God's imitator

Chapter 348 Reduced Profits
He Xiaojun also didn't quite understand the purpose of the room's rules.

It seems that the design concept of this room is somewhat similar to that of "Equipment Forging". Both seem to focus on "Immunity Cards" and have some functional overlap with the auction terminal in the lobby.

The question is, will players really choose to use these two rooms instead of the auction terminal in the game lobby to trade cards?

He looked at the items and props in the auction; there were about 10 in total, and the quantity and bidding prices of similar items varied.

He Xiaojun didn't dare to exchange too many chips. He only exchanged 1500 chips first, and then spent 500 chips to buy an "Auction Ticket: Calligraphy" and 1000 chips to buy an "Auction Ticket: Painting".

These two are relatively inexpensive, and there is only one "Auction Ticket: Calligraphy and Painting" in the list; there are no other items with the same name.

After the chips were paid, an item quickly popped up from below the gaming table—just a thin card with simple words written on it.

Clearly, it is similar to the "Training Cards" in "Equipment Forging," and does not have any special function; it is just a symbolic item used to complement the gameplay.

He Xiaojun then relisted the two items on the "Auction Tycoon" auction house, and after consideration, he listed them both at double the price.

He Xiaojun didn't know if he could actually sell them, but if there were any hidden profit mechanisms in the game, he would have to try them to find out.

Then, He Xiaojun looked at the prompt again.

Stay tuned for auction items to earn extra chips.

"This sounds like a trap. Shall we give it a shot?"

Literally, as long as you keep an eye on the product list on the gaming platform, you can continuously receive chip rewards, which seems to be a stable way to generate income.

But the question remains: how long should this "continuous monitoring" last? And what exactly are the "extra rewards"?
It would be quite ironic if you stared at the gaming table for half an hour and only ended up with a few hundred chips.

This place is like a language trap designed to entice players, so so far, very few players have actually stayed in this room.

He Xiaojun thought about it and decided to give it a try.

He stared at the constantly refreshing product list on the gaming table, wanting to see just how many extra chips he could win.

……

Soon, the second dividend cycle ended, and an hour of the game's total playtime had passed.

Players holding chips gathered again at the chip exchange tables at the entrances of each room, ready to collect their dividends.

However, unlike last time, there were significantly fewer players receiving dividends this time.

Because some players have realized that simply accumulating chips in a single room is not a viable strategy, they have started exploring game rooms that were previously ignored.

Since we don't have many chips in hand, there's no need to waste time waiting for dividends.

He Xiaojun was originally waiting in the 'Auction Tycoon' room for his listed items to be auctioned off, but after hearing the news about the profit sharing, he decided to leave temporarily and came to the door of the 'Big or Small' room.

But he didn't push forward because he had no chips to exchange.

He just wanted to see the specific amount of profit sharing in this room to confirm his guess.

The current room's bonus amount is: 33000 minutes of visa time.

The current chip exchange rate in this room is: Chips: Visa Time = 100:27

The players waiting in line to exchange their chips all had furrowed brows and looked very unhappy.

Clearly, compared to the first exchange, the exchange rate this time is almost halved. This is obviously due to the change in the dividend amount.

The last payout amounted to 67000 minutes of visa time, which included the basic payout of 3 minutes as well as the visa time spent by players purchasing chips out of their own pockets.

However, this time the bonus amount is 33000 minutes of visa time.

During these two payout cycles, the number of games played and the amount of chips earned by players should be roughly the same. In single-player mode, the chips earned are still around 15000, while in two-player mode, the chips earned are still around 7500.

In other words, during this dividend cycle, their earnings were converted into approximately 4050 minutes of visa time and 2025 minutes of visa time, respectively.

This is already a rather unacceptable number.

Some players were almost able to accumulate 10,000 minutes of visa time, but they finally did, which is just enough to get a get-out-of-jail-free card.

But getting only one card after a whole hour is obviously too inefficient.

This is because there are too many players in the "Compare Sizes" room.

He Xiaojun quickly thought: "Sure enough, my previous guess was correct."

"This game likely has an unexplained hidden rule that is highly misleading to players..."

"That is, the more times a player plays in the room, the higher the amount of room bonuses will be unlocked."

"It is precisely because of this rule that most players will go straight into the room that seems to offer the best deal in order to earn chips."

"They subconsciously believe that although there are more players sharing the profits in such rooms, more players mean more game sessions, which can unlock more profit-sharing amounts."

"The rooms with fewer players do not have a stable income rule and are riskier. Although there are fewer players and fewer people to share the money, the number of games played is insufficient to unlock more dividends."

"Therefore, there is not much difference between the two types of rooms."

"But now it seems that this rule is obviously problematic. The number of times a player plays and the amount of dividends unlocked are not linearly related, but rather a specific growth function."

"That is, there is the problem of 'diminishing marginal utility'."

"Compared to the previous dividend cycle, the number of players and the number of games played in the 'Compare Size' room have decreased significantly. However, the dividend amount activated by the number of games played has not decreased much."

After deducting the basic 3 bonus and the visa time deducted by players purchasing chips out of their own pockets, the bonuses activated twice through additional game attempts are both slightly over 3 minutes of visa time.

"This suggests that the dividend amount unlocked through game play within a single dividend cycle may have something like a 'soft cap.' After exceeding this soft cap, although the dividend amount will continue to increase, the increase will not be very significant."

"Furthermore, the time required to complete a game varies in different game rooms, so the amount unlocked per game also varies."

"It seems we still need to check out the other rooms as much as possible; relying on just this one room is definitely not enough."

Sure enough, it wasn't just He Xiaojun who thought of this problem; other players also began to noticeably spread to other game rooms.

However, eight players remained in the "Compare Sizes" and "Simple Poker" rooms.

They still occupy the best position in single-player mode, which they probably just barely managed to secure.

These eight players, on the other hand, are actually accepting of the current situation.

Because with the other players leaving, the four of them can split the next phase of the room's profits equally. If it's still around 3, each player can get about 8000 in visa time, which is a pretty good return.

(End of this chapter)