Rebirth 08: Can a mobile game company also build a tech empire?

"what?"

"Boss Lu, do you have a solution?"

"Great! We're saved!"

The crowd cheered as if a savior had descended.

"Susie's words just now reminded me."

The lack of sales and the lack of new customers are actually two factors working together to cause this problem.

Having grasped the crux of the problem, Lu Chen regained his usual composure.

"Our game is indeed priced too high, but that's not the real reason for its poor sales."

The Super Monkey Ball, priced at $9.99, still sells well.

Given the quality of Fruit Swordsman, do you really think no one would buy it if we priced it at $5.99?

I'm not so sure!

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Lu Chen revealed a confident smile and said:

"If it were in the early stages of its launch on the App Store,"

There are very few apps in the entire app store; users can easily find them by browsing through them.

Although Fruit Swordsman was priced high, its initial download numbers were low.

But as time goes on, someone will eventually discover the Fruit Swordsman.

After thinking it over, Wu Zhixuan also said:

"Indeed, there weren't many apps launched in the first batch, and even fewer games."

Lu Chen took a sip of water and continued:

"But the App Store has been online for three months now."

Initially, many developers were hesitant, but seeing the revenue generated by the App Store, they couldn't sit still any longer!

So now I understand what Susie meant when she said a lot of apps have been launched on the App Store.

The App Store's recommendation algorithm still calculates based on the simplest method: downloads within a short period of time.

This creates a Matthew effect!

"The Matthew effect?"

"What is this?"

Everyone was puzzled; how did the game's sales issue get involved with something that seemed so high-end?

Seeing that no one understood, Lu Chen decided to explain.

Let me explain briefly.

The high price of Fruit Swordsman led to insufficient downloads in the early stages of the game's release;

The App Store calculates which app receives more exposure based on the number of downloads within a short period of time.

Meanwhile, during this period of more than a month, a large number of apps were launched in the app store.

This further led to the fragmentation of Fruit Swordsman's traffic.

Therefore, Fruit Swordsman's exposure on the App Store dropped rapidly.

This creates a vicious cycle!

In other words, "the strong get stronger, and the weak get weaker!"

After Lu Chen's explanation, everyone finally understood.

"I see!"

"I knew it! There are so few new players in the game."

"I thought Apple was limiting our data usage."

"Yes, it seems we can't just focus on making games; other aspects are also very important."

Everyone marveled.

It turns out there are so many tricks to the App Store rankings.

He knew nothing about himself and was single-mindedly focused on making a good game.

They thought that game quality was everything, and that as long as a game was good, people would like it.

As a result, he bumped his head and got a lot of bumps.

Tao Manwen, a beat slow to react, finally understood and excitedly danced around.

"So all we need to do is find a way to increase sales, right?"

Then we'll just lower the price...

She stopped mid-sentence, like a deflated balloon.

Even she has figured it out.

The high price tag inevitably led to low sales for the game.

Low sales and lack of exposure.

However, games cannot be directly discounted.

No wonder Lu Chen just said it was a vicious cycle.

Everyone realized the problem as Tao Manwen spoke.

The office returned to its lifeless atmosphere.

"What should we do?"

"This is a complete dead end!"

"Should we give up on Fruit Swordsman?"

Some people have already expressed pessimistic views.

"Hey hey hey!"

Didn't I say I had a solution?

What are you panicking about?

Lu Chen clapped his hands to attract everyone's attention.

"Really?"

"Boss, do you have any ideas? Tell me quickly."

Although Boss Lu has saved the company from dire straits several times, this time the situation is different.

It's obvious to anyone with eyes that Fruit Swordsman's current situation is trapped in a vicious cycle.

At least the company employees here have no other choice.

Could Lu Chen have some hidden trump card?

"Of course!" Lu Chen smiled and shook his head. "Don't you guys have a little faith in me?"

Seeing that Lu Chen had said this, everyone raised their heads with some skepticism, wondering what Lu Chen was up to.

"Judging from the current situation, the Fruit Swordsman is indeed in a dead end."

Lu Chen walked to the whiteboard again and continued:

"Looking at the problems we're facing, the prices are too high, and there aren't enough new customers."

The traditional solutions are advertising and price reductions;

But we don't have much money to invest in advertising, and we can't lower the price!

Lu Chen outlined the current problems of the Fruit Swordsman on the whiteboard.

Fortunately, there's always a way out.

I've come up with a way to break this deadlock!

That's the path of Tencent Games!

"Following the path of Tencent Games?"

Everyone unconsciously repeated Lu Chen's words, still unable to figure out the key to breaking the deadlock.

"right!

It's about learning from the Penguin game!

Do you know why our first two games from ZhengTu Technology lost to Tencent?

Lu Chen's sudden question caught everyone off guard.

After a moment of silence, Wu Zhixuan said:

"Our company's first two games were completely modeled after 'Penguin Racer' and 'Penguin Dancer'."

After its launch, it initially competed with Penguin, but its player count subsequently dropped rapidly.

After thinking about it, I realized that the biggest advantage of Tencent Games is that it has QQ as its backing!

QQ is a huge traffic portal; all their games can be directly promoted through QQ.

It even led to interactions between friends;

This is something our Conquer Online Technology can't compare to.

"Bingo!"

Lu Chen snapped his fingers, fully agreeing with what Wu Zhixuan had said.

"Therefore, our Fruit Swordsman game will also have a built-in friend system."

"Thanks to our 5.5 players, they've spontaneously recommended it to the people around them!"

Lu Chen wrote "5.5" on the whiteboard and drew two heavy horizontal lines below it.

Upon hearing this plan, Wu Zhixuan was initially delighted, but then frowned and began to ponder. He said:

"But ZhengTu Technology doesn't have QQ?"

Even if we build a friend system into the game,

Do people actually go out of their way to add friends in Fruit Swordsman?

Wu Zhixuan's question was very sharp, directly pointing out Lu Chen's problem.

How many years has QQ been around?

By 2008, QQ's concurrent online users had exceeded 30 million!

It has long been a national-level application.

Tencent can leverage the sheer number of users brought by QQ to dominate the gaming market.

Even if your ZhengTu Technology creates a friend system, there won't be anyone to play it.

Ultimately, if nobody knows your game, no matter how good your friend system is, it's useless.

Thinking of this, Wu Zhixuan couldn't help but shake his head.

"Hey, I haven't finished speaking yet."

We can take advantage of the favorable winds!

Lu Chen was not angry because of Wu Zhixuan's words.

Lu Chen is happy when his employees can think proactively.

"Borrowing the east wind?"

But QQ won't give us the east wind.

And most importantly, foreigners don't use QQ.

Chu Yu gradually caught up with Lu Chen's train of thought.

She understood that Lu Chen wanted to make it like Tencent games directly integrate QQ friends, so that players could see their QQ friends in the game's friend list as soon as they entered the game.

"Who said I was going to take advantage of QQ?"

What social media apps do foreigners use?

I'll take advantage of whoever's opportunity!

Lu Chen's words revealed the key to the Fruit Swordsman's breakthrough!