Restart life

Chapter 192 0189 [Great Battle Imminent]

The game "Three Kingdoms Kill" and Xiaonei.com initially used UnionPay electronic payment (ChinaPay).

The account opening fee is 10,000 yuan, the interface encryption fee is 15,000 yuan, the annual service fee is around 10,000 yuan, and there are also handling fees and commissions to pay.

UnionPay electronic payment is certainly safe.

But it's too safe!

Its security controls are incredibly cumbersome and frequently throw unexpected errors. As a result, over 30% of users who originally intended to recharge abandon the service because of this.

It wasn't until "Three Kingdoms Kill" started to generate profits that Chen Guiliang tried to build his own payment system—he continued to use UnionPay, which did not conflict with the existing system.

Its English name is YK-Pay, also known as "优付通" or "优付".

Why not let ByteDance do it?
The high costs could cause ByteDance's funds to dry up prematurely!
Even when The9 was distributing World of Warcraft this year, they used the third-party payment system "Huanxun IPS". The9 certainly has the money to burn, but in order to seize the game market in time, they dare not build their own payment system and slowly roll it out.

This thing is both time-consuming and expensive.

Game science has also developed step by step.

First, a licensing fee of 150 million yuan is required to purchase the database. Then, another 100 million yuan is needed to purchase two IBM minicomputers, which are then placed in the Peking University computer room. Peking University technicians are hired to work in three shifts to maintain the computer room, incurring annual labor costs of several hundred thousand yuan.

We also need to build a development team, which costs hundreds of thousands of yuan annually. Purchasing the risk control system requires a one-time payment of 80 yuan.

Only with these things can we spend another million yuan to obtain various safety certificates.

Next, for each bank (one of the four major state-owned banks) that connects to the network, an access fee and a deposit must be paid. ICBC is the most expensive; last year the deposit was 100 million yuan, but this year it has dropped to 80 yuan. The access fee is 30 yuan.

The four major banks were all connected, and the deposit plus access fee alone amounted to more than 300 million yuan.

Fortunately, in order to seize market share, private commercial banks offer free access to their "online banking loan" service if you apply for a 100 million yuan loan. While major private banks don't pay for access, they are burdened with millions of yuan in high-interest loans.

Up until this point, Youke's "Youpay" had only set up online payment.

For the past two or three months, Youke has been contacting "recharge card" agents. Only after the offline recharge channels for "Youpay" are set up will the payment system look decent.

Building offline recharge channels takes time and effort.

Next, we need to continuously improve the payment system based on actual problems.

It takes at least two to three years for a payment system to become fully mature!

But once perfected, it becomes a goose that lays golden eggs.

Small and medium-sized game developers, as well as some websites, actively seek cooperation with us because they lack the funds and time to build their own payment systems.

Payment commission is generally above 30%.

Of course, the operation and maintenance costs of the payment platform will also increase, and if it grows large, it may even need to build its own small data center.

By the way, at this point, if you build your own payment platform, including Alipay, and act as a third-party agent for others, it falls into a gray area that is both legal and illegal.

The authorities do not issue payment licenses, but they also rarely investigate or punish such practices, only occasionally holding talks with the individuals involved. It is likely that they are allowing new things to develop freely to observe the effects.

……

No matter how good the relationship between Tao Chenggang and Chen Guiliang is, it is impossible for Tao Chenggang to only cooperate with Youke's "Youfutong".

His plan is to cooperate with multiple parties: Youpay, Yunwang, Junka, Lianbang, and UnionPay Electronic Payment.

In addition to providing recharge services, Youpay also needs to provide data to "Quan Yu Tian Xia" to facilitate Tao Chenggang's adjustment of the in-game economy.

Yunwang is nominally a third-party payment platform, but in reality, it's just a seller of online recharge cards. It holds a 70% market share.

Junka sells physical recharge cards in northern China.

Lianbang sells physical recharge cards in the south.

Collaboration with multiple parties can reduce the commission charged by agents. However, when pirated recharge cards are leaked, it's very difficult to pinpoint the source.

"Brother Gang, something terrible has happened!"

Yang Yuhui rushed to Tao Chenggang's side: "Zhengtu has announced that its closed beta test will start on the 15th of next month, only one month later than ours!"

Tao Chenggang calmly picked up his phone and called Chen Guiliang: "Brother, I need to borrow money. You can also invest in me."

"How much do you want to borrow?" Chen Guiliang asked.

“One million,” Tao Chenggang said. “My original plan for the closed beta was to gradually release invitation codes and control the number of online players to save on server costs. Now it seems we need to increase the number of beta testers ahead of schedule. 'Zhengtu' will have its closed beta next month.”

Chen Guiliang said, "Let me ask how much working capital Youke has left."

ByteDance's money can no longer be touched. With the continuous increase in users of Xiaonei.com and Kaixin.com, ByteDance's monthly costs have also skyrocketed.

Youke is not actually wealthy; it has millions of yuan in high-interest loans but continues to pour money into various projects.

After a few minutes, Chen Guiliang said, "I can lend you 100 million, at the bank loan interest rate. If you continue to lend money, I will take the opportunity to invest."

"Thank you!" Tao Chenggang hung up the phone.

Whether it's Tao Chenggang's "The Emperor's Reign" or Shi Laoban's "The Journey", in addition to finding bugs, the internal testing also needs to improve the store system.

With Chen Guiliang's advice, the in-game store system in "The Emperor's Reign" is much more complete than that in "Conquer Online".

In another timeline, *Zhengtu* only had a closed beta test with tens of thousands of participants, which scared *Legend of Mir* into announcing it would be free to play 13 days later. This was because Mr. Shi's (the game's developer) promotional campaign was too aggressive!
Now, "The Emperor's Reign" has jumped in first, and I wonder how Chen Tianqiao will react.

……

Chen Guiliang rode his bicycle leisurely back to his dormitory.

I skipped half a day of class again today.

Not only did he become increasingly reckless, but even Jiang Junlai became lax.

This semester, Jiang Junlai only took 17 courses, no longer spending all his time in classrooms, study rooms, and libraries. He now has more time for leisure and entertainment.

It was just evening when Chen Guiliang saw Jiang Junlai and a girl returning together from the cafeteria after finishing their meal.

"Chen Guiliang!"

Jiang Junlai waved enthusiastically.

The girl smiled shyly: "Hello, Chen."

"Hello," Chen Guiliang replied. "Um, I'm going back to my dorm now," the girl said and left.

After she left, Chen Guiliang asked, "Your girlfriend?"

Jiang Junlai scratched his head: "Not really, I just have a bit of a crush on her. Her name is Wen Qiaoqiao, I met her in class at the Physics Department."

"A girl who studies physics?" Chen Guiliang asked.

"Hmm," Jiang Junlai said.

Chen Guiliang pushed his bicycle to the outside of the dormitory building and locked it up one lock after another.

Jiang Junlai asked, "I haven't seen Senior Brother Guo in a long time since he changed dorm rooms. Did he win over that goddess?"

Chen Guiliang said, "His goddess got a direct admission to graduate school. That's all I know. But it seems that Guo the Madman writes a letter to his senior sister every week."

"He has the goddess's phone number, QQ number, and Renren (a Chinese social networking site) friends. Why is he writing letters?" Jiang Junlai asked, confused.

"How would I know? Maybe it's more romantic," Chen Guiliang said.

The two returned to room 404, where two freshmen were sitting in front of Chen Guiliang's computer.

This has become a public computer.

"What are you arguing about?" Jiang Junlai threw the book on the table.

Li Heng said, "It's about choosing a campus beauty! The school's internal network has already decided that the second week of October every year will be the National Campus Beauty Contest Week."

The new students start school in September and have been getting to know each other for over a month, so now is the perfect time to vote for the school beauty.

It happens every year.

"Ah, I forgot about that!"

Jiang Junlai squeezed through: "Make way, I want to vote for the beauty."

Tong Zhihong stepped aside, his tone quite regretful: "Our Yuanpei Classes haven't had any outstanding beauties in recent years, so we don't know who to choose as the department's most beautiful girl. Sigh, we can only let girls from other departments vote for the school's most beautiful girl."

Chen Guiliang lay on his bed and texted Bian Guanyue: "Bian, school beauty, are you going to win again this year?"

"Hehe, maybe."

Are there any guys pursuing you?

“You caused a scene last year, and now everyone knows who you are. Even if some guys like me, they only dare to make excuses to approach me, afraid of being rejected if they pursue me directly.”

"Then you should thank me for scaring away those troubles for you."

"Tch! I uploaded another song, recorded during the National Day holiday."

“I’ve heard of it. I have a suggestion. You know Sichuan Opera, right? You could learn from Jay Chou and write a Chinese-style song similar to ‘Dong Feng Po’.”

"Chinese style is also a Western melody, and it has nothing to do with traditional opera. They are two different systems."

"I mean, add a few lines of Peking Opera singing."

"Then I'll try next time."

"..."

As they were chatting, Deng Chen from the dorm across the hall came in with a history major: "Come play 3v3 of 'Three Kingdoms Kill'!"

"Where are the other people in your dorm?" Jiang Junlai asked.

Deng Chen said, "I went to see a concert."

Chen Guiliang put down his phone: "Whose concert is it?"

“Emil Chau. There are a few other guests, one of whom is Jonathan Lee,” Deng Chen said.

"Damn. How come I didn't know?" Chen Guiliang asked. "They had a concert at Peking University?"

Deng Chen nodded: "Yes. To raise money for the construction of Olympic venues."

Chen Guiliang asked, "Why aren't you going?"

Jiang Junlai said, "Zhao Beibei from the next dorm queued for two hours but couldn't buy a ticket. I'm too lazy to queue up."

"Where is Zhao Beibei?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Deng Chen laughed and said, "He couldn't get inside, so he stood outside listening. The guys in my dorm were also standing outside listening."

"Come on, let's play 3v3 in Three Kingdoms Kill! Forget about concerts."

"I'm going to choose Lu Xun, this god-like general is incredibly awesome."

"You've been watching too many game recordings."

"Mr. Chen, when will the new card pack for 'Three Kingdoms Kill' be released?"

"Before Christmas, we held events from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day."

"Oh my god, we still have to wait."

"..."

As soon as the fighting started in room 404, the shouts and screams quickly attracted the attention of the neighboring dorm rooms.

Some passersby, wearing only their underwear, even ran in to watch the spectacle.

It quickly turned into an eight-person battleground, with Chen Guiliang stepping down and taking a seat at the computer to browse information.

These guys were playing cards and swearing all the while chatting about girls from other departments. Where was the well-behaved freshman they were back then?
They've all become seasoned veterans.

Chen Guiliang clicked on the game channels of several portal websites one after another, and they were all filled with advertorials for "Zhengtu". They really spent a lot of money, otherwise NetEase, which makes games itself, would not easily send game advertorials to others.

Tao Chenggang also needs to find agents to sell recharge cards.

"Zhengtu" takes a simple and direct approach, employing a health product sales team to promote the game city by city, personally handing out recharge cards to newsstands and internet cafes.

It's tough for Gang Ge.

(End of this chapter)