Chapter 13 (1/2)
Once he was decided, Pei Qian entered ESRO’s official resource website and started scouring for mobile card game templates.
Before long, he found one.
This was not the template for Qute Three Kingdoms.
Qute Three Kingdoms was the progenitor of card games and was the hottest mobile title in the market – this was akin to a money tree and there was no way the company would be foolish enough to sell their own game’s template.
However, that did not mean that others would not do it.
There were many other gaming companies who hopped onto the card games bandwagon. While they wrote the codes themselves, the gameplays were borrowed from Qute Three Kingdoms.
However, since those companies failed to earn money from the game itself, they had no choice but to modify their own game slightly and publish it on the resource website to sell as templates, hoping to recoup some losses.
The template that Pei Qian had found originated from a copycat card game that had failed.
“A failed product? I love it!”
This was a good sign for Pei Qian.
He clicked on it to check on the gameplay system.
Ever since the 2008 mobile card game craze, Qute Three Kingdoms has gone through multiple updates increasing the gameplays.
However, this template was clearly extremely ancient and contained only the most basic elements such as levels, autoruns and arenas et cetera.
As for new gameplays, there was nothing!
The entire game just seemed unpresentable.
That was something Pei Qian was pleased about!
This was the card game template of his dreams! Something that had none of the fun features and wouldn’t stand out in terms of gameplay!
He looked at the price – 100,000!
“… Why is it only 100,000?”
Now, he wasn’t too pleased with the price – this was too cheap!
If you set it as 150,000, I’d buy it all the same!
However, on second thought, the driving simulator template only cost 20,000. Even though card game templates were more complex and contained a more complete playstyle system, it wasn’t cheap at 100,000 either.
Pei Qian could tell from the download volumes that this was much less than the driving simulator template he had bought previously.
That was a clear indicator that this was overly priced and wasn’t practical either.
Pei Qian hesitated no more – purchase!
This was the type of overpriced product that he loved, something that could help him burn money without getting warned by the system.
After purchasing the template, he now had the gameplay basics and the next step was to add on the art resources.
That included the User Interface (UI), batting effects and card animations et cetera.
Other than these, he had to purchase music and sound effects and rent cloud service equipment – all of that would cost quite a bit of money.
Though, most of it was still for the art resources.
Pei Qian thought about it. He would keep about 30,000 for the music and sound effects, 10,000 for other expenses while the rest of the 160,000 or so would be spent on art resources.
160,000 – that was no large nor small figure.
However, Pei Qian hadn’t thought about how he wanted his art resources to be.
Card games were the most suitable for changing of designs.
Or rather, for card games, design was the most important.
And it’s exactly because design was so important that Pei Qian had to screw it up!
But of course, it won’t do for him to intentionally make it look ugly.
That was because the system had set that he must not intentionally purchase inferior products or services.
If he had only obtained art resources worth around 60,000 after spending the 160,000, the system would not let him pass.
He had to buy services that were generally acceptable. While there was some allowance to standards, it mustn’t be too extreme.
This was a time for Pei Qian to start racking his brains.
How should he purchase good quality art resources that gamers were guaranteed to dislike?
Simple! He’ll just have the artists make use of intricate designs in a style that’s unacceptable for gamers, wouldn’t that do?
The key was in producing the requirements for the art.