Chapter 161 (1/2)

Translator: _Min_ Editor: Lis_

“This is our backend data.” Xia s.h.i.+yu leaned down to press a few b.u.t.tons on the laptop, then she turned the screen towards Jiang Chen with a rare prideful look displayed on her face.

It was the server management system designed by Yao Yao from which server activities were monitored.

25.27 million registered users.

The number wasn’t overly high, considering Future 1.0 was a one-person-one-account registration system. Therefore, <New Era> was linked to Little White, which didn’t allow fake accounts.

This made it so that the number reflected the number of people actually playing the game, unless they had multiple phones.

The reason behind eliminating smurfs was simple—to avoid having people open multiple accounts with the intent to disturb the economy within the game and use up server resources. <New Era> operated on one server in the entire country and used cloud computing to transfer calculation data from the client to the server. Even with Yao Yao’s magically modified server, there was an inordinate amount of stress placed on it.

“The peak concurrent users have hit 15.03 million and the average concurrent user number is 8.14 million. It’s nothing short of a miracle.” Xia s.h.i.+yu couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“What about the profit?” Jiang Chen immediately asked.

He was concerned about their new revenue model. Would such an innovation fit the market? He knew the game was online for just two days which was too early to tell, but he still couldn’t help but ask.

Xia s.h.i.+yu smiled and clicked the screen.

“This is the current total auction amount, already exceeding 14 million. With a five percent commission fee, revenue has reached 700 thousand within the first twenty-four hours of operation.”

“So much?” Jiang Chen was shocked.

He wasn’t surprised by the revenue within the last twenty-four hours but rather by the auction amount of 14 million. It reflected the people’s interest in game-spending.

“And it’ll only increase.” Xia s.h.i.+yu’s voice was emotional, her voice trembling. “The player’s current method of obtaining gold in the game is still slow, making a huge gap in demand. The current ratio of gold to RMB has even risen to a high price of 1 to 5.6.”

Jiang Chen’s initial reaction to Xia s.h.i.+yu’s words was to pause. He didn’t allow joy to overwhelm his thoughts; rather, he became more cautious.

“Do you think someone is manipulating the auction house price? Just like with stocks—prop it up high, get players to acc.u.mulate gold, and then ma.s.sively over-flood the market?”

Hearing Jiang Chen raise his concern, Xia s.h.i.+yu’s eyebrows also tensed.

“I’ve already considered this possibility, but for now, the operations department has yet to come up with a workable plan. Some suggested that we follow the rules from the Han stock market and establish a circuit breaker in gold exchange prices to prevent market manipulation. Some proposed establis.h.i.+ng a bank organization within the game internally so that once the gold rises above a tolerable range, they would sell or purchase back the gold. But both of these solutions have their own pros and cons and are still under debate.”

Hearing this, Jiang Chen almost burst out laughing.

“Are you planning on changing the epic magical genre into a financial one?”

Xia s.h.i.+yu seemed lost.

“Ahem, just joking around. Let’s get to the main point. We can look at the broader economic balance in the game. Since the auction house is similar to securities, how could a bunch of game operators come up with a solution? We can follow what Valve did with DOTA 2—hire someone studying finance to monitor the auction house.”

Hearing his suggestion, Xia s.h.i.+yu’s eyes lit up. The problem that hounded her was solved with a simple sentence, making her consider him a few more times.

“Why are you looking at me?” Feeling slightly shy from her gaze, Jiang Chen scratched his nose.

“I just realized that you’re actually quite smart.” She smiled, and it was like a beautiful flower blossoming on her gorgeous face.

Dazzled by this brief glimpse, Jiang Chen jokingly replied, “I also just realized that you’re quite beautiful when you smile.”

Xia s.h.i.+yu blushed and coughed before hastily changing the topic.

“Mhmm…. On the other hand, based on the current skins available in the store, there has only been 150 thousand in revenue, but this number is expected to steadily increase. Also, after the one-time warehouse expansion, just on the first day of operation alone, it managed to rake in an impressive 4.21 million. However, this number is expected to drop as the number of new users decreases. These are the operational results from the past two days.”

As she spoke, Xia s.h.i.+yu opened another window to show to Jiang Chen.

The revenue from the first two days was 10.41 million. Seeing this number, Jiang Chen couldn’t help but gasp. From this result, <New Era> easily destroyed the majority of mobile games that made that much in a month. If they maintained this upward trend in profit and user base, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say <New Era> would break a monthly revenue of 200 million.

Subtracting costs and tax expenses, this revenue combined with Future 1.0’s made Future Technology a mega-corporation with a 50 million monthly profit.

Jiang Chen was so ecstatic when he heard the news that he immediately declared a bonus of ten thousand to everyone in the operating team.

“With a boss like you who gives out bonuses so frequently, the project team can just depend on those bonuses.” Xia s.h.i.+yu smiled at Jiang Chen’s ecstatic expression.

Jiang Chen laughed. “Then the employees would want me to check up on them every day.”

Just as Xia s.h.i.+yu was about to mock him by saying, “Then why don’t you come by every day,” the laptop on the table flashed a red alert symbol.

Jiang Chen was confused, but Xia s.h.i.+yu sighed as if it wasn’t a big deal.

“This already the twelfth time today. They were heavily grouped around the morning hours, but then here we go again.

“Network being infiltrated?” Jiang Chen frowned.

“That’s right. It was more frequent yesterday.” Xia s.h.i.+yu continued, “In the beginning, our programmers were highly focused on dealing with the attacks, but when we found that they couldn’t even break past the server firewall, we began to ignore it. Speaking of which, how can we get rid of this alert? It always forcefully increases the volume and stays in the middle of the screen.”

[It would be funny if they managed to infiltrate the firewall], Jiang Chen muttered in his mind.

“Ahem, I’ll get the overseas team to make some adjustments.” He only had to have Yao Yao tweak it, very simple.

As Jiang Chen and Xia s.h.i.+yu ignored the hacking alert on the laptop, in an apartment 100 kilometers away was a man in a black tracksuit. He resembled a zombie with his deep eye sockets as he typed furiously on the keyboard.

The veins on his arms were abnormally prominent, and his bloodshot eyes seemed as though they would pop out at any time. A pallid face showed from beneath his hoodie and with his small figure, he looked underage from all perspectives. The typing speed he demonstrated, however, would embarra.s.s any professional writer.