Chapter 470 - Settlement (1/2)

Chapter 470 Settlement

Pei Qian was stunned.

At that moment, he felt like an amateur mage that learned how to cast the pyroblast spell by reading a book for ten seconds. However, as he tried it out, he hit his opponent’s shield and ended up burning his entire face.

Still, Boss Pei was a veteran of a hundred battles. He quickly regained his composure.

“A foreign distribution company…? Based on what I know, local films don’t become very popular in overseas markets.

“Most of them only generate… one or two million US dollars, right?”

Pei Qian had this basic knowledge.

Many extremely popular locally-produced films had tried distributing overseas, but the cultural gap and difference in language posed a problem. Often, their results were not ideal.

Films that could easily make more than a hundred million yuan in China ended up making less than one or two million US dollars overseas. What’s more, a lot of this depended on the content as well.

Pei Qian did some rough calculations. If they only made one or two million US dollars-after splitting the revenue and accounting for the exchange rate, the amount earned would not become too big of a burden.

It would just be a few million yuan. Pei Qian could easily deal with it.

Now, he was more concerned about which blind foreign distribution company had become interested in the film in the first place.

Huang Sibo smiled. “That’s right.

“As influential Chinese actors retired from Hollywood, locally-produced films became less and less attractive in overseas box offices. At the same time, as the local market developed quicker, the locals’ pride and confidence intensified. Thus, many film directors focused on the local market and gave up on adapting to the foreign audience’s taste.

“Recently, many locally-produced films could easily earn hundreds of millions of yuan in China but only one or two million US dollars overseas. Overseas, their row piece rates are low, they’re unpopular, and their influence is limited.

“However, for that exact reason, our film would be able to stand out! “Flying Star Journey has failed all over the world. However, it’s a high-budget, foreign, sci-fi film after all. Tomorrow is Beautiful could achieve similar results with a much lower budget and even exceed Flying Star Journey’s reputation. That’s why the foreign distribution company has so much confidence in the film!

“What’s more, Tomorrow is Beautiful has a unique advantage. The entire film is in English, and it’s based on a futuristic world. This blurs the lines between race and countries, thus narrowing the cultural gap. That means a foreign audience would find it more acceptable! “Furthermore, the film explores ideas like income gap, excessive consumerism, the effect of wealth on people, and the like. These would resonate with a foreign audience!

“You don’t have to worry, Boss Pei! Our film will likely be able to earn more than a million US dollars!”

“…” Pei Qian was momentarily speechless.

Zhu Xiaoce added, “That’s right, Boss Pei. Don’t underestimate the fact that the film is in English!

“You have to understand that foreigners hate subtitles. There’s a simple reason for this. English is a very superfluous language. It’s tiring to read subtitles.

“A powerful proof of this is that China has huge quantities of video websites with bullet screen comments, but such websites don’t exist overseas.

“That’s because our words are ideographic, and people can capture their meaning very quickly. One glance would allow viewers to understand the meaning of the entire bullet screen comment. Yet, it’s different for English.

“It’s the same with subtitles. Foreigners are not as used to subtitles as we are. To them, whether the film is in English or not would determine whether they go and watch it or not!

“That’s why it’s a huge advantage that our film is in English! Although the three main leads have Asian accents, foreigners would not be concerned. Instead, they would find it appropriate for the role and cultural background.

“All in all, everything about the film from the scriptwriting onwards has been suited to a foreign audience’s taste!

“Boss Pei, you were far-sighted to make everyone speak English!”

Zhu Xiaoce held up his thumb excitedly.

Pei Qian, “…”

He really wanted to say: ‘No! You’re wrong! I wasn’t far-sighted! In fact, I was too short-sighted! I wanted to use English to dissuade the local audience. I never thought that the film would make it overseas!’

However, Zhu Xiaoce and Huang Sibo were looking at him very respectfully. Thus, Pei Qian could not help but sigh inwardly.

Really terrible!

March 30th, Wednesday…

Over the past two days, players of GOG had been extremely happy.

At midnight last night, the results for the first Spring Competition of the first season had finally been locked in. Today, all the rewards had been distributed. The entire event was now at its peak!

There were posts discussing the event everywhere online. Of course, some doubted how real the winners’ skills were. After all, there was no such thing as perfectly fair competition in the world, and sour grapes made others feel jealous of the lucky winners.

Still, this noise only formed a minority of the discussions online.

The competition had been public, fair, and transparent. Although it was possible that some had cozied up to powerful people, those who placed among the first five hundred within such a short period must have had some real skills.

Given the short period, actors and workspaces could not react quickly enough. Before they could generate enough influence, the results had been locked in and the prizes had been distributed.

The players who had won prizes celebrated joyously. They shared their results and their awards and paraded their prizes around the internet. This made everything more exciting and GOG more popular. All in all, everyone was over the moon. The players won money, GOG became more popular, and Boss Pei scattered his coins.

However, while others were unconditionally happy, Boss Pei’s happiness was mixed with deep worry. That was because he realized that the game had become much more popular than he had imagined.

Pei Qian felt like he was beginning to lose control!

Thus, the intelligent Boss Pei gave Hu Xianbin an important task yesterday. He asked the latter to analyze the results of the competition and write a detailed report for him.

On the surface, it looked like he was just giving Hu Xianbin an assignment. However, in reality, Boss Pei wanted to understand what exactly had happened.

He had to admit that Hu Xianbin was extremely efficient. Pei Qian had already received the report today.

However, after reading it, his heart turned cold.

During the short and intense competition period, the number of active players on GOG’S mobile game and client-side game kept increasing rapidly.

The temptation of earning a hundred thousand yuan with just a week’s worth of effort had been hard for gamers to resist. Many people’s rational minds told them that they would not be able to win a hundred thousand yuan, but their wishful thinking pushed them to try anyway.

GOG’s generous competition prizes attracted hoards of new gamers, who had never played this genre of games before. In addition, the game’s AI made sure that even new gamers had a good gaming experience.

Thus, most people enjoyed playing the game in the beginning, and they received a lot of positive reinforcement from the game itself. That was why so many people started to feel like they were natural talents.

By the time people realized that they could not possibly win the prizes, they had already played the game intensely for two or three days. By then, they had already become used to the gameplay, and they understood how fun the game was. Thus, they were less likely to quit.

On top of that, the gamers’ wishful thinking pushed them to repeatedly ‘side-step the problem’. Those who were more confident with touching the screen could play the mobile game. Those who were more confident with the keyboard and mouse could play the client-side game.

Those who had been tragically beaten in the client-side game and thought that those who played the mobile game were lousier… considered switching.