Restart life

Chapter 44 0043 [Thirty Thousand in Earnings on the First Day!]

Tao Chenggang sat in front of the computer and asked Chen Guiliang, "Which rich person in China has the surname Shi?"

“Who else could it be? Since he took the initiative to give his surname, he must be the giant,” Chen Guiliang said.

"I rely on!"

Tao Chenggang exclaimed in surprise.

Since Giant Group went bankrupt and its building project was abandoned, Mr. Shi has become extremely low-profile.

The more popular Brain Gold became, the more low-key he became, and he almost never appeared in public again. Tao Chenggang had almost forgotten that such a person existed.

However, during Tao Chenggang's high school and junior college years, Boss Shi was an absolute celebrity, the kind of person who would appear in the newspaper every few days.

Tao Chenggang replied on QQ: "General Manager Shi of Giant Interactive?"

“Yes,” said Boss Shi.

Xie Yang stood to the side watching, still young, and asked with a confused look, "Who is Mr. Shi, the founder of Giants?"

“Brain Gold and the Golden Partner,” Chen Guiliang said.

Xie Yang uttered a single word: "Damn!"

Tao Xue was furious: "Kill him! These ads are so annoying!"

“Yes, kill him,” Chen Guiliang said with a smile.

While the three were complaining, Tao Chenggang and Boss Shi had already started chatting.

"Hello, Mr. Shi, I am Yijian Xilai."

"Your network operations are very interesting and refreshing, and I can't help but want to chat with you about them."

"You are my senior."

"Haha, I'm your game customer. Quickly check if the recharge has been credited to your account, and send me tickets to farm the Woma Abyss."

"Okay, wait a minute."

"With the abilities you've demonstrated, it's a waste of your talents to only make private servers. Are you interested in joining my team? Let's make legitimate games together."

"Mr. Shi flatters us. Compared to the Brain Gold team, we are still too inexperienced."

"Don't be modest. My previous team, including myself, was only familiar with traditional marketing channels. I haven't done much research in internet marketing yet, and we desperately need an expert like you."

Tao Chenggang turned to Chen Guiliang and asked, "Do you want to cooperate with him?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Brother Gang, you can decide for yourself. But I want to remind you of one thing: Boss Shi is a very domineering person. Once you cooperate, you'll have to listen to him in everything. You can only be a high-ranking henchman, and you won't have any decision-making power in the future."

Tao Chenggang thought about it carefully and continued typing tentatively: "How to cooperate?"

Boss Shi said, "Your private server is already quite famous, and it will definitely be crushed by Shanda. When that happens, the players will be outraged, and you can then take the opportunity to announce that you are cooperating with me to develop a game. Use your current method to update the game development progress every month, keeping the players in suspense until the game is launched. I will also promote it in all aspects, both online and offline."

"I'm asking about the specifics of how we'll cooperate," Tao Chenggang said.

Mr. Shi retorted, "Besides the marketing and fame of your private clothing, what else can you offer?"

Tao Chenggang said, "A completely new concept for online games, and an investment of several million."

What game concept?

"Secret."

"I've initially decided to invest 100 million in the game industry. Your few million, along with your game concept, will be given as company shares, depending on the specific circumstances. You can ask around; I've never cheated a partner since I started my business."

"One hundred million to make games?"

"Yes. My game ads will be everywhere—on TV, in newspapers, magazines, online, even on billboards and buses. With such a massive advertising campaign, an investment of 100 million is nothing."

"Boss Shi is awesome..."

Tao Chenggang was so shocked that he could hardly keep up with Boss Shi's train of thought.

He put down his keyboard and asked Chen Guiliang, "Are you trying to market and promote your self-developed game using the same methods you use to sell Brain Gold?"

“He’s capable of doing something like that,” Chen Guiliang said.

Tao Chenggang shook his head: "This guy is indeed very domineering. It's no fun playing games with him. Who knows, he might eat you up one day and leave you with nothing but scraps."

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "He didn't lie about one thing: he's never cheated his partners since he started his business. You don't even need to worry about him swallowing up game ideas. As long as he thinks these things are valuable, he will definitely give you a corresponding number of shares. Although this guy is a scoundrel when he sells health products, he is absolutely loyal to his own people."

Hearing this, Tao Chenggang began to hesitate again.

Boss Shi hasn't sent any more QQ messages, so he's probably already gotten the tickets and gone to run the dungeon.

Tao Chenggang asked Chen Guiliang, "If you were in his shoes, what would you do?"

Chen Guiliang said, "I will not be someone's lackey."

"I wouldn't do that either. Better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond!" Tao Chenggang said. "I'll politely decline, just to make a friend."

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Don't rush to refuse. Keep him hanging on."

Tao Chenggang asked, "Why are you hanging him up like that?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Even after the falling out with Shanda, Mr. Shi's name is still useful. Perhaps it can attract real investors. You can also use him as a gimmick, and when you don't have enough funds to make a game, you can claim that Mr. Shi also wants to invest in the game."

"I understand." Tao Chenggang gave Chen Guiliang a thumbs up.

Immediately afterwards, he sent a QQ message: "President Shi, I need to think about this important matter some more."

Ten minutes later, Boss Shi failed to complete the dungeon again. He came back to chat and said, "Okay, I still need to look for a research and development team. By the way, what kind of items does the Abyss Woma Lord drop?"

"Guaranteed drop of one Abyss ticket, guaranteed drop of two or more Abyss Woma sets. There is a certain chance of dropping an insane Abyss weapon of the Well of the Moon level."

"Okay. We'll talk later. I'm going to grind in the Abyss now. You can think about it slowly."

……

Two o'clock in the morning.

Feng Tao said, "From Zone 1 to Zone 5, the number of concurrent online users has dropped to between 400 and 600. Should we reopen the download link?"

"Go ahead and open it. Remember to announce it on all the major gaming forums," Tao Chenggang said. Yang Yuhui replied, "I'll contact the forum administrators to restore the link."

Chen Guiliang said, "Brother Gang and Uncle, you two go home and rest. I'll keep an eye on things tonight. The brothers in charge of customer service and top-ups, only one-third of you need to stay on duty. The rest of you should go to sleep."

“Okay,” Tao Chenggang rubbed his face and said to his sister, “Let’s go home.”

Tao Xue was playing a private server game on a computer at that moment: "I just learned how to play, and I'm really into it."

"Run!" Tao Chenggang slapped her on the head.

Tao Xue covered her head, stood up reluctantly, and pouted as she said goodbye to Chen Guiliang and the others.

After Tao Chenggang, Tao Xue, Feng Tao and others left, Xie Yang sat back down at a computer and carefully browsed the posts from the past two weeks.

County Chief Xie wanted to sort out his thoughts and review Chen Guiliang's various actions.

He suddenly realized that some things were more fun than games.

Chen Guiliang lay down on the sofa and took a nap. If anything unexpected happened, the staff on duty would wake him up.

……

I woke up at nine in the morning.

Yang Yuhui sent his underlings to buy breakfast, waiting for the shift change to take over.

He also needs to get some sleep quickly, as he has to get up and fight again at noon, when there will be even more players.

Chen Guiliang, sipping soy milk and eating steamed buns, woke Xie Yang, who was slumped over his computer desk, by slapping him awake: "You've been staying here for the entire weekend?"

"Of course, it's so interesting," Xie Yang said matter-of-factly.

Before I had even finished breakfast, Tao Chenggang arrived: "The server I contacted last night is now operational. We'll open a new server at noon. I'll also add two more customer service staff."

"Tao Xue didn't come?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Tao Chenggang said, "She's sleeping in. It's finally Saturday, and she didn't go to bed until midnight last night, so she'll definitely sleep until noon today. By the way, has Shanda made any moves yet?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Shanda can't keep a group of professional hackers around indefinitely. The hackers who attacked the private servers last year were either temporarily hired or were the company's cybersecurity personnel. Either way, they have to go through procedures to be deployed, unless Mr. Chen personally approves it."

What is Mr. Chen doing?
They've gone to Beijing for a meeting.

The joint crackdown on private servers and cheat programs by five ministries is not just for Shanda Games, but affects game companies across the country.

The CEOs of these game companies all had to make a trip to Beijing to exchange relevant experiences and discuss how to cooperate with the special crackdown operation.

As for Zhang Yingfeng, who is in charge of copyright and legal affairs, he also doesn't have the time to personally monitor the internet; he is currently assigning people to collect evidence in the real world.

What does cracking down on private servers and cheat codes have to do with reality?
This is naturally because the development of the internet is still insufficient. Even for online game-related products, there are still a large number of physical pirates!
For example, installation discs containing various versions of private servers.

There are even criminal gangs that counterfeit Shanda physical game cards and impersonate regional game card distributors, specifically targeting internet cafe managers and players.

These are the key targets of the relevant departments' crackdown; private servers and cheat codes on the internet are secondary.

As noon approached, the number of players increased again.

After the sixth server opened, new players who downloaded the game, along with a few scattered players from the first five servers, quickly brought the sixth server to over 400 online players.

In the other five districts, there are an average of more than 500 people online.

The total number of players in "Legend of the Abyss" is definitely more than this.

For example, Fu Guoqiang, known as "Master Jing," and his friends played all night and are still fast asleep.

After 6 p.m., the number of online players surged again.

But the server didn't lag because the "locust players" had already left. They were just there to watch the fun last night; some chose to stay, while most went about their business.

When Feng Tao arrived from the computer store, Yang Yuhui called Chen Guiliang, Tao Chenggang, and Feng Tao to the corridor.

He whispered:

"Total recharge amount in 24 hours: 33875 yuan".

"Of the 10465 yuan recharged by internet cafes, the commission rates vary from internet cafe to internet cafe. After deducting interbank transaction fees, we can earn more than 8400 yuan."

"The other 23410 yuan came from online banking and bank transfers. After deducting the handling fees, we will receive more than 22000 yuan."

"Players who sent money via post office have not yet received their funds, but the amount recharged is small and can be ignored."

Feng Tao exclaimed in surprise, "You actually made this much money on the first day?"

Tao Chenggang said, "We haven't recouped our costs yet. The publicity was too good, and the netizens were too enthusiastic. The game had to be perfected, which greatly increased the cost of building the private server structure. There are also advertising fees from major game forums, rental fees for six servers with a capacity of 1,000 people, and salaries for customer service and online trolls. These costs haven't even been factored in yet."

“The main reason is that we encountered a few big spenders,” Yang Yuhui said. “These few people together recharged more than 10,000 yuan.”

Chen Guiliang said, "Don't worry about Boss Shi, he has his own underlings. As for the other tycoons, we must serve them well. In addition to sending people to act as their underlings, we also need to arrange dedicated customer service staff to ensure they are always available to help. If the game lags, we'll provide them with a free accelerator."

The four chatted briefly, and as soon as they returned to the command center, a customer service representative excitedly said, "That Mr. Shi wants to top up another 5000!"

Feng Tao asked in surprise, "He used up all the tickets he bought last night?"

"Finished."

Tao Chenggang, the GM, wrote: "I've been keeping an eye on it. Boss Shi's group of eight has now grown to ten. They log off around 6 a.m., start grinding again around 2 p.m., and do their daily quests in the evening. After resting for more than an hour, they're now buying tickets to grind dungeons again."

Chen Guiliang asked with a smile, "Have they managed to collect the entire Abyss Woma set?"

The GM said, "Out of ten people, two still don't have all their weapons. They've stopped running the Woma dungeon; their last two runs were the Abyss Zuma. Haha, they all died the first time they went in. The second time, half of them died."

"No wonder they sell Brain Gold, they're really rich!" Tao Chenggang exclaimed.

Actually, Boss Shi went to sleep in the middle of the night last night. The rest of the dungeon runs were all done by the power levelers.

After waking up, the power-leveling players, at Boss Shi's instruction, called three more friends to form a ten-person team to continue grinding.

It wasn't until after 8 PM tonight that Boss Shi personally started playing the game and casually recharged the private server with another 5000 yuan.

The lives of the rich are so dull and boring.

-

(A tribute to a historical slice-of-life novel: "The Fireworks of the Jin Dynasty: My Daily Life in a Chaotic World".)
(End of this chapter)