Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 27: Goal of 100 Million Units

Translator: 549690339

In the end, Lincoln discussed the material cost and selling price of the equipment with Randall, giving him an idea of what to expect and sending him off to spend time with his girlfriend.

Upon hearing the cost, Randall was shocked. He had never expected that such high-end technology could have such a low cost!

When he heard that Lincoln was planning to price the device at just 10,000 yuan, he was even more surprised. He directly stated that the price could be higher, and even if it were several times higher, the players would still be thrilled.

Because even if the price were tripled, it would still be less than half of what the virtual device manufacturers charge.

Moreover, increasing the selling price would undoubtedly have significant benefits for the company’s growth speed.

The more devices sold, the faster the company accumulates wealth, and the more wealth it has, the more devices it can produce for rapid expansion.

Otherwise, no matter how good their games are, if their scale does not grow and they only sell up to 100,000 devices, there would be a maximum of 100,000 players.

The second batch would be 200,000 units, the third 400,000, the fourth 800,000…

However, if they raise the price, even if it’s only by one time, after the first batch of 100,000 units sold, they could produce 400,000 units for the second batch! The third batch would have 1.6 million units! The fourth batch, 6.4 million units!

This is an exponential growth process!

He didn’t understand why Lincoln would give up such a strategy.

“Old Qin,” Lincoln sighed, “Haven’t you noticed that you’re particularly obsessed with time?”

Randall’s face suddenly turned blank.

Lincoln continued, “You’re right that the initial pricing determines the speed of our expansion. But how many players will this market generate in total?”

About 20 million domestic players will purchase VR game equipment,” Randall replied subconsciously.

“Yes, 20 million people. We can’t possibly monopolize all these players. The rise of VR gaming didn’t monopolize the console and personal computer players. In this case, whether we reach the ceiling in a year or in 3 months, there isn’t actually much of a difference.

So our goal is not to snatch these 20 million players, but to fully expand this group. Our devices can not only be sold to players, but why can’t we sell 30 million, 40 million, 50 million, or even…one hundred million units?

Moreover, we must not resort to first selling them at a high price and then drastically lowering the price in a vain attempt to balance both. It would do serious damage to both our image and the players’ experience.

I believe that you’re not incapable of thinking about these things, it’s just that unknowingly, you’ve become too obsessed with time.”

Lincoln’s words left Randall in silent contemplation. That’s right, when did he become so obsessed with time that everything he did had this subconscious rush?

It seemed to start…on the day when Little Chun was diagnosed…

Seeing Randall lost in thought, Lincoln patted him on the shoulder and said, “Alright, don’t think too much about it. Go and spend time with your girlfriend.”

Watching as Randall walked over to the restless Little Chun and the two held hands and walked into the distance.

Lincoln couldn’t help but sigh, “Cherish the person in front of you more than the flowery spring wind and rain.”

Turning back to the spaceship, Lincoln and Xiaomeng watched the players’ live streams with great interest.

Princess and her best friend progressed the fastest, and the Princess was strongly focused on making progress. There were often moments where her best friend Shuihua wanted to wander around, but the Princess would drag her forward to advance.

The media guy and Camille Victoria, on the other hand, didn’t rush their progress. They searched every corner of each level carefully, trying to find all the runes and murals.

The rest played more casually, and Lincoln didn’t watch them all the time. After watching them for a while, he went back to work with Xiaomeng.

Lincoln had mentioned that the surprise for the players was something he had thought of halfway through: they could release a demo of the game, compatible with the current VR, console, and personal computer devices on the market, allowing players from all platforms to play the first two levels.

Later, when the virtual reality devices were launched, even if the players wanted to play the later content, their desire to buy the devices would be even stronger.

Although for a long time, there would be supply shortages for the devices, it’s always better to do more.

Moreover, this matter is not complicated.

If you let a normal programmer do this, it would naturally be very troublesome. Just the difference in the running environment could give birth to a bunch of bugs.

But for Mavis, with the existing virtual environment and the version in Lincoln’s memory as references, it was a piece of cake.

Even considering the current limitations of computer processing power, an hour was more than enough.

The only cost was that during this hour, Mavis temporarily had to stop her high-intensity social media browsing.

Well… Lincoln thought this was a good thing; it’s not good for such a young child to be browsing social media all day long.

It’s something only adults could do!

Mavis pouted while she worked and looked at Lincoln, saying: “Hmph! Mavis will change the appearance scoring parameters! To lower Master’s appearance score to the bottom 5%!”

“Lower it then.” Lincoln waved his hand casually, not thinking that Mavis’ appearance score would have any effect.

The leisurely afternoon time slowly passed by.

Because Lincoln greatly increased the map’s range in the virtual environment version, no one was able to complete it in the afternoon.

Even the Princess, who had previously reached the underground entrance, was interrupted by her best friend Shuihua, who dragged her around chaotically, only barely reaching the end of the Temple Checkpoint.

The others made progress while exploring, but didn’t even reach the underground section.

However, when they came out, they all expressed that they were still excited and couldn’t believe what they had experienced, and it still lingered on their faces.

Especially for the one-legged girl, Camille Victoria, even after leaving the virtual world, she still subconsciously touched her right leg from time to time.

However, what she touched now was a metal prosthetic limb.

Although they all had fun, they didn’t encounter any problems nor find any defects that needed improvement.

So, Lincoln simply expressed his gratitude and sent them off one by one.

When he sent Randall and Little Chun away, Lincoln gave them two sets of equipment. They both thanked him excitedly and profusely.

Lincoln just waved his hand, casually saying, “It’s just special treatment for employees, consider it a gift of employment, and be careful on the road.”

When Princess left, Lincoln also handed her the set of equipment she had been playing with, telling her to take it home and play with it.

Princess looked surprised, “Can I?”

“If it weren’t for your help, I wouldn’t have been able to make it so quickly, right?” Lincoln said with gratitude, “And thanks to you, the important texture problem in ‘Traveler of the Wind’ is solved. So taking one set of equipment is nothing compared to the huge favor you’ve done, just take it and play!”

Only then did Princess happily accept the equipment, almost wanting to bow to Lincoln in excitement.

She left with her envious best friend.

Lincoln didn’t give Princess’ best friend a set of equipment, too. Firstly, they weren’t familiar enough to exchange gifts.

As for the second reason, you got to satisfy a little girl’s vanity, right?

There’s no hurry after that, Lincoln thought about whether to practice shooting again after registering the company tomorrow.

After spending an afternoon, Lincoln felt a little itchy for more.

It’s definitely not because he wanted to play, but to prepare for the next game!

Right, how did his favorite writer say it?

Out for inspiration!