Chapter 913 - 316: Qi Siyu’s Dilemma, Honor of Kings National Championship_2

All this is really tedious work, and it’s not something that can be finished in a day or two. It takes slow, patient effort, you can’t rush it.

Like buying commercial properties—most of the time, he has to go in person and make the final call himself. We’re talking deals worth tens of millions, even over a hundred million. Apart from himself and Zhong Tingyue, he doesn’t feel comfortable handing it off to anyone else...

As for Datang Technology, naturally he has to make some arrangements too. Just because "Honor of Kings" has launched doesn’t mean everything’s perfect now and they can just lie on the credit book and rot away.

These days, as the New Year holiday ends, students are gradually going back to school, people are gradually returning to work, and the hype around "Honor of Kings" keeps dropping, with daily revenue steadily declining as well.

This situation is exactly what Li Yuan expected.

For any game—especially a free-to-play title like "Honor of Kings" that mainly relies on selling skins—sales are bound to gradually fall off.

Those hardcore supporters, once they’ve spent money on inscriptions, heroes, and skins, basically don’t have many places left to spend more.

From January 20, 2009, when Honor of Kings officially went live, until today, it’s been 14 days—almost half a month—and it’s already achieved huge success.

The most direct proof is the data: registered users, active users, operating income and so on. All of it clearly shows just how badass "Honor of Kings" is in the domestic gaming industry right now—it’s taken at least half the market, if not more...

As marketing director, Lin Yuwei is reporting the various data points of "Honor of Kings" to Li Yuan, carefully walking him through the analysis.

"Boss, everyone, our ’Honor of Kings’ is now without doubt the hottest game in the country. In the half month since launch, our average daily sales are 86 million, totaling 1.208 billion so far. Since we’re a high-Technology company and also got university student startup support, taxes are basically negligible... Even after deducting all kinds of marketing costs, labor costs, and server rental costs, net profit is still around 1.1 billion..."

"However, we’ve also noticed that starting from the sixth day of the New Year, in the last two days our sales have begun dropping sharply. Based on our forecast, it’s due to multiple factors like many people returning to work, activity level falling, and so on..."

After hearing Lin Yuwei’s summary of the situation since "Honor of Kings" launched and her analysis of the reasons, Li Yuan and the other execs present can’t help but all break into smiles.

Li Yuan sums it up: "Ahem, our game, thanks to everyone’s joint effort, has finally achieved success..."

"Since we’ve succeeded, of course I’m not going to be stingy with rewards. I’ve decided to give extra bonuses based on the contribution each of you made to the game."

"Hu Zhenqiang, Lin Yuwei, Xie Zheng—you three put in tremendous effort on ’Honor of Kings’. The game’s success is inseparable from your hard work. So I’ve decided to give each of you a big apartment, plus 5 million in cash..."

Li Yuan isn’t stingy at all. As the core forces behind the development of "Honor of Kings," the effort Hu Zhenqiang, Lin Yuwei, and Xie Zheng have put in over these past months is obvious to him.

House plus cash works out to about eight or nine million for each of them. These are extra bonuses, and also what they deserve.

Besides these extra rewards, the other game dev staff will also receive bonuses ranging from tens of thousands up to over a million each, depending on their contribution during development...

Hearing Li Yuan’s big-swing reward plan, Hu Zhenqiang and Lin Yuwei are all extremely excited, quickly expressing their thanks.

"Director Li, we really feel undeserving. Without your all-round guidance, we simply couldn’t have made this game." Xie Zheng rushes to speak.

"And before the New Year, Director Li, you already gave us huge year-end bonuses."

Hu Zhenqiang also hurriedly thanks him: "Exactly, Director Li, your rewards are way too generous, we don’t dare take the credit."

Lin Yuwei is about to speak as well when Li Yuan waves his big hand, cutting her off directly.

"Haha, if I say you’re taking it, then you’re taking it. This is what you’ve earned. Just don’t complain I’m being stingy..."

"It’s settled then, don’t bother trying to decline."

Seeing that Li Yuan has made up his mind, the three of them are instantly overjoyed and quickly express their thanks.

"Thank you, Director Li!"

"Thank you, Director Li, Director Li is sooo generous!"

"Thank you, Director Li, we’ll work twice as hard."

The three of them all sincerely express their gratitude.

Five million in cash plus a big apartment, close to ten million in total—for each of them, that’s an astronomical figure. It’s basically straight-up financial freedom. How could they not be thrilled.

This is the kind of generous reward they didn’t even dare to dream about.

From the pre–New Year bonuses to these current ones, the total added up front and back is already in the tens of millions.

Rewards at this scale are unique even across the entire Internet industry.

Besides, they themselves are very clear who the most important person behind this era-defining game really is.

Without a doubt, it’s Li Yuan.

Whether it’s the game’s concept, its characters, its gameplay model, its marketing, promotion—everything.

Li Yuan has given comprehensive guidance. You could say that for "Honor of Kings," Li Yuan is the real creator in every sense, while they’re more like executors, responsible for turning the various plans Li Yuan refined into actual technical implementations...

This kind of technical work isn’t that hard—many backbone staff at other game companies, leading their teams, could pull it off.

The three of them aren’t exactly irreplaceable for this game.

So they really don’t dare brag too much or act arrogant about their merits, because they know very clearly who the core of this company and this game really is.

Li Yuan then says, "Given the current situation of ’Honor of Kings’ and its future development, if you have any good suggestions or ideas, just speak freely."

Seeing Li Yuan ask for input, the three all start thinking carefully, and soon they begin voicing their opinions one after another.

Xie Zheng suggests, "This is the normal trajectory for a game, so we don’t need to worry too much. But we can still think of new ways to further boost the impact of ’Honor of Kings’..."

Hu Zhenqiang also offers his proposal: "Based on player feedback, our game’s skins are still too few. Skin sales are the main profit source, so we can work more on hero skins, release more skins and more heroes..."

Lin Yuwei adds her view: "I think we can push promotion even further, like organizing some events to raise user participation. Ideally we’d trigger attention from the whole society. For example, the ’Milk Tea Girl’ selection event you ran some time ago, Director Li—the effect was terrific..."

Li Yuan listens carefully to their suggestions, nodding in strong agreement. Their ideas line up almost exactly with what he had in mind.

As someone who’s been through this before, he knows perfectly well how to keep a game hot and how to make money.

"Good, good, this really dovetails with some of my own ideas."

"Heroes and skins, we can start designing right away. Every so often we release a new skin, a new hero. The frequency shouldn’t be too tight, but not too far apart either, to keep players feeling fresh..."

"Aside from heroes and skins, the key to increasing the game’s stickiness is participation. The suggestion Yuwei just mentioned is great. I’ve also got an idea—listen up."

The three immediately sit up straight and pick up pen and paper to start taking notes.

They’ve worked with Li Yuan long enough to know his style very well.

Li Yuan is undeniably a super genius—in every field: online literature, music creation, game development, business operations, and so on. He’s brilliant across the board, the most talented person they’ve ever seen.

Any viewpoint Li Yuan puts forward basically always gets proven right, without exception!

"My suggestion is to organize a nationwide ’Honor of Kings Championship’, running open qualifiers all over the country. We’ll do layered selection by province, city, and county. All players can form their own teams and join freely. We set up huge prizes to boost participant enthusiasm and attractiveness..."

Li Yuan lays out his idea in detail. This "championship" is mainly meant to raise player appeal and participation in "Honor of Kings."

As long as everyone can take part, plus the lure of hefty rewards, it’s guaranteed to spark the interest of a ton of gamers...

Right after Li Yuan finishes speaking, he hears his phone buzz—it’s a new message...