Almighty Video Game Designer #Chapter 151 - Chapter 150: Harvest Time - Read Almighty Video Game Designer Chapter 151 - Chapter 150: Harvest Time Online - All Page - Novel Next

Chapter 151: Chapter 150: Harvest Time

Early in the morning in the experience store.

Wen Lingwei was on the massage chair, saying as she yawned, "Mr heartless manager, when are you going to update I Am MT? I feel that the players are leaving."

Chen Mo was shocked, "Huh? You're still playing I Am MT?"

"Yeah, I'm shocked at how long senior has persevered, I ditched the game a long time ago..." said Jia Peng.

Wen Lingwei glanced at him, "Unlucky people like you will never understand the fun of this game.

"Although Warcraft and Wulin Legend were both really fun, I still don't think it's as fun as I Am MT."

"Yeah manager, just look at how many card games there are on the market. All of them copied off I Am MT, and the worst part is that they are doing quite well!" added Qian Kun.

Jia Peng nodded, "Yeah, the players were angry at the start, but as more and more games appeared, high quality ones also appeared. Combined with the fact that there hasn't been an update for I Am MT for so long, the players are all gone."

"It can't be helped, the manager has been working on new games, he didn't have the time to update I Am MT. The most he could do is add a few cards to make it seem richer. It's not surprising that the players are sick of it," added Qian Kun.

"I think it's a bit sad, and I feel kind of angry that the style of game was developed by the manager first, and the others are having such an easy time making money by copying it!" said Wen Lingwei.

Chen Mo laughed, asking, "The currently most profitable one is Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's Demon Slayers right? I think it has around forty million RMB in revenue per month."

"And that's a lot, way more than I Am MT!" said Qian Kun.

Jia Peng also added, "That can't be helped, although Demon Slayers were released layer, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment has much better distribution, much better art, and most importantly they update the game much more frequently. They'd push updates every two weeks or so, I Am MT won't be able to keep up."

Chen Mo laughed, "Isn't that just forty million RMB? That isn't much."

Qian Kun was shocked, "Huh? Manger, just forty million? I'm really learning how the world works by working with the manager..."

Wen Lingwei got up, "What are you suggesting? Are you saying that you're about to head back into mobile games and tell these guys how it's done?"

Chen Mo laughed, "Heh, you think I actually left the mobile game industry? Ain't happening. I'll remind them of the terror of scammy mobile games."

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"Wow, the manager is heading back into mobile games? Hurray!"

Su Jinyu couldn't take it, "Oh no, we're making scammy games again!"

It has been more than a month since I Am MT was released. Chen Mo never paid attention to the mobile mobile game industry in this as he focused all his attention onto the PC market.

Warcraft in particular took a lot out of Chen Mo, taking the better half of a year just in the development. He also spent time in promoting Warcraft and developing Wulin Legend, and the best he could do was to make a few new cards, add a few events here and there.

Of course, the players of I Am MT understood, but they still eventually got bored of it, switching to other card games.

I Am MT's monthly income had fallen to around three million RMB. It had fewer active players, but the ones who played were all hardcore fans and incorporated daily quests into their daily routines.

Games similar to I Am MT were also appearing much more often on the mobile game leaderboards, occupying almost half of the leaderboards..

The first four places of the mobile game best sellers were card games.

The other videogame designers didn't copy the game exactly either. Games like Demon Slayers made by a big company had made some improvements on the game.

There were more and more different types of artworks with cooler effects. There were even games that made cards into 2D models.

At the same time, designers were also constantly adding to the gameplay. Card games that are new on the market are much more rich in content than I Am MT.

Moreover, Demon Slayers have realised the importance of IP and updating frequently, and through these points, Demon Slayers were able to rise to the top, taking the first place of the mobile best sellers leaderboard.

It had been so long since I Am MT was released, and developers had examined every inch of it, and now understood fully why the game was so profitable.

Moreover, card games were easy to make. A big company like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment could make a new one every two to three months without much effort. And if they listen to the feedback of the players and make changes accordingly, it wouldn't be hard to make a successful card game.

Many video game designers especially B and C-grade designers of some of the larger companies were having the of their life making huge sums of money through these card games.

"I heard your card game is about to launch? How is it, did you get the IP?"

"Yeah, we got it. It's an anime IP, although it's not particularly famous, it isn't bad."

"It's fine as long as you got an IP. Just you wait, the monthly revenue is sure to surpass five million. It might even have a chance at breaking ten million if you get Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform's promotional spot.

"It's in the talks, but Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform wants eighty percent of the revenue. I'm still thinking about it."

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"What's there to think about, you're still earning even if it's just twenty percent when the Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform is promoting your game!"

"It's true, but it still hurts."

"Why are you hurting. You don't even have to do anything to make money through a game like this, you should be happy! By the way, we should probably all thank Chen Mo. I Am MT was indeed revolutionary. Video game designers like us who struggle to make ends meet finally found a way out, and look at where we are now."

"We really do need to thank him for providing guidance through I Am MT. He then left to the PC market. Is this what they call doing good deeds without the credit?"

"To be honest, he really is a genius. All his PC games are really successful too, I can't help but be impressed. But it's great that he left the mobile game industry, leaving some for the rest of us."

"Yeah, we can do it! When I make back my money from this game, I plan to get the IP of a popular novel, making it into another card game to make more money!"

I Am MT's release was good news for these video game designers.

Before this, B and C-grade designers had to think hard and understand what the players thought when they made a game. And even when it was released, it had a high chance of failing.

But now, with the help of card games, the designers can make good money as long as they have a good IP and put some effort into copying other successful card games.

Even if it was just five million RMB a month, giving the distributors seventy to eighty percent, they would still get seven to eight hundred thousand each money, more than enough to make them happy.

And the designers who couldn't secure a good IP would try and make their own IP or use another one as reference, trying their hardest to get the game to be popular outside of the game itself.

There were also designers who would make changes to the gameplay by including different playstyles. Nobody dared to make changes to the core gameplay of I Am MT.

These video game designers had no drive to innovate as they could make money just by copying afterall. Wouldn't it suck if they made a change and their game stopped being profitable?

What they didn't know was that the reason Chen Mo stopped making pay to win games after I Am MT was because he was waiting for the right opportunity.

The card game industry needed time to mature just like in his previous world, I Am MT had a monthly income of fifty five million, Junior Three Kingdom had two hundred million, and Soul Hunters had three million.

This wasn't just because of improvements in gameplay, but also had to do with the expanding playerbase.

As the number of card games increase, the number of players would also increase. Many players who never played card games would be drawn into the genre by an IP they liked and be converted into a card game player.

This was a long process. It is only when the time was right and there was a sufficiently big player base that these card games could do the unthinkable.

Which was why Chen Mo was alright with the other video game companies copying I Am MT and making huge profits, hoping that they could expand the players of the genre.

Now the time has come, and he could finally be behind his harvest.

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Chapter 152: Chapter 151: Situation of the Card Game Industry

Chinese card games are a unique concept, and are completely different from card games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering

Games like Soul Hunters and Onmyoji may seem to have different combat systems and cards, but their core are similar.

The so-called Chinese card games are represented by I Am MT. They stimulate the players through combat, obtaining and training cards. The ways they materialise themselves are also constantly changing.

From I Am MT's cards battling to Soul Hunters's 2D character models combat, to Onmyoji's full 3D turned based. The combat may seem different but are similar at heart, all of them are known as Chinese card games.

Chen Mo decided to read the reviews of the popular card games before deciding on which game to make next.

-I Am MT discussion forums-

"I heard there's a new card game being released with a anime IP, anyone wanna play?"

"Nah I'm good. There are so many similar games, aren't you tired of this format?"

"To be honest, they all feel just like I Am MT. I've played a few of the other games, but I always come back to I Am MT. I'll do the daily quests everyday, then drawing ten before calling it a day.

"Yeah, I think I Am MT was more fun when it first came out when it felt fresh. Now that there are so many companies making card games, I'm so sick of it."

"It's already a miracle that this game is still making money after being copied from for a year."

"Geez, unfortunately these designers only learn Chen Mo's way of making money and none of the innovation."

"Yeah, although I Am MT feels like a scam, it was a revolutionary game. Chen Mo sure does have a lot of good ideas, I can't help but be impressed."

"Unfortunately Chen Mo doesn't make mobile games anymore. Even the updates for I Am MT feel pathetic."

"It can't be helped. Chen Mo have now moved onto PC games. He's made enough money from this and is now focused on making high quality games. Maybe he thinks it's a better path for his future."

"Although it is a good thing, I do hope that Chen Mo makes a follow up to I Am MT."

"I heard that there are a few video game companies who thought about changing the looks of their card games, who knows how it went."

"The looks?"

"Yeah, they are moving away from cards and switching to 3D models. The combat probably looks much better than cards."

"Really, then I might take a look, hopefully they add something new."

Chen Mo had an idea of the industry after looking through a few forums for the discussion on the more popular card games.

He felt that the timing was just right and it was a turning point in the industry. The players were starting to get bored of the first generation of card games, and the designers haven't decided on which direction to head.

At the start of this, the video game designers could make money just by changing the looks, removing the drive for any innovation.

But at this stage, many of the card game players have played a few card games and were starting to get sick of it. Changing the looks without a good IP was no longer a good plan.

Therefore the designers were forced to innovate.

The easiest innovation was the graphics.

Phones in this world are capable of supporting 3D mobile games, which was why mobile games progressed much faster than Chen Mo's previous world.

In this previous world, I Am MT was released in January 2013, Soul Hunters was released in July 2014, and Onmyoji was released in June 2016.

Every big change took a year or two to happen. This was just a constraint of ideas, but also technology.

But because phones were able to support large scale 3D mobile games in the parallel world, this allowed more rooms for videogame designers to play with. Games that used 2D characters as their selling point already started appearing, which was almost half a year faster than the previous world.

Although the gameplay didn't compare to Soul Hunters, the artworks certainly exceeded Soul Hunters and the various games that followed it.

If given another six months, a fantastic looking 3D mobile card game might appear on the market.

Of course Chen Mo wouldn't let an opportunity go like that. AS the mobile card game industry was huge, and the call for developers to innovate was almost at its peak while the designers were still unsure of the direction the industry was about to head.

Players will now be reminded of the horrifying 'creating happiness mindfully' incident.

Chen Mo was doing a quick sketch on his tablet in his office. It didn't take long before a ashen haired man with a fan was finished.

Onmyoji's Abe no Seimei.

Chen Mo could choose between Soul Hunters or Onmyoji, but he felt that Onmyoji was a better choice.

Soul Hunters was also a very classic mobile card game. It wouldn't be excessive to call it better than I Am MT in every aspect. But the problem was that it's artstyle was relatively worse, and it didn't have an IP advantage because of the lack of DotA in this world.

Chen Mo wanted to grab the entire mobile card game industry, letting nothing escape.

From his experience, Soul Hunter and I Am MT were similar and their artstyle weren't the best of the best, the only improvement was the gameplay.

And the game mechanics of card games were easily referenced by other designers. And because of this, both games have been extensively referenced, and there were cases where the games that referenced it outperformed the original.

Onmyoji didn't have that problem as the artwork, music, story, and characters were all the best of the best in the mobile game industry, no games should be able to threaten it two years after its release.

As for Fate/Grand Order, Chen Mo couldn't recreate the entire Fates series as of yet, which was why he had to set it aside for now.

Chen Mo opened a new designer document and started working on the design concept for Onmyoji.

"You've copied off I Am MT for a whole year and helped me expand the playerbase for mobile card games. I'll count that as even. But now, everyone will have to do their best," said Chen Mo

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Chapter 153: Chapter 152: No Budget Limit

The foundations of Onmyoji were very clear cut. Even though its playstyle was vastly different from I Am MT after generations of card games, the core was still identical, it was still getting cards, training them, and arranging a team.

The more difficult parts of the development process would be the quality of the artwork as well as making models. Onmyoji's models were exceedingly high quality, much higher than those in Warcraft and Wulin Legend.

There was a lot of work that needed to be done outside of the models such as background music, dubs, and character artworks. These were relatively to solve as long as he had money.

In Chen Mo's plan, Onmyoji was split into six different categories, Shikigami and Onmyoji system, quests, combat, socials (hunts, mail, chatting, etc.), Souls and shop related things, and other systems(summoning, codex, etc.).

The most important ones were Shikigami, Onmyoji, Souls, and everything related to the combat system, followed by the story. Everything else should fall in place when these two are done.

Chinese card games were incredibly easy to play, and the difficulty comes from developing a play style based on the stats of the cards, which was how Chen Mo managed to finish the draft pretty quickly.

Chen Mo sent the concept draft and the sketch for Abe No Seimei to Su Jinyu before going downstairs.

Before Su Jinyu could take a proper look at the document, Wen Lingwei and Qian Kun gathered around her.

They were the two most interested in this type of game, which was why they were so excited to hear about the design document.

Everyone was shocked to see that sketch of Abe No Seimei.

"What? Abe no Seimei? Isn't that a famous Onmyoji?" exclaimed Zheng Hongxi.

"Yeah, that clothing is also quite Japanese. Is this the theme you're going for, manager?" asked Wen Lingwei.

Zheng Hongxi was a bit conflicted, "Is it going to work? The IPs they use are better than the last. Onmyoji doesn't seem popular in China either, so do you plan on making your own IP, manager?"

Su Jinyu looked through the design document and said, "The manager wrote that it'll be high quality, and will even hire voice actors in Japanese? From the looks of it, the game might be much more complicated than I Am MT."

"How knows how this will end up!"

Everyone was kind of worried.

Chen Mo came down stairs while the discussion was still going on.

"Let's go into the meeting room, I'll quickly go over the plans for the game," said Chen Mo as he walked towards the meeting room.

Wen Lingwei followed, "I want to listen in too!"

Chen Mo nodded, "Alright, suits you."

After getting seating Jia Peng couldn't help but ask, "Manager, what type of game is it? Is it similar to I Am MT?"

Su Jinyu asked too, "Another pay to win game?"

"Oh, this will be a very honest game." replied Chen Mo.

Su Jinyu breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh, thank goodness."

Qian Kun was shocked and looked through the document again, "Umm, are you sure? The summoning system and Shikigami training system doesn't seem honest at all."

Chen Mo replied, "I'm saying honest in terms of the story. The game is placed in a time where ghosts and humans live side by side. The Onmyoji's are responsible for maintaining the balance between them. There are also a lot of heartfelt stories between humans and monsters as most monsters have lived a sad life. If the story isn't honest I don't know what is."

Zheng Hongxi replied as he looked through the document again, "Hmm. This story doesn seem quite honest."

Qian Kun scratched his head as he felt that something wasn't quite right, yet couldn't find what was wrong.

Chen Mo continued, "You guys can view this game as an improved I Am MT. The core of the game is similar to I Am MT, it uses similar getting cards, leveling them, and battling systems. But instead of cards, it'll be 3D models."

Qian Kun seemed to be rejuvenated and full of life, "So, manager, it's a scammy game then?"

Chen Mo was slightly irritated, "Yes, you could put it like that."

"I have a problem. Since it's a card game, the IP is very important right? You couldn't even show your face on the market if you didn't have a big IP. This game might do well in Japan, but there aren't many fans who like this theme in China right?" asked Zheng Hongxi.

Chen Mo nodded, "Yes, it seems to be like that."

"Then how do you plan to get this IP off the grounds? Do you plan to make an animated series like I Am MT?" asked Wen Lingwei.

Chen Mo shook his head, "No animations. We won't be doing anything, the game will carry the IP with it."

Everyone was shocked, Really?

Chen Mo laughed, "Really. That's why we have to make the game as high quality as possible. This includes the artwork, models, scenes, music, voicelines, and dubs. It must be good enough to be better than any other mobile card game on the market."

Su Jinyu scowled, "Be better than any other card game? That sounds hard."

Chen Mo shook his head, "Not all all. It ends up being a problem of money. So Goldfish, when you go search for a company to outsource the companies, you can go straight to the highest quality ones. I'm alright with paying twenty thousand RMB for a piece of art. I don't have any limits for artwork or music this time. And I want famous voice actors from Japan. I don't mind spending more money if that means I'm getting someone I'm happy with."

Everyone was shocked, Twenty thousand per piece? Famous voice actors?

I Am MT's artworks were only two thousand a piece, but this time it was ten times more, isn't this too wasteful? Combined with the models and animations, Shikigami's budget would go through the roof, costing more than the models for Warcraft!

Sure Chen Mo had money, it was shocking to everyone that he'd spend it like that.

Qian Kun was a bit hesitant, "Managear, if you really aren't looking at the price tag, the development cost could cost tens of millions..."

Chen Mo nodded, "Yeah, so what? Is tens of millions a lot? I spent thirty-odd million on the cinematics in Warcraft."

Jia Peng scratched his head, "You can't compare it to Warcraft, it's a mobile game after all..."

"Don't worry," assured Chen Mo, "It won't lose to Warcraft in terms of profitability. Let's put it this way, there is no limit for the development budget, especially things that related to the quality of the game like artwork and music. I want the best, don't worry about the cost."

Wen Lingwei jested, "Geez, I didn't know the stingy manager was this generous! I'm not used to this!"

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Chapter 154: Chapter 153: Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's Internal Experience Exchange Presentation

Chen Mo started distributing the work to the three of them after going through the design concept.

Everyone was more or less familiar with their jobs after working on Warcraft and Wulin Legend without needing Chen Mo to say much.

Chen Mo re emphasised the importance of the story for Onmyoji.

Onmyoji did have an IP, it was a novel by Baku Yumemakura under the same name. However, the novel wasn't super influential in China either, and the biggest contribution of the novel to the success of the game was the story.

Of course there would be a lot of work involved remaking the novel, and Chen Mo didn't need to do that as Zheng Hongxi could fill out the rest after receiving the main gist of the story.

Moreover, most of the monsters and characters in Onmyoji were based on folklore from the Heian period taking inspiration from Konjaku Monogatarishūt, so it wasn't hard for Su Jinyu and the others to grasp the concept.

The three of them started working after receiving their jobs. Zheng Hongxi in particular had a lot to do as he needed to do research because it was his first time writing Japanese style stories.

Chen Mo's job was the same as usual, quality control.

Back at his office, Chen Mo used a Memory Playback Potion and started working on the sketches for the different Onmyojis and Shikigamis from the game.

Abe no Seimei, Kagura, Hiromasa, Yao Bikuni.

Ootengu, Shuten, Gyourou Arakawa no Aruji, Ibaraki Douji...

Through Onmyojis continual updates, more and more Shikigamis were added to the game. In the end there were nearly one hundred Shikigamis, which was more or less the so-called Demon Parade.

There wasn't a need to have that many Shikigamis in the first version, seventy of them was more than enough to support the content of the game.

Chen Mo decided to go by his Memory and provide sketches, positions, and abilities for all the Shikigamis.

The rich combat system was the core of the game. The settings of each Onmyoji and their abilities matched perfectly, and was a Chinese mobile card game that did this aspect particularly well.

For example, Yuki Onna's Blizzard, Sanbi no Kitsune's Woman Scorned or Shouzu's Water Circuit. The Shikigamis and their abilities fit well with the stories. And when a Shikigami consumes another one of the same type, they can even level up their abilities. And with the inclusion of different souls having different effects, its combat was much more complex and rich than the other games.

This was Onmyojis biggest advantage, it was a game that felt fresh and complete.

Strictly speaking, the core of Onmyoji wasn't a new concept as it was still a type of card game that was very similar in playstyle to Summoners War.

Summoners War wasn't a huge mobile game either, but the game felt really complete.

Onmyoji didn't make many changes with the balancing (other than making it more time consuming), but it was successful because it implemented a lot more content surrounding the theme of Onmyoji.

In terms of art, artwork, UI, and models were the best of the best and didn't feel out of place, making the game feel more immersive.

In terms of music, the background music and dubs were incredibly good, making it easier for the players to be immersed into the story.

In terms of story, using the novel's story as the foundations, each character/monster had their own background story. The animated scenes and texts had tens of thousands of words combined, with plans to keep expanding on it.

Therefore, Onmyoji's real reason for success was its story and content. When other card games were still borrowing IPs, buying IPs, or forcing IPs, Onmyoji already reached a stage where it had a highly integrated theme and content, a state where the game was the IP. This was the reason it became such a huge phenomena.

If Chen Mo wanted to recreate Onmyoji in the parallel world, this was the point he had to focus on.

The game can be scummy, time consuming, or monotonous. These flaws can exist, but as long as the aforementioned point was done well, it can surpass all the other card games just by virtue of its content.

While Chen Mo was working hard on Onmyoji, the other videogame designers weren't slacking off either.

In the headquarters of Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.

In the meeting room, a powerpoint about Experience with Demon Slayers was being projected onto a screen, honest my Qiu Bin.

The meeting room was filled with people, mainly B and C-grade videogame designers within Emperor Dynasty Entertainment. They were giving it all their focus as they were afraid of missing out on something.

Qiu Bin seemed to be in good spirits as he spoke.

He led the development of Demon Slayers and managed to reach over forty-five million RMB in monthly revenue. He was now really well known in the mobile game industry as the sat safety at the top of the best selling leaderboards and was gaining ground within Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.

He almost quit after losing his bet with Chen Mo but luckily Lin Chaoxu was confident in him and allowed him to develop a game like I Am MT, resulting in the hugely successful Demon Slayers.

Qiu Bin was quite smart, what he lacked in creativity he had in being calm and collected. After losing to I Am MT, he dedicated everything to learn the reason I Am MT was so successful.

Qiu Bin's understanding of I Am MT continued to grow during the development and operation of Demon Slayers. Qiu Bin was confident enough to say that he was probably the videogame designer to best understand this genre of game.

Of course, other than Chen Mo.

Emperor Dynasty Entertainment decided to host this talk hoping that Qiu Bin could pass on the experience he gathered from developing Demon Slayers to other videogame designers, solidifying Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's ground in the mobile gaming industry.

Qiu Bin was presenting non-stop with the help of the powerpoint.

"I've done extensive analysis on the entertainment value of card games. It has to do with the recognition the players have for the value of the cards. Of course, these were all points that designers are able to reach after basic research. Well, how can you make your card game different from the rest?

"For the success of Demon Slayers and other card games of similar success, I reduced it down to three things, fragmentise, low cost, big IP.

"By fragmentise I mean plan and reduce the time a player could spend in the game. Reduce the daily playtime and split big chunks of playtime into smaller chunks and allow players to fully utilize the smaller chunks of time."

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Chapter 155: Chapter 154: Three Keywords of Mobile Card Games

There were many types of reactions coming from the attendees, confusion, deep thought, some didn't understand, some were surprised.

Qiu Bin said, "Don't worry, you guys can ask questions at any time."

Someone raised their hand, "Why would you say that cardgames should framentise player time? The first day of gameplay in I Am MT is incredibly long."

Qiu Bin nodded, "That's true, but it's only for the first few days. The first couple days is to get the players into a habit of playing the game to ensure that the players understand the value of the cards.

"But their playtime should be shortened after a week because of how monotonous the gameplay is. If the players spend too much time in game they would easily feel bored, shortening the lifespan of the game."

The person asking the question seemed to understand and was nodding.

Qiu Bin smiled and said, "The second keyword is to reduce cost. Many might think why not spend the money if you have it? It's not that you shouldn't spend money, but to push updates frequently.

"That are constant changes within card games. If you took three months to finish a game you might still be relevant to the trend when it's released, but any longer and your game might be outdated.

"Was I Am MT a high quality game? No, but it doesn't affect how profitable it was. While ensuring the game's basic qualities, reduce cost whenever possible and update as frequently as possible. Bend but don't break.

"The third point is a big IP. This one is fairly simple. IP directly decides the value of the cards. So I'm urging you guys to buy a good IP the first moment you set eyes on it. It doesn't matter if it was expensive as the current market allows instant return given a good IP. There is no way to make a loss."

Qiu Bin kept presenting, keeping nothing to himself, sharing all his experiences with developing and operating Demon Slayers.

The designers who attended gave it all their attention, there were questions here and there and Qiu Bin answered them as well as he could.

The core gameplay of a first generation game like I Am MT was fairly simple. Even if it wasn't understood in the first place, after copying the game and operating it for a while, the designer would naturally come to an understanding.

Demon Slayers had the help of Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform and a huge player base with large amounts of analytics. Qiu Bin spent a lot of time investigating so it wasn't surprising that he reached a conclusion before the other videogame designers.

The presentation lasted for over an hour with some more questions and answers at the end.

In the end, one of the designers said, "Thanks for your presentation, I've learnt a lot. My question is: From the looks of the market, mobile card games are at a turning point, what do you think about this?"

Qiu Bin nodded, "Thanks, that's a good question, you have a good grasp on the market.

"It's true that the mobile card game market is at a turning point, or rather an adjustment point. The players have played games like I Am MT for a whole year now, and some of them are getting tired of it. We'll need to make some innovations to keep these players.

"Many are guessing if there would be a massive change in card games? I can confidently say that there isn't. Even if there is, it would be a way of presenting it.

"Why would I say that? Think back to the three points I mentioned. Fragmentation, low cost, big IP. It will never deviate from this. I don't think there will be any videogame designers who dare make any changes to these three points as it's the reason that makes it so profitable.

"As long as these three points remain, the palystyle as we know is here to stay. Naturally this means that there won't be a huge change in the scene of mobile card games."

There was a follow up question, "Is there really nobody who would dare make changes to these three points?"

"Absolutely not," said Qiu Bin, but added a few moments later, "Oh, other than Chen Mo."

Everyone was shocked, Is Chen Mo still relevant?

Qiu Bin added, "Because games like I Am MT was pioneered by Chen Mo. Who knows what he's thinking, maybe he has a much deeper understanding of the market than I do."

After a few moments, Qiu Bin added, "Therefore, it's a good thing that he moved onto the PC market."

The attendees laughed, it's true that Chen Mo decided to dabble in the PC market instead. If Chen Mo decided to stay in mobile games and released game after game, who knows what'll happen to them.

When the presentation ended, many designers came forward to Qiu Bin to make some small talk.

"That was great! I've learned so much from your presentation!"

"Me too, thanks for sharing."

"I've heard Demon Slayers is doing better and better, congratulations."

Qiu Bin tried to be humble, "You're too kind. This is all thanks to Mr Lin's trust in me. Of course, the platform also played a big role."

Another designer said, "By the way, I've heard that Demon Slayers 2 is at the end of the production line? If it can continue the success of the previous game to become two games that dominated the mobile game scene, you'll probably become the Game Committee honorary member of the year."

Qin Bin waved his hands, "It's hard to tell, who knows how the game is going to do just yet. I'll take your words as good luck."

Qiu Bin's assistant was standing right behind him as he left the meeting room.

Qiu Bin asked, "Are all the promotional materials done for Demon Slayers 2?"

"It's done. Everything is in place!" replied the assistant, "Emperor Dynasty have put particular emphasis on the promotion of Demon Slayers 2, they haven't been skimping on advertising at all."

Qiu Bin nodded, "That's great. As long as we have a good enough promotion and the playerbase from the previous game, this sequel is sure to do well."

"For sure," said the assistant before adding, "But haven't you heard from the people from operations about the promotions?"

Qiu Bin looked at him and said, "I thought you've been dealing with that this whole time?"

"Yes," replied the assistant, "the person in charge over there gave me some strategies that were kind of implicit, that's why I'm wondering if they contacted you."

Qiu Bin was shocked, "What?"

"It's nothing really, the person in charge suggested that maybe we could be a bit more daring with our slogan. Demon Slayers is the number one mobile card game in China and I Am MT has long since been irrelevant, its monthly income is just horrible now. Could we maybe advertise as 'China's number one mobile card game' or 'the people's mobile card game'?"

Qiu Bin scowled, but didn't reply.

The assistant added, "From what I can tell, Mr Lin seems to agree with that thought process. Moreover, Demon Slayers is the number one card game, it's not too far of a stretch right?"

Qiu bin nodded, he did think that it was reasonable as Demon Slayers was number one with no competition.

"Alright, we'll do that. Demon Slayers 2 must get more players than before!"

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Chapter 156: Chapter 155: Qiu Bin's Uncertainty

Back at his experience store, Qin Bin continued to polish some aspects of Demon Slayers 2.

This game had been in production for quite some time and the core gameplay was more or less complete.

But upon considering the effects it would have on Demon Slayers after release, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment held off on releasing Demon Slayers 2 and chose to keep it in development instead.

It was a difficult situation as Demon Slayers was still capable of making more than forty million RMb a month, there wasn't a need to kill off the previous game yet.

As the successor, Demon Slayers 2 had some improvements in terms of combat. From pure card combat to a horizontal combat. Players can use different abilities as usual, all they have to do differently was to modify the positions of their characters.

Of course the characters were also upgraded from cards to 2D models. But as a Xianxia themed mobile game, the characters would be throwing items at one another to attack and had no need to move.

There were still some differences between this and Soul Hunters from the previous world, but all in all it was slightly worse than Soul Hunters.

But Demon Slayers 2 looked amazing thus far. Although the characters still had a cuter artstyle, it wasn't an immature one.

The shift in artstyle was to satisfy the demands of players for better quality, as well as appealing to as many players as possible. This artstyle would certainly make the game more popular among the younger audience.

I Am MT had the same cute artstyle. Qiu bin noticed that the cute artstyle can relieve how quickly the players get tired of the game which fitted well with fragmentation.

Qiu Bin was really confident in Demon Slayers 2 as many settings of this game had been repeatedly tested.

Qin Bin could confidently say that Demon Slayers 2 will be the best mobile card game on the market, bar none.

The art and music were all better.

The gameplay was the same as Demon Slayers with slight innovations.

Moreover, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment would never skimp on the promotion of Demon Slayers 2 following the success of Demon Slayers. With such a huge distributor behind it, the game could easily surpass its predecessor.

Qiu Bin was confident that the game can continue the success of Demon Slayers and continue to hold the best sellers top spot.

It could never make more than eighty million in revenue a month!

It would be incredible for a mobile game to reach eighty million in revenue a month, but Qiu Bin was really confident because he understood the power of mobile card games.

As Qiu Bin was dreaming about Demon Slayers 2's release, his assistant ran out in a panic.

"It's terrible! We just got news that Chen Mo is making a mobile game!"

Evidently the assistant ran over the moment they got the news from the shaking in their voice.

Qiu Bin felt like the sky had fallen on his head. What's going on, Chen Mo is making a mobile game?!

Is he starting something?

But he calmed his nerves not long after, asking, "Are you sure? What type of mobile game is it, is it a card game?"

The assistant said, "We don't know, but it looks really likely!"

The assistant handed over his phone to Qiu Bin.

Qiu Bin took a few of the original arts, they all looked like japanese style monsters that were really high quality and their unique features were really clear.

Qui Bin asked, "Where did you get this from?"

"A outsourcing company. This company is the best art company in the country. I know one of the artists there because of our long term relationship with them. He sent it over because he noticed that Chen Mo asked them to do some artwork." replied the assistant.

Qiu Bin nodded, "Alright, thanks. Did you ask him how many of these he ordered?"

"I've asked, he isn't quite sure, but is confident that it's over thirty," replied the assistant.

"Above thirty?" Qiu Bin could feel a chill down his spine. This basically confirmed that Chen Mo was planning to make a mobile card game!

The features of these characters were very obvious. Their quality didn't seem to be split into tiers, and combined with the fact that the characters can change their looks, it's most likely a card game!"

The assistant asked, "Should we hurry Demon Slayers 2 along? We can't go toe to toe with Chen Mo's game!"

Qiu Bin waved his hand, "Hold on, let me think."

Qiu Bin's first reaction was to hurry the game along to release the game as soon as possible to avoid releasing alongside Chen Mo's game.

The outcome of releasing the games at the same time could be horrifying as Qiu Bin was reminded of I Am MT.

But he couldn't just hurry it along as the quality of the game may be compromised. Wouldn't he be shooting himself in the foot?

Qiu Bin said after some thought, "Alright, we'll do the game modes that we were thinking about earlier. We'll grab some testers from Demon Slayers and get their feedback and make changes accordingly."

The assistant nodded, "Understood."

"Basically, we need to increase the pace. We'll get rid of any mechanics that aren't needed as long as they don't impact the game play. We'll do this step by step, but we'll need to move as fast as possible.

The assistant went off and started to work, but Qiu bin decided to find out more about where these images were from as he was still unsettled."

"Folklore from the Heian period ? No IP?"

Qiu Bin felt really unsettled.

Any video game designer would know that card games depend on their IP, how could Chen Mo not know that?

Chen Mo made an animation and worked on World of Azeroth when he developed I Am MT. Didn't he spend that time and effort to make his own IP?

Obviously Chen Mo knew the importance of IP for card games, much earlier than other designers did.

Then, what's the new game about?

Qiu Bin couldn't believe that this game didn't have an IP. He did a lot of research and even asked a few friends who were familiar with Japanese novels about this period. He concluded that there wasn't any!

Chen Mo didn't have the backing of any popular animes or novels. Many who were interested in Japanese culture weren't aware about this theme either, not to mention Chinese players!

Qiu Bin was confused, what was going on?

Could it be that Chen Mo was so good that he could make a card game without an IP?

That's not possible!

Chapter 157: Chapter 156: Early Bird Gets the Worm?

It didn't take long before many other card game companies found out about the news.

Chen Mo didn't try to keep it a secret at all. It was difficult to keep it a secret anyways as there was no way from preventing the art company from leaking the news.

Once the news gets out, it wouldn't take long for the entire mobile game community to hear about it. It wasn't a good news to any mobile card game designer that Chen Mo was back making mobile games.

And during Chen Mo's hiatus from mobile games, the other card game designers were having the time of their lives.

The best time of their life even.

At this point, the industry was happy to have everyone make money from mobile card games as opposed to going at each other's neck.

This was opposed to genres like RPG as the playerbase was incredibly limited, and every company was trying to get as much of it as possible.

But it was different for card games. Since the huge mobile card game industry was still in its early stages and there wasn't a monopoly, there was a silent agreement that they should all work together in peace.

Because card games were all so similar and no designer dared to make any big changes, which was why the companies relied on big IPs to get a slice of the player base.

You'll make an anime one, I'll make one based on a novel. They could all work on the same thing yet have separate playerbases.

It was fine even if they shared the same target audience as they just had to space out the release dates.

Who wouldn't have the time of their life when they could make money by doing nothing?

This was almost an unspoken rule. It wasn't that these companies didn't want to monopolise the industry, it was because they couldn't, and a game that could do that didn't exist.

If they wanted to achieve that, they must ensure that the game was better than all the other games on the market and had an IP that covered a huge player base.

Demon Slayers might be the only one that slightly matches the last point. There wasn't a game that truly covered both points.

But Chen Mo's move made everything unclear.

Many video game designers were discussing this matter privately.

"Have you heard that Chen Mo is making a card game?"

"What? Is he making a sequel to I Am MT? It can't be, the animation isn't all that popular anymore. Are there that many die hard fans of the series?"

"No, I heard it's a Japanese Shikigami theme. I don't know much about it."

"What is it, does it have an IP?"

"No!"

"Then why is he doing it?"

"Who knows! Who knows what Chen Mo is planning?"

"I feel like something is about to go down."

"Who said it wasn't, Chen Mo had been doing so well in the PC market, but decided to pivot back into the mobile game industry. Clearly, he's messing with us!"

"What should we do?"

"Watch! What else can we do? Anyways, the ones at the top should be most affected, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's Demon Slayers 2 will cop most of the blow."

"We'll see what Emperor Dynasty Entertainment does."

Qiu Bin forwarded the news of Chen Mo making a card game to Lin Chaoxu.

It didn't take long for Lin Chaoxu to come to a decision.

Promote Demon Slayers 2 now! Release it as fast as possible!

Lin Chaoxu wasn't as cautious and indecisive as Qiu Bin as he knew what this meant.

This meant that once Chen Mo's preparations were done, it could be another hugely popular game. This was horrible news to Emperor Dynasty Entertainment!

The early bird gets the worm, release Demon Slayers 2 early and get a bunch of players. Promote the game everywhere in order to get as many players as possible, and make as much money as they could before Chen Mo releases his game.

Even when Chen Mo's game was really successful, its impact on Demon Slayers 2 will be greatly reduced.

Once Lin Chaoxu gave the green light, the progress of Demon Slayers immediately got fast tracked.

Promoting the game, getting testers, feedback, improving... Qiu Bin was working as hard as he could to get Demon Slayers 2 to a state where it could be released.

Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's promotions started appearing everywhere. It was on various streaming sites, gaming sites, forums, ad spots...

Various videogame media were also releasing their articles.

Demon Slayers' sequel, Demon Slayers 2 released soon!

Popular web novel turned mobile game taking the world by storm!

National Phenomena, successor of Demon Slayers

Can Demon Slayers 2 reach a new record for mobile games monthly income?

First mobile card game sequel about to be released!

With enough money, the media was sure to hype it up. Because of how successful Demon Slayers was, it wasn't too over the top to sing the song of praises for its sequel.

The players watching for the side had all sorts of reactions, but they all looked forward to it because of its success and its playerbase.

Everyone in the videogame industry knew that Emperor Dynasty Entertainment planned to make as much money as possible before Chen Mo releases his new game to reduce the effects of Chen Mo's new game on them.

Everyone felt bad, only Chen Mo had the power to put Emperor Dynasty Entertainment in this state!

On Chen Mo's side of things, Onmyoji was proceeding as usual.

Shikigami's sketches, models, and scenes were being moved along nicely, the cinematomatics were being worked on, the combat system, numbers and playstyle were all being planned meticulously.

There wasn't a whole lot of work for Onmyoji. In this previous life, Onmyoji's starting team only consisted of nine people, including programmers.

Zheng Hongxi and Qian Kun were quite comfortable with this as they were familiar with mobile card games, and they could direct any questions to Chen Mo.

Su Jinyu had to deal with the difficult parts of the game. As this was a game that focused on artwork, her hands were full from controlling the artstyle for the game to make sure they match.

Chen Mo was also busy as he oversaw all of this. Shikigami sketches, story of the game, the balancing of the game... he probably couldn't manage without the Super Accelerator.

Chen Mo was already quite tired when he was working on Warcraft as it was more work. But since he had a lot of passion and motivation, Chen Mo didn't feel tired working on a game that could go down in history.

But Chen Mo felt much more tired working on Onmyoji because he lacked passion as it was fairly similar to I Am MT.

"I'm going to hire a lot more people after this, I can't keep doing this."

Chen Mo wanted to maintain a small group as the efficiency would go down when the number of people increased. But from the looks of it, he needed to hire more as he couldn't do everything himself.

As he was working, Zheng Hongxi saw an ad about Demon Slayers 2.

Aside from the advertising Demon Slayers 2, they even stepped on I Am MT.

Qian Kun angrily complained to Chen Mo, "Do you see what the media are saying? Demon Slayers is the number one mobile card game in China? How can they say that?"

Zheng Hongxi agreed, "Yeah, isn't that just a game that copied I Am MT? Seems that you can do anything with enough promotion!"

"Right? There's nothing good to come from following manager's footsteps!" added Su Jinyu.

Chen Mo was speechless, "What do the players think on I Am MT's forum?"

"What can they think?" said Qian Kun, "Anyone staying in I Am MT are all diehard fans. They aren't changing their minds. There are many more Demon Slayers fans anyways."

"Don't worry, let them be," said Chen Mo, "Onmyoji is going alone pretty well anyways, just work on the things you need to work on. We'll release the game one and a half months after their release, they can bask in the sun while they still can."

Qian Kun was hesitant, "But manager, Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform has so many players, are you sure we won't suffer by giving them a head start?"

Chen Mo laughed, "Why are you worried? You guys know how good the game is. Put it this way, no matter Demon Slayers 2 or any other card game, they will eventually be consumed by Onmyoji. We won't suffer from anything."

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Chapter 158: Chapter 157: Remove Pseudo-random Probability

Demon Slayers 2 was finally released among all the advertisements!

Emperor Dynasty Entertainment provided everything they could do to advertise the game before it was released. It held the front page promotional spot on the Emperor Dynasty Gaming Platform for the whole time and even got the writer of Demon Slayers to promote the game.

Needless to say, advertisements online and offline were basically everywhere. Emperor Dynasty Entertainment knew better than anyone that there was no reason to skimp on advertising as each player represents income for the game, and the money could be easily made back from these advertisements.

The industry professionals thought someone like Chen Mo who would try to get the best out of every situation would try and start something, but Chen Mo was completely silent, not even a Weibo was posted.

This disappointed many drama hungry fans.

As Demon Slayers 2 continued to get more and more popular, its statistics were released.

In the first month of its release, it had 2.92 million players, 12% paying users, Average revenue per user of 187.3, with a monthly income of sixty five million RMB.

This number shocked the entire mobile gaming industry.

Card game developers around the world now have a strong understanding of the statistics related to mobile card games and have a hunch for the statistics such as number of active players and average revenue per player.

Many didn't expect much from Demon Slayers 2 as the IP Demon Slayers have been more or less exhausted, and there had been many cases where the sequel of the game did worse than its prequel.

Most mobile card game designers knew, even without looking at player reviews, that Demon Slayers 2 was incredibly successful.

If Emperor Dynasty Entertainment continues to advertise the game, the 65 million achieved for the first month might even be able to keep going up.

Qiu Bin's wasn't overestimating when he said it was possible to get eighty million in monthly revenue. As long as Demon Slayers 2 holds its place, without any competitors for two months, it was probable to reach that number.

This was both good and bad news for other video game designers.

The bad news was that Demon Slayers 2 will take off a chunk of their player base. Other mobile card games could only hope they aren't affected, or worse yet, lose in revenue.

The good news was that Demon Slayers 2 proved that mobile card games still had room for improvement. Being able to get a monthly revenue of sixty five million means that other it was possible for other card games to reach that number too.

"Demon Slayers 2 got sixty five million in revenue in the first month, seems like it's topping the charts again."

"How long do you think it's going to stay there? Three months? Half a year?"

"I think at least three months. I played the game for a bit, and I'm quite impressed. The quality of the game is much better than the others on the market, the art quality is also quite amazing. Qiu Bin's understanding of mobile card games is quite scary."

"Sigh, I guess we're going to get less revenue for the next little while."

"It's normal. People were wondering if I Am MT's success was possible to replicate and held back on investing into it. The quality of mobile card games aren't too high. But after seeing that it was possible for other mobile card games to make money, there will be companies who want to monopolise the market. I'm sure that there will be more high quality games like this in the future."

"Yeah, we've made so much money for a year doing nothing. The players are bored too. It's time we made something new."

"If you're thinking of making another mobile card game, play more Demon Slayers 2 and learn from its combat system and artstyle."

"Thankfully we've raked in a bunch of money. We should reinvest that into art and music now, we can't let Demon Slayers take all the glory! We must take back what is ours!"

"We weren't even the ones who suffered the worst. The worst are the mobile game designers that insist on making other genres of games. They must be so choked out by all these card games."

"It can't be helped, the times have changed. They thought that mobile games are all casual games, but they finally realised how profitable it is."

"Alright, enough talking, I've gotta go back to grinding and try to grab a piece of this pie."

The launch of Demon Slayers 2 whipped up a storm in the mobile gaming industry.

Perhaps it was just another new game to the players, but videogame designers saw a different message.

After a year or so of testing, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment finally decided to take over the mobile card game market.

They can foresee that Emperor Dynasty Entertainment will continue to invest into this following the success of Demon Slayers 2. They'll make more copies, with good artwork and their huge distribution to make many high quality mobile card games of different themes, consuming the entire mobile card game market in the process.

After seeing their intentions, the other mobile card game designers are forced to follow the changes and increase the quality of their games.

In no time at all, the peaceful mobile card game market was now in a race to reach the top.

Chen Mo had no pressure at all as he watched everyone fight it out.

Onmyoji was more or less finished, the only things remaining were some artworks and some minor adjustments to the balancing which could be done in a week or two."

Qian Kun sent Chen Mo a spreadsheet, "I've sent you the rates for Shikigami drawing. If there it'll be final if there aren't any problems."

Chen Mo gave it a look.

These numbers were synthesised by Qian Kun, they even included pseudo-random elements.

SSR Shikigamis like Ootengu, Shuten Douji, and Arakawa no Aruji had around 0.1% drop rate, SR Shikigamis like Yuki Onna, and Inugami had around 1% drop rate, event based SR Shikigamis like Umibouzu, and Kuro Mujou had around 0.1% drop rate. Other R Shikigamis like Sanbi no Kitsune had around 3.5% drop rate.

Basically, there was a one percent change of drawing an SSR, twenty-four percent for SR, and seventy-five percent for R.

The drawing method and probabilities were set by Chen Mo, Qian Kun just assigned each Shikigamis their probability according to how rare they should be to match Chen Mo's expected total probability.

Moreover, Qian Kun added pseudo-random probabilities. The players are guaranteed an SR if they fail to draw one ten times in a row, and the same applies to one hundred times in a row for SSR.

Chen Mo nodded, "It's more or like done, but remove the pseudo-random."

Qian Kun was shocked, "Huh? Remove the pseudo-random? Are you sure?"

Chen Mo nodded, "Yes."

Chapter 159: Chapter 158: Song You Can't Get Out of Your Head

Qian Kun couldn't believe it.

Chen Mo didn't mention pseudo-random before, it was all Qian Kun's idea. He's a top math student afterall, and had a clear idea of probabilities.

There could be major differences between the probabilities of each draw for the players without pseudo-random.

For example, a free player might be able to draw an SSR, but a whale who spent thousands or RMB never managed to draw one. The more players there are, the more likely this would happen, and would be completely out of their control.

This was like leaving the most important economy system of the game to be decided by the heavens.

Qian Kun didn't understand this move. He included a system like this for purple cards in I Am MT, but why wasn't he doing the same for Onmyoji?

"Remove the pseudo-random, but include a system for rewarding someone unlucky."

Qian Kun was shocked, "A system?"

"Yes, turn their unluckiness into a protection mechanism. For example, if they don't draw an SSR for one hundred times in a row, refund a certain amount of jade. You can decide on the numbers. But basically, we won't be doing the traditional failsafe, but we'll use this system to refund some jade to the unlucky ones."

Qian Kun was confused, "Uh, how is this better than pseudo-random?"

"It'll help the unlucky ones find their lucky counterparts," replied Chen Mo.

Qian Kun was speechless.

Chen Mo patted his shoulder, "Alright, just make the change. Keep in mind that we won't do pseudo-random for anything that should be pseudo-random. If they players are lucky, good for them. If the players are unlucky, we'll reimburse them in some other way."

Qian Kun was still confused, but he made the changes according to Chen Mo's specifications.

Chen Mo's Onmyoji had two main improvements over Onmyoji from his previous life.

The reimbursement for unlucky players can be collected multiple times, and the amount refunded was much more. This becomes the failsafe mechanism, empathising the unlucky players and congratulating the lucky players at the same time.

He also included a sweeping function. When a player fully clears a dungeon, they could use the sweep function to save time.

These were the two biggest points the players of Onmyoji in his previous life were asking for. Chen Mo didn't really think it was a good idea to add it, but he decided to anyway upon taking the relative 'softness' of the players in the parallel world.

However, Chen Mo didn't decide on a traditional failsafe mechanism because the biggest fun factor of the game was its randomness.

(Not trying to make fun of the unlucky players.)

Su Jinyu was preparing the advertising material for Onmyoji.

"Manager, are we going to match Emperor Dynasty Entertainment in advertising? We should put out more ads right?" asked Su Jinyu.

Chen Mo shook his head, "There's no need, they have tons of money but not many brain cells. We have money too, but there isn't a point playing the same game they are. The key point is to have effective advertising. Let's not lower ourselves to putting ads on video streaming websites."

"Huh? How are we advertising then?" asked Su Jinyu.

"You can work out the advertising artwork with Hongxi for now. I'll worry about our advertising strategy. If we plan on doing some pre-sales promotion, we'll focus on artists, ACGN groups, and cosplayers, we won't be considering other groups for now," answered Chen Mo.

Su Jinyu nodded and went back to work.

After planning, Chen Mo called Guo Feng.

"So is my song done?" asked Chen Mo.

"It's done," replied Guo Feng, "But I don't know if you're happy with it. It's already the third version, we'll have to grab another star if you're still unhappy with this."

"No no no, we can't have stars singing this song, I need someone from the ACGN community. Send me the song as soon as possible," said Chen Mo.

"Alright, let me know if there's anything you want to change."

Chen Mo received Guo Feng's video file.

Chen Mo put on his earphones and was happy that he finally found a singer he was happy with.

There wasn't much difficulty in this song, but Chen Mo wanted the song to have a lazy yet gentle and loving tone to it, which was why it took him so long to settle on one.

The MV was made with models from Onmyoji. The scenes were great, the animations were smooth, and the editing was alright.

Chen Mo posted the song onto Weibo.

"Gokuraku Jodo, the theme song for my new game Onmyoji. Friendly reminder: This song is addicting, please use caution."

Warcraft had propelled Chen Mo's popularity, helping Chen Mo reach over a million followers on Weibo. Combined with what he had done in the past, there were a lot of followers staring at Chen Mo's Weibo hoping that he releases news on his new games.

The drama hungry fans jumped right to it upon seeing his Weibo.

"First!!!"

"My goodness, he's alive! Bringing us another theme song!"

"Is Chen Mo entering the Entertainment Industry as a songwriter?"

"It's not a star singing it this time, dislike!"

"This song is addicting? I don't buy it!"

The players started watching the video.

The camera zoomed in and the melody started playing, three girls started dancing.

It was Hotarugusa, Kaugura, and Aoandon. The three of them were among the best looking and most prominent characters in Onmyoji. They were dancing to the beat completely in sync.

At the same time, a lazy yet lovely female vocal started singing.

"When moonlight climbs the sky"

"And the red lanterns are lit"

"At the sign of festival music"

"A butterfly extends an invitation"

"Just peer inside and take a look"

"Once you wander in, you can't escape!"

"But if you wanna do something fun"

"Come on over to the Gokuraku Jodo"

"Sing! Sing! As your heart pleases"

"Sing! Sing! As your heart pleases"

"Let me hear your voice!"

"Dance! Dance! Forget about the time"

"Tonight, we'll bloom in force together!"

The viewers were utterly shocked watching Hotarugusa, Kaugura, and Aoandon dance to the lovely music.

"My goodness, these girls are so cute! What have you been doing behind our backs Chen Mo!"

"Those moves! Those legs! That shuffling! I'm getting a nosebleed!"

"The voice is so cute I'm about to die!"

"The melody is great, the dancing is great, the vocals are great!"

"I think this was much better than those 2D music videos."

"Previous posters, are you dense? This is a 2D music video!"

"Can a cute girl with long legs recreate this?"

"Chen Mo was right, it really is addicting! I've listened to it for the third time and I'm going for more!"

"I need to hard reset my brain!"

"It's like a drug, I can't stop at all!"

"Give me another hittttttt!"

Chapter 160: Chapter 159: A Massive Card Game

It didn't take long for the Weibo to be shared everywhere, in particular in the ACG community,

This song actually had several Chinese versions. Chen Mo chose the version that was closest to the original and better suited the title Gokuraku Jodo.

In Chen Mo's previous life, Onmyoji made this song popular. This song was associated with Onmyoji ever since MikuMikuDance models of Onmyoji were made.

It was because Gokuraku Jodo and Onmyoji were both popular in the ACG community, and had an even better effect on the ACG community when combined. This was why Chen Mo decided to use this song to promote the game as its theme song.

In just a few days time, Gokuraku Jodo took over the dance section of every major streaming platform.

The song spread at an incredibly speed. It received explosive growth on the first day, there were people learning the dance on the second day. It didn't take long before song and dance covers started appearing!

The dance, covers, and ACG sections of major streaming sites were all filled with Gokuraku Jodo. Many of them have listened to it many times and could recite the dance moves backwards.

And Onmyoji was also becoming more and more familiar.

Gokuraku Jodo's explosive growth did wonders to Onmyoji.

It started on Weibo, where many artists posted their creations of the characters from Onmyoji. Some were cute, some were alluring, and all of them were based on Onmyoji.

There were original works as well as commissioned works. Onmyoji became a popular topic among the most influential in the ACG community.

There were also sketches related to Onmyoji, focusing on interactions between Shikigami in the story, which also became trending on Weibo.

It didn't end there, Chen Mo released another video following that, titled 'Onmyoji Mobile Game Voice Actor Promotional Video: Complete Version'.

This video covered all the artwork and voicelines of Shikigami. Although it was very short as each Shikigami only had one line, the lineup of voice actors were still really shocking.

"My goodness, this voice actor lineup is amazing. They are all the top voice actors for anime!"

"Kugimiya? Kazuhiko Inoue? Taro Kubo? Aki Toyosaki[1]? What a way to spend money!"

"Ahhh! My ears are pregnant!"

"These drawings are so good I want to lick the screen!"

"Can someone make sure it's a mobile card game? A mobile card game?"

"Maybe it's only cards in the game with no models. Did you forget about I Am MT? It'll be amazing if they even give an animated card, I think that it's just a gimmick!"

"If Chen Mo was willing to spend so much money on the artwork, music, voice acting, it wouldn't be a stretch for him to spend money on models too! If he made 2D models like Demon Slayers 2, it's going to look so much better than Demon Slayers 2!"

"I don't think Chen Mo will settle with being the same as Demon Slayers 2, he never liked being the same in the past. Anyways, is a card game that has no cards still a card game?"

"Whatever, let's just wait for the game to be released. I can't wait!"

Onmyoji was finally released!

This time, Chen Mo released on both Thunderbolt Gaming Platform and the official appstore in order to reach out to as many mobile card game players as possible.

Chen Mo didn't spend a huge sum of money on advertising like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, nor did he have a huge IP. However, Onmyoji didn't lose in the popularity department compared to Demon Slayers 2.

It was because Chen Mo chose the ACG community as the start of his promotions. There are artists, dances, sketch producers, and other creators, a community filled with creative people.

And you could even say the quality of Onmyoji was as good as it gets, especially in characters and voice acting which were completely unique in the Chinese video game market. It didn't take long before it attracted the attention of many fans of the ACG community.

These fans would also willingly promote Onmyoji, artists would make their own creations, and creators would promote one another. Combined with Chen Mo's own promotion, it was easy for the game to promote itself.

In addition to Gokuraku Jodo's popularity, Chen Mo's previous works, and a wave of excitement in the mobile card game market driven by Demon Slayers 2, it allowed Onmyoji to gather the attention of many before release.

Chen Mo spent much less money on advertising compared to Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, but it achieved more or less the same effect.

Many players started downloading Onmyoji from either the Thunderbolt Gaming Platform or the official app store.

They realised the game was quite big?

"My goodness, the internet is so slow. How come it's not done after two minutes?"

"I'm not doing either. Hold on, this game is over 1GB!"

"Huh? You're joking right? It's a card game!"

"My goodness, it actually is 1GB, no wonder it was so slow."

"I'm out of storage on my phone, I have to delete some things!"

"It's just a mobile card game. I thought that 480MB for Demon Slayers 2 was a bit ridiculous, but Onmyoji is 1GB?"

"Maybe Chen Mo is back to his old self? Ten years making games, nine years in CG? Maybe there are lots of cinematics in this?"

"My goodness, what is he trying to do?"

"I think it's a good thing, this means that Chen Mo isn't trying to hustle us. This game must be really high quality. Just think about the voice acting and the artwork. This shouldn't be the usual card based card game."

"Makes sense. I'm done downloading now! I'm playing the game!"

The game started with a simple cinematic.

"This story happens in a time where humans and monsters live together..."

It was a deep Japanese dub with a mysterious background music, covering the world that the game was placed in.

"This magnificent and splendid, whimsical world, which belongs to the demons and monsters, is all yours to explore..."

There were four different characters on the screen after the cinematics ended, all with their unique features.

It was Abe no Seimei, Kagura, Hiromasa, and Yao Bikuni.

The players were shocked to see artwork of shuck high quality, trumping every other mobile card game on the market! Nobody would doubt if someone took a screenshot of this claiming it was from a PC game.

TL note: It's not her name in the raws, but it was close, I just assumed it was her because all the other names are actual voice actors for the game.

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Almighty Video Game Designer #Chapter 161 - Chapter 160: Revolutionary Innovation - Read Almighty Video Game Designer Chapter 161 - Chapter 160: Revolutionary Innovation Online - All Page - Novel Next

Chapter 161: Chapter 160: Revolutionary Innovation

In the game, Abe no Seimei was in the middle of the screen, slowly waving his fan back and forth. The background looked like where an Onmyoji would live during a Heian Period, under the cold moonlight with beautiful cherry blossom trees swaying in the background with petals falling from the sky.

"Lord Seimei!"

The story started off with the calls from a mask wearing white fox Shikigami.

The graphics of the game looked really polished, and had a really clean UI unlike many other mobile card games. The characters tab, inbox, and chat function were on the top, otherwise there wasn't anything else on the screen other than an exclamation mark on the top of the character and their dialogue.

A UI like this combined with beautiful scenery, high quality models, relaxing music, and unique dubs make for an immersive game.

This was completely different compared to other games.

Every new character was accompanied by a full body sketch and an overview, allowing players to immerse easier into the story.

Following Inugami's scenes, the players started their first guided combat.

This was then the players realised that the gameplay was actually 3D, and they could even adjust their perspective.

"My goodness, I thought this was a card game? You can even change the perspective, it's actually 3D!"

"The models are so high quality too, it's comparable to a PC game!"

"The effects of the abilities and the attack animations are really high quality too!"

"I noticed that the monsters will look in the direction of the characters that are moving. It's so cute how they move around."

"It's still turn based, but you can control everything! There's so much freedom given to players!"

"I won! Oh, I can draw cards now!"

"Hmm, this method of drawing is quite interesting, you have to draw out a symbol."

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"Wow, I drew a cute girl, a purple SR Yuki Onna!"

"Don't get too excited, I drew that too. Seems like it was guaranteed from the first draw..."

"Ahhh! Get this story over with, I want to put in some money and draw some cards!"

The players were soon absorbed into the game.

The first few hours of the game were also planned. Various mechanics are slowly unlocked as the players progress through the story, allowing the game to have a grip onto the players.

The Inugami and sparrow scene also gathered the attention of many players.

"This Shiba character is so interesting!"

"Wow, it seems honest and heartfelt."

"Interspecies relationships... Although this story was quite short, the ending was pretty good and very heartwarming."

"The story is great, and combined with the artwork and the voice acting, I actually think Chen Mo is an honest video game designer, he designed Warcraft afterall. Who knew money could make such a difference, in a mobile card game no less!"

"I'm trapped!"

Other mobile card game designers were also downloading Onmyoji to see what the person who invented this genre could add to it.

It didn't take long for them to realise that there was no comparison, even the newly released Demon Slayers 2 wasn't on the same level at all!

"The graphics and voice acting... Making a game like this probably costs tens of millions right?"

"Yeah, he must've spent a lot of money! I wonder how he's alright with that!"

"He's rich."

"Even so, you don't just spend your money like that. Is Emperor Dynasty Entertainment not right? The problem is, the core of mobile card games are in its gameplay, the graphics shouldn't make much of a difference. Wouldn't it be better if he spent that money on advertising instead?"

"Chen Mo also did advertising, and it worked wonders too."

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"I thought Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was incredibly greedy, but Chen Mo had bigger ambitions than Emperor Dynasty Entertainment! Emperor Dynasty Entertainment wanted to test the waters with Demon Slayers 2 then monopolize the entire industry with different IPs, but Chen Mo was one step ahead, wanting to take over the entire mobile card game industry with one game!"

"I think it's hard to tell. Chen Mo made a bold move, this game plays completely differently from I Am MT. The combat is turned based now, and the card training system has been overhauled. Are the players able to accept that?"

"We'll only know when the statistics for the monthly income is released."

Qiu Bin was probably the one who was most nervous. He downloaded the game as soon as it was available and had been playing it non-stop to try and figure out this game, and see what changes Chen Mo made to mobile card games.

He was shocked, this game was on a whole different level compared to I Am MT!

Qiu bin thought that Chen Mo only changed the theme of the game, with the mechanics of the game remaining true to I Am MT. But he now realised that it wasn't just the theme, the playstyle was completely different too!

Take raising Shikigamis for example, Onmyoji completely ditched the training system of I Am MT. The level and star system was fairly easy to wrap your mind around, but this Awakening and Souls system?

There was also the concept of main characters, there were four Onmyojis, with a whole bunch of abilities.

There was also exploration elements, story, shop, and the method of drawing new cards. Although they had some resemblance to a card game, it felt entirely different, and the gameplay was completely overhauled too, you could barely tell it was a mobile card game!

Qiu Bin was most baffled at the fact that Onmyoji challenged all his previous knowledge of mobile card games. His three key points from before were completely ignored in this game.

Fragmentation, low cost, huge IP, Onmyoji didn't match a single one of them!

Fragmentation? This game was incredibly tiring to play. The players would spend five to six hours on the first day, and the players didn't feel relaxed in the later days too. As long as you were online, there were things to do, completely ignoring the concept of time fragmentation.

Low cost? This cost wasn't low at all. He spent so much money on artwork and voice acting, this game would easily enter the range of tens of millions, much more than the average PC game!

Big IP? Onmyoji didn't even have an IP. This theme might be known in some specific groups, but most games wouldn't even care about stories and monsters from that period.

You might know Abe no Seimei or Shuten Douji at most, there was no way anyone would know any of the other monsters!

Qiu Bin spent so much time and effort to summarise mobile card games into three terms, just to have Chen Mo defy all of them just like that.

"Impossible, I don't buy it. The players' tastes can't be changed that easily. Sure you innovated a whole new play style, but have you considered the cost of players learning and accepting a new game?

"It's so tiring to play this game, and the things are so expensive. There's no way this will become the new mobile card game!"

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Chapter 162: Chapter 161: New Player Hints

There were plenty of spaces left on the computers in Chen Mo's experience store, but the massage chairs were all occupied. There were also many who were hanging out on the sofa or in the meeting room, and even some who sat at the computers playing Onmyoji.

"Hurry, I started a hunt, come join!" said Wen Lingwei.

"Senior, what's that name? Thunderbolt ghost hunting team?" exclaimed Chang Xiuya.

"I refuse to join!" asserted Qian Kun.

"It's fine isn't it? Isn't it better than 'the bugger team'[1]?"

Qian Kun shook his head, "I'd rather join the bugger team!"

Chen Mo was speechless, "How could you visit the experience store everyday, playing games, instead of searching for a job even though you've graduated?"

Wen Lingwei glanced at Chen Mo, "Find a job? I'm not taking any of those garbage jobs. I charge five thousand RMB per drawing anyways, it makes no difference if I have an actual job or not."

"Makes sense..."

Obviously the experience store was the first place taken over by Onmyoji. Wen Lingwei and Chang Xiuya couldn't wait to play the game before it was released. Zou Zhuo, who spent all his time playing Warcraft was dragged into it too.

And when the game officially launched, they got through the story relatively quickly borrowing their experience form before.

Chang Xiuya handed her phone to Wen Lingwei, "Senior, I can't beat this story level..."

Wen Lingwei was speechless and grabbed her phone, making changes to her strategy.

"Equip your souls. You need to train your Shikigami too. How could you beat the story levels without training your Shikigamis.

"Your team is a bit weird too, why are you still bringing your N rarity cards... You should train your Yuki Onna for a bit."

Wen Lingwei adjusted her strategy as she explained to Chang Xiuya to help her beat the levels.

Chang Xiuya was your typical gamer who didn't care too much about combat. Instead, she paid more attention to the artwork, music and story. Of course, this resulted in her unable to beat the story levels...

Zheng Hongxi exclaimed, "Huh? I got an SSR."

This sentence gathered everyone in the first floor of the experience store.

"Huh? SSR?"

"What, there's SSR? in this game? Why have I never seen one before?"

"My goodness, it's the first SSR in your hunt! Let's see what it is!"

Everyone was gathered around him.

Zheng Hongxi passed his phone to show everyone else. On his screen was an ashen haired lady with long legs, SSR Shikigami Aoandon.

This created a lot of chatter.

"Isn't that Aoandon? I want it too!"

"My goodness, he really got an SSR. How did you do it!"

"Give me some of your luck!"

"Yeah, how did you get it, teach me your symbol drawing strategy!" asked Jia Peng.

Zheng Hongxi scratched his head, "I don't know, I just drew a circle."

"I'm drawing a circle too!" said Jia Peng.

Su Jinyu was speechless, "It doesn't matter what you draw, it's more about the process. Which card you get is decided by the RNG from the system."

"I don't care! Just let me have something good!" said Jia Peng.

Wen Lingwei said to Zheng, "Sell me your account, I'm offering three hundred RMB!"

"I can't sell it, there's too many things associated with this account, such as my ID and my phone number." said Zheng Hongxi.

Jia Peng said after some thought,"What if i buy an account with an SSR from the internet? They probably sell it there right?"

Chen Mo laughed, "You wish, that's impossible."

Jia Peng was shocked, "Why?"

"You need a Thunderbolt Game Pass to download Onmyoji. And that pass must include ID, and phone number."

"Geez! You're not giving me any chances, manager!"

Chen Mo patted his shoulder, "Please complete your assignment individually."

Wen Lingwei silently put three hundred RMB into the game.

"I've only gotten two SR cards so far. I'm bringing shame to the lucky folk, I'm topping up!"

Su Jinyu advised against it, "Calm down, you just need to take your time. There are a lot of free jade later on. Moreover, it's not that SSR cards are the best, some R and SR cards are pretty good too."

Wen Lingwei shook her head, "I don't care, I want an SSR!"

Chen Mo couldn't help but smile upon seeing their reaction/

Technically there wasn't a need to have rules as strict as this for a mobile card game, requiring ID and phone number to be tied to your game pass. This was something only high tier VR games would do.

Other card games wouldn't bat an eye when it comes to abusing first draw accounts.

First draw accounts refers to new accounts that drew rare cards in the early stages of the game.

Most mobile card games would give the opportunity for the players to experience drawing cards. And these cards can be good or bad, and the accounts with good cards are referred to first draw accounts.

Some players will try and grind a first draw account, some will even make many accounts and try and sell them.

There wasn't a point for other mobile card games to try and limit this. This was a combination of the low value of cards, low player base, and inflexible drawing probability, and wouldn't do much harm to the game.

But Onmyoji was different. Because of the huge player base and the probability of drawing cards, the cost of SSR cards are incredibly high. This created a huge first draw account problem in the game, which was bad for both the players and the developers.

Therefore, Chen Mo decided to limit creation of accounts as much as possible, increasing the cost of creating first draw accounts to prevent abuse.

This also solved a huge problem Onmyoji had when it was first released.

It didn't take long before everyone was immersed into Onmyoji.

Chen Mo wasn't playing as he had his eyes in the reviews. Onmyoji's reviews were really high so far, maintaining around 8.8. Most of them were five star reviews with a few one star reviews.

There were a lot of bots among the bot reviews. Although some were better hidden than others, some were really obvious, overstating the flaws of the games.

There was feedback and insults, but the players who liked the game were in the majority.

But many of the players expressed that they are finding it can't to understand the game because of how different it was compared to other mobile card games.

There were many tagging Chen Mo on Weibo, asking for some tips.

Chen Mo decided to post a Weibo.

Onmyoji new player tips:

Demon Parade: A mysterious system that gives your friends three N card shards to your friends.

Shikigami Scrolls: Makes fun of your drawings every Monday.

Realm Cards: A mysterious card that seems to be able be leveled to six stars, but have never personally done it.

Realm Raid: A confidence training system that makes you think you're good.

Duel: A system that takes away from your confidence that you gained from Realm Raids

Souls Shop: Synonymous with bankruptcy.

Talisman Pass: Although you can't get Ootengu, you might be able to get a strand of hair from this mechanic.

Max Goryou: Because you don't have money to level up using souls.

Story level 35: A level that nobody beats when they are level 35.

Challenge 18: Harder than the story.

Watcher: Something you thought you didn't lack, but found out you needed it badly.

Speech Summoning: Pick your incantation carefully. The more quirky you are the better your chance of drawing SSR. But if you exceed the threshold, the whole world will hear what you said.

Incantation example: Balala energy, dolo dolo, transform!

Face: The most important thing in the game.

Rare Shikigami: SSR cards does not exist in this game

TL note [1: It's a reference to a guild from the animated series I Am MT

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Chapter 163: Chapter 162: Other Mobile Card Games are Panicking

The players were dumbfounded upon seeing the Weibo.

"What is this? New player hints?"

"The most important thing in the game is face? No SSR in this game? Geez, are they taunting us?"

"Hahaha, why is Chen Mo making fun of his own game?"

"This Chen Mo guys is up to no good. I almost believed that whatever I say affects the SSR drawing rate."

"Chen Mo plays the hater role well. I wanted to hate Onmyoji, but there's no way I out hate Chen Mo!"

Countless players walked into the trap Chen Mo set up among all the laughter.

As Onmyoji continued to gain popularity, it didn't take long before it infiltrated different mobile card game communities.

-In a random company-

"Have you played Onmyoji?"

"Nope, I heard it's quite popular. Have you played it? How is it?"

"It's addicting! I've uninstalled all the other mobile card games."

"Huh? Really?"

"Really! This game is incredibly fun. Time flies when you're staring at the phone playing the game, and all of a sudden you're off work or past bedtime. I don't even feel like playing other card games."

"Really?"

"Really really. You'll know when you try it. Other card games seem so crude after playing Onmyoji, I can't stand them at all."

"Alright, I'll give it a try."

-At a random school-

"My goodness! I drew an SSR! Ootengu!"

"Really? How did you get it, did you spend money?"

"Nope, I just decided to make a draw after having lunch, I didn't expect to find Ootengu!"

"Let me see. Wow, this ability, the special ability, that character model. Amazing! I want one too!"

"You make a draw too."

"More draws? I've spent over two hundred RMB, I haven't even seen an SSR. I'm spending another three hundred RMB later, there's no way I don't draw one!"

-Among a group of gamers-

"Ubume is the king of duels! Fight me if you disagree!"

"Shouzu, Kyuuketsu Hime, and Mirror Lady disagree!"

"What are you guys talking about? I only have one SR, Yuki Onna!"

"Get out of here!"

"I don't know what you guys are arguing about. My five SSRs are just here silently watching you argue."

"Wow, let me rub some luck off you!"

"Please take me as your son!"

-Onmyoji Discussion Forum-

"Chen Mo was right! SSR doesn't exist in this game! I've been had!"

"I just fell into the trap today, can anyone help me with a better strategy?"

"Send a picture of your Shikigamis"

"If you're lucky you can do anything, otherwise, there's nothing you can do."

"I've looked into it, there are quite a few really strong R cards. Some of them are stronger than SSR cards when they are awakened, easier to train too."

"Didn't Chen Mo say that SSR only represents its rarity, not its strength? Strong R cards are quite normal."

"I've won many duels against SSR cards with my R. I think this game is quite fair, unlike other games where you just have to spend money and get rare cards to win!"

"So what if you beat SSR cards with R cards? You're still unlucky."

"Shut up! Someone line him up for execution!"

-Demon Slayers 2 Discussion Forum-

"Anybody tried out Onmyoji? Feels much more fun than Demon Slayers."

"Another one from the other side, how much did Chen Mo pay you? Emperor Dynasty will pay you double!"

"Pfft, sent by Chen Mo. Can't you use your brain? That game is actually quite fun."

"I agree, I've played it and found that the game is better than Demon Slayers 2 in every single aspect, especially story and graphics. I feel like I'm not even playing a mobile game anymore."

"Mods deleting my most? Have it your way!"

"Whatever, since most say Onmyoji is fun, I'll go try it out. May we meet again."

"It's been three days, previous poster. Is Onmyoji fun? Can you say something?"

Many video game designers of the large mobile card game companies felt the impact of Onmyoji, with their daily active players taking huge blows.

Demon Slayers 2 fared better than the other worse and outdated mobile card games.

As the number of daily active players fell, the server activities fell dramatically too. Many servers were deserted, and many players from different communities have shifted to Onmyoji.

Naturally, the revenue for these mobile cards dropped dramatically too.

These designers were panicking. But there wasn't much they could do. Even Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's Demon Slayer's 2 could only stand and watch, what else could they do?"

"Our daily active users dropped tens of thousands again! Our days are over!"

"Yeah, our revenue is horrible to look at. At this rate, we might only be able to last another month before shutting it down."

"All the players shifted to Onmyoji."

"Is that game really that good? It wasn't even that bad when Demon Slayers 2 came out right?"

"Yeah, it doesn't make sense. In theory brand loyalty is much stronger for mobile card games. These players have spent so much money to draw rare cards, how could they just leave like that?"

"I heard Demon Slayers 2 took heavy blows too, but I don't know exactly what happened."

"Onmyoji had only been online for a few days, that's crazy!"

"I think Onmyoji should enter best sellers anytime soon, even though it was released on the official appstore and the Thunderbolt Gaming Platform."

"I also think that Onmyoji can't be bad. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before it surpasses Demon Slayers 2!"

"Is Emperor Dynasty Entertainment just going to watch?"

"What can they do? Send their people over to leave bad reviews? Everything is in their favour right now, it wouldn't do anything. Moreover, bad reviews wouldn't do much. Mobile card games always had bad reviews, it doesn't matter for free games at all!"

"Geez, there's nothing stopping these players from heading to Onmyoji!"

Many had their eyes on Onmyoji's performance, but nobody knew how well the game did.

It had only been a few days since the game was released. They could all tell that the game was really popular from the downloads and the trending topics, but nobody knew the statistics such as player retention, daily active users, and monthly revenue.

They were all waiting for Onmyoji to enter the best sellers. Could it potentially drag Demon Slayers 2 into second place?

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Chapter 164: Chapter 163: Horrifying Monthly Revenue

The next month was a month that shocked all video game media, video game designers and gamers alike .

Nineteen days into Onmyoji's life there were more than two million daily active users. That number reached 3.9 million in twenty eight days, and broke four million at the end of the month!

The even scarier thing was that the player base was still growing rapidly. Some industry professionals estimate that if this growth continued, Onmyoji could reach ten million players ninety days in!

Ten million daily active players would put it on par with tabletop games like Dou Dizhu, and would leave the other mobile card games in dust.

The profitability of mobile card games are on a completely different level compared to table top gains. This many players suggests that Onmyoji's monthly income could reach an incredible level!

Onmyoji reached the best sellers leaderboards a week after it was released, and was rapidly gaining momentum. It reached the top five in the second week, and surpassed Demon Slayers 2 to reach the top in the third.

Afterwards, Onmyoji comfortably sat on the top spot for a long time. There was nothing Demon Slayers 2 could do, as they stood no chance, no matter how much more advertising they did.

At this point, it was impossible to know how much Onmyoji was making because there was no point of reference. Everybody knew that it surpassed Demon Slayers 2's sixty five million, but by how much was still a question.

Many third parties were trying hard to figure out how much Onmyoji was making a month, but they could only perform an estimate. This was because there were a lot of players that downloaded the gaming from Thunderbolt Gaming Platform.

But many thought that the income from Thunderbolt Gaming Platform must be less that the official app store, and could surpass one billion combined.

The thought of a mobile game breaking a billion RMB a month would have never crossed the mind of any videogame designer.

Who could've thought that soon after Demon Slayers 2 set a new record, another new record would be set, one that might be in the billions at that.

Only Chen Mo knew this number.

A month after Onmyoji was released, the highest daily active players was four million, second day retention of 47%, average revenue per user of 221.3, resulting in a monthly revenue of three hundred and seventy million!

The video game industry was shocked when Chen Mo released this figure publicly.

This number exceeded his estimations, but was still reasonable.

The ARPU was much higher than he thought, but it was dragged down by the relatively fewer players in this world.

This was because the players in this world were much more willing to spend, meaning that there were more medium to low paying players.

It was still reasonable because Onmyoji's statistics from his previous life were even more ridiculous. It had more than four million peak daily active users, six billion in revenue in the first month, and fourteen billion in the second. There were more than two hundred and seventy thousand reviews on the app store in the first month, and 14.1 billion hits on the topic Onmyoji on Weibo in the first two months. You could even say it was a national phenomena.

In the parallel world, because Chen Mo couldn't compete with the advertising in the previous world, and the mobile gaming industry wasn't as big, resulting in a lower three hundred and seventy million, but still enough to give everyone a shock.

The previous top mobile card game Demon Slayers 2 only had sixty five million in monthly revenue, and Onmyoji destroyed it by an order of magnitude!

Even PC and VR game designers were discussing this.

"Chen Mo's Onmyoji broke three hundred and seventy million in monthly revenue? That means he has over two hundred million at hand? Really? Two hundred million?"

"Are you serious? That's money, not happy beans!"

"Yeah, you'd be incredibly rich to have a hundred million in assets, but this guy made that money in a month? You're joking right?"

"So many VR game designers can't make that much, how did a mobile game manage that?"

"It's not that simple, what about the cost?"

"Cost? It might be ten odd million, I'd take him a few days to make it back!"

"I'm dumbfounded. No way, he must be lying right?"

"I think so too, he's probably lying to create publicity for the game?"

"But Onmyoji is still growing, it'll probably be higher next month!"

"I have nothing to say!"

"Man, now I want to make mobile games. What can we do with PC games, we can barely make money!"

Of course, the video game media was just as shocked.

"Two hundred million into his pocket? Chen Mo's mobile game is going crazy!"

"The winner of the mobile card game saga?"

"Chen Mo: started and ended the era of mobile card games"

"The secret behind Onmyoji making three hundred and seventy million a month"

"Player activity: How much did you contribute to the three hundred million?"

Mobile card game professional: I don't understand this game

Onmyoji hadn't copped much anger thus far as most were still shocked by this game.

The high quality graphics and voice acting, rich combat, interesting story, and frightening profitability, these were all trending topics that only gave Onmyoji praises.

However, there were also many angry players.

The game was less time consuming after Chen Mo made changes to Onmyoji, so the hatred was all focused on one point: scammy.

Especially the resentment towards SSR cards, mostly coming from the unlucky ones.

There were more and more posts appearing on various forums questioning the drop chance of Onmyoji.

"Is the SSR drop rate of this game lower than one in ten thousand? How come I've never seen one? The people I know who spent a lot of money haven't seen one either!"

"Yeah, I Am MT had a failsafe, how come it doesn't even exist for SR cards in Onmyoji!"

"I think Chen Mo made this game so horribly. I thought he was quite a nice developer, but it seems like I was wrong!"

"I've spent nearly five thousand RMB and I haven't even seen a glimpse of an SSR unit. Can you explain this to me Chen Mo?"

"I want to go up to the experience store and complain about this to him in person!"

"Me too, let's upvote this post so Chen Mo will see! You can't take our money like this!"

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Chapter 165: Chapter 164: No SSR in This Game

Chen Mo replied soon after.

"Tomorrow 8pm at room 10013 on Moyu streaming website I'll show you guys how to properly draw SSR cards and what being lucky truly means!"

The Weibo was quickly reposted by fans.

"What? Chen Mo is streaming?"

"He's drawing SSRs on stream? Are you trying to rub salt on our wounds?"

"I mean, you're the designer, you change the rates as you please. It wouldn't even be surprising if you drew SSR cards every time!"

"Do you want more haters?"

"I'll be waiting for tomorrow night just to talk trash!"

"Can I rub some of your luck off you? Please!"

"Who cares about drawing SSRs, I want to watch you play Warcraft!"

"Yeah, can you please show us the way as Silent again?"

It didn't take long for the Weibo to get more than fifty thousand reposts.

Moreover, Moyu also gave Chen Mo's stream a special promotional spot, titled: Onmyoji's designer Chen Mo will teach the techniques for drawing SSRs himself!"

The players were confused, was there really a special technique?

Could it be that failing the draw the symbols will affect the result of the drawing process?

Many players curiously waited at room 10013 for Chen Mo's stream to start.

At 8pm, the livestream started.

The viewers were greeted with long slender legs.

Gokuraku Jodo started playing, and three beautiful female cosplayers cosplaying Onmyoji characters started dancing.

The haters were all confused.

"What? These girls are so pretty!"

"Where's Chen Mo? Which one of these is Chen Mo?"

"Don't think we'll forgive you just by showing us a few pretty girls, unless you're giving us their contact number!"

"I thought we were gaining something from this, we've been had!"

"It's over already? Don't leave yet!"

"Go away Chen Mo, I wanna watch the girls dance!"

After the dance was finished, the girls went off screen, and the screen switched a huge poster of Onmyoji characters.

There was a small table and five single sofas in front of the poster. Chen Mo and the three cosplayers sat on the sofas, along the female host.

Chen Mo didn't dress up for this occasion, and wore what he usually would.

This was a streaming space by Moyu, there were also professional videographers hosted. Chen Mo looked quick relaxed and there was some back and forth with the host.

"Let's welcome Mr Chen Mo to our studio. I'm joined with three cosplayers, we've all played Onmyoji, but none of us have any SSR. I've probably spent the most money here at around eight hundred RMB, and I haven't seen a single SSR," said the host.

Chen Mo replied,"That's why I'm here to show you guys how to draw SSRs."

"Yes, and we at Moyu had made some preparations according to Mr Chen Mo's specifications. Let's take a look," said the host.

One of the cosplayers had a brand new phone in their hands.

The host held the phone and shook it at the camera, "As you can see, this phone is brand new, so there's no chance that we could've done anything to it. Now, Mr Chen Mo will open it."

Chen Mo grabbed the phone and downloaded Onmyoji. He also closed his eyes to create a random account, and got the ID and phone number of a staff member.

"You guys all saw, there is no way that through the entire process that we could've rigged anything." Chen Mo showed the phone to the camera. "I'll now show you guys the proper way to draw SSR.

"First, you must be sincere when you draw SSRs, anything can happen when you put your mind to it as they say..."

Chen Mo continued to make up a story as he went through the story in game. The host, cosplayers and viewers at home had their eyes peeled, afraid that they would miss anything.

It didn't take long before he beat the story and was able to start drawing cards, and drew Yuki Onna, the first draw set by the system.

Chen Mo paid thirty thousand RMB for credits in the game.

"Now take a look, I've put in thirty thousand RMB into this account. There is plenty of jade for us to draw many many times. Can you guys guess how many SSRs we'll be able to draw?

"Wow, you guys are saying three? You underestimate me. I was born under a lucky star!

"Five? Seven?

"You guys have no idea how lucky I am. Now don't blink because I will now show you how to draw SSRs."

Chen Mo got a basin of water from the side.

"First, you must cleanse your hand and your face."

Chen Mo cleansed himself as he said, and dried himself using a towel.

"Alright, now it's time for the miracle!"

Chen Mo drew a star on the screen, and the animation played!

Everyone had their eyes glued to the screen.

It was a R rarity Shikigami, Sanbi no Kitsune!

"Pfft!" the host could barely hold back his laughter.

Chen Mo let out a few embarrassed coughs, "Ahem, it's fine. Even the most lucky person can fail sometimes. I'll show you guys another technique."

Chen Mo grabbed an incense burner from the side and lit three joss sticks.

"Oh great Buddah, please grant me an SSR!"

Chen Mo drew another star, and drew another R, Kodokushi!

Chen Mo was a bit embarrassed, "Haha, don't worry, I still have a lot of methods of drawing cards I haven't shown. Just treat the previous two as sacrificial ones."

Chen Mo moved the basin of water and the incense burner to the side, "These are all things of the outside. Drawing cards must come from the inside, like this."

Chen Mo said to the phone, "Balala fairy! Show yourself, my SSR!"

Another R card appeared, Hotarugusa!

The corner of Chen Mo's mouth twitched, "Don't worry. I still have a lot of strategies, I'll pass it all on to you guys today."

Chen Mo showed many many different strategies.

Five second delay, draw on the hour, cumulative draw, emotionally touch Shikigami method, call daddy method, change name method, do better art method...

Chen Mo tried all the different methods. After a whole hour of drawing, other than a duplicate Yuki Onna and a Youko, he didn't draw any other SR, not to mention SSRs!

The cosplayers and host couldn't hold back their laughter, and the chat was going wild too.

"Hahaha, Chen Mo proved himself that SSRs doesn't exist in this game!"

"He even did all those things so seriously, maybe it depends on your bloodline!"

"Would Chen Mo go back and increase the drop rate for these cards?"

"I didn't think Chen Mo would be someone so unlucky hidden in plain sight, I feel better now!"

"I feel like Chen Mo was about to cry at the end, hahahaha!

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Chapter 166: Chapter 165: Another Interview

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

There were many different emoticon packs being shared around on Weibo and various different forums of Chen Mo's various expressions during the stream, all with different texts.

"I think SSRs don't exist in this game."

"Tears of the unlucky."

"Stop crying, you're in the presence of the most unlucky."

"Lucky turned unlucky."

"I don't know what to do if I don't draw SSRs."

"Draw once before sleep, all of them were Rs!"

It didn't take long before it became the hot topic of the day on the Onmyoji forums. Chen Mo card drawing livestream also became a trending topic on Weibo.

The players were full of anger and wanted to release it all onto Chen Mo, but who knew he couldn't draw an SSR when he was so serious about it too!

And he seemed much more angry and the average player!

Many players felt like they got their answer. There weren't any tricks and techniques to this game, it all depends on how lucky you were, even the designer couldn't escape this!

A majority of the hatred was quenched following the laughter.

Many of them concluded that the rates are always the same, it's their problem that they couldn't draw SSRs!

And just like that, the fight between the developer and players were changed into the battle between the lucky and the unlucky, and Chen Mo never got much hate for this again.

As for the Chinese mobile game market, it was still dealing with the aftermath of Onmyoji's release.

So developers finally understood the mechanics behind I Am MT, but out came Onmyoji. What's worse was that the two games seemed to have no similarities.

I Am MT was copping a lot of hatred while making tons of money, with a relatively low score. On the other hand, Onmyoji was still getting hate and making money, but the ratings were really high!

The designers were trying to figure out how to copy Onmyoji, but it didn't take long for them to realise they couldn't.

Many designers couldn't understand how Onmyoji got popular in the first place.

If the designers couldn't understand, there was no way the media could figure it out.'s journalist Han Lu was organising files related to Onmyoji, but was more and more confused as she looked deeper into it.

She interviewed him when I Am MT was released, but she got nothing out of it, and got played by Chen Mo instead.

Things like "Making happiness mindfully", "Passion, sincerity, commitment", and "All for the players" were all gags that were used by the players again and again.

And Han Lu's article had been beaten like a dead horse again and again, there were many horrible comments driving Han Lu mad.

After Onmyoji became so popular, the Editor in Chief thought it would be a good idea to have Han Lu interview Chen Mo again.

Han Lu tried really hard to refuse, but the Editor in Chief was determined to have her do it.

"It's fine, even if you get nothing out of him. Even if you release an article like last time, it would still bring many clicks to our website. Just try and make it as clickable as possible, alright?"

Han Lu decided on interviewing Chen Mo once again.

But this time she decided to expand her range of questions. Instead of focusing on Onmyoji, she could ask questions about Warcraft and Wulin Legend as well. Perhaps he would start making sense if it was thrown a curveball!

After preparing some statistics and material, Han Lu bore her warriors heart and drove towards Chen Mo's experience store.

Han Lu noticed that there were many more players than before in the experience store. It was almost at max capacity, there were even some chatting while waiting for their turn.

There were also many who weren't here to play games. There was one who was queueing up against a statue of Kagura.

This Kagura statue was around 1.5 metres, the same height as your average loli. It looked really close to the one in the game and was highly detailed too. It even had her right hand forwards, the same pose as one of the Onmyoji posters.

There were many smaller figurines behind Kagura. They were all SSR Shikigamis, including Ootengu, Shuten Douji, Ibaraki Douji, and Aoandon, all standing behind a shelf behind Kagura.

The experience store felt quite spacious before, but it felt incredibly cramped this time around because of the addition of the statue, the shelves, and the many people queueing up.

But the players didn't seem to mind as their focus was on their phones trying to grind resources in game.

Han Lu was curious, what were they doing?

She could only see that the players were waiting patiently in line, and when it was their turn, they would put their hands together then touch Kagura's right hand, mumbling, "Please give me a Shuten Douji!"

Han Lu was shocked, "That's what they are doing?"

She grabbed one of the players, asking, "Does that do anything?"

"Who knows, but I'm here anyways, of course I'm going to pray. I heard it works," replied the player.

Han Lu was shocked, how could the players be so into this!

There were new players visiting the experience store every day ever since Onmyoji gained popularity. Chen Mo thought it wouldn't be good if the players travelled all this way just to sit around and do nothing, which was why he ordered the statue and figurines to have something to wish to.

It actually worked quite well. Many players drew an SSR after wishing. They even tried to get other players on the forum to try it out.

This resulted in many fans from the Imperial Capital coming over, queuing up for a long time just to have a wish.

Chen Mo also sold a bunch of figurines and made a bunch of money.

It couldn't be helped, who knew the unlucky were so desperate to have a change of fate?

Su Jinyu brought Han Lu to the second floor.

Just like last time, Chen Mo was waiting for her in his office, and even poured her a glass of water.

Han Lu however was much more wary, she even decided to do some revision before she entered.

Chen Mo looked at her and said, "You feel a bit nervous, don't worry, it's just an interview."

Han Lu was speechless, how could she be treated as the guest again! Am I interviewing you or are you interviewing me!

After regaining her composure, she smiled and said, "We meet again Mr. Chen Mo. Our previous interview resonated quite well with the fans, I hope we'll be able to show the players more this time around."

Chen Mo nodded, "No problem."

"First I'd like to congratulate you for the awesome figures that Onmyoji managed to get. You could say that it's sitting comfortably in the top spot, leaving Demon Slayers 2 miles behind. According to you, Onmyoji's monthly income is more than three hundred million. What is your rating for a game like Onmyoji?" asked Han Lu

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Chapter 167: Chapter 166: Silently Watching Him Tell Lies

Chen Mo replied after some thought, "Oh, this game is the same as I Am MT, a form of 'creating happiness mindfully' I guess. I think the success of Onmyoji comes from the players, and evidently, the players are feeling the happiness I created for them more than ever."

The corner of Han Lu's mouth twitched, Chen Mo was still the same as before!

But Han Lu wasn't worried as she came prepared.

"Many players complain that the game relies too heavily on RNG and the game doesn't treat the unlucky ones among us well, what do you think?"

Chen Mo replied, "Oh I think compared to I Am MT, Onmyoji is even more balanced."

Han Lu was confused, what did this mean? How could you call a game that had so many paying players balanced?

Chen Mo could tell that she was confused, explaining, "You see, in I Am MT, you become stronger the more you pay. The whales have a definite advantage over free players. But in Onmyoji, the whales aren't any stronger than the free players. It's not like they can't draw SSRs if they don't pay. As long as they word hard, they can beat the whales too. Doesn't this show that Onmyoji is more fair and balanced than I Am MT?"

Han Lu was shocked, she felt that something wasn't quite right, yet couldn't refute.

And maybe Chen Mo actually made sense?

Han Lu got that thought out of her mind and switched topics.

"There were rumours that you have your assistants eighteen months of pay in year end bonus after your success in Onmyoji. Is that true?"

Chen Mo replied, "No, that's just a rumour."

Han Lu nodded," I thought it sounded too good to be true, I might've believed it if it was five or six months."

Chen Mo replied a few moments later, "It's quite easy to tell that it's fake. It's not the end of the year, it was a quarterly bonus."

Han Lu was utterly shocked, "Huh? Eighteen months of pay as quarterly bonus?"

Chen Mo nodded, "Yes, everybody knows that us at Thunderbolt Entertainment will always follow the idea of 'creating happiness mindfully'. I hope that every one of my staff will put their heart into making each and every game. MOney isn't what is important, it's our ideal and our love of video games that brings us together.

"This bonus is to ensure that they have their basic necessities. There's quite a lot of stress living in the imperial capital, and it's difficult working with me...

Before Chen Mo could finish, Han Lu was shocked. Eighteen months pay as quarterly bonus? To ensure basic necessities?

"Are you guys hiring? Perhaps someone who has studied in a major university?" asked Han Lu.

"We aren't really lacking help at the moment..."

"Just cleaning is fine too!" exclaimed Han Lu.

Chen Mo laughed, "We have some plans to hire more, but I haven't decided on when."

Han Lu nodded,"Ahem, alright. Let's move onto our next topic.

"Everybody knows that you're the number one video game designer who knows how to make money. What do you think about the idea of making money? Do you have any secrets?"

"Well, I'm not making games just for money, it's just something that happens along the way."

Han Lu was confused, "Something that just happens?"

Chen Mo nodded, "Yeah, the reason I make games is to give players happiness, add value to society, in the name of art. I'm actually losing money a lot of the time."

Han Lu was shocked, "You? Lose money?"

Are you kidding? Onmyoji had two hundred million RMB in revenue a month. You? Losing money?

That's just plain lying! How are you going to explain yourself this time?

Chen Mo explained, "You don't believe me? Take a look at Onmyoji. I give jade to the players quite often, every holiday, every update, and it's a few hundred jade every time. That's all money.

"Even the players are saying they are building up a small fortune. This clearly means that the players are benefiting from this.

"Think about it, if I give each player one or two hundred jade every day, at a few million daily active players, how much money am I giving out a day?

"You don't need to be good at maths to know that it's a humongous number!

"So the free players are so happy playing Onmyoji. They can draw SSRs without spending a single cent. Aren't the players the ones benefiting in this instance?"

Han Lu was shocked, with a "I'll just watch you run your mouth" look on her face.

Obviously it was hard to get Chen Mo to open up about Onmyoji, so she decided to pivot to another game instead.

"You've also switched to the PC market for a bit right? You've made two very successful games, Warcraft and Wulin Legend. They are known as the best in their genres.

"I'd like why did you choose to make it a pay to play game, instead of a free to play game like Onmyoji?"

Chen Mo gave it some thought, "If the players really want it, I could probably do that..."

Han Lu stopped Chen Mo as soon as she could, "Wait! I mean it's quite nice like that!"

Han Lu's heart almost jumped out of her chest. If Chen Mo really changed Warcraft to the same profit model as Onmyoji, she'd definitely be hunted down by the fans.

Chen Mo continued, "It's not too hard from an implementation perspective, I mean, if the players really want that..."

Han Lu stopped him again, "The players aren't asking for it, let's end it at that!"

Chen Mo nodded, "Alright."

Han Lu wiped sweat off her forehead, "Well, what are your thoughts on the future of the mobile card game industry? We all know that I Am MT started the whole saga, with many video game designers following suit. Do you think other designers will copy, I mean take inspiration from Onmyoji?

"I think there are designers out there who are really interested in referencing Onmyoji. But I'll be honest, the mobile card game industry is huge, but it doesn't have enough space for other games after accounting for Onmyoji.

Han Lu was shocked, he really did say it! He said that the entire mobile card game industry was his, and hinted that everyone should back off!

It's like he's declaring war on the other mobile card game designers!

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Chapter 168: Chapter 167: Many Lies

The interview lasted two hours, and every trap Han Lu laid down had been dealt with by Chen Mo. Han Lu even felt that Chen Mo was the one trapping her.

Han Lu decided to leave when she exhausted all her questions.

"Thanks for having me today."

Han Lu was bothered by the fact that she was alright even though she didn't get a single serious answer.

Chen Mo replied, "You're welcome. I hope you'll do justice to this interview, and show my love for the players to them."

Han Lu said goodbye before leaving the experience store.

She had written down plenty of notes, but after reading it through again, it didn't seem like she had much useful information written down at all.

However, she found herself to be alright with that and this was within her expectations.

The article was released three days later.

It more or less followed the interview without adding much to it. Han Lu released the interview exactly as Chen Mo said.

It wasn't that Han Lu didn't want to add anything to it, she couldn't!

Han Lu was surprised that the Editor in Chief was happy with the article. It was released on the gaming channel on titled: 'Interviewing Onmyoji's creator: Money is something that happens along the way."

There was a paragraph that was as followed:

"When the author asked if he had a secret as the country's best videogame designer at making money, Chen Mo responded: Well, I'm not making games just for money, it's just something that happens along the way and the reason he makes games is to give players happiness, add value to society, in the name of art. He also added that he actually losing money a lot of the time."

Many fans were angered by this article as it was shared to various forums and websites, and even quoted by other media.

"Another one! This editor is working with Chen Mo to steal my IQ points again!"

"My goodness! I'd have to be stupid to believe this!"

"Onmyoji is more balanced? Are you joking?"

"Last poster, Chen Mo is right. It's fair when everything comes down to luck."

"My goodness, eighteen months of bonus? Chen Mo is so rich! Does anybody have Thunderbolt Entertainment's recruitment line? I wanna be hired as a janitor!"

"Previous poster, you're wrong, it's a quarterly bonus."

"How can someone be so rich! I'm so mad!"

"Refund my hard earned money Chen Mo!"

"He's here with that 'create happiness mindfully' crap again! I knew that this guy was evil deep down. He might seem nice in Warcraft and Tale of Wuxia, but you see his true form when he's in mobile games!

"Yeah, I'm only playing his PC games in the future, I'm boycotting his mobile games!"

"Can you guys relax? Are you trying to get Chen Mo to move that profit model to the PC market?"

"Huh? He wouldn't, right?"

"Stop talking about it, it'll be terrible if he does!"

"My goodness, making money is just a side thing? Casually making two hundred million a month? I'm impressed at how someone can be so alright with being so full of themselves."

"Casually making money, Silent?"

"He's saying that he's the one losing money and we're the ones gaining? I actually laughed."

"The video game industry's king of lies have been born!"

Other video game designers are also shocked to see this interview.

"What is this? How can Chen Mo be so full of himself?"

"What is this word of caution that even though the mobile game market is big, it can't fit anyone else?"

"My goodness, he's so full of himself!"

"Does he really think that Onmyoji has the whole market in its palms? Does he think he can do anything he wants when he's rich?"

"I'm going to make another mobile card game just because of this!"

"Hold on, relax! At this point, whoever tries to go against Onmyoji will suffer!"

"I'm so mad! Can someone stop this guy!"

"Who can? Even Demon Slayers 2 is staying Silent!"

Another storm in the mobile gaming industry had been whipped up by Onmyoji, and Chen Mo was having the time of his life.

He could finally relax and take in the money.

But he was troubled by the increasing amount of visitors in the experience store. There are more and more Onmyoji players coming from far and wide just to visit the Kagura statue, wishing for an SSR. The experience store had been really full as of late because of that.

And Su Jinyu could barely handle working the front desk while working as an assistant too.

Chen Mo wanted to keep a small team that focused on making medium to small games in order to build capital. It was because smaller teams are more efficient and would have a better effect at training his assistants.

But the popularity of Warcraft and Onmyoji gave Chen Mo a pressure to hire more staff and get a better working environment.

It was quite terrible to have Zheng Hongxi and Qian Kun work in an environment surrounded by players.

Moreover, Chen Mo had a lot of cash in hand following the release of Onmyoji.

Warcraft had 5.7 million sales so far, bringing him six hundred and thirty million RMB in revenue. Onmyoji brought in two hundred and sixty million in revenue a month. These two games formed the majority of Chen Mo's income.

Chen Mo could barely bring himself to look at the revenue other games brought in as games like Tale of Wuxia contributed peanuts to his income.

Warcraft cost the most in development cost among all his games. It cost more than eighty million including all the cinematics. Onmyoji was much cheaper at around twenty million. And when taking out the promotion and advertising costs for the games, Chen Mo had around seven hundred million at hand.

Of course, most of this money came from Warcraft. Warcraft was doing quite well because of all the new RPG maps, but the sales were sure to slowly slide down in the future.

It naturally had less players as an RTS game. Moreover, Thunderbolt Entertainment had limited impacts overseas, and couldn't reach the levels of advertisement as Blizzard in his previous life which caused its relatively lower income.

Luckily, as Warcraft's growth slowed down, Onmyoji's growth just began. Chen Mo estimated that Onmyoji's revenue next month would be even higher as he hoped for five or six hundred million RMB.

Chen Mo now had a lot of cash at hand. Chen Mo could now afford to make triple A PC titles that would cost around forty million USD.

The development cost of VR games was usually ten times more than PC games. It would cost him two hundred million USD to port a triple A PC game to VR, which would be very risky.

As Chen Mo now had more financial freedom and three capable assistants, he can consider his next move to expand his brand.

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Chapter 169: Honorary Committee Member

Chen Mo hadn't spent money on improving his stats since the release of Warcraft as Wulin Legend and Onmyoji weren't particularly challenging.

If he was making a large MMORPG however, not only would he have to spend money to level up his attributes, he'd need to hire more help too.

Chen Mo's current set up was as minimalistic as it could go, a main designer, an assistant, a writer, and one working the numbers. This was more than enough to work on a simple mobile game like Onmyoji, but a large RPG would be too demanding.

It was a bit of a struggle to work on a game like Warcraft. Luckily most of the content in Warcraft was done in the game's world editor, they were able to get by despite being such a small team.

Therefore, Chen Mo decided that if he was to make a larger game, he would need to expand his team. This time, he would need to expand it to around twenty people.

And when taking into consideration the professionals for art, animations and cinematics, music and sound effects, HR, game operations... the number would be even larger.

Chen Mo was on his computer trying to figure out how many would be the optimal number.

Everybody knew how well Thunderbolt Entertainment treats their staff after hearing about how Chen Mo gave them eighteen months of bonus after Onmyoji's release. There were already many asking how they could join the company. Chen Mo would surely get many applicants if he said it he was hiring it online.

At this moment, Chen Mo received a call from an unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Hi is this Mr Chen Mo? I'm the cultural leader at the Game Committee, Qiao Hua.

Chen Mo was shocked to hear from the Game Committee, a leader of one of the departments at that.

The Game Committee needed no introduction, but this Qiao Hua, a head of a department called him personally?"

Chen Mo replied, "Great to meet you Mr Qiao."

Qiao Hua sounded elegant and polite, and even quite friendly for a head of a department. "I'd like to congratulate you again for receiving first prize with Wulin Legend. I'd also like to congratulate you with your success with Onmyoji, and thank you for your contribution to the development of the videogame industry."

"Thank you so much."

Qiao Hua got straight to the point, "Anyways, Mr Chen Mo. Regarding your contribution to Chinese themed games, we at the Game Committee have discussed and we'd like to invite you to join us as an honorary member, and you've been promoted to an A-grade videogame designer."

"Uhhh..."

Qiao Hua laughed, "Perhaps you don't know what being an honorary member means. The Game Committee will take in a few outstanding designers as an honorary member. They don't have to do anything, it's a title more than anything.

"We invited you because of all the high quality games you've made. You don't have designation jobs, but we might give you some assignments, like giving talks to students about being a videogame designer."

Chen Mo quickly interjected, "About that, I'm usually quite busy, I'm worried I don't have the time."

Qiao Hua replied ,"Don't worry, we'll communicate that ahead of time. I'm just letting you know, and asking if you want to join."

Chen Mo replied after a moment, "Can I think about this?"

Qiao Hua laughed, "Of course, this is completely voluntary. You can ask the opinions of others before deciding if you want to join."

Chen Mo was dumbfounded after hanging up.

He thought that Wulin Legend's saga was already behind him. The trophy had been given, and the promotional spots were honoured.

But the Game Committee invited him to become an honorary member? What was this about?

In theory, this is nothing but a good thing, but Chen Mo wasn't sure if it would affect his work,

Chen Mo decided to call Lin Mao.

Lin Mao was shocked too, "Huh? Honorary Committee Member? I don't know either! I'm just a normal C-grade videogame designer, I don't know anything about that!"

Chen Mo felt helpless, thinking long and hard of who to call next.

Of course there were Honorary Game Committee members in large companies like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment and Zen Entertainment, but Chen Mo wasn't too friendly with them.

All of a sudden, someone popped into his mind, Qiu Hengyang!

He's the founder of afterall, he'd probably know a thing or two about this.

Chen Mo called Qiu Hengyang.

Qiu Hengyang was shocked to receive a call from Chen Mo, "Chen Mo? You've been quite famous recently, what made you think of me?"

"I have something to ask you. What do you do as a Honorary Game Committee Member? Do I need to ojin?"

Qiu Hengyang was shocked, "Honorary Committee Member? Isn't that released at the end of the year?"

Chen Mo replied, "I'm not sure either. I received a call from a Mr Qiao today and confirmed that I can join, but I haven't' confirmed."

Qiu Hengyang was stunned, "Of course you do! Why are you even hesitating!"

Chen Mo was speechless, "I don't even know what you do as an Honorary Committee Member, how could I agree to that willy nilly."

"Do you know how many people are willing to give up an arm and a leg to become an Honorary Committee Member, and here you are contemplating if you should join?" said Qiu Hengyang.

"Really?"

"Yeah! I'm actually a Honorary Committee Member too, of course I'm sure. Let's put it this way, being a Honorary Committee Member is the same as recognition from the department. It benefits every part of releasing a game in the future, like their board reviews or promotions. And when you read A or S-grade, you'd get a lot of extra resources when developing VR games too. Basically you don't lose from agreeing to it." explained Qiu Hengyang.

Chen Mo nodded, "Alright, no problem."

Qiu Heng Yan reminded him again, "Don't reject that opportunity, it'll be hard for you to get this opportunity again."

"Alright, don't worry."

"That's it I guess. We'll both be Honorary Game Committee Members in the future, let's look after one another." said Qiu Hengyang.

Chen Mo decided as it was such a good opportunity, he should accept to become an honorary member.

It's quite likely that larger games he makes in the future had some violence in it, and he would more than likely have to deal with the Game Committee's review process. If he could get on their good side now, why not.

"Anyways, I'm an A-grade videogame designer now?"

Chen Mo looked at the game editor to check his information.

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Chapter 170: Pay to Win Level Two

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Chen Mo was now an A-grade video game designer in the Illusion game editor[1].

Chen Mo: Video Game Designer (A-grade)

Creativity: 80

Systems: 73

Level Design: 77

Story Writing: 88

Original Art: 83

3D Art: 64

Monthly Resources Quota: 3GB/360GB

Creativity, system, story, and artwork increased slightly, 3D art increased dramatically, no change in level design.

The increase in the resource quota increased multiple times since Chen Mo reached A-grade, but he didn't have much use for this at all.

Other video game designers would use a lot of the free resources as placeholders then make many changes after the game was mostly complete. But Chen Mo didn't use this as he knew clearly what the game was supposed to look like, which was why he barely touched the free resources. Most of the resources he used in games were finished works by another company after providing sketches.

When Warcraft was selling like hotcakes in China, Chen Mo was already one of the best videogame designers in RTS games. But perhaps the Game Committee didn't raise Chen Mo to a A-grade video game designer because they felt that Chen Mo was too young and was only good at RTS games.

But when Warcraft also sold well overseas and when he made classic games like Wulin Legend and Onmyoji, Chen Mo could be considered as one of the best in the mobile industry, and could manage both Western and Chinese themes on the PC side of things.

Which was why the Committee finally gave Chen Mo his identity as a A-grade video game designer and invited Chen Mo to be a honorary Game Committee member.

The Game Committee's definition of a A-grade videogame designer was someone who was able to manage large scale PC games or manage a decent chunk of a large scale VR game. A S-grade videogame designer was someone who was able to manage a large scale VR game.

Of course, there was still a difference between them, one must make a high quality VR game to be able to become an S-grade videogame designer.

The process of becoming an S-grade videogame designer from A-grade was a long and hard process. Not only does making a large VR require strong abilities, they also need a lot of money to spend in development, and in China only a few big companies could afford that cost.

Chen Mo wasn't in a hurry either as developing large scale VR games took a lot of requirements, moreover he had never done anything like it nor did he have enough manpower to do it.

Chen Mo had two plans in mind, spend money to unlock the next stage of his attributes, plan his next hires, and expand his team to one large enough to work on large MMORPGs or small VR games.

Of course, consider a new office if necessary.

Chen Mo launched the virtual screen on his bracelet.

System , numbers, level design, and story writing were all maxed out at level one.

Original Art: 80

3D Art: 84

Animation : 40

Music and Sound Effects: 41

Storyboard: 36

Chen Mo must raise these stats to a hundred before he could progress to the next stage.

Under the effects of Lucky Capsule, in the ratio of 5:3:2, he would need at least two hundred and nineteen skill boots to max out these skills, or make seventy three draw tens.

This included the chance of duplicate skill books for the maxed out skills, which would cost him around seven million RMB.

Chen Mo pulled the trigger as seven million didn't mean much to him at this point, it was money that he had to spend eventually, and he'd rather spend it earlier to reap the benefits sooner.

Money spent like this was much more useful than cars or property.

Chen Mo used the same strategy as before, drawing as much as he could after he drew a Lucky Capsule. After almost fifteen minutes, he finally maxed out his attributes and drew a bunch of special equipment like Memory Playback Potions and Super Focusers.

A pop-up appeared on the screen: "You've maxed out all your abilities, would you like to proceed to level two?"

There were two options, Yes and Confirm.

Chen Mo almost died, "Do I even have a choice?"

Chen Mo clicked on one of the buttons.

There were cool effects on the screen, many coloured dots flied around on the screen before finally landing on the wheel.

The wheel disappeared, and in its place was something similar to a slot machine.

However, It was different to normal slot machines, the new system was split into three categories, the leftmost one had three different options: Design, Presentation, and equipment.

Design included the original designer skill books.

Presentation skills included art, music, and storyboarding.

Equipment referred to special equipment.

The middle column corresponded to the subcategories of the previous column.

Design: Numerics, story writing, professional knowledge.

Presentation: Art, Music, Cinematics.

Equipment: Consumables, Permanent Upgrades.

The rightmost column was the possible equipment.

Chen Mo was shocked to see that the prices also changed. It went from one hundred thousand credits per spin to one hundred diamonds per spin.

Chen Mo was happy to welcome a reduction in price.

But as he took a closer look, he noticed the exchange rate was one thousand RMB to 1 diamond.

"What?! Isn't that ten times more expensive? It was ten thousand per spin, and now it's a hundred thousand a spin! Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I'll find it cheaper if you change it to diamonds? No!"

Chen Mo was speechless. Turns out the system had inflation in mind, changing the credits into diamonds, and increasing the price tenfold.

Chen Mo was a bit conflicted, but decided to put in one hundred thousand and make a draw.

After pulling down the level, the columns started spinning, and stopped from left to right.

Design – Story Writing – Storywriting skill book (Level 2)

Story Writing skill book was neither good nor bad for Chen Mo. Chen Mo decided to consume his first level 2 skillbook.

Chen Mo noticed that system and level design disappeared after reaching level two. The attributes he had now were story writing, numerics, and professional knowledge.

In the first level, Chen Mo could recreate most stories from his previous life with the help of a Memory Playback Potion; in the second level, Chen Mo could probably make big changes to the story and polish up ones that weren't done well in the original.

Chen Mo guessed that there would be a third level, and Chen Mo could probably create an entirely original story that was of high quality.

Chen Mo could handle the balancing of mobile games with level one in numerics, and could probably better deal with balancing of more complicated games like MOBAs in the second level.

Professional knowledge encompassed many things, such as literature and history.

It would even be helpful in FPS games for knowledge like ballistics, recoil, and knowledge of gun assembly and so on.

TL note: I know I've used game engine in the past, but I think game editor fits better

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Almighty Video Game Designer #Chapter 171 - Gaming Convention in the Parallel World? - Read Almighty Video Game Designer Chapter 171 - Gaming Convention in the Parallel World? Online - All Page - Novel Next

Chapter 171: Gaming Convention in the Parallel World?

Even though Chen Mo could afford it, he still hesitated before drawing, it still hurts being his money after all.

He hadn't decided on his next game, nor was he in a hurry to level up his skills. It was more than enough for now and he can make up the difference later.

Chen Mo turned off the virtual screen from his bracelet and when on his computer to deal with hiring.

First was someone responsible for games operations who would deal with maintaining the operations of games, including periodically adding new events, and promotional events during holidays. They also need to gather player feedback and suggestions.

Of course their main focus would be on Onmyoji as Warcraft and Tales of Wuxia were standalone games that didn't need any special events.

The second was an art and music juggernaut. They would oversee artwork, models, and cinematics, including dealing with the companies they were outsourced to. Chen Mo used to deal with them personally, and now he could finally delegate it to someone else.

Next would be to give Su Jinyu, Zheng Hongxi, and Qian Kun some helping hands. The story, numbers, and functions of larger games would be really rich. For example, many quest lines for RPG games would have tens of thousands of lines, which would most certainly be wearing Zheng Hongxi then if he did it alone.

He also wanted to hire an assistant who would be responsible for giving out payslips, bonuses, and day to day benefits.

Chen Mo finally decided to hire fifteen to twenty people this time around.

The location where they will work was also quite problematic.

Chen Mo decided to temporarily rent out the other shop lots next to the experience store at a higher price. Su Jinyu and the others will move there after renovating it to be their new office.

He'll just have to hire someone else to work at the front desk.

He'll consider moving into a larger experience store once he makes a more popular game.

After confirming, Chen Mo went downstairs and handed the sheet to Su Jinyu.

"Post a recruitment notice according to this. The requirements are slightly higher than normal, but the pay will be 30% higher than the industry average. Also, discuss with the few neighbouring shop lots and try and rent them by paying a higher price. We'll renovate them and they'll be the new office location."

Su Jinyu looked at the sheet, "This many? What about the interviews?"

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"You three will interview then first, and I'll give them a final review. You can be a bit easier on the requirements as long as they seem like people who work well."

Su Jinyu nodded, "Understood."

It didn't take long before the recruitment notice was written. Su Jinyu got Zheng Hongxi to do a final polish before passing it to Chen Mo.

Chen Mo gave it one final check before posting it on Weibo, detailing the positions, requirements, and salary.

The fans were sharing the Weibo like crazy.

"Chen Mo's hiring!"

"Thunderbolt Entertainment? The company that made Onmyoji and gave out eighteen month's worth of bonus?"

"My goodness, they're rich! You have to take a look!"

"The salary will be 30% higher than average, not including bonuses? My goodness, they are mean with their money!"

"Please hire me!"

"The requirements are so high it's ridiculous!"

"Who cares, just send out your CV anyways."

Many expressed their desires as the post was shared countless times.

However, Chen Mo's requirements were quite high. For example, the art manager required five years or experience in relation to art, and more than two years working in art, worked with games in the past, able to understand different themes/styles, familiar with the artstyle of most popular games, and have a deep understanding of artistic creativity.

Moreover, they must include their CV and include what they have worked on. They must also do a sketch during the interview.

Chen Mo's requirements would attract all the best of the best. Of course, a seedling with high potential could be considered as well.

Su Jinyu and the others filtered through the huge amounts of applications before inviting them for an interview. They also reimburse their travel and accommodation.

It was impossible to hire this many people in such a short amount of time, but Chen Mo wasn't in a hurry either as he expected it to be completed in one or two month's time.

They've also consulted with the neighbouring shot lots, most of them didn't want to rent out their shops, nor did Chen Mo try to force it. He decided on renting a cafe that was slightly smaller than the example store and furnished it to be an office. He even saved the coffee machine and the soda fountain.

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With the location of the office decided and the hiring process in the works, Chen Mo didn't have much to do other than consider his next moves.

While Chen Mo was looking through his DMs on Weibo, his phone rang.

It was from Qiao Hua from the Game Committee.

Chen Mo was shocked, he had already accepted Qiao Hua's invitation to become an honorary committee member a few days ago, what could it be now?

Chen Mo picked up the phone, "Hello, Mr Qiao."

Qiao Hua laughed, "Chen Mo, the YouPlay video game convention is happening next month. You can have your own booth as an A-grade videogame designer, but I noticed you haven't registered for one. I just wanted to see if you plan to join?"

Chen Mo was shocked to hear about a video game convention.

"I'm not quite sure, but I'll join if there's a booth available." replied Chen Mo.

"There definitely is a booth available. I can arrange that for you if you want. But there's only a month's time, is that enough time for preparations? I heard you were working on hiring recently too." asked Qian Hua.

"It's enough time, no worries there," replied Chen Mo.

"Alright, I'll arrange a booth for you. I'll send you the phone number of a staff member of the event. You can talk to them about this matter."

Chen Mo quickly looked up the YouPlay convention of this universe.

The convention was a global digital interactive entertainment exhibition co-organized by many departments, hosted by the Game Committee.

And this convention was located in Magic City in January.

The aim of this convention was similar to that of ChinaJoy in his previous life. The main purpose was to attract as many players, audience, and industry professionals inside and outside of China, providing an opportunity to interact. This included play testing, promotions, as well as some entertainment such as cosplay events.

Chen Mo hadn't paid attention to it, and he would've missed this golden opportunity if it weren't for Qiao Hua's reminder.

It didn't matter too much if he joined, but he'd surely benefit if he did. He would be able to promote his game and interact with other industry professionals.

Chen Mo had been to ChinaJoy in the past, but he'd always join as a member of the audience. Of course he wanted to go to an event like this to promote his game.

Chen Mo called the phone number of the staff member Qiao Hua provided in order to discuss matters regarding the convention.

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Chapter 172: Make a New Game?

This year's YouPlay convention was held in New World Expo in Magic City. It was split into three major areas of N, W and E, which was split into fourteen different exhibition halls. The larger companies congregated in N1 to N3.

This included Chinese video game companies and operations, as well as video game companies from overseas. There were themed areas related to video game entrepreneurship. Anyone who could join would try and join this convention.

The Game Committee gave Chen Mo a spot in hall N2, which was more or less the best area, in the same grounds as Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.

As Thunderbolt Entertainment was a smaller company and had fewer games, the booth they got was also smaller. However, it was still positioned quite well, all thanks to Mr Qiao.

A member of staff sent a picture of the location of the booth and a floor plan to Chen Mo.

"It's right over here, think about how you'll decorate this."

Chen Mo looked at the floorplan and replied, "Alright, I have some things in mind. I'll send you an overview later and you can handle the rest."

"Alright, but I can only help you with the more essential stuff. I can get you in contact with showgirls if that's what you want. But things like sculptures and the costumes of the showgirls you'd have to settle that yourself if you want them to suit your games."

"Yep, of course," replied Chen Mo.

He then pointed out a large booth in the same hall, "Is this Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's booth?"

"Yes, Emperor Dynasty Emperor is the largest company in this hall and is the one who has the most games, which is why their booth is so big. Zen Entertainment also took up the majority of another hall."

Chen Mo nodded. These companies took up a lot of area because of how many games they had. They even split their own booth into smaller sections, one for mobile games, one for PC games, and one for VR games.

Moreover, from the picture there were many working on setting up the booth and putting up posters.

Chen Mo replied, "Alright, I understand what I'm dealing with now. I'll send you the idea I have in mind later."

"Alright. B the way, do you have a new game you're going to showcase?"

Chen Mo was shocked, "New game?"

"Yeah, most of the developers have a new game for the fans to try out in order to attract their attention. Players probably wouldn't care much if it was an old game.

"Although you could release a rare character or card or what have you. But a new game would be best."

"Oh. Alright, I'll think about it."

The staff replied with a sweating emote. Think? You haven't planned on a new game yet? The convention is just a month out, you probably don't have the time to develop one. It's probably difficult just to come up with a demo!

Chen Mo laughed, "Don't worry."

"Alright, I'll leave you with your preparations. And if you have the time, you should come to Magic City and have a look yourself, there are some things that just aren't clear over the phone."

"Alright, I'll visit when I have the time."

After wrapping his head around the booth, Chen Mo did some planning around the decoration of the booth, and ordered some sculptures and cosplays.

Conventions had always been about the same thing. Although Chen Mo didn't have many games, all of them were extremely high quality.

Warcraft and Onmyoji in particular suited conventions really well. Chen Mo split his booth into two areas for Warcraft and Onmyojim respectively. He also planned cosplays around these games.

But it also made sense to have new games for these conventions, otherwise the fans would just be there to look at the showgirls.

However, Chen Mo didn't have a new game on hand, and with Su Jinyu and the others working on hiring with just a month's time left, he couldn't even afford to make a mobile game, not to mention a large noteworthy game.

But after some considerations, Chen Mo decided to make a more casual mobile game for the players to try out.

Chen Mo worked on the design document as he did the planning for the booth. As it was a simpler puzzle game where most of the developing process was on the level design, Chen Mo didn't plan to bother Su Jinyu and the others and chose to work on it alone.

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

Su Jinyu and the others had been working on the hiring process this whole time. It was more or less done, with just a few of the more important employees that are at its last stages.

Although the picks have been made, the timing was quite awkward as most wanted to wait until Chinese New Year before leaving their companies in order to get their year end bonuses.

Luckily Chen Mo didn't plan on working too hard anyways, and asked them to start after Chinese New Year.

The new location of the office was also ready, as only slight modifications were needed to make the cafe office-ready.

-In the experience store.-

Su Jinyu said stretching, "We're about to welcome many more people. I'm still not quite used to the fact, are we a big company soon?"

"Yeah, the manager is rich now. And it took quite a lot out of us working on the previous games. It's nice that we're getting more help, it'll be easier to work on larger games in the future," added Qian Kun.

Wen Lingwei asked, "Huh, I don't think I've seen him in a long time, where is he?"

Su Jinyu shook her head, "I don't know. I think he went to Magic City, not sure what he's there for."

Chang Xiuya asked, "Speaking of Magic City, I think the YouPlay video game convention in the magic city is in a few days. Are you guys going? I have a few friends who got tickets."

"That depends if the manager is going to let us have days off!" said Su Jinyu.

"Of course he would," said Wen Lingwei, "You guys aren't working on anything now anyways, wouldn't it be a good time to visit a convention?"

Qian Kun waved his hand, "Don't even bother, I checked a few days ago, and the tickets were all gone. It's too late now."

Chang Xiuya nodded, "Yeah, my friends grabbed the tickets as soon as it was released. This convention is really popular after all, there are many reselling tickets too. I think it's too late to try and buy tickets."

Qian Kun said, "Oh well, guess we aren't going. It's the same thing every time anyways."

Su Jinyu received a phone call amidst their conversation.

"Hello? Huh? Get a train ticket to Magic City? Join the YouPlay convention?"

This caught everyone's attention. They were just talking about going, but Chen Mo was straight up inviting them to join?

"But we can't even buy the tickets if we wanted to. Huh, you have tickets? A lot of them? Why didn't you say earlier! Alright, I'll book train tickets for everyone!

Su Jinyu said enthusiastically after hanging up, "The manager said that he has many tickets for the YouPlay gaming convention and asked us to grab a train there. He's covering all the costs!"

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Chapter 173: Our Own Booth

Entrance 3 of the YouPlay convention, New World Expo Center, Magic City.

"My goodness there are so many people! Where's the manager? didn't we agree to meet at entrance 3?"

Su Jinyu looked around.

Magic City's wasn't all that cold this time around, and the weather had been fine the past few days, comparable to spring or fall in the Imperial Capital so most people had long sleeves and pants.

Other than Su Jinyu, Zheng Hongxi, Qian Kun, and a few other new employees, regulars such as Wen Lingwei, Jia Peng, Zou Zhuo, and Lin Xue were here too since Chen Mo had many spare tickets.

"Goldfish." Chen Mo finally appeared among the sea of people.

Everyone gathered around, "Huh? Where did you come from, manager? Have you entered the convention already?"

Chen Mo laughed, "Come, follow me."

Everyone queued up close to one another fearing they might lose someone.

Su Jinyu asked, "Manager, which booth are we visiting first?"

"Which one? Ours, of course," said Chen Mo.

Huh?

Chen Mo led everyone to Thunderbolt Entertainment's booth in hall N2 through hall N5.

But they were big with a large group of guys in the first hall. They were surrounding one of the booths as they blocked the way forwards.

"Showgirl!"

"Her legs are so pretty!"

"This is excellent! She fits the ancient Chinese costume so well, I have to grab a picture!"

"What is this, an RPG? I'll have to try it out then!"

"It's a small company, it doesn't look like it's good.'

"Who cares if it isn't good, good looking showgirls means good game!"

Wen Lingwei lost a little bit of her humanity, and Zheng Hongxi facepalmed as they saw this.

Su Jinyu told off the bunch of guys, "Can you guys quit blocking the way just to stare at breasts! You guys are bringing shame to the manager of the booth."

Of course not!

Satisfied at her actions, Su Jinyu said, "Alright, let's move on, manager. Manager?"

She turned around to find that she had lost Chen Mo.

Turns out Chen Mo was trying to break through the crowd to grab a picture too.

Su Jinyu was speechless, "Manager!"

Chen Mo turned around, "Quit it, their statue looks really good. Let's make one too. How would it look if it had it in front of our store?"

Turns out Chen Mo was taking a large statue at the back. It was a huge, really traditional Chinese goddess that looked as though it was alive, fully conveying the emotions of the aftermath of a drunken party in an ancient Chinese setting.

Su Jinyu breathed a sigh of relief, "That goodness. Your image would be completely ruined if you were there to take pictures of the showgirl.

Chen Mo shook his head vigorously, "Why would I, the showgirls we have are better looking than this. We can't have our attention drawn away by these that are worse."

The group continued moving past many booths. They didn't give the booths a detailed look, but it was evident that these video game companies didn't skimp on spending to attract the attention of the players!

There were some overseas Western fantasy RPG games that had showgirls dress up as blonde-haired elves with pointy ears. Combined with long legs and western looks, they looked just like the characters in the game.

Chinese game developers weren't skimping either. Even smaller companies that worked on casual puzzle games also tried to incorporate showgirls into their booths, trying every way they could to get eyes on their booth.

"Zen Entertainment's booth is right ahead," introduced Chen Mo.

Zen Entertainment didn't have as many showgirls, but they still had plenty of players there to try out games.

Su Jinyu was shocked, "Why are there so many people?"

Jia Peng was also confused, "There aren't any sexy showgirls there, why are they gathered around there?"

"Because Zen Entertainment has a game demo going on. Look, you can play a Legend of the Sword in VR on a premium account, with the best gear possible. And on the other side, they have a demo for their new game Winged World. The players are all there to try them out." explained Chen Mo.

"Zen Entertainment is quite impressive too, they are taking up the majority of the space in this hall," expressed Zheng Hongxi.

Su Jinyu asked, "What about Emperor Dynasty Entertainment? Don't think we've seen them yet."

"It's in the back, let's keep moving," said Chen Mo.

It took a huge amount of effort to get the group to hall N2.

They saw Emperor Dynasty's humongous booth as they entered as it took up the majority of this hall too. It was split into many sections, each section for each of their high quality games. Games like Moon Lord's Prophecy and Demon Slayers had their own areas.

These areas were also decorated to their themes too, for example Moon Lord's Prophecy had special lights to represent the moon. The atmosphere of that area was accentuated by a few showgirls in ancient Chinese clothing.

There were a few staff members from Emperor Dynasty Entertainment that were visibly displeased as they saw Chen Mo.

Wen Lingwei was distubed by this, "Geez, what's their problem? How could they be rolling their eyes on the first sight of the manager?"

"Isn't that normal? The manager had toyed with them a few times since he entered the industry. It'd be weird if they treated him nice!" said Su Jinyu.

Chen Mo didn't care, "This way."

The group followed Chen Mo to discover a booth that shocked all of them.

"I-isn't this a poster from Warcraft?"

"There's also a statue of a Shikigami from Onmyoji!"

"Geez, there's a showgirl cosplaying as Aoandon!"

"What is this? It says its Thunderbolt Entertainment's booth? This is our booth?"

They were shocked as Chen Mo never revealed anything to them. All they knew was that Chen Mo was working on something in the Magic City.

Turns out he was working on the booth!

There were many people at Thunderbolt Entertainment's booth, comparable to Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's and Zen Entertainment's. There were quite a few members of staff trying to maintain the order at the booth too.

Chen Mo split the booth into two areas for Warcraft and Onmyoji. The Warcraft area was decorated in a Western fantasy theme with a huge poster. There was also a live-sized Arthas statue with many people playing Warcraft at the computers.

The Onmyoji area was obviously in a eastern style filled with cosplayers cosplaying as Abe no Seimei, Kagura, Hiromasa, and many others. There were also many pieces of equipment from the game, such as Abe no Seimei's table, and scrolls from the game. They all appeared to be ordered just for this even.

This... is beautiful!

Chapter 174: Battle of Brains and Brawn

Everyone was really excited to see their own booth. Moreover, the decorations were really well done too, and were certainly not worse than Emperor Dynasty Entertainment or Zen Entertainment.

There were many phones and tablets on Onmyoji's side. On them were testing accounts that had all SSRs unlocked which got many players excited.

"My goodness, so this is what a full SSR team feels like! I'm crying tears of joy!"

"There are so many SSRs to pick from? Which ones should I choose?"

"Can I use this account at home? I don't wanna leave this behind!"

"Please let me absorb some luck from this!"

There were more and more players waiting to try it out, it was so long that it almost reached Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's booth!

The people at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment were quite mad, sure you're better than us at making games, but you can't even let us have our moment here?

Insufferable!

They'd lose all their dignity if they sat around and watched this happen!

As players were trying things out in Chen Mo's booth, lights lit up in Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's booth. An infectious melody started playing, followed by many alluring dancers!

This attracted the attention of many gamers who were just wandering. The dancers seemed to be professionals too as they successfully got the gamers excited.

"My goodness that was great! The three girls on the right are so attractive!"

"Yeah, those legs are to die for!"

"Hurry up! I'm recording!"

"Emperor Dynasty Entertainment are flexing their muscles!"

"I'm done with SSRs, I'm settling for girls now!"

Everyone at Chen Mo's side expressed their anger. How could they turn this video game convention into a dancefest? You're a large company, why are you resorting to such cheap tactics?

Shameful!

Chen Mo wasn't happy either, "Huh? You're pulling out the big guns huh? Cue music!"

Chen Mo got the staff in his booth to play music too!

Why was the song so familiar?

Turns out, it was Gokuraku Jodo!

The cosplayers on Chen Mo's side started lining up for the dance as the music started!

Before the people got enough of Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's dancers, their attention switched back to Chen Mo's booth.

"My goodness, Thunderbolt Entertainment is going at it too?"

"They are using Gokuraku Jodo? Shameless!"

"Man this melody is so infectious, now my head is filled with Gokuraku Jodo! I can't watch Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's dance anymore!"

"I think one of the dancers got infected too, they're missing the beats! Hahaha..."

"But I still gotta go have a look. I haven't seen so many cosplayers dancing Gokuraku Jodo."

"Yeah, let's have a look!"

Many of the players went back towards Chen Mo's booth upon hearing the familiar melody as the number of people at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment dwindled.

The staff at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment were fuming!

They might lose to making games, but they surely can't lose at conventions!"

The dances soon finished, and many at Thunderbolt Entertainment wanted an encore.

But just as they ended, a member of staff from Emperor Dynasty Emperor said with a megaphone, "We are hosting a tournament for Moon Lord's Prophecy, and everyone will be playing a maxed out account. The winner gets to take the account home! You can't miss this!"

The players were having second thoughts, a free maxed out account? They're going all in!

Many games would have maxed out accounts just for play testing, but some developers would also have a small prized competition.

But giving out one of these accounts like Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was doing was unusual as one of these accounts could go for tens of thousands!

This attracted many players of Moon Lord's Prophecy as they were unable to resist the temptation of a maxed out account.

Many other players went in that directed too thinking a small tournament was probably worth a watch.

Chen Mo was shocked, "They have more?"

Su Jinyu said, "We should do that too, manager!"

Chen Mo was speechless, "I didn't prepare for this! Give me a second, let me think."

As he was thinking, Zou Zhuo who had been playing Warcraft this whole time said to Chen Mo, "Manager, Goph, Kaiser, and the others are here. They are asking me which hall we're in."

Chen Mo was shocked, "Huh? They're here for the convention too?"

Zou Zhuo nodded, "Yeah, they're all here. We've been discussing this in the group. They are heading this way as they just found out that there's a booth for Warcraft."

This was music to Chen Mo's ears, "Great! Tell them to come save my bacon! We are at hall N2, right next of Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.

It didn't take long before titans of the ranked ladder Goph, Digwa, Nightwind, and Kaiser arrived.

Chen Mo shoved a megaphone into Qian Kun's hands, "Promote this for me!"

"Alright!" Qian Kun grabbed the megaphone and got to someplace high, yelling,"Attention all Warcraft players! The gods of the ranked ladder are here, come get your signatures!"

The players had quite a following from streaming. It attracted the attention of many as it was the first time they showed up together too.

"Huh? They really are all here!"

"My goodness, I was quite happy with Chen Mo's signature, but the ladder gods are here too! This ticket was so worth it!"

"Let's get our signature!"

"Are the gods playing? I wanna watch them play from a first person perspective!"

These guys felt they had completed their quest after getting a signature from Chen Mo before Su Jinyu and the others arrived. But the pro players arrived, in a bunch too!

A big group of Warcraft players headed straight towards the Warcraft booth. Nightwind was even surrounded by fans before he got to the booth!

Goph was speechless, how could Chen Mo do this when they arrived moments ago!

It couldn't be helped as it was the passion of the fans. It took them nearly twenty minutes to get through all the signatures.

Goph walked to the front of the booth and said to Chen Mo, "How could you do that to your guests? We came all this way to support you, just for you to use us to get attention to your booth? We haven't even had a sip of water or anything!"

Chen Mo laughed, "Don't be mad! How about we play a match?"

Goph rolled his eyes, "Of course not! I'm actually in quite a good mood today, and I wouldn't want to ruin it!"

The appearance of these Warcraft pros took away from all the attention Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was getting. That's just some ordinary competition among average players, there are actual professional players here!

The heads of the staff from Emperor Dynasty Entertainment were about to blow off, how could Chen Mo be so daring!

The RTS gods are to blame too, why couldn't they show up at some other time that wasn't when they were promoting!

Time to pull out the big guns!

A member of staff pulled out a megaphone, "Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's newest VR game, Journey of the Marksman is available for testing! There are limited gaming pods, first come first serve!"

The players were reconsidering their choices again!

"Journey of the Marksman? Is that the FPS game that had been hyped for a long time?"

"I heard it's really good, in VR no less!"

"We have to try it out!"

"I'll come back later, I'll have to wait so long in the queue otherwise!"

Many players turned right around back to Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's booth again!

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Chapter 175: Casual Puzzle Game

"These guys have no self respect!" complained Su Jinyu.

Wen Lingwei nodded, "Yeah! Manager, bring out your VR game too!"

"I don't have one!"

Everyone let out a collective sigh, it seemed that they ran out of fire power. Emperor Dynasty Entertainment prepared an unreleased VR game for testing but Chen Mo hadn't. He hadn't even made a large PC RPG game.

Just as when everyone thought Chen Mo was out of ideas.

Chen Mo was on a laptop for a few moments, putting up a QR code on a nearby display.

Chen Mo grabbed the megaphone from Qian Kun's hands, "Ladies and gentlemen, come take a look. I have a new mobile game! It's alright if you don't want to queue, we at Thunderbolt Entertainment will help you! Just scan the QR code to download now. It's only 120MB, you don't lose anything if it's just 120MB. It's a casual puzzle game, free download!"

Everyone collectively facepalmed, "My goodness, now manager is an infomercial salesperson now? Shameless! We don't know him..."

But it actually worked, Chen Mo's voice actually managed to gather the attention of a few players.

Sure Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's VR game was really attractive, but now many VR gaming pods did they have? Most of the people were queueing in line with not much to do.

And when they heard Chen Mo's calls, they noticed a huge QR code on the screen.

"Chen Mo has a new game too? Casual puzzle game?"

"Could probably use it to pass time."

"What fun does casual puzzle games have?"

"It's Chen Mo's casual puzzle game, did you forget Plants vs Zombies?"

"Yeah that's made by Chen Mo, how could you not play? I personally would play anything with "Made by Chen Mo' on it."

"Sure, why not. I've got nothing to do anyways."

Many of the players either in line or just staring at cosplays pulled out their phones to download Chen Mo's new game.

Su Jinyu and the others were shocked.

"Manager, you secretly make a new game?" Wen Lingwei exclaimed.

Chen Mo was speechless, "What do you mean secretly, do I need to consult you when I make a new game?"

Wen Lingwei laughed, "Of course not. Alright, I'll download it and check it out."

Upon scanning the QR code, they were met with a file called Anipop

"What is this, a tile matching game?

"Match three?"

Discussion among the players started.

"What is it, is it a match three game? It'd get stale after five minutes!"

"Yeah, these games are so low IQ. It just depends how well you can see the moves."

"What do you mean 'see the moves', it's a testament of luck. If you are lucky, you'd beat the level within the time limit, otherwise you have no chance of finding any matches."

"I thought Chen Mo would make a game like Plants vs Zombies, I feel scammed!"

"Whatever, let's just download it and see."

Su Jinyu was also confused, "Manager, why did you make a match three game? Sure There are many players, but it's kind of pointless. It's only there to kill time, you'd get bored of it pretty soon."

"You try and see, it's different from the other match three games," said Chen Mo.

Everybody started the game filled with scepticism.

Chen Mo did some research before making the game. The match three games in this world were quite primitive, most of the challenge was finding matches within a time limit.

These types of games were tiring to play in the later stages of the game, tiring for the hands, tiring for the eyes, and even more tiring for the sounds.

Which was why these people were disappointed to see a match three game.

There wasn't anything special with the main screen. It featured a few animals and a vine that led upwards, not much different than other casual games.

There was a simple cutscene to lay the grounds for the story, which only had a few pieces of artwork. A huge seed fell to the ground and grew into a giant vine in an instant, pushing the mayor's house to the sky.

The scene ended with the animals deciding on saving the mayor

The levels started from the bottom of the vine. Green fruits appeared from the bottom up, and a finger hinted the player to tap on the first fruit.

There wasn't anything special with the first few levels as the players were hinted that they needed to line up animals to clear them, and you progress after clearing a certain amount of lines.

The first level was pretty state, but in the second level, the game hinted that players could achieve better results if they lined up four or five different animals.

"Huh? Special clearing effects if I line up four? There are so many ways to clear four, nice!"

"Yeah, the bomb clears out such a large area, it feels so satisfying."

"And the area is even larger when you have two different animals together."

"I also noticed that there isn't a time limit, only move limits!"

"Yeah, it's not like other matching games where you frantically search for matches. You have time to think about your moves in this game."

"It feels so easy, can we cruise through this game?"

"It's not bad for killing time."

"The sound effects are great. The 'unbelievable' and 'excellent' after each clear feels so good."

"Not bad, Chen Mo even manages to add a flare to matching games? But I'm confused, there are so many ways to clear tiles, and there's only a limit on the number of moves. How are they managing the level difficulties? I haven't encountered any challenges, I've been clearing these levels with three stars every time."

It didn't take long for the players to realise it wasn't your ordinary matching game, before being sucked into the game.

As the levels got harder and harder, they realised it wasn't as simple as they thought, and they might even fail a level here and there.

However, the ramping up in difficulty was done really well. After the occasional fail, they'd most likely pass it the next try. As the difficulty increases, players unlock new mechanics. The designs of the levels were also changing just the right amount so every level feels fresh.

"Geez, this game is actually quite fun, it's great to kill time."

"Yeah, the best part is the unlimited amount of thinking time. This is what I'd call a casual puzzle game. Unlike the other matching games that entirely depend on your eyes."

"The difficulties of the levels are quite reasonable too. The graphics are also quite nice, it's definitely worth a play."

"Really? I'll download it too."

Soon, the first batch of Anipop players had nothing but praise for this game, even players who didn't want to play started downloading the game.

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Chapter 176: Addicting Game

Anipop was an incredible game. In Chen Mo's previous life, it's playerbase encompassed children under the age of then and adults over fifty. It had over ten million daily active players in five months time, and with future development, it even broke fifty million. It was truly a game that was nationwide, for ages.

Why was the game so addicting?

Unlike traditional matching games, the difficulty of Anipop didn't come from a time limit, but a move limit. This allowed players to plan out their next move instead of rushing.

This turned matching games into a true casual puzzle game instead of a game on reaction time, hand speed, and how fast the players notice the matches.

At the same time, Anipop added many more ways to clear tiles, such as line clears, explosions, random clears... and when combined together will have different effects. It was also sometimes possible for the player to achieve full clears, giving players immense satisfaction, making it much more interesting than other matching games.

Anipop also did a really good job balancing the game. There was a base amount per match, special clears and chain clears will award bonus points, and different scores will correspond to different amounts of stars, enhancing the balancing of the game.

Anipop's level design was also incredibly high quality, there were more than twelve hundred different levels under five main categories, unlocking as the player progressed through the game.

This included portals, ice, golden pods, snow, gifts, yarns, vines, ropes, poison, silver, nests, clods, gems, balloons, UFOs, rockets, octopus, quicksand...

The appearance of many different mechanics allow the players to feel fresh every time they enter a few levels.

Moreover, the difficulties were very well managed too, it was unlike that players would be stuck on one level for multiple days. The players would progress every single day, but wouldn't do that unchallenged.

They also spent a lot of time polish the art and music.

They tried many different art styles, even the tiny animal models went through thirty six different versions, with the final version matching the ideals of the majority of players, allowing it to appeal to as many players as possible.

Anipop also did a good job with the sound effects, especially the popping when ice is destroyed. Some players even said it was satisfying enough to hear the sound of breaking ice, even if they were stuck on the level for two weeks.

Moreover, when the players achieve a large clear, the different sounds effects are stacked together, accompanied by 'excellent', and 'unbelievable', which gives the players immense satisfaction.

Last but not least, the social system for the game. Anipop's social system was also really well done, you could check the progress of your friends, check a friend's score per level, they could even send and request power ups, ask for new level unlocks. This increases the interactivity between players, allowing it to spread within friend groups.

It didn't take long for the players of Anipop to catch the buy.

"Oof, I'm out of powers."

"Alright alright, add me and I'll send you some."

"The later levels are so interesting, how many of these mechanics did Chen Mo include?"

"I can't stop!"

"The sound effects are so satisfying, especially the breaking of ice. I could listen to that for a whole day1"

"Aren't you sitting there doing nothing? You should play too."

"I'm waiting to try out the maxed out account!"

"What's the point, is Moon Lord's Prophecy as fun as this?"

"Geez, it's my turn already? I'm not done with this level. You know what? You can go ahead."

"I'm not done either!"

As there were so few gaming pods, most of them were sitting around doing nothing. And during that time, they'd slowly sink into the embrace of Anipop. When it was their turn, they didn't want to leave the level they were on!"

Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was dumbfounded, what did Chen Mo do to these players?

How come they were willing to play mobile games over VR games?

Wasn't it just a match three game? How did he add anything interesting to it?

The people on Chen Mo's side were also confused, what was going on?

They thought that Anipo was quite fun too. However, they didn't expect it to be so popular. Everyone queueing up were all playing it, and were enjoying it a lot!

"Manager, you're amazing! So what if it's a VR game, we can counter their VR game with a mobile game!" praised Chang Xiuya.

Qian Kun could barely breathe from laughing so hard, "Look at their expression over at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment. They're dying! They thought they could use their VR game announcement as the final straw, but their attention was taken away by a mobile game! I can't breathe!"

Chen Mo walked towards Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's booth.

He saw many Anipop players on the way there. Chen Mo walked straight onto Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's booth, asking, "Look at these guys with their faces buried in mobile games. So much so that your VR gaming pods are all empty. Would you like me to go into one and test the game out?"

The staff were speechless, how could someone be so bold?

It's not like you don't know your relationship with Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, you're just looking for a fight now!

But of course the staff couldn't force Chen Mo out of their booth, they could only fake a smile, "Hahaha, great joke. But look, there are still so many people in the queue!"

At this moment, a cosplayer came forward, "It's fine, they are the founder of Thunderbolt Entertainment after all. Just let them try it out and provide some feedback!"

The girl was dressed incredibly lewd, with a great body and great face and looked to be one of the dancers on stage.

They had a nametag on the chest, Saury.

The staff felt a bit helpless, "Alright, I'll arrange that for you."

Chen Mo waved his hand, "There's no need, I was just joking."

Chen Mo never planned to try out the VR game. He was just here to poke fun at the staff at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.

Saury checked out Chen Mo and said, "To be honest Mr Chen Mo, you're younger than I thought."

"Thanks, you were quite good at dancing. Do you want to join us?"

How could he do that? He's poaching publicly!

Saury laughed, "I'm getting paid quite a lot, I'm not sure if you could afford me, Mr Chen Mo."

"Really?" replied Chen Mo, "Well, nice meeting you."

Saury let out a stifled laugh, "That's all you got? You aren't even going to ask how much I'm being paid? Seems like you didn't really mean the invitation after all. Let's exchange details, if I do plan to change companies, I'll let you now."

Chen Mo replied after a few short moments, "Alright."

And just like that, the two of them exchanged their contacts right in front of the staff.

What's going on? You guys are just going to pretend that I'm not here?"

"Alright, see you next time," said Chen Mo before turning to his booth.

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Chapter 177: Award Ceremony

The convention lasted for three days, with more or less the same content from the booths throughout the three days. Emperor Dynasty Entertainment were going at it quite aggressively on the first day, but gave up soon after as they got their attention that they deserved for their VR game taken away by Anipop as they lost all their dignity.

Everyone was quite happy being at the convention, but they were said to leave it behind as they returned to HQ.

-Inside the experience store.-

Qian Kun seemingly hadn't had enough, "The convention was great, when's the next one?"

Su Jinyu replied, "Next time? Probably another six months, there probably isn't another one of these before Chinese New Year."

"I hadn't had enough. Could we please do more of this in the future?" said Qian Kun.

Zheng Hongxi said, "Anyways, it was incredibly funny that the hottest game of this convention was Anipop. The other large developers probably stained their pants seeing that."

"Yeah." Su Jinyu laughed too, "So many developers brought out VR games they worked really hard on, just to have every single player in their line playing Anipop. That was unbelievable."

Many video game media released their articles following YouPlay's end. They were also shocked to see that the hottest game of this convention wasn't a VR game, but a very simple match three game.

It was also a popular topic among many games.

Anipop was then released on Thunderbolt Gaming Platform and the official app store. The game had immense buzz behind it on release, reaching four hundred and sixty thousand downloads on the first day, blasting every other casual game out of the water.

Although this was an insane number, it was still within Chen Mo's calculations. Anipop had over 3.5 million downloads in fifteen days, with 1.5 million daily active users.

Chen Mo's Thunderbolt Gaming Platform was now one of the more influential distribution platforms in China. Combined with Chen Mo's charisma and the viral-like growth the game possesses, this result was well within reason.

Players and media were surprised, how could Chen Mo be so crazy that he could add a spin onto a match three game!

The hiring saga was almost over by the time they got back to the Magic City. Chen Mo had the final call for all of them, although a few of them didn't meet his requirements, most of them were acceptable.

The abilities of the new hires were more general. They knew their roles, but their main purpose was to spread the work out. Chen Mo still had the final say, the three assistants are responsible for different content, which would then be executed by the others.

However, the new hires would only officially start after Chinese New Year, so they were currently quite free.

Chen Mo allowed Su Jinyu and the others to make their own games as practice, and it would be placed onto Thunderbolt Gaming Platform if Chen Mo approved of it. On the other hand, Chen Mo was thinking about which games to do after the Chinese New Year, and the annual Video Game Awards Ceremony.

Not long after returning home from Magic City, Chen Mo got a notice from the Game Committee inviting him to the award ceremony and properly inducting him into the committee then.

Chen Mo also did a quick search on the awards ceremony.

The annual game award ceremony was similar to game developer conferences in his previous world, but also had its differences.

The ceremony was hosted by the Game Committee annually, usually in the middle of January right before Chinese New Year.

This awards ceremony only included Chinese games and game designers, which was a recognition and encouragement the officials gave to outstanding developers and games.

Other than announcing Game Committee honorary members, awards in various categories were also given out.

Moreover, there were also exchanges and educational talks too.

Awards included Game of the Year, Most Creative, Best New Designer, Best PC/VR/Mobile Games, Best Story, etc. The Game of the year could be described as the most prestigious award among Chinese designers. Anyone who gets the award was more than likely to become an extremely influential video game designer.

Although it was hard to say overseas, the recognition of the officials had a lot of weight within China.

Chen Mo didn't care too much about the award as he had been in the videogame industry for two years and had made plenty of high quality games along the way, he hadn't touched any large MMORPGs or VR games.

And in the videogame industry of the parallel world, the prizes usually belonged to VR games, though special PC games might receive this award occasionally.

Mobile games basically had no chance at Game of the Year.

Therefore, Chen Mo felt that he still had plenty of room for growth. He might have a chance at Best New Designer or Best Mobile Game, but definitely not the others.

Of course, many are jealous of his results that he achieved in two years as someone new to the industry.

The weather was fine on the day of the award ceremony.

This award ceremony was viewed highly within the video game industry because it was hosted by the Game Committee, but it usually wasn't broadcasted unlike the entertainment industry as most players wouldn't care about these awards. The most that would happen might be a few articles written about the rewards after the ceremony was concluded.

Therefore, although important, there wasn't much hype surrounding the ceremony.

At the cultural centre in the Imperial Capital, Chen Mo arrived on time, with a few members of staff waiting for his arrival.

Though the event was titled 'annual videogame awards ceremony', it wasn't just about awards.

The event ran over two days. There are expos, networking, idea exchanges, and talks. The actual award ceremony doesn't start until the evening the next day.

Of course the award ceremony was important, but the networking and exchanges also couldn't be overlooked. The officials would also get some famous video game designers to give talks, allowing other video game designers to pick up some designing concept ideas.

And to the Game Committee, the award ceremony wasn't just for awarding outstanding work, but also to help videogame designers to get in contact with one another in order to improve the progress of the growth within the industry.

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Chapter 178: Presentations

The moment Chen Mo entered the venue, he heard someone call out to him.

It was Qiu Hengyang. Chen Mo walked towards him to introduce himself, "You're here too?"

Qiu Hengyang nodded, "Yeah, I was going to let you know, but it seems that we've ran into one another. I've seen the news the past few days, too. You've really done it, you've managed to generate a huge news topic through a mobile game."

Chen Mo laughed, "What do you mean a huge news topic. I just thought it'd be a good idea to make a game for the players to fidget with since the conventions were usually quite boring. Anyways, it's my first time here, so it'd be great if you could introduce me to others."

Qiu Hengyang nodded, "Of course, follow me."

The two walked as they chatted.

Chen Mo asked, "Heard your new game did pretty well, you're A-grade now too?"

Qiu Hengyang nodded, "Yeah, but my move to B to A-grade took four to five years, unlike you who managed that in a year. Your year has been quite insane huh, how many games have you made? Warcraft, Wulin, Onmyoji, Anipop... I doubt there are many others in the industry who could manage four games like you did."

Chen Mo tried to explain himself, "I started working on Warcraft since October last year, and that took a bit more than half a year, so don't count that in. And among those games, only Warcraft was the more notable one, the others were more like side projects."

Qiu Hengyang laughed, "Either way, you've been pretty quick on your feet, and the main point is that the games were quite well received."

The two of them walked as they chatted, towards the venue.

"The main events for today and tomorrow during the day are networking events and talks, most of the talks have been organised by the Game Committee," explained Qiu Hengyang.

Chen Mo asked, "Are you doing a talk?"

Qiu Hengyang shook his head, "Me? I'm still lacking a lot of experience. Usually only S-grade videogame designers are invited to those talks, and usually have a few VR games behind them.

"Of course you could give a talk about more classic games. You could probably give a talk yourself based on your results in the mobile industry this year, but I think that because you aren't an official committee member yet, they didn't organise one because they don't know you too well."

"I don't really want to give one anyways," said Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang laughed, "It's not bad to give a talk. You can only have so much inspiration alone, it's when you interact with others that you gain more inspiration.

"Which talk do you want to join?"

Chen Mo discovered that there were many different talks. There were over ten talks a day, each two hours on average. He had to decide which ones he wanted to attend as there were a few happening at the same time.

And if they didn't want to listen to talks or presentations, they could join networking events. These networking events are started by designers themselves, and the designers could pick and join events that had other similar video game designers.

Chen Mo gave it some thought, "I think I'd like to listen to a presentation.

Chen Mo didn't want to argue with other video game designers at networking events, which was why he chose to listen to talks.

There were three different talks going on, "The use of lightrays and scenery in levels", "Casual games design concepts and experience exchange", and "How to make a high quality VR FPS game."

Qiu Hengyang asked, "Do you want to go to the casual game one?"

Chen Mo was speechless, "What's the point in that, I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Qiu Hengyang laughed, "That's true, it's probably a bit insulting to listen to others talk about casual games with you right by my side. You made games like Plants vs Zombies and Anipop that sit at the top of the casual games leaderboards after all."

"How about VR FPS games?" suggested Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang nodded, "Sure. We can't make VR games now, but we'll have to do it eventually. It's probably good for us to get into the know-how now."

There were quite a few attendees, and most of them were designers above B-grade, all well dressed and sat properly.

Most of the front row seats were already taken, so the two of them sat somewhere in the back.

The speaker was an S-grade videogame designer from Zen Entertainment, Ran He. His game, Heavy Assault, was one of the best VR FPS games in China, and was rated very highly within the Chinese video game industry.

"I'm happy to be able to share some things I've learnt during the development of Heavy Assault at this wonderful venue.

"I think we are still a bit behind in terms of design in VR FPS games compared to the West, which is why I decided on an experience exchange, and I hope everyone would be able to gain something from this.

"I should start off by saying, FPS games are hard to get into, and even more so for a VR FPS game. Because it's in VR, we need to recreate a realistic environment for warfare, and if that setting wasn't well done, the game would feel tacky and uninteresting. Compared to FPS games from overseas, Chinese FPS games have no competitive advantage.

"In this talk, I hope to go over how to make a high quality VR game starting from three main points, Environment, Weapons, and Playstyle."

"First, in terms of the Environment, we must choose somewhere that suits the gameplay and the story as it will affect how the game will play and directly impact on how the players will feel...

Ran He's talk was straightforward and fluent, and easy to understand. However, Chen Mo could tell that he wasn't giving out the most important parts of his design.

This way, the designers could learn a thing or two from the talk, but couldn't take the core of his success and turn it around to threaten Ran He.

Ran He spoke eloquently for nearly two hours, ending with a few questions from the audience. Everybody clapped when the talk ended.

Qiu Hengyang clapped as he asked Chen Mo, "How was it, did you learn anything?"

"Yeah, something like that. It's definitely better than the casual game talk," said Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang laughed, "It's about time for lunch, let's go grab something to eat."

There was a buffet laid out for any of the video game designers who attended. Chen Mo and Qiu Hengyang grabbed some food before sitting down at a table beside a window.

As he sat down, someone called out to Chen Mo.

"Chen Mo?"

Chen Mo raised his head to find Saury.

They met in the video game convention in Magic City, how did they meet at the awards ceremony again?

Saury skipped the formalities and sat down next to the two of them.

"Isn't this even just for videogame designers?" Chen Mo wondered.

Saury nodded, "Yeah."

"How did you enter, there isn't a song and dance event during the award ceremony right?"

Saury let out a stifled laugh, "Pfft, no."

Qiu Hengyang looked at Chen Mo before looking back at Saury, "Chen Mo, did you make a mistake? She's a videogame designer, one that's better than the both of us."

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Chapter 179: Talk Cancelled?

Chen Mo was shocked, "Her? Designer?"

Saury crossed her leg, "What's wrong with me being a designer?"

"Aren't you the lead dancer for Emperor Dynasty Entertainment?"

Saury nodded, "Yeah, leader dancer and game designer."

Chen Mo was confused, "That's my first time I've heard of a crossover like that."

Saury laughed, "Is it that weird that a videogame designer happens to be a dancer too? Aren't you a songwriter?"

Chen Mo squinted, "That is true..."

Qiu Hengyang laughed, "Stop messing with him, Qiu Jiang. How come an S-grade videogame designer from Emperor Dynasty Entertainment like you aren't eating with the others from your company, but choosing to have your lunch with us instead?"

Chen Mo was shocked to hear her name, "Qiu Jiang?"

Saury nodded, "Yeah, that's my real name. Saury is my stage name."

Chen Mo was dumbfounded, you should've said earlier! No wonder the staff at the convention followed all your orders!

Of course Chen Mo knew who Qiu Jiang was. She was an S-grade videogame designer at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment. Moon Lord's Prophecy was her creation, which was on the same level as Legend of the Sword.

Qiu Jiang was one of the top designers over at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, someone even Lin Chaoxu was willing to bow down to.

However, there weren't many photos of Qiu Jiang and Chen Mo didn't care to search for them either. Moreover, Qiu Jiang's nametag during the convention was 'Saury', how could he have known it was her stage name?

Qiu Jiang looked at Qiu Hengyang with a fruit in her mouth, "This is the awards ceremony, it's not like we have to stick together just because we are the same company. I like hanging out with you two anyways, is there a problem with that?"

Qiu Hengyang and Chen Mo were speechless.

Qiu Jiang continued, "Or do you think that I'm here to get some industry secret from you two? The both of you are just some B-grade designers, I should be the one who should be wary."

"We are both A-grade designers now," asserted Qiu Hengyang.

"Oh, A-grade," Qiu Jiang let out a sly smile, "Congratulations."

"That didn't feel nice at all!" said Qiu Hengyang.

Qiu Jiang spread out her hands, "It's mainly because the others at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment are like a piece of rock, they are so boring. I feel like I'm going to drag myself down to their level if I talk to them anymore than I need to."

Chen Mo replied after a few moments, "Alright, do as you wish. Otherwise, you'd think we were up to something."

The three of them chatted as they ate. Qiu Jiang was one of those quiet times that listened more than they spoke, adding their thoughts occasionally just to show their interest in the topic. However, Chen Mo could feel that she wasn't like the other B-grade video game designers here, and was obviously much smarter.

However, Chen Mo wasn't nervous because of this. She's just an S-grade videogame designer, I'll be a S-grade videogame designer in two years!

Soon, the three of them finished their meal, and continued with the activities after some coffee.

"I have a talk, do you guys want to join?" suggested Qiu Jiang.

Chen Mo nodded, "Sure."

Chen Mo didn't really care as these talks didn't really do much for him.

Qiu Jiang's topic was 'How to make good use of fantasy IP in large games', going through some things she experienced during Moon Lord's Prophecy's development.

There were so many attendees that all the seats were taken, there were even some standing just to listen to the talk. Luckily, Qiu Jiang managed to get Chen Mo and Qiu Hengyang front row seats.

This was fantasy IPs were quite the hot topic in China as of late as it seemed like it had potential to surpass Xianxia. There was a lot more freedom with fantasy themes and Chinese fantasy IPs happened to be quite capable too. Games like Moon Lord's Prophecy and Demon Slayers were both based on popular Chinese novels.

Qiu Jiang was calm and concise, completely owning the stage. She also managed her time really well, not a minute over or under the time limit.

The audience gave back to the talk with huge applause.

"Incredible, she's the best of the best alright. The perspectives of S-grade videogame designers are completely different from ours."

"Yeah, although I didn't understand a lot of it, I still feel like I gained plenty from this to digest later."

"Just look at her, she's a top videogame designer in the country despite only twenty eight years old, and a girl no less. What else could you say other than she's just better!"

Qiu Jiang appeared to have heard it, glancing at the direction of the comment before angrily sitting beside Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang let out a stifled laugh, quietly whispering to Chen Mo, "She really hates when others mention her age, be mindful of that."

"Oh, is that so?" Chen Mo turned around and said to Qiu Jiang, "Don't be mad. You're really beautiful, I couldn't tell you were twenty-eight this year."

Qiu Jiang was dumbfounded at the comment, was that supposed to make her feel better? Among all this?

Even though the talk ended, most of the people in the audience remained seated, chatting.

Chen Mo was confused, "Why are they still here?"

Qiu Hengyang looked at the schedule, "Oh, there's another talk after this, titled 'Breakdown of profitability of mobile card games'. These people are probably here for the next one."

"Oh?"

Chen Mo confirmed that that was indeed the next talk, hosted by Emperor Dynasty Entertainment's Qiu Bin, designer of Demon Slayers 2.

Chen Mo laughed, "I have to listen to this one, this'll be fun."

Although it could be said that Chen Mo knew the profitability of mobile card games like the back of his hand, he wasn't quite sure how the people of this world would analyse mobile card games.

This was an opportunity for him to 'learn' about the views of mobile card games in this world, and he might even gain a new perspective in this process.

There were many people in seats waiting for the talk to start, but two members of staff outside were in a panic.

"What? The talk is canceled? Why is it cancelled?"

"I thought the notice was out since two days ago. It was cancelled because Qiu Bin couldn't make it to the awards ceremony."

"Nobody told me!"

"Whatever, it's not a big problem. Just let the designers know and ask them to go to other talks."

"Alright, I'll do that."

A member of staff walked onto stage and said using the mic, "I'm really sorry to inform you that Qiu Bin had already let the officials know that he couldn't make it to the award ceremony because of personal reasons. Therefore, this talk is cancelled, please feel free to join the other talks."

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Chapter 180: Chen Mo Hosts the Talk

A lot of chatter following the announcement.

"Huh? Qiu Bin isn't coming?"

"Why not?"

"I heard it's a personal reason."

"Man, I really wanted to listen to his talk, why didn't he come?"

"It's pretty funny on the official's end too to only notify us now."

"Whatever, there's a VR game talk next door, let's listen to that."

"Geez, I wanted to learn a thing or two about mobile card games seeing how profitable it was this year. That's too bad."

Many were preparing to leave the hall.

At this moment, Qiu Jiang made her way to the stage and grabbed the microphone, "Qiu Bin isn't here, but Chen Mo was. You guys should try and convince him to give the talk, wouldn't that be better than Qiu Bin?"

Many of the designers chose to stay after hearing Qiu Jiang's suggestion.

"Chen Mo? The Chen Mo that made Onmyoji? He's here too?"

"My goodness, his game absolutely destroyed Qiu Bin's Demon Slayers 2. His talk must be better than Qiu Bin's!"

"Yeah, I Am MT was made by Chen Mo too. He's the pioneer of mobile card games."

"Where's Chen Mo? Which one's Chen Mo?"

"I'm not going. Where's Chen Mo? Get on the stage, Chen Mo!"

Qiu Jiang was really happy with herself as she walked down the stairs before dragging Chen Mo out of his seat, "Go head."

Chen Mo was speechless, I was supposed to be the one listening to a speech? How come I'm giving the speech now?

I just made fun of your age, did the revenge need to be so vicious?

But when Chen Mo stood up, the audience got real excited clapping.

"Is that really Chen Mo? Clap!"

"I wanna hear too, get him to give a talk!"

Chen Mo was speechless. He didn't plan on getting on stage, but he couldn't say no with this much enthusiasm from the audience.

Chen Mo didn't mind talking about his work either, others might be afraid of his work being copied, but he wasn't.

Chen Mo unwillingly got onto the stage and said, "Alright, since you guys want to hear, I'll see what I can do."

Another round of applause came from the audience, followed by a lot of discussion.

"That's Chen Mo? He's so young."

"He looks like he's in his mid twenties. He'd only be in the industry for two years if he started immediately after he graduated."

"This guy is an A-grade videogame designer at this age! We already lost!"

"And his game is making over two hundred million RMB a month!"

"Over two million? That's last month's number, it's probably going to grow this month. With how well Onmyoji was doing, it'll probably stay at the top of the leaderboards for three months at least!"

"My goodness, is this what a genius looks like?"

"Thank goodness I came today, I gotta take notes."

Everyone who planned to leave stayed in their seats waiting for Chen Mo's speech.

This speech was planned for a long time because of how well mobile card games were doing. The Game Committee decided to have Qiu Bin do the talk.

Demon Slayers had been in the top spot of the best sellers for a long time after all. No matter players, popularity, or income, Qiu Bin was more than qualified to give the talk.

But who would've thought that Chen Mo who seemed to have settled in the PC market would double back into the mobile gaming industry, destroying the best sellers leaderboards with Onmyoji and causing mass hysteria among mobile card games.

However, as the talks have already been determined, and Qiu Bin submitted a draft for the talk too, it wouldn't be a good look if the officials decided to ditch Qiu Bin who had been preparing for this speech for a long time in exchange for Chen Mo who was quite fresh to the industry.

However, Qiu Bin wasn't having it. Why would he give a talk after Demon Slayers 2 was completely destroyed by Onmyoji?

He couldn't think of a good excuse either.

The officials agreed that it was a valid point and decided to cancel the talk. But this only happened because of miscommunications.

Chen Mo looked at the time and it was about the time to start.

The computer was connected to a projector. On it was Qiu Bin's powerpoint that was submitted ahead of time. Chen Mo felt that if he gave the talk off the top of his head, he could easily go off topic, so he decided to use his powerpoint.

Chen Mo opened Qiu Bin's powerpoint, and the title of the powerpoint: "Analysis of profit models of mobile card games", host: Qiu Bin.

Chen Mo added a few words after "Host: Qiu Bin"

"Host: Qiu Bin (cancelled) Chen Mo"

Chen Mo cleared his throat, "I'm glad to be able to stand here and share my experiences with making card games.

"This will probably be a bit more casual, so I hope you guys don't mind. It's not like I don't want to follow a script, but I don't have a script to follow."

This got a few laughs.

Chen Mo continued, "I'll just follow this powerpoint. The core of mobile card games are pretty simple, most designers should be able to figure it out if they put some effort into it. I trust that my understanding wouldnt' differ too much from Mr. Qiu Bin's."

Chen Mo went to the next slide.

There was an outline on the first page. Qiu Bin prepared four points on the subject.

One, Allow players to recognise the value of the cards.

Two, Using the inherent quality of mobile games, fragmentise time.

Three, Reduce the cost and up updates, conforming to the market.

Four, utilize IP.

The next page gave a quiet overview of the first point, explaining what 'card value' meant and how they could get the players to recognise it.

"First, how to form the value of the cards.

"The so-called 'card-value' is how much a player is willing to spend on a virtual card. Different players have different values, players might spend thousands of RMB for one SSR, while others weren't willing to spend any money.

Qiu Bin's powerpoint was so well done that Chen Mo could talk off of every single point. Although the content was understood by most mobile card games, Chen Mo went more in depth and clarified on some points that weren't clear, allowing many designers to finally understand.

"So that's how it works."

"This number's model is so interesting. I felt that I was missing something, so that's what that was."

"Yeah, we only understood parts of it before, but now I finally understand some of the more obscure things."

Qiu Jiang was paying quite a lot of attention. Although she focused on VR games and didn't care about mobile games at all, she was surprised and thought the industry was quite interested after hearing from Chen Mo!

It didn't take long before Chen Mo finished the first page onto "Using the inherent quality of mobile games, fragmentise time"

Chen Mo added a few more words to the end of the title.

"Using the inherent quality of mobile games, (not necessarily) fragmentise time

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