Chapter 286 - Create a Combined Event with the Game (1/2)

Ma Yiqun quickly scanned the comments below Repent and be Saved’s official novel. He found that many of them had visited the website after playing Repent and be Saved. Of course, Ma Yiqun knew that the game had been released. After all, he had written the game’s plot together with the other editors. He had contributed to the game as well.

However, what Ma Yiqun did not know was that so many readers would be interested in the official novel!

Plot planning was Ma Yiqun’s forte; that was why he knew the state of the local game industry very well. Plot planning was akin to ‘changing the skin’ of the game. At the moment, the local game industry viewed games’ plots as one of the least important parts of the game.

This was especially true for mobile games and web-based games. Many project teams did not even have plot planners. Instead, they tended to make their administrative planners responsible for writing the plot if they were good in language.

Most project teams would not even spend huge sums of money hiring plot planners for client-side games, which required slightly richer plots. The most they would do was hire a fresh graduate, who majored in literature, and pay him or her minimum wages to produce a plot.

All in all, most local game merchants did not care about their games’ plots. Most gamers were also not concerned about them.

Practically speaking, did game merchants avoid focusing on plots because gamers did not pay that much attention to it, or did gamers stop paying that much attention to plots because game merchants didn’t focus on it?

This was a chicken-and-egg problem that would never be resolved.

Pei Qian could only say that games’ plots were currently being neglected by local game merchants.

The local situation aside, very few players of foreign AAA games with the best plots would purposely look for the games’ original novels to read, too. Ma Yiqun thought that Repent and be Saved’s official novel was quite well-written, but it probably was not so good as to achieve such outstanding results.

Thus, Ma Yiqun had not expected such a development. He was completely shocked. He quickly tried to investigate what caused this to happen.

Teacher Qiao’s fans had a prominent presence in the comments section. This was how Ma Yiqun traced his way to Teacher Qiao’s video.

Once he finished watching it, a realization dawned on him. So this was what happened! It was not just the plot!

Foreign AAA games’ plots were very good, but their official novels mostly overlapped with the games themselves.

In fact, the original novels’ plots were sometimes incomplete; the games would expand a great deal on the plot in their original novels.

In terms of content-if novels scored seven marks, their corresponding games would score ten marks.

On top of all these, games were naturally more interactive, graphic, and artistic. Compared to novels—which communicated using words alone-games could express much more. That explained the huge gap between novels and games.

Most gamers would not even think about reading the original novels of games because the former would not be as elaborate as the latter.

Yet, the situation was different for Repent and be Saved!

A lot of the game’s plot was hidden. If the original novel scored ten marks, the game would only score about five.

What’s more, the game only revealed the tip of the plot’s iceberg. The props and descriptions that appeared in the game only foreshadowed the material in the novel.

Yet, the game was well-done. It had a deep meaning to it, which allowed players to resonate strongly with the protagonist throughout the gameplay. Naturally, players would become extremely interested and invested in the game’s plot! In the face of a story that hung in the balance, players understandably rushed to read the game’s official novel in order to have their questions answered. Ma Yiqun could not help but feel moved. Amazing!

Why didn’t I think about this when we were writing the official plot? Ma Yiqun had not worked seriously on the plot and official novel. Zhu Xingan had been the more passionate one. If not for the latter, the official novel would probably not have been updated so constantly. “How could I have neglected such a serious task? I nearly messed up Boss Pei’s plans. I really should not have…

“It looks like Zhu Xingan is a talent worth nurturing

“Wait a minute. Now’s not the time to think about these things. I have to grab the opportunity to retain as many readers as we

can!”

Ma Yiqun suddenly realized a more urgent problem: as the CEO of Zhongdian Chinese Network, he had to do his job!

Boss Pei had worked hard to direct so many new readers and users to Zhongdian Chinese Network. Ma Yiqun had to retain them as much as possible!

Ma Yiqun was certain that Repent and be Saved would continue to direct traffic to Zhongdian Chinese Network for some time to come. Over the next few days or even over the next few weeks, Zhongdian Chinese Network’s traffic would probably increase.

However, these would just be superficial numbers. Most people would only visit the website to read Repent and be Saved’s official novel. It was difficult to tell how many of them would remain.

Thus, Ma Yiqun had to think of a way to keep all of them!

Ma Yiqun wasted no time and called Zhu Xingan into his office at once.

“Quick, ask one of our operations staff to come up with some kind of event that would help us keep all our new readers!

“Didn’t we come up with an event allowing new users to read books freely? Use that as a foundation and work harder on it!

“Come up with something based on games’ seven-day login events.”

Ma Yiqun was worried that Zhu Xingan would not be familiar with games’ seven-day login events, and so he took some time to explain it to the latter in detail.

If a game managed to influence a new player to log in every day for seven days, a habit would be developed. The game would have successfully retained this player.

Developers of web-based games and mobile games had wrecked their brains for a long time, thinking about how to retain their players. After extensive research, they came up with the seven-day login event system. Simply put, they planned something every day for the first seven days after a new player registered. They enticed players to develop this gaming habit using attractive rewards.

While this method was tacky, one had to admit that it was extremely effective.

Otherwise, it would not have become the hallmark of mobile games and web-based games.

“Come up with a reward to give readers every day. For example, give them a few novels if they spent a set amount of time reading on our website.

“The required activity should not be that difficult. You can ask them to move their fingers around a bit or something in order to get the reward.

“The rewards for the second and seventh days are the most important. The reward for the seventh day has to be the best, and the one for the second day has to be just slightly worse. However, they both have to be extremely attractive.

“Do you have any good ideas?”

Ma Yiqun looked at Zhu Xingan.

Zhu Xingan pondered for a moment. “We can reward them with unimpeded reading for a week on the second day, and unimpeded reading for a month on the seventh day.”