Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 278 Hot Sale
Starry Night Peripheral Studio.

It should be the time to leave work, but the operations department is still brightly lit.

The air was thick with the smell of caffeine and adrenaline. Yue Xiuyuan, who had rushed back to the company from the press conference, was nervously watching the curve representing real-time pageviews.

The situation was stable before 8 o'clock, and then it changed after 8 o'clock.

This line is like it's been kicked hard, instantly soaring vertically upwards from a flat baseline, directly breaking through the preset peak red line, and then continuing its upward momentum without slowing down!
"Server load 80%! 95%!"

"Peak bandwidth usage! Requesting elastic scaling!"

"Payment request concurrency has exceeded 100,000! 200,000!"

The technical lead's roar echoed in the office, tinged with a barely perceptible tremor.

"No! There are too many people!!"

With the full launch of Xiaomi phones, the Xiaomi online store page, after lasting less than thirty seconds, was the first to display the classic message: "Oops, the page you are trying to access seems to be lost."

The Starry Night merchandise store page, while lagging, remained stable.

"The first batch of standard editions has been shipped out... The second batch has been shipped out... Holy crap, that was fast! All the stock is sold out!"

"The deluxe version is sold out!"

Time seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. Two bright red notifications popped up, showing how much time had passed from 8:00 AM until the stock was sold out.
Yue Xiuyuan glanced at the system time.

2 minute 59 seconds!!

"Is our anti-scalping system not activated?!"

Xingchen's crackdown on scalpers has always existed.

This crackdown wasn't simply because Chu Chen had always disliked scalpers in his previous life; it was also because, for vertical e-commerce platforms like Xingchen Peripheral that operate on a "low-profit, high-volume" model, scalpers were an absolute enemy.

The brand premium of Xingchen might have been 100, but Xingchen only earned 50. In that case, Xingchen essentially "emptily" took 50 to build a reputation for cost-effectiveness.

However..
The presence of scalpers means that ordinary players cannot buy "cost-effective" products; in fact, they not only cannot buy them, but also have to pay a premium.

It may not matter once or twice, but over time, Xingchen Mall's popularity and reputation will decline, and its "small profits but quick turnover" strategy will fail.

Therefore, the influence of the stars on scalpers has always been significant.

From unlimited pre-sales with full payment, to later adding IP address restrictions and account restrictions.

Later, verification based on game behavior was added.

They launched the "Time Sand Collection" gift box series. Purchasing this gift box requires verifying game data, such as requiring FGO players to complete specific chapters or the Commander level in Final Frontline to reach a certain threshold before they can purchase some limited gift boxes.

Incidentally, the original purpose of launching this gift box was simply to prevent scalpers, since scalpers couldn't possibly obtain so many high-level accounts, and even if ordinary players acted as scalpers, their influence wouldn't be significant.

Unexpectedly, the "Time Sand Collection" series sold very well upon its release.

Many players, precisely because they met the conditions to purchase a limited set, and with the inexplicable mentality of "wouldn't it be a loss if they didn't buy it?", actually placed orders.
Many media outlets and manufacturers are puzzled as to why players feel they'd "lose out if they didn't buy it."

In reality, Chu Chen could explain it in a single sentence: this is a real-life "pass".

I bought the gift set because I knew that only they could buy it, and no one else could.

However, these past anti-scalping measures are still quite ineffective when it comes to "hard currency" like mobile phones, as the user base for consumer electronics far exceeds that for gaming peripherals.

Using game levels as a glitch is clearly inappropriate.

Therefore, Starry Night Merchandise Studio and Starry Night Tap jointly developed a system. Starry Night's flash sale system is very different. All orders that come in spin around simultaneously, and during this spinning process, the system instantly analyzes the "credibility" of each ordering account.

This includes checking for duplicate delivery addresses, whether the address has been marked as a historical scalper warehouse, and whether the IP address used to place the order is on a known list of proxy servers.

It even includes whether the user registered recently and whether they have been active on the Starry Sky Tap app.

After the initial screening, orders from high-credibility accounts are processed first, while suspicious accounts are placed in a virtual "pending queue".

This is the first line of defense.

Secondly, there's the timing of the shipment; Xingchen doesn't release the goods all at once.

Instead, the goods are released in batches. The first batch is completely sold out, then the second batch is released, and the second batch is also released. The third batch is released, and all the in-stock items are sold out, and then it becomes a full-payment pre-order.

This is why.

Upon seeing that 10 units were sold out in 2 minutes and 59 seconds, Yue Xiuyuan's first reaction was, "Is the anti-scalping system not working?"
Of course not.

Subordinates quickly confirmed it.

"Brother Yue, it's open. This system was launched this morning..."

Upon hearing this answer, Yue Xiuyuan's expression became even more incredulous.

"You mean, we activated the anti-scalping system, but it only lasted 3 minutes!?? There were really that many orders!??"

Yue Xiuyuan's tone was so unbelievable that even the subordinate being questioned was starting to doubt his own existence.

"Ah, just now, there were 21 instant accesses, and after filtering, 16 orders passed through the system."

Until this moment.

Yue Xiuyuan felt his soul, which had been kicked out by the 10 orders, slowly returning to his body.

Are you kidding me?! This isn't a 299 gift box, this is a phone starting at 2499!!
Half of them still require the 299 deluxe version!

Those 10 units translate to nearly 3 million in revenue!! 3 million!!!

Yue Xiuyuan had certainly considered that the co-branded product might be a bestseller.

But no one expected it to explode so dramatically. In just 3 minutes, the Starry Sky Games platform received more than 16 credible orders that had been filtered through a flood of data.

This also means.

If it weren't for the sell-out phased sales mechanism, it probably wouldn't have lasted even 3 minutes!
"Hurry!! All orders are now in pre-sale mode! Full payment reservations are open!"

"In addition, the announcement and notification of the selection rules should also be sent out!"

"Post it quickly! There's also a sales celebration poster! Rules for full payment pre-orders!! Hurry, hurry, hurry!!"

Because the time difference between the actual and expected sell-out time was so great, Yue Xiuyuan, who thought he was fully prepared before the release, now felt like a greenhorn.

They frantically began issuing new instructions.

The most important part of this is the random selection of publicity and distribution, which is also part of the anti-scalping system.

In short, all orders paid in full will be processed and shipped according to the order date, and will also be entered into a daily lottery pool.

Star will randomly select lucky winners from the prize pool based on the factory's daily extra production capacity and ship them directly.

(End of this chapter)