I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!-Chapter 77 - 48 Mood-Based Interactive Story Games_1

Ke Jin’s eyes jolted in surprise.

“woc?”

This game wasn’t the absolute top tier in the story genre, but it was definitely one of the first-rate masterpieces.

Immersive gameplay experience, film-level visuals! And a profound interrogation of human nature!

The most terrifying aspect was the myriad of branching options, like a sprawling tree with nearly a thousand choices in total.

Every inconspicuous decision could potentially alter the direction of the story!

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

And more crucially,

It almost completely matched Ke Jin’s current needs, nine out of ten times.

What was Blue Star’s market environment like?

Players didn’t fancy story games nor did they have the patience for them.

“Detroit” required at least ten hours or more to thoroughly enjoy the first playthrough.

If you met players with OCD who wanted to play multiple rounds to collect all the endings, or even attempt a full collection,

The time and effort would multiply exponentially.

For other types of games, this might pass since there was inherent thrill and pleasure in the gameplay.

But in story games, with hardly any other thrilling moments, you expect players to sit and watch ten hours of narrative?

Especially Blue Star gamers, who really wouldn’t bother watching!

Logically and emotionally, this was the best choice for Ke Jin.

But after a brief moment of joy, Ke Jin’s brows slightly furrowed.

This game…

He couldn’t manage it.

Given the size of his current company, and the disposable funds he had,

Launching this game in a short time frame was nearly impossible.

Even with a perfect plan, a small team of thirty to forty people would need at least six months.

And with the current reserve fund of ten million, trying to polish a 3A game of high quality, despite its lack of action content, this money was hardly enough to scratch the surface.

After consideration, Ke Jin reluctantly chose to hold off.

After all, with key search terms in hand, the blind box for him was only semi-random.

When he could eventually afford it, he’d take some time to draw it out again.

This time, he reluctantly threw it back into the prize pool.

He chose to reopen the blind box!

[Congratulations, you’ve acquired an A-level abstract story-driven game, “Wind Traveler”!]

As the system alert ended,

Ke Jin’s eyes widened in astonishment.

Good, good, good!

This one was even better!

First, it was small in scale, manageable with his current funds.

Second, its story was even more abstract than “Detroit: Become Human”!

Composed of fragmented, piecemeal narratives tucked into every corner of the world background, as if afraid of being discovered by players.

Then, the method of presenting the story was through even more abstract murals!

Throughout the murals and the entire gameplay process, there was not a single word or voiceover.

It was up to the player to interpret everything.

If the player played mindlessly just to experience the game, they might go through the whole thing absolutely baffled, with no clue what story the game was trying to tell.

Even though Ke Jin knew that this game, in terms of depth and quality, could be considered of Ninth Art caliber,

Blue Star players wouldn’t care about that.

Their requirements for games were simple, either fun to play or satisfying to indulge in.

Stream-of-consciousness narrative games were too early for this era’s Blue Star,

But in Ke Jin’s hands, they were just right!

Ke Jin’s plan was simple.

Launch it first; a two-hour gameplay filled with abstract and existential elements would fail to resonate with players.

After he completed the task,

He would follow up with other high-quality narrative games, gradually elevating the genre, persuading Blue Star players to recognize that story games could be excellent, too.

Finally, he’d highlight “Wind Traveler” with rich and emphatic strokes, so a masterpiece wouldn’t be buried due to environmental circumstances.

After finalizing the plan,

Ke Jin began to contemplate the rechargeable content of this game.

Since the game was essentially not about thrilling monster-slaying upgrades, intricate puzzle-solving, or any sort of management and development genre,

the various rechargeable content options seemed quite odd when applied to it.

First-time recharges to skip the story?

Aside from ruining the reputation of “Top Player” which we’ve slowly built up, imagine if some tycoons think they can just skip the story to get to the combat mode and decide to recharge, trying to skip the story like they would skip ads, only to find out the game is over at the end.

That would mean the players have spent their money, you’ve failed your mission, and the game’s reputation has tanked.

Awkward, to say the least.

Loot boxes to get stronger characters?

But if characters can’t even fight, how would you judge who’s stronger…

An irrational recharge interface and pricing would definitely provoke the righteous iron fist of the Game Supervisory Bureau.

This was also why Ke Jin didn’t dare to arbitrarily set high prices when he first started working on “Origin of Species.”

Like setting one acceleration card at ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand, and go further by making it a billion per card to ensure no players would actually spend.

But with such pricing, chances are it would be reported and taken down by players as soon as it was on shelves, and failing regular tasks would lead the system to declare it a mission failure.

After thinking it through, he couldn’t come up with any passable scheme.

Finally, Ke Jin made a bold decision.

Buyout system!

This time, he planned to abandon the mainstream in-app purchases.

A free-to-start game might truly entice players if they end up liking it halfway and want to spend purely out of enjoyment.

But with a buyout system, players won’t know whether your game is any fun, so they need to at least be interested in the game’s genre before they’ll be willing to pay.

If just mentioning it’s a narrative-based game kills the buying interest, this would naturally filter out a portion of players from the start.

Last but not least, about the buyout system.

Ke Jin had a killer move up his sleeve, something that didn’t exist on any gaming platform in Blue Star.

Allowing refunds!

————

“What???”

“Mr. Ke means that the new game will not only employ a buyout system but also allow players to request a refund at any time?”

“Bloody hell?? Can’t be real!”

“I’ve never heard of any gaming company pulling such a move… Allowing refunds is like asking for the game to tank quickly…”

When the staff heard this news, they were all abuzz, eyes wide as if they couldn’t believe what they’d just heard.

The new game’s planning had been intermittently sorted out by Ke Jin over the week.

When he said it would be a buyout system, although a small part of the staff didn’t understand, they could still accept it.

In today’s world where loot-box in-app purchases prevail, buyout games have a narrow threshold, but it’s not that they don’t have room to survive.

Finding the right game genre that interests players and meticulously crafting the quality of the game wasn’t impossible…

What’s that?

A narrative-based game?

Well…

This…

The thing is, all of us at “Top Player” deeply believe in Mr. Ke’s outstanding and extraordinary abilities! His success with the previous titles serves as the best testimony to his personal skills!

Even if it’s a niche narrative game, with Mr. Ke’s touch and polish, it wasn’t impossible…

What’s that?

Allowing refunds???

“No offense, but I have to say, did Mr. Ke suffer some sort of setback… Was he deceived by an internet romance? Or lost money betting on sports… Why would he come up with such an idea…”

“Buyout with refunds… What level do we have to pull the pay rate to, 30%? 20%? I can’t bear to think about it…”

“I just looked at Mr. Ke’s planning book with the scene modeling and character designs… I’ve got a feeling this game’s going to flop…”

The employees were somewhat dispirited about a game that seemed very unlikely to take off even before production had started.

Gou Chehua showed up just in time, clapping his hands to silence the chatter.

“Enough with the complaints, everyone. If Mr. Ke has arranged it this way, he must have his reasons.”

“Mr. Ke’s previous games have always been considerate of players, which we’ve all witnessed. Especially ‘Skyline,’ where he hid the payment interface behind ads, it shows that compared to short-term profit from milking players, Mr. Ke leans more towards nurturing potential users!”

“This time, the decision to have a buyout system, even allowing refunds, despite being unprecedented in the gaming industry, must have been a tough call Mr. Ke had to make.”

“It proves he wants to let the game’s quality speak for itself, rather than relying on deceptive strategies for player spending!”

“Instead of wallowing in disappointment here, let’s get energized and work hard to make ‘Wind Traveler’ as perfect as it can be in every detail! Let’s do everything we can to captivate every paying player and make them not want to ask for a refund!”

After this pep talk, the gloomy atmosphere in the office lifted somewhat, and the employees pumped up their spirits, responding with renewed enthusiasm.

“Alright!!!”

.

.

.

I didn’t include going to the moon, not because the game isn’t good enough, but because its frequency of appearance is too high lately… it can lead to aesthetic fatigue. I chose a different, equally outstanding game which I am confident I can write well!

If people really want to hear about going to the moon, I’ll consider writing it later.

Keep writing, fervently stockpiling drafts! Preparing for the launch!