Song Yueying's temples throbbed as she watched the constant @ mentions and various mocking emojis flooding the 【Starry Cricket Group】 chat.
What did they mean by “it’s my turn to step up”?!
Chu Chen and I don't have any relationship!
These people truly enjoy watching drama unfold.
It was just that Chu Chen casually called me “Yueying” during the last meeting; was that really enough for them to remember it until now? They joke about it every day, acting like a bunch of elementary school students.
However…
Song Yueying secretly glanced up, peeking at the motionless back figure in the direction of the “podium.”
Indeed, today’s atmosphere was too strange.
That guy had been in that posture for almost two hours.
Normally, by this time, he would have already walked around and given everyone some “spiritual food.”
But today, he was like he had entered a meditative state. The game had launched; was it a success or a failure? At least give us a clear answer! Keeping us in suspense like this, whose heart could take it?
Even her own drawing pen was getting sweaty in her hand, and the lines on her sketch were trembling.
Oh well, oh well. What could she do? She was the art director, and besides, she really couldn't hold it in anymore.
Song Yueying put down her digital pen, replied with a “shut up” emoji in the group chat, and then stood up amidst a flood of “Sister Ying is mighty” and “waiting for your good news” messages.
She tried to keep her footsteps as normal as possible, walking unhurriedly towards Chu Chen’s workstation.
“Cough…”
Song Yueying walked up to Chu Chen, first pretending to casually glance at his screen, then her voice caught in her throat.
Because she finally saw Chu Chen’s computer screen.
And she also saw the data on the screen, which was the backend data for Final Battlefront.
Player registrations: 170,000, increasing at 170 people/minute, hourly increase of 40%.
Concurrent online users: 110,000, increasing at 100 people/minute, hourly increase of 30%.
Current in-game top-up amount: 75,000. The constantly jumping numbers on the screen were glaringly red, and the rising curve next to the numbers was so steep it looked like it would pierce the ceiling.
“I!!”
“This!! This data is too exaggerated, isn’t it?! And you’re still keeping quiet about these numbers! Are you trying to die?!!”
Rarely, Song Yueying also couldn't hold back and blurted out a curse.
Her shout was like dropping a piece of ice into a calm pot of oil.
“Whoosh!”
Everyone in the office, whether they were truly typing or just pretending, instantly looked up, their gazes uniformly shooting towards the source of the sound.
“Ah? This… it’s just okay, I guess…”
Chu Chen’s eyes remained fixed on the numbers.
He was actually lying.
Although Chu Chen rarely lied, this time he was indeed lying.
He had been silent earlier.
Purely because he himself was startled by these numbers.
Having lived two lives, he had dreamt of this scene countless times, but when it truly arrived, he still felt a little dazed.
Due to funding reasons.
Before Final Battlefront launched, he had only hired some Bilibili UP hosts and a small YouTube blogger to record a sponsored video. Then Chu Chen used this sponsored video to create some posts on major mobile game forums.
For example, “Exploding in popularity abroad, unknown domestically? Mysterious new game quietly launches today.”
The goal was to create the illusion that foreign things are better, a sense of “flowers blooming inside the wall but fragrant outside.”
Aside from this promotional channel, the only others were some UP hosts on Bilibili. They also posted some videos, and because Final Battlefront’s gameplay was quite interesting, most UP hosts praised it highly, and the effect was quite good.
However, overall, the promotional channels for Final Battlefront were still very limited.
Chu Chen knew very well that this approach would have a very limited effect, only serving to attract the first batch of seed players to the game, and nothing more.
The fact that only 20,000 people registered in the first hour after the game launched also confirmed his thoughts.
Therefore.
Whether the game would ultimately become popular depended on whether these seeds could blossom, which meant whether the game’s gameplay could attract people.
Facing this question.
Chu Chen actually didn’t have much confidence in his heart.
Although the auto-chess genre was once very popular in his previous life, and although he had made simplifications based on the auto-chess from his previous life, and although he had also added a Roguelike PVE mode...
He still felt uncertain.
But in the end, these numbers still rose.
And they rose faster and faster.
A slight scroll of the mouse revealed that among these 170,000… no, it should be 180,000 registered accounts now, a full 110,000 people entered the game through shared links.
Without promotional resources, Chu Chen could only rely on giving out benefits to encourage player virality.
The reason he set the reward threshold for recruiting one new person and gave out 30 free draws in the early stages was to ensure that after players used their 30 draws, they would be just 20 summon scrolls short of a guaranteed five-star character.
Combined with an event that gave 20 scrolls for recruiting one new person.
This formed an early-stage recruitment combo.
To be honest, recruiting 1 person is not difficult for most players, but recruiting one person allows them to obtain items worth about 60 yuan.
Recruiting 9 people allows them to get 300 yuan in benefits.
This is unprecedented in today’s mobile game and even PC game markets.
Under normal circumstances.
No game operator would do this.
Especially for Final Battlefront, summon scrolls are basically the only monetization point in the entire game, aside from skins.
100 summon scrolls for one pull.
Most ordinary players wouldn't spend money for a month, or even longer.
However, Chu Chen was forced into this situation.
Obtaining the license, renting the Japanese Server, plus several months of salaries, Chu Chen simply couldn't afford to do promotions. If he wanted the game to be popular, he had to take an unconventional approach.
Of course, for this unconventional approach to work, there was a major prerequisite: the game quality had to be excellent. The higher the game quality, the more players would value the gift packs.
And the stronger the motivation for recruitment.
From the current perspective, there is no doubt that players are very positive about the game’s quality.
The recruitment effect was excellent.
So good that Chu Chen found it somewhat unbelievable…
“What happened! What happened?”
“Why is Sister Ying shouting?”
Several programmers and planners who were nearby had already gathered around, craning their necks to look at Chu Chen’s screen.
“Holy cow!”
Xiong Da, Xiong Lihui, a burly man like a bear and one of the “Three Bears” of Chu Chen’s game studio’s programming team, was the first to see the numbers, and then he let out a strange cry.
“Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands… 120,000 concurrent users?! 70,000 in revenue?! How long has the game been launched?!”
Another planner rubbed his eyes hard, almost pressing his face against the screen.
“This growth rate… Damn it! Can the Japanese Server handle it?!”
“Old Wang! Old Zhang! Japanese Server! Keep an eye on it immediately!”