The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Chapter 151 Advantages of the Monthly Card System

Jiang Chen was quite helpless about this.

Since he started operating this so-called game as a game administrator, Jiang Chen felt that things were very troublesome.

The gist of it is that my head is throbbing.

There are just too many things to think about every day; today I think about this, tomorrow I think about that.

There's hardly any free time each day, but even with such caution, problems can still easily arise.

"Forget it, there's no point in thinking about it now. Let's just take it one step at a time."

"However, I reckon that given the current situation, we need to come up with a perfect solution."

In fact, Jiang Chen thought of the most reliable method, which was to enable the game's recharge function.

However, if you enable the recharge function, what you sell is the most important thing.

Of course, Jiang Chen didn't enable the recharge function for money; ultimately, it was to collect gold coins and create a recycling system similar to game currency within the game.

This is the most crucial point.

This way, we can ensure that the game currency doesn't collapse. As long as the game currency doesn't collapse, there won't be so many problems later on.

Jiang Chen's biggest concern was the collapse of the game currency, but if the official government were to back it up, there would be many benefits.

The first benefit Jiang Chen could think of was that normal gamers could earn money from it. When necessary, the in-game earnings could supplement their lives, which was a crucial point.

Don't underestimate this seemingly small thing as a living allowance; it can affect the game's retention rate.

You see, if a player gets tired of playing a game after a long time, but suddenly discovers that he can support himself by playing the game at his current stage, then even if he doesn't want to play, he will force himself to continue, because at least compared to working a hard job, working in the game is obviously much easier. As long as the price of game currency doesn't collapse, turning a hobby into a profession is actually a good thing for Jiang Chen.

To give a simple example, if you play for fun, you can play whenever you want and stop whenever you don't want to. But if it's a profession, you have to do a lot of things every day because you know very well that if you don't do these things, you won't have a livelihood.

Therefore, in order to have a better life in the future and to be able to eat and drink well, you have to do it. As a result, the online time of this type of player will increase, and it will be of great help to the resources and other aspects of the game.

Whether they're in manufacturing, gathering, or combat, their online time is crucial to their safety. If there are enough of these players, it will attract a segment of wealthy players.

What do wealthy gamers talk about when they play games? They talk about how money can get things done, but in my current game, I'm far from reaching that level.

If there are such players, and there are a lot of them, then this problem is easy to solve. Rich players can spend money to buy various materials and even in-game currency from them to improve themselves.

This way, the wealthy players have a great time, and the professional players also make money, making it a win-win situation. And most importantly, these wealthy players also do one thing: give out freebies.

For example, provide various benefits to guild members. After all, if you're a wealthy player and want people to listen to you and follow you on all sorts of adventures, then you absolutely cannot skimp on the benefits you should provide.

These benefits, in turn, became a driving force for ordinary players, making the entire team more cohesive.

As for ordinary players, they don't worry about certain resources, equipment, or other things.

In a game, if the studio players are in a healthy state, then everything is fine, but the worst thing for this type of game is the proliferation of studios.

There's nothing wrong with studio players, but if it's just a studio, then it won't work, because studio players always have a "playing" element to them, and in certain special circumstances, they will definitely get involved in combat.

Because they are well aware that if problems arise, it will affect their income.

But studios are different; these people are purely driven by money.

They don't care about the big picture; they only care about how much income they make today and that they can't afford any losses. So, considering that they can't afford any losses, they have to think of ways to get themselves out of trouble safely.

Let alone participating in combat, Jiang Chen would be grateful if anyone excessively hoarded resources during non-combat periods. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to allow these kinds of studios to enter on a large scale, because it would have a significant impact on the game.

Players running studios might not be interested for a while, but are forced to play due to financial pressures. However, their interest might return, and they'll likely continue playing. Jiang Chen had experienced something similar before his transmigration, so he was confident it would happen to other players as well. In other words, these studio-run players have a chance of transitioning into regular players, but for studios themselves, there's absolutely no possibility.

Fortunately, with Jiang Chen's current screening system, studios are basically unable to get in.

Therefore, Jiang Chen doesn't need to worry too much. Now he just needs to continue developing at the current pace. If he can solve the economic problems, then everything will be fine.

"So the biggest problem now is that I have no problem accepting in-game currency, but the problem is, what's the reason for spending money on in-game purchases?"

"There's practically nothing in the mall that they can sell."

It's basically unrealistic to expect Jiang Chen to get some special items to sell as in-game items.

Thinking about this, Jiang Chen couldn't help but feel conflicted.

"So the situation is a bit difficult to collapse now."

However, after struggling with the decision for a while, Jiang Chen suddenly came up with a foolproof method.

"Selling props is indeed not feasible, which is quite normal."

"But who says you have to sell in-game items to get players to spend money? Let me try a different approach: what if I sold monthly subscriptions?"

Your game doesn't have a defined monetization system yet. Item-based monetization is basically unrealistic given the current situation, but monthly subscriptions are a different story.

First, there are fixed taxes and fees each month, plus the monthly card income, which means there are two sources of income.

And most importantly, the price of this monthly card is definitely not going to be too high, but setting it too low is also unrealistic. Given the quality of the game itself, it seems reasonable to set it at 100.

After all, the exchange rate of game currency is quite obvious now. If we calculate it at 1:2, it is equivalent to 50 gold coins. Under normal non-combat conditions, it would take about 5 to 10 days of grinding to accumulate enough.

The remaining 20 days are pure profit, right? And the most important thing is that the daily income from developing new land this time is more than 10 gold coins. The players who participated may earn at least 70, 80 or even 100 gold coins per day.

You can earn a monthly card in a day, and the monthly card is like a price reference in this game.

With this perspective, they have a clearer understanding of their income, which gives them more room to maneuver. Firstly, the introduction of monthly cards will make game currency more valuable.

Furthermore, there's no need for me to insist on collecting the game currency. In critical situations, I can consider directly exchanging monthly cards for game currency to stabilize its price.

For example, you can set a minimum threshold, such as 150 or 200 gold coins to exchange for a monthly card.

In this way, even if the game currency crashes, it won't fall below this number. As long as you can exchange your game currency for a monthly card, you don't need to worry about this problem at all.

"And most importantly, if I exchange game currency for a monthly card, I can collect another round of tax, which seems to be very feasible."

As he spoke, Jiang Chen began to consider other details.

The more Jiang Chen thought about it, the more reliable this approach seemed.

"If that's the case, then I feel like I can still handle this situation well."

"In this way, firstly, the exchange rate of game currency is stabilized, and secondly, it gives me an extra source of income. No matter how you look at it, it's a good deal."

After careful consideration, Jiang Chen immediately came up with a good idea.

"In that case, I'll do it this way this time. After a while, I'll release a version update and upgrade to a brand new version. After that, things will be much simpler."

"We'll launch a monthly pass as a result."

"If we create a game with no item-based monetization and only a monthly subscription model, that alone will be enough."

.

As for whether the introduction of the monthly card system would cause dissatisfaction among other players, Jiang Chen said he was not worried about it at all.

The first thing is the quality of your own game.

This alone determines the value of this game. Of course, this is not the main point. The main point is that other games are similar to pay-to-play games, where there is no limit to the amount of items that can be collected.

Spending 648 yuan a month is a piece of cake; it's normal to spend several thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan a month.

They didn't think this kind of game was a rip-off, so how can a game like this, which is already decided and doesn't charge for items but only for time, be called a rip-off? And what's the most crucial point? It's that many games on the market not only charge for time but also charge for both items and time.

The reason these games dare to do this is simply because they claim their games are of high quality. But when it comes to game quality, Jiang Chen isn't afraid at all. His game is so conscientious, yet it only charges by time – isn't that something to celebrate?

After making the decision, Jiang Chen wasn't as panicked as before. After all, he now had a way to temporarily solve the problem. Moreover, Jiang Chen had roughly estimated that with 500 players, based on his pricing model, he could earn 5 yuan a month from monthly card revenue.

Of course, as for whether it's a bit unreasonable to start charging at this point, Jiang Chen said not at all, because at this time he was promoting it as an open beta without data wipe, so what's wrong with charging at this time? There's absolutely no problem.

"From now on, the economic system is unlikely to experience any major problems in the next few months, especially after I introduced the monthly card system. This system alone will be able to stabilize the in-game currency ratio for a period of time."

"During this period, I may have sold 2 to 3 monthly cards. Of course, this refers to 2 to 3 monthly cards per player. In that case, my account should have earned at least tens of thousands of yuan."

"Then new players will come in again. Judging from my current improvement rate of the 4th Calamity, if nothing unexpected happens, the number of players coming in next time should be around 1200, which should be 700 more than now."

"This means we can earn about 7 RMB more per month for new players, since they will definitely need to buy a monthly card when they come in."

"At this point, my total income should be around 200,000 yuan. Then, if I play for a few more months, I will have at least 400,000 to 500,000 yuan in income."

"With so much money, even if an economic collapse occurs along the way, this amount of money will be enough to deal with any emergencies."

"If you think about it that way, then it seems there's no need to worry too much about this economic system."

After some thought, Jiang Chen made a decision immediately.

"Looks like it's time to organize the copy for the next update."

"Sigh, my idea is to upgrade first and then update, which would be the best of both worlds. But the problem is that if I can't get the most crucial materials right now, it will be very difficult for me to upgrade."

But upon closer reflection, Jiang Chen came up with another plan that wasn't really a plan.

"Now we have our own spies among the Dark Elves. After all, those old foxes will definitely help us to some extent, at least to a certain degree. If I ask them to help me get a few players out of the dungeon and send them over to the Succubus territory to steal things or something, is that possible?"

"The question is whether they can pull it off. Getting it out of there shouldn't be too much pressure, and as long as the quantity isn't too large, the problem should be solved. My idea is to send 20 players out and let them try to see if they can steal it back."

"If I can steal it back, then I won't have to worry about my evolution at all. I can evolve to the next stage immediately. With the new charging mechanism and more players joining, I'll be able to handle the situation much more easily."

Thinking about this, Jiang Chen also began to plan how to ensure that nothing went wrong.

After all, even with help, it would be extremely difficult to get it out. Such a good opportunity shouldn't be wasted so easily, so we must ensure a high success rate.

>

Fortune