefore, when the Spring Season rankings were settled, the top positions were almost entirely occupied by veteran players from Divine Revelation and IOI.
That outcome was inevitable.
A few months later, talented newcomers who had never played similar games would gradually rise through the ranks as well.
No matter how gifted they were, however, they still needed time to learn.
Meanwhile, the employees Ma Yang and He Desheng had recruited into Dream Fulfillment Ventures happened to be the people who both understood investment and were among the best Divine Revelation players around.
Many of them were already approaching professional-level skill.
Moreover, they had directly participated in GOG's development and had contributed numerous suggestions, giving them a much deeper understanding of the game than ordinary players.
For example, once they learned that GOG's mechanics rewarded roaming and team support, they could adjust their playstyle accordingly and win more consistently.
Since Zhang Yuan had started recruiting from the top of the rankings, the odds of him running into this group were extremely high.
As for why these people were grinding GOG's ranked ladder in the first place...
Wasn't that obvious?
There wasn't much work to do at Dream Fulfillment Ventures.
Meanwhile, GOG paid cash rewards for reaching Master rank.
Sure, it was technically the company's own money.
But free money was free money.
Why wouldn't they take it?
Pei Qian couldn't help sighing.
"Zhang Yuan, your thinking is actually very solid."
"Your assessment of the industry seems correct as well."
"Your overall approach to solving the problem was completely right."
"But..."
"You overlooked one hidden condition."
"The game's operator—or, in other words, the organizer of the esports league—cannot have a financial relationship with the teams participating in the competition."
Zhang Yuan's expression instantly froze.
"Huh?"