Chapter 797 - 274: Daily Cash Flow Over Hundred Million, The True Money-Attracting Artifact_3

As she spoke, she even quoted a line from the character Daji in "Honor of Kings."

"Master, come play with Daji!"

As Li Yuan listened to Zhong Tingyue cosplay Daji’s line, an image suddenly popped into his mind. What would it be like if Zhong Tingyue, Bai Weixi, and Xia Zhijin were to cosplay the female heroes from ’Honor of Kings’ in the future? With their divine looks, it would undoubtedly be gorgeous, thrilling, and incredibly attractive... I almost forgot about cosplay. I’ll have to get them to try it out more often. Hehe, it’s a happy decision.

Hearing Li Yuan’s low murmurs, Zhong Tingyue suddenly shuddered, feeling as if he was scheming something wicked. "Senior, your laugh is so scary! Are you thinking up some mischief again?"

Li Yuan smiled mysteriously. "You’ll know in the future."

...

Amid the joyful laughter with his girlfriends, an hour had passed since "Honor of Kings" officially went live.

Hu Zhenqiang burst into the office excitedly to report the first hour’s data to Li Yuan. "Director Li, great news! The game has been downloaded over 300,000 times in the first hour, with revenue breaking one million, and it’s still growing at a steady, rapid pace. The revenue mainly comes from users purchasing game heroes and hero skins."

Li Yuan nodded as he listened to Hu Zhenqiang’s report. The data for the first hour had greatly exceeded his expectations. For a morning launch, the numbers were already very impressive.

The monetization model for "Honor of Kings" was roughly the same as it was in his past life. Or rather, the monetization strategies for most games were quite similar. They mainly involved purchasing heroes, skins, Inscriptions, and various other in-game items. However, "Honor of Kings" was not a freemium game. Apart from skins, other items like heroes and Inscriptions could be purchased with gold coins, which could be slowly accumulated just by playing. It offered a choice between spending time and spending money, leaving the decision up to the player.

"Not bad. We’re close to our initial goal," Li Yuan said, his expression relaxing slightly. He then urged, "The most important thing now is to focus on the player experience. We need to resolve any potential issues like frame drops, lag, or disconnections."

Hu Zhenqiang reined in his excitement and nodded solemnly. It was indeed not the time to get carried away. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and they were just taking their first step on the ladder to success.

...

Li Yuan stayed at the company all day on January 20th, monitoring online feedback on the "Honor of Kings" user experience and tracking the data. By eight o’clock the next morning, the game’s first-day data was in.

In the first 24 hours, the number of downloads and registered users reached 3,542,370. This included an astonishing figure of over 500,000 female users, which was a massive number for a competitive PC game. Many of these female users had been drawn to the game purely because of Li Yuan’s name, as rumors were circulating online that he would make an appearance in the game.

Furthermore, these female fans had significant spending power. They would purchase Inscriptions, heroes, and skins in the blink of an eye. For fans who could shell out thousands for concert tickets and bubble tea, dropping a few hundred on a game was no problem at all.

This immense celebrity effect translated into massive first-day revenue. On January 20th, cash recharges reached an astounding sum of over 105 million. This was achieved while numerous launch-day events were still running to boost downloads. Once players became more familiar with the game, the future numbers were bound to be even more staggering. Effectively, "Honor of Kings" had recouped its development costs on its very first day, marking it a resounding success.

After the first-day figures were released, major websites and news outlets naturally rushed to report on it, uniformly lavishing praise on "Honor of Kings." Headlines like "A Revolutionary Game," "A Milestone in Huaxia’s Gaming History," "The King of Games," "The Hammer to Shatter Foreign Game Monopolies," and "The New Giant of Online Gaming" were heaped upon Li Yuan and his creation.

Online, discussions about "Honor of Kings" skyrocketed, hitting the number one spot on trending searches and dominating the entire internet. Some "Xia Hua fans" gave it the highest possible accolades. Indeed, Li Yuan didn’t even need to arrange for hired commenters to build hype like before. Legions of fans spontaneously promoted the game in every forum, claiming it was peerless. Phrases like "The best graphics," "Epic settings," "An unprecedented gaming experience," and "You’ll regret it for a lifetime if you miss it" were everywhere. The game was being hyped into oblivion.

...

「Inside the villa at Xinghe Bay」

After spending a delightful and indulgent night with Zhong Tingyue, Li Yuan woke up and started reading the discussions about "Honor of Kings" on forums and in fan groups.

["Everyone, hype this to the moon! ’A Xia Hua product is a guaranteed masterpiece.’ They’re so right! ’Honor of Kings’ is insanely addictive. I downloaded it at 6 PM yesterday and played straight until 2 AM. I’m completely hooked. The last few ranked matches were especially thrilling..."]

["As a seasoned gamer and a die-hard fan of Xia Hua, I have to say something objective. ’Honor of Kings’ might look simple, but its gameplay is incredibly deep and engaging. It’s no exaggeration to call it a groundbreaking game. I guarantee that within a month, it will own half of the domestic gaming market."]

["Hehe, am I the only one who’s noticed how many female players there are? A lot of them are pretty, too. I was on voice chat with a few of them last night, and their voices were so sweet. The gaming experience was maxed out, for real."]

["+1 to the guy above! Bro, you get me. I used to play World of Warcraft, but last night two of my female university classmates dragged me into downloading ’Honor of Kings.’ I was reluctant at first, but one played Daji, the other played Wang Zhaojun, and I played the Monkey... We were on voice chat the whole time, and I was flirting with them non-stop. Their voices made my heart melt... To hell with World of Warcraft! I’m a loyal ’Honor of Kings’ fan from now on!"]

["I have to say, I think one of the main reasons ’Honor of Kings’ is guaranteed to blow up is the sheer number of female players. For single guys like us, that’s a huge draw... If you play enough, maybe you can find a sweet girlfriend in the game!"]

...

A smile touched Li Yuan’s lips as he read through the various online discussions. In his previous life, one of the core reasons for the enduring popularity of the "Honor of Kings" mobile game was its large and consistently active female user base. Other mobile games, like those in the battle royale genre, were often just a flash in the pan and could never maintain the same long-term popularity as "Honor of Kings," precisely because they lacked the same appeal to female users. In this era, aside from a few specific industries like KTVs, bars, and foot massage parlors, men’s spending power was far surpassed by women’s.

Li Yuan mused to himself, It’s 2009 now, and the smartphone revolution is only two or three years away. When it happens, I can launch the mobile version of ’Honor of Kings’ and capture a whole new wave of players...