650 Chapter 650 - A Workshop’s Modus Operandi (1/2)
”A Fighter?” Overgrown Foliage was very lost. ”Aren't you a Mage?” He secretly used his Appraisal and confirmed that Thousand Miles Drunk was without a doubt a Mage.
Gu Fei shook his head. ”I don't have any interest or need to earn money through the game.”
Overgrown Foliage chuckled. The professional gamers in their workshop were well aware that the average players would never consider their work as a formal occupation when, in reality, the online gaming industry was thriving these days, and a workshop that depended on the fertile land of MMOs to survive had already become an important segment in the entertainment industry. Whenever these established workshops entered a game, their exploitation of the in-game resources allowed them to make a run for the players' wallets just like the game company, and the amount of profit they generated every month was not as paltry as what the average person had imagined. Even though in the early days, a good number of these workshop only focused on chasing after greater profits by infiltrating en masse, only to end up destroying the in-game economy with their presence and negatively affecting the game. But as the industry began to pivot toward greater legitimacy, this business method of 'killing the golden goose' had long since become obsolete. The workshops in this time and age were even more hopeful than the players to ensure that a game would have a more favorable and harmonious environment for all. Especially a large and renowned workshop like Remarkable Flair, which was a formal company that had an official business license, they were even expected to pay game companies a satisfactory amount of money through formal channels whenever they tried to establish themselves in some MMOs out there. It could, thus, be seen how even the game operators had to acknowledge these workshops' existence after they began to standardize themselves.
Similarly, Overgrown Foliage had heard what Gu Fei had just said plenty of times from the traditionalists with more conservative views because of their unawareness about the glorious future outlook of workshops in the MMO industry, and this was especially true in the completely new gaming environment the VRMMO Parallel World offered. Players in this game had a myriad of needs and wants, and it was unknown just how many different avenues these workshops had tried to develop in an effort to find more ways where they could generate greater profits. Gone were the days when employees of workshops only did boring activities like gold farming, material farming, equipment farming, and whatnot.
The white dust in Baishi City, the private ferrying in Linshui City, the lantern- and torch-making in Xiawu City... Just how many of these businesses had taken the game by storm when they had first been launched?
Overgrown Foliage once met someone who arrogantly believed that he had quite the salary – a spendthrift who could be regarded as a pay-to-win player that was the envy of the masses. In the end, that man realized after asking around that the wage he was so proud of was the bare minimum a porter who exported white dust for Remarkable Flair workshop could make. From that point onward, Overgrown Foliage became all the more confident that all he had to do was randomly show an employee's paycheck to those people who did not think much of his profession, and that would be enough to shake them to the core. Presently, how huge was the efficient monster grinding routine business? Based on the numbers he had roughly estimated, if he were to tell them the expected profit for this, perhaps the number one slayer in Parallel World would find himself petrified to the point that he could not control his bowels?
These thoughts flashed through Overgrown Foliage's mind at once, and he decided to drop the numbers to give these two bumpkins a proper shock. Thus, with a fairly casual tone, Overgrown Foliage said, ”He he. When it comes to money, is there really someone who doesn't wish to earn more? Why would either of you reject being able to randomly play the game while casually earning a few millions' worth of pocket money?”
This time, before Gu Fei was able to answer, Eternal Dominion snatched the chance by patting his dimensional pocket and acting like a wealthy man. ”It's only a few million gold coins; I've already got that.” He had already pocketed the portion of profits from the previous lessons, and adding the income he had earned before, the amount of gold coins he was holding had already surpassed the million mark.
As Eternal Dominion gloated over this fact, Overgrown Foliage was assured in his assessment of how wet behind the gills these two men were, so he tossed out his next sentence with an utterly unperturbed face. ”No, I don't mean gold coins. I mean real-world money.”
”Real… Real-world money?!” Eternal Dominion mouth hung agape. A few million dollars was considered a fantastical sum to someone like Eternal Dominion.
Overgrown Foliage was extremely satisfied with Eternal Dominion's reaction, thinking to himself that this man was indeed someone who had not seen much of the world, getting a fright from just a figure of several millions. It seemed that the average person simply could not imagine the huge turnover workshops would rake in. Even the Five Unyielding Experts were just that; it was unknown just what sort of reaction that so-called top pay-to-win player Svelte Dancer would have when faced with such a revelation herself. Overgrown Foliage continued to wonder to himself even as he sneaked a peek at Gu Fei. He felt a little uneasy when he saw that the Mage was still showing that placid smile. Thinking that the man was acting rather conceited, he decided to stoke the flames further. ”Hmm… Actually, I'm being a little more conservative with my estimation; after all, we are not really in cooperation yet, so we have yet to conduct a detailed market analysis, but roughly speaking, given how there are over 50 million players in Parallel World right now, as long as we can push the efficient monster grinding routine to just 10% of this number, with the current market price of 99 gold coins, then that can come up to about 495 million gold coins. With how the gold coins to currency market has stabilized recently, and our rate of exchange going at 30 dollars per 100 gold coins, that 495 million will translate to 148.5 million dollars.”Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click visiting.
”148.5 million dollars!” Eternal Dominion sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.
”It's all in RMB,” Overgrown Foliage reminded him.
”So what is all this about?” Eternal Dominion was having a mind-boggling fix right now.
”It's basically a few friends opening a small business together, but now a big corporation is interested in the prospects of this exclusive operation and wishes to acquire it to expand the enterprise; am I right?” Gu Fei explained it to Eternal Dominion before verifying with Overgrown Foliage.
”Yes, that sounds about right!” Overgrown Foliage nodded. He had just given a calculation of the estimated profit, which was somewhere above a hundred million RMB, yet this Thousand Miles Drunk had not shown any sort of reaction to it, and this made him feel somewhat unsettled. Such a huge sum isn't enough to tug at his heartstrings? Just what sort of background does he have...
”148.5 million RMB...” Eternal Dominion was still muttering that number under his breath. ”I don't even need that much either…”
”Dream on. That's the total revenue from the whole business; we don't know how many people that will be split among!” Gu Fei said as he asked Overgrown Foliage. ”If we're splitting it, how much will he get?”
Overgrown Foliage immediately realized that this person was acting like this because he had yet to affirm the profits he would get. Unfortunately, Overgrown Foliage was unable to make the decision on how the profits would be split, so he did not dare to say another word about this, afraid that it would affect future negotiations. This was of course the time when his superior would step in, and while Proud Sovereign was just the person in charge of their branch in Yueye City, he still had a bit of authority in order to conduct such business. At this moment, he did not dare to come up and make promises but just very calmly related, ”If you two gentlemen are interested about this, why don't we find somewhere to sit and slowly discuss about it? Fourth Street in Yueye City has a barbeque joint that we, Remarkable Flair, run. It's got quite the ambience, so why don't we head over there and chat over a bite or two?”
Barbequed meat was still the staple food in this game, and even though Chinese cuisine had different variations and combinations of the dishes, requiring plenty of necessary and complex ingredients like onions, garlic and ginger, where would players find such things in the game? Many players were tired of eating just barbequed meat skewers at this point, and their taste buds clamored for cumin flavor, which left these countless grill masters stumped. Countless culinary masters dove into the forest and began taste-testing the herbs and wild vegetation, hoping that they could find something that could replicate the cumin taste.
”Now? We haven't even had dinner yet!” Gu Fei said.
”Aren't we headed to eat this way?” Proud Sovereign asked.
”I don't mean in-game…” Gu Fei wiped his sweat. Interacting with these gamers was really annoying; they treat the game too seriously.
”Oh… So that's what you mean! In that case, gentlemen, please go ahead and have your dinner. Shall we get in touch at a later time?” Proud Sovereign did not make things difficult for them in any case. Thousand Miles Drunk was originally turning to leave without much regard, but the man did not reject the notion outright after he heard the sum involved. With this sigh of relief, what followed would simply be a matter of how the profits were split. He could take this chance while the two were off to get their dinner to contact his superiors, find out what was the bottom line that they could base their negotiations. Proud Sovereign was already making all these plans in his mind even as he spoke to the two men before him.
Proud Sovereign and Overgrown Foliage were not wrong in their assumption; Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion were indeed rather ignorant when it came to matters pertaining to games; neither of them had expected workshops to be able to earn so much money. Of all the people that Gu Fei had come into contact with in this game, making the barest of acquaintances with players like Nightmare of Death and people like Southern Lone Blade's team, whom he was more familiar with, all of them seemed to have quite a hard time making a living as professional gamers, and their income did not seem to be anything substantial. However, the tone and boldness that these two workshop employees demonstrated was entirely different from Southern Lone Blade's group. Could that be the difference between a big corporation and a small company? After both parties added each other as friends, Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion discussed the matter as they made their way back to the city. When they reached the spawn point, the two men respectively logged out. Gu Fei soon got back online in a hurry after he was done with his meal, and Eternal Dominion was even more anxious than he was, already waiting in-game for Gu Fei to show up at the spawn point.
”You're finally here. I was almost about to log out and give you a call,” Eternal Dominion said.