34 This Game is Addictive!

At the same time, in the Dami Corporation headquarters far away in Shanghai City.

Xu Qianshi, the CEO of Dami Entertainment, was sitting at the conference table and spinning the ballpoint pen while intently staring at the document in his hand.

Seated in front of him was a middle-aged man in a sharp-looking suit and neatly-combed hair. He appeared calm and collected on the surface. However, it was not difficult to see that he was nervous from his habit of constantly rubbing his thumb.

It was no wonder that he was nervous.

The video game industry's competition had gone from a state of uncontrolled growth to gradually transition into a state of many vying for supremacy.

Especially in the past two years, increasingly more major players in the electronics industry and Internet giants had begun to turn their attention to get a slice of the cake. They had been using their own resources and massive subsidies to seize and conquer this blue ocean market.

Although the E-fun platform was the largest game platform in China, it was just a game platform, after all.

In the past two years, in particular, some small platforms had been incorporated into the regular army. Hence, even if the E-fun platform was still at the top in the industry, its position was in peril.

Faced with fierce competition, its best choice at the moment was undoubtedly to find a backer.

As one of the giants in the domestic electronics industry, the Dami Corporation was without a doubt a reliable sponsor.

Most of all, the Dami Corporation had revealed great ambition in entering the field of video games of late. With a massive reserve of game IPs, the E-fun Corporation was similarly an excellent investment target for them.

Therefore, a corporate marriage was kicked off.

If they could bring in the strategic investment from Dami Corporation and become their subsidiary, the E-fun platform's dream of dominating all the platforms, for many years, would definitely be realized.

It was precisely because of this that Chen Jianwen, the chairman of E-fun Corporation, was on tenterhooks.

There was pin-drop silence in the conference room.

Just then, the door suddenly opened.

A secretary briskly strode into the conference room and leaned over to whisper a few words in Xu Qianshi's ear.

Looking at the whispering duo, Chen Jianwen's heart was in his mouth, fearing that this acquisition case, which had been going to and fro for a month, would be stuck at this critical juncture.

Fortunately, the turn of events he was worried about did not happen.

After listening to his secretary, Xu Qianshi simply nodded and made a hand gesture, signaling for him to wait at the side for now. Then, he turned around and continued to look at Chen Jianwen, who was sitting across from him at the conference table.

"Mr. Xu, if you still have something on, we can have the discussion tomorrow morning instead," Chen Jianwen feigned composure and said with a warm smile on his face.

Xu Qianshi smiled lightly.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. We don't need to discuss anything tomorrow. There's nothing wrong with the price, and the specific cooperation details have been more or less solidified in the past half a month. Personally, I don't like to waste time on minor details."

After saying that, he picked up the pen and signed his name on the contract.

Seeing him finally sign his name, Chen Jianwen felt a huge rock being lifted off his shoulders. He quickly stood up in joy. "President Xu is decisive! Hope that our cooperation will be pleasant!"

Xu Qianshi passed the contract to Chen Jianwen's secretary and also stood up. He smiled and stretched out his right hand. "Happy to work with you!"

Just like that, a merger and acquisition worth more than one billion came to an end.

As the subsidiaries of the Dami Corporation invested in E-fun, the E-fun platform also officially merged into the Dami camp.

After the collaboration matter was settled, the delighted Chen Jianwen suggested having a meal together. However, Xu Qianshi tactfully rejected him with the excuse "I still have another meeting in a bit".

Back in his office, Xu Qianshi picked up the investigation report, which his secretary had brought here prior to the meeting, from the corner of the table and perused it line by line.

The mobile game named "Pineapple Speed Drifter" was written at the beginning of the investigation report.

Although the name sounded a little strange, this "Pineapple Speed Drifter" had attained good ratings across the entire platform as soon as it entered the market. Its unorthodox hipster cartoon-style graphics and simple and easily comprehensible gameplay had captured the users.

As of the completion of this investigation report, the global download volume of "Pineapple Speed Drifter" had exceeded 100 million. Furthermore, the number of people online at the same time was advancing towards the million-mark.

This was definitely not good news for both Dami Mobile and Dami Corporation's subsidiary, Dami Corporation Entertainment.

To be honest, Xu Qianshi was quite puzzled when the CEO brought this up at the top management meeting.

In the pop culture of today's game industry, the market favored large-scale productions with high-quality graphics, whether it was a mobile game or an online game. Moreover, with the hardware produced by Country Xia's advanced electronics industry, it could easily support game designers in realizing their wild imaginations.

Yet, in the end, it was actually a cartoon-style game with neither graphics nor a storyline that became popular?

Xu Qianshi couldn't help but wonder if there was a problem with the players' tastes.

"Is it that fun?"

Putting down the research report, Xu Qianshi opened the laptop and searched for some of its videos on the Internet.

The intuition of a game designer told him that the quality of this game could only be regarded as prim and proper. Hence, the reason for its popularity lay in marketing.

The leaderboard scores and the comparison on Moments, yielding to the social aspect…

Impassively reading the game commentary on the screen, a solemn expression gradually crept onto Xu Qianshi's face.

Although whether a game was fun or not would not directly affect the sales of a mobile phone, it was a fact that fun and popular games were a plus point for users.

Pineapple phones didn't even need to engage in any despicable tactics like platform-exclusivity. They could just provide Pineapple phone users with limited skins or virtual products, such as exclusive treasure chests. It would add points for their phones in consumers' hearts just like that.

"…Our fellow merchant is something."

Stroking his chin, Xu Qianshi's thoughts raced through his mind.

A long time ago, the overseas-registered Pineapple Corporation had actively started delving into the sphere of mobile games. They were trying to do something unconventional to seize the opportunity of a tight corner and overtake them.

In the beginning, Country Xia's mobile phone manufacturers weren't too bothered. However, in the past two years, the overseas market share of low- and medium-end models of Pineapple phones had gradually expanded. They even began to eat into the domestic market, eventually causing Dami Corporation and the other Country Xia's local giants to be on the alert.

The strategic investment in the E-fun platform this time was a decision made by the group's top management.

The Dami Corporation executives hoped to use the abundant IP resources of the E-fun platform to counter the Pineapple Corporation's advantage in the game industry over the past two years.

At the same time, Dami Entertainment also made a pledge to the head office to create at least one extremely popular game, with over 100 million downloads, within one year!

For this reason, the game production teams acquired by Dami Entertainment were all working overtime. However, half a year had already passed, but there still wasn't much progress. On the contrary, the PC market had gone down by several percentages.

Leaning back in his office chair, a troubled expression appeared on Xu Qianshi's face.

"If we want to compete with the Pineapple Group in this market, we must create our own best-seller.

"The size of this game must be small enough so that it can enter the low-end and mid-range models in the overseas markets. The gameplay shouldn't be too complicated either. It would be best to just have a few simple controls yet make people unable to stop or even get addicted.

"Last but not least, it must use the comparison mentality of users to yield to the social circle…"

Simply put, it had to be small but beautiful.

However, how could it be that simple?

After more than ten years of development, gameplays had pretty much been developed to their limit. Even if they imitated the cartoon-version racing game, it was impossible to surpass "Pineapple Speed Drifter", which had already occupied the high ground.

Thinking about the game production teams acquired by Dami Entertainment last year, Xu Qianshi shook his head.

When asking for money, each person is more proactive than the other, but when it's time to produce results, there isn't a single game up to the mark.

How about…

Making a mobile version of "The Oracle"?

However, this idea only flashed in Xu Qianshi's mind for a second before he rejected it.

The Oracle was operated by the domestic instant-messaging giant, Sea Lion Group, whose influence in Country Xia was not lower than the Dami Corporation. How could he possibly have a chance to adapt such a high-quality IP…

In comparison, it was more reliable to browse through the newly-purchased E-fun platform.

With this in mind, Xu Qianshi opened the E-fun platform store and scrolled down the sales chart of the entire site in an attempt to find an IP that was suitable for adaptation into a mobile game.

However, he was disappointed, as none of them met his expectations.

Two pages later, though, his gaze suddenly stopped on a strange game.

The reason he found it strange was that in the entire page filled with colorful screenshots, this game only had a few monotonous numbers on the cover. It was totally unconventional.

Or, in other words, weird!

When he looked at the price of the game, Xu Qianshi's interest grew even stronger.

"It's actually only sold for a dollar… Can it get the cost back?"

Other games were selling for 100 yuan, and even the cheaper ones were also 20 or 30 yuan. If you sold it for merely one yuan, selling 10,000 copies would only be equivalent to the sales of dozens or even 100 copies of other games.

Serves you right to not be on the sales volume chart.

Rather, the fact that the platform didn't block you from the charts and recommendation list is them doing charity!

Curious, he clicked on the game to download it.

In less than a second, the game was downloaded on his laptop.

When he opened the game, the extremely minimalist graphics appeared in front of him, together with a short explanatory text.

[You just need to press up, down, left, and right to add the adjacent numbers together.]

"The gameplay sure is simple enough."

Xu Qianshi smiled and shook his head. Thinking that he would get off work soon anyway, he decided to try the game.

At the start, it was indeed quite simple. However, as the numbers got bigger and bigger, he gradually realized that he had underestimated it.

"…You have to move the big numbers to the side as much as possible."

Staring at the screen, Xu Qianshi stroked his chin and mumbled to himself, "I was careless… one more time!"

Time passed minute by minute. The repeated failures did not discourage him. Instead, they aroused his desire to win.

Even he himself didn't notice that he had gotten deep into this little game.

The sky outside the window turned from faint yellow in the evening to pitch-black. He played the game all the way until the hour hand of the wall clock touched the edge of eight; finally, the game-clearance notification popped up in front of Xu Qianshi.

Seeing his hard-earned victory, Xu Qianshi's mouth finally stretched out into a smile.

However, before he had even rejoiced for two seconds, the leaderboard and the option of [Do you wish to continue?] that followed immediately after caused the expression on his face to freeze.

What the f*ck?

2048 is just the beginning?

I thought it ended already…

Staring blankly at the leaderboard where experts were competing with more than 60,000 points, Xu Qianshi subconsciously gulped and muttered, "This game is addictive!"

No hesitation at all!

He extended his right hand, which was trembling with excitement, and picked up the phone on the desk. Then, he dialed his secretary's number.

"I have a task for you.

"I've got a game here, and the link has already been sent to your work email.

"Three days! I want to see the research report about it on my desk!"