Chapter 25: What's Going on with this Data?!

Mǎ Yáng looked worried and distressed.

"Qian'er... Is the game we made really that terrible, with no one interested in it at all..."

"I saw that other new games were downloaded tens of thousands of times on their first day, but our game only had a little over ten downloads on its first day..."

Mǎ Yáng was utterly disheartened.

After the game was released, Mǎ Yáng checked the official gaming platform for Ghost General's data every few minutes, looking at the download numbers and player feedback.

However, an hour went by, three hours went by, five hours went by...

And the data barely changed!

Ghost General only managed to get a small recommendation spot on the platform, and the game's name wasn't very eye-catching, nor were there any attractive promotional images. Who would notice it?

Lonely Desert Road was discovered by Qiao Lǎoshī because he was an UP master specializing in making single-player game commentary videos and regularly searched for new games in the single-player game section.

It could be said that it was an exception to the exception.

Ordinary mobile gamers wouldn't regularly look for new games unless they were particularly popular or had a huge number of pre-registrations.

For a new game like Ghost General, without proper promotion, it would almost certainly be buried during its initial phase.

"It's okay. New games are always like this. We just have to be patient," Pei Qian comforted.

Patient?

Not at all!

On the surface, Pei Qian pretended to be just as anxious as Mǎ Yáng, but deep inside, he was overjoyed.

It was normal for the game to have no downloads since it had no exposure channels. Where would the downloads come from?

Whether it was a few days or a week or a month later, the game would still end up being ignored.

Now, Pei Qian was just waiting for the week to pass quickly. By then, Ghost General would be off its small recommendation spot on the gaming platform, the hype would be completely gone, and the system would settle the accounts, converting the 300,000 system funds into personal assets.

How delightful!

Pei Qian's reassurance didn't have much of an effect, and Mǎ Yáng still looked worried and distressed.

"Ah, let me check the data again. I wonder if there's any change after three hours," Mǎ Yáng said, opening the ESRO official gaming platform and searching for Ghost General.

After finding the game's detail page, Mǎ Yáng was stunned.

He rubbed his eyes, thinking he had seen it wrong.

He had checked several times before, and the download count was only in the teens. This time, however, the number had jumped to over two thousand!

Mǎ Yáng thought he had made a mistake, but after seeing the game's rating and player comments, he confirmed that he hadn't.

Indeed, a group of players had discovered the game!

The first thing Mǎ Yáng saw was the game's rating, which had skyrocketed to an incredible 9.7 out of 10!

Previously, Ghost General's comment section was empty, but now there were already hundreds of comments!

"Why is this game priced at 10 yuan? It's even more expensive than Q Meng Three Kingdoms. What's going on?"

"The person above, you haven't played the game, have you? You think 10 yuan is too expensive? It's actually too cheap and conscientious!"

"I played it seriously and it's a card mobile game full of sincerity! The key is that the game only sells a lifetime card, and all the expenses in the game add up to only 40 yuan!"

"Playing for 40 yuan, everyone is equal, and there are absolutely no recharge or consumption traps. I was amazed. Is this still a card mobile game?"

"The quality of this game is very good. As a loyal player of card mobile games, I finally found a unique one with characteristics!"

"What impressed me most were the characters in this game! I never thought that the Three Kingdoms characters could have such a unique portrayal. These character designs are like flying horses, full of absurdity, but also refreshing!"

"The original artwork is amazing! I'm definitely going to spend money on this game just because of the artwork! What? You can't spend money? Well, then I'll just give it a five-star rating!"

Ma Yang's hands were trembling with excitement. He went through the players' comments page by page, and he didn't find a single negative review!

There were no negative reviews, not just because the game had good artwork and fair pricing, but also because the first batch of players was attracted by the original artwork!

After Chen Qi and the other artists posted the artwork on Weibo, they received a lot of likes and many people found the game by searching its name.

Although many people were disappointed to find that "Ghost General" was a card game rather than a standalone or large-scale online game, they couldn't help but give it a high score after trying it.

Because the game really seemed to be very fair!

The game's quality was good, and whether it was the art assets or the music resources, Pei Qian spared no expense to make a great first impression.

The game's non-pay-to-win nature also won over many casual players.

As a result, when the first batch of players flooded in, "Ghost General" received overwhelmingly positive reviews!

Ma Yang, excited, leaned down from the top bunk and told Pei Qian, "Qian'er! Our game's download count has gone up! There are so many people leaving reviews, all five-star ratings!"

Pei Qian was drinking water and suddenly spat it out, coughing for over a minute.

"What did you just say?" Pei Qian almost thought he had misheard.

Ma Yang excitedly repeated, "The download count has skyrocketed to over two thousand! And everyone's reviews are really good, someone even specifically praised the character designs I made!"

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

A download count increase of a few thousand?

How could that be possible? Where did these players get their information?

And all five-star ratings?

It didn't make sense; the game was merely a generic card game template with no innovative gameplay. How could it deserve five-star ratings?

If it were someone else's game, Pei Qian's first reaction would be that the developer had hired a marketing company to create fake reviews.

But this was Pei Qian's own game.

He knew very well whether he had hired any marketing companies.

All the money had already been spent; where would the funds come from to hire such companies?

Besides, even if he had the money, Pei Qian would never use it to hire marketing companies to inflate the game's ratings. He wanted the game to fade into obscurity as quickly as possible; why would he do something to generate hype?

Did another company's marketing company make a mistake?

But how could any marketing company be so incompetent that they would mess up their fake review campaigns?

Could it be that the same kind of coincidence that happened with the previous game has happened again?!

Pei Qian hurriedly logged into the ESRO resource site and checked the game data.

Ma Yang hadn't lied to him; the game data had indeed skyrocketed!

And the players' reviews were all like those created by marketing companies, praising how incredibly fair "Ghost General" was!

The number of players downloading the game was increasing.

The number of people purchasing the lifetime card in the game was also increasing!

Staring at the two constantly changing numbers, Pei Qian fell into a daze.

What on earth was going on with the world?!

What went wrong?!

Pei Qian's vision went black, and he collapsed onto the bed.