After his conversation with Emily, Evan headed back to the office.
Emily still wanted to study the proposal Evan had written out by hand, planning to build a basic data model to test its effectiveness. After their talk, even though she still had her doubts about this whole idea of becoming her own boss, at least she was starting to feel a bit more motivated about the work.
Evan, on the other hand, had to prepare for the afternoon meeting. The entire morning had been dedicated to finalizing the game's production side of things, but the afternoon's focus would shift to something equally crucial for the game's success—the preparations for its initial promotion and launch strategy.
When he got back to the sixth floor, Evan went straight to his office to prepare, then asked Lana to call up the head of the operations department.
A few minutes later, a polished, professional-looking young man knocked on Director Carter's door.
"Director Carter, you wanted to see me?"
Evan stood up and gestured for him to take a seat, then sat back down himself. It was only then that Evan realized this was actually his first real interaction with anyone from the operations department. Recalling the background information he'd asked Lana to pull together for him earlier, Evan began speaking.
"We probably haven't had a chance to work together before, but honestly, the success of the company's next game is going to depend heavily on your operations department. I've heard my father speak very highly of you—he believed that the success of several of the company's previous games was largely thanks to the operations team's work. So let's start by getting acquainted properly. I'm Evan Carter, project lead for the company's upcoming game and its chief designer."
The young man sitting across from Evan responded with equal professionalism. "Logan Hayes. I appreciate the kind words, but honestly, I'm not that impressive. The promotion work for the company's previous products just happened to hit at the right time, that's all."
Evan nodded with approval. Not arrogant, not overly eager to take credit—no wonder his father had praised Logan so highly. Compared to him, Evan's uncle who held some nominal position in logistics was completely useless by comparison.
"I sent you an email earlier with a summary of our next game's key features. Do you have any initial thoughts on it?" Evan asked.
Logan appeared calm and composed, like he'd already spent time thinking this through, and he spoke clearly and articulately.
"I've gone through the electronic version of the proposal you sent me pretty thoroughly, Director Carter. You've summarized the game's selling points very clearly—free to play, easy to pick up and learn, and requiring almost no system requirements are its biggest advantages from a marketing standpoint. As for the actual gameplay mechanics, I'm personally not familiar enough with that side of things, and honestly it's rarely the most useful angle for promotion anyway, so we can set that aside for now. Once we fully understand the game's inherent characteristics and strengths, the next logical step is conducting market research to identify its specific target audience demographics. Then we can formulate a concrete marketing strategy based on reaching that target audience effectively."
Evan nodded thoughtfully. The strategy Logan outlined seemed pretty standard and unremarkable, but then again, Evan hadn't provided him with much detailed information to work with yet. This measured, cautious approach actually indicated that Logan was a very steady, reliable person who didn't overpromise. As Evan considered this, he posed his next question.
"Logan, have you ever heard the term 'viral marketing' before?"
"Viral marketing?" Logan seemed a bit uncertain, like he might have heard the phrase but wasn't entirely sure what Evan meant by it in this context.
"Viral marketing," Evan confirmed with a nod. "Think of it like this—it starts from a single point of origin and then rapidly radiates outward in all directions. Wide reach, strong propagation ability, spreading exponentially. It doesn't rely on slowly accumulated word-of-mouth over time. Instead, it prioritizes speed above everything else, making the spread of the topic feel like a nuclear explosion passing through a population."
After listening to Evan's more detailed explanation, Logan quickly started to grasp the concept and get into the mindset. "It sounds like a very aggressive publicity strategy—rapidly seizing attention and market share. So essentially, whether it generates positive buzz or negative controversy, as long as people are talking about it and aware of it exists, the topic will spread on its own momentum, and eventually someone's bound to try it out for themselves. However..."
Logan hesitated slightly, choosing his words carefully. "This kind of approach would typically require a very substantial advertising budget to execute properly, and given the company's current financial situation..."
He trailed off at this point, clearly unsure whether he should speak more bluntly about the budget constraints or if bringing it up would be reopening a sensitive wound.
Evan didn't seem bothered by the concern at all, though. He nodded and responded directly.
"Your concerns are completely valid and justified. Our company's current budget really is insufficient for a traditional massive advertising campaign. If we were to scatter online banner ads and physical advertisements everywhere the way you're probably imagining, you're absolutely right—our budget would never be enough to sustain it. But this time around, our advertising approach is going to be purely digital and online-focused. In fact, there's another name for this kind of marketing strategy. Do you know what it is?"
Evan didn't even wait for Logan to venture a guess before continuing with his explanation.
"Viral marketing—as in, like a virus. The entire marketing process should function and spread exactly like a biological virus does. One person infects two people, those two people each infect two more, making four. With this kind of exponential accumulation and growth, every single person who sees the advertisement essentially becomes a walking advertisement for us themselves. They might not personally be interested in actually playing the game, but if the advertisement itself is clever enough and engaging enough, they'll spontaneously pass it along to the next person in their network. This way, it can rapidly cover the vast majority of our target demographic without us having to pay for each individual impression."
"And how exactly do you get users to willingly spread your advertisement for you without any direct incentive? First, the content has to be close to where the users already are—meaning it needs to be promoted strategically across various social media platforms where people naturally spend their time. Second, the advertisement itself must be sufficiently memorable and 'sticky' in some way. Whether it's cleverly designed to genuinely amaze and impress users, or alternatively designed to be so bizarre or controversial that it provokes a strong reaction and makes users seek out their friends specifically to share it and discuss it together—either approach works, as long as the advertisement makes them actively want to talk about it with other people. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"
Evan turned to look directly at Logan, who still seemed to be in a somewhat dazed state as he processed all this new information. Logan quickly snapped back to attention.
"Director Carter, you've explained it extremely clearly. I'll head back and discuss this thoroughly with my team, and we'll put together a preliminary draft proposal for you to review as soon as we possibly can."
Evan nodded. "The game's playable demo version is expected to be ready within approximately one month from now. Your team should be working on the same timeline—the marketing plan needs to be completely finalized within that first month as well. After that initial month, we'll need to start reaching out and making contact with various media outlets and marketing resources. Our overall timeline is very tight, so there's no room for delays. You can go ahead and get started."
Logan nodded firmly, then left the office with noticeably hurried steps. Evan's words and concepts from just now had clearly made a significant impact on him. Even though Evan hadn't used particularly technical or professional advertising terminology, for Logan as someone who worked professionally in marketing and advertising, the implications were incredibly clear and exciting. This represented a genuinely new approach to marketing strategy that he hadn't encountered before.
The execution and process might not be particularly well-liked by end users when they encountered it, sure. But for Redbird Studios in its current desperate situation, as long as the strategy was effective at driving results, that was genuinely all that mattered at this point.
Watching Logan leave, Evan pressed his lips together with a touch of regret. Even though he had a fairly complete and detailed plan already worked out in his own mind, Evan had almost blurted out: "Just go back and wait for me to write up the full plan for you myself!"
But at the very last moment, Evan had managed to stop himself and pull back. What he wanted to ultimately achieve wasn't just the success of a single game. Evan's real ambition was much larger—to become a true influential figure in the gaming industry of this era, maybe even build an entire game empire. To accomplish something on that scale, it would be completely impossible for him to personally handle and micromanage every single aspect of everything. If he tried to take on all the planning, all the production work, and all the promotion for every single game himself, putting aside whether or not it would even succeed, he would inevitably exhaust himself to death eventually. That kind of unsustainable approach simply wasn't advisable for long-term success.
Just as Evan was contemplating all of this, right after Logan had left, Emily appeared in his doorway. Evan couldn't help but ask with genuine curiosity.
"Emily, I thought you said you were going to work on building that data model? What's up?"
Emily didn't say a word in response. She just gave Evan a look that was sharp as a knife blade. Evan immediately understood the unspoken message.
"Right. I'll take you to your workstation."
With that, he got up and led the way out of his office, heading straight forward and then taking a left turn. It was actually quite close to his own office. Evan walked ahead and opened the door for her. Inside was a reasonably sizable office space, but it was completely empty of people, and the items scattered across the desk were somewhat messy and disorganized. Evan started helping to tidy things up as he explained the situation.
"The company originally had four or five planners working here, but after that whole incident last time with the lead planner, they all collectively resigned and left. So currently, there are only exactly two designers working at this entire company—you and me. I've got my own separate office, which means this entire office space is now exclusively yours to use however you want. For the immediate future, just the two of us should be more than enough to handle all the planning and design work for First Strike. Even if we do decide to hire additional designers eventually, that won't happen until after the New Year holiday at the earliest."
He glanced over at Emily, who was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, just lazily watching him clean up and organize the space for her. Evan felt a surge of mild annoyance.
"What are you just standing there staring at? Get in here and help me clean this up!"
Reach 300 powerstones for extra chapter,