God's imitator

Chapter 356 Circulation of Chips

Cheng Wen was still a little guilty: "But Brother Lin, we don't have much time left in the game. How about we exchange at least half of our chips when we split the profits next time? I feel a little guilty about keeping so many chips in my hands."

After leaving "Minesweeper at Sea", Lin Sizhi had been earning chips in "Auction Tycoon's" room.

Cheng Wen arrived a little later, but he had already earned quite a few chips from this room.

Following Lin Sizhi's instructions, Cheng Wen did not exchange all his chips for visa time, even though the 1:1 ratio seemed very tempting.

They both still had quite a few chips left.

But now here's the problem: if players don't even use the auction terminal in the lobby, how can they possibly use the auction house in "Auction Tycoon"?
Cheng Wen felt that there wasn't much time left in the game, so it was safer to cash out.

Otherwise, these chips will be worthless if they cannot be sold.

Lin Sizhi continued browsing the product list and asked, "Could you first tell me the specifics of the 'Equipment Forging' room?"

Cheng Wen, who had just run a long way, was still a little out of breath. He quickly explained, "That player named Chen Guangming has actually taken control of the 'Equipment Forging' room. He's selling the game console's usage counts."

"For players, forging equipment in that room is clearly more cost-effective than trading at the auction house."

Cheng Wen gave a simple explanation. Obviously, Chen Guangming's strategy was not complicated and most players could understand it.

But understanding something doesn't mean you can retaliate.

Cheng Wen continued, "Moreover, Chen Guangming's plan clearly goes beyond this!"
"Changing cards through 'equipment forging' seems far more cost-effective than transaction tax at the moment, but that's only temporary!"

"As the game progresses, players acquire more and more visa time and cards. Similarly, the amount of chips produced in each room will also increase."

"At the beginning, players may only have one duplicate card, so it only costs a small amount of money to exchange it in the 'Equipment Forging' room."

"But if a player already has four different cards, the cost of changing them will increase dramatically."

"Because each forging may result in a duplicate of the original card, and if you want to forge again, you have to pay an extra 500 chips each time."

"Chen Guangming's actions effectively prevented players from using the auction terminal at the source."

"If there hadn't been a 'Equipment Forging' room, players would have listed their duplicate cards on the auction terminal to trade. Because there were enough cards listed, the circulation would have been much better."

"As the game progresses into the later stages, the more duplicate cards players have, the more frequent the trading becomes, and the better the price adjustment mechanism of the auction terminal can function."

"However, the 'Equipment Forging' feature blocked players from trading at the auction terminal from the very beginning, causing players with a small number of duplicate cards to choose to use the 'Equipment Forging' feature to exchange them first."

"This will lead to a shortage of goods on the auction terminal, creating a vicious cycle, because the number of invulnerability cards has been very small from the beginning, so more and more players will no longer list them for sale here, and will also choose 'equipment forging' instead."

"If this inertia continues, by the late game, even if players have accumulated a lot of duplicate cards, they will no longer put them up for auction."

"But at this point, it's not worthwhile to use 'equipment forging' to exchange for cards."

"At that time, Chen Guangming will likely choose to raise prices, increasing the cost for players to use the game console. For example, they may need to spend 2500 or even 3000 minutes of visa time to buy the 1000 chips he lists. "He may even raise the price to a level slightly higher than the '30% transaction tax,' because in the later stages, there won't be enough cards on the auction terminal, and players who are missing one or two cards will not be able to find suitable trading partners and will have no other options."

"In this way, Chen Guangming can maximize his profits!"

Lin Sizhi nodded: "That's right."

"Furthermore, the chips in the 'Equipment Forging' room will always retain their value."

"Because this room has a stable way to consume chips."

"If a player keeps forging cards that grant immunity from death, and the card they want doesn't appear, they will have to keep forging and keep consuming them."

"And this consumption will be roughly balanced with the chips produced in this room."

"Therefore, there will not be a situation where there are too many chips in a 'big or small' room."

"It is precisely because the chips in this room always retain their value that players are willing to spend their visa time to buy chips sold by Chen Guangming and his small group, because they will assume that these chips can be exchanged for visa time at a 1:1 ratio."

"If the chips in the 'Equipment Forging' room depreciate rapidly, like the chips in 'Big or Small', even reaching a ratio of 10:1, then players may no longer recognize the value of the 'Equipment Forging' chips, making it difficult for Chen Guangming to sell them."

"This plan could fail."

"But obviously, the copycat who designed this room was clever and took into account the situation of 'devaluation of chips' in advance."

Cheng Wen was taken aback: "Brother Lin, you've never left this room, but you know everything?"

Lin Sizhi looked at him: "The rules for all the rooms are clearly written down. I've read them all. What's so strange about that?"

Cheng Wen was speechless for a moment. He thought for a moment and said, "But... what will we do if Chen Guangming's plan is successfully implemented?"
"All the players have taken their invulnerability cards over there to forge, so nobody comes to our room!"

Lin Sizhi looked at him: "What do you think is the main reason why players don't come to our room?"

Cheng Wen thought for a moment: "Is there any need to say it? There are simply three reasons."

"First, this room has a 100% transaction tax."

"Secondly, many players don't know how to generate stable income in this room because testing requires a relatively high time cost."

"Third, and most importantly, although the value of the chips in this room has remained stable, even at a 1:1 ratio, it would take at least 10,000 chips to make a card that grants immunity from death circulate. Apart from the two of us, the other players do not have enough chips."

"They don't have enough chips, nor can they acquire that many chips in a short period of time, so with insufficient currency, the entire transaction process cannot proceed."

Lin Sizhi nodded: "That's right, so what we need to do now is very simple: make the chips in this room circulate faster."

(End of this chapter)