"Congratulations! Your game 'Ghost General' has been selected as 'Mobile Game of the Month' in the New Games Recommendation section. During this period, please avoid updating the game to prevent unknown bugs from impacting user experience—"
Seeing this message, Pei Qian felt utterly hopeless.
Again.
It was happening again!
A chain reaction, one disaster leading to another!
In truth, both The Lonely Desert Road and Ghost General had become popular due to extremely unlikely events.
The Lonely Desert Road had exploded in popularity thanks to Qiao Liang's humorous review video, while Ghost General had become a hit because Ruan Guangjian's artwork had spread rapidly among artists on Weibo.
Had it stopped there, things might not have gotten so bad.
Each of these improbable events initially affected only a small group of people.
Without sustained follow-up interest, the games would eventually fade away.
But the critical issue was ESRO's automated recommendation system!
ESRO compared the data of games released around the same time. The games with better data naturally received better recommendations.
Both The Lonely Desert Road and Ghost General had experienced sudden spikes due to unusual circumstances, causing ESRO's official marketplace to classify these spikes as authentic user engagement—thus automatically promoting the games even further.
And given the unique appeal of these games, getting placed on a prime recommendation spot led to even higher numbers…
As a result, the situation spiraled completely out of control!
Right now, Ghost General has earned itself a prominent feature spot: "Mobile Game of the Month." With such a powerful recommendation, new users flooded in at an alarming rate!
Combined with Ghost General's stellar user ratings and overwhelmingly positive reviews…
The consequences were simply unimaginable!
Pei Qian didn't even dare to glance at the backend data anymore—the more he looked, the more hopeless he felt!
He desperately wanted to plead with the marketplace's administrators, "Please stop recommending my game!"
But he couldn't.
ESRO's official recommendations were automatically generated by user engagement data. Interfering with that would count as a violation, triggering a system warning.
Only now did Pei Qian truly grasp the meaning of that phrase:
"When you're in the game, you're no longer in control."
Standing alone on the dormitory rooftop, Pei Qian was overwhelmed by complicated emotions.
He couldn't bear staying in the dorm room. It was nearly time for the system's financial settlement, and he was afraid he might actually cry out loud in front of Ma Yang.
The system's glowing interface automatically appeared in front of him. The moment of reckoning had arrived once again:
[Wealth Conversion System]
[Host: Pei Qian]
[Profit Conversion Ratio: 100:1 | Loss Conversion Ratio: 1:1]
[Commencing Settlement]
[System Funds: 514,723.5 Yuan (↑214,723.5)]
[Personal Funds: 224.6 Yuan]
[Settlement Processing—]
[Calculating Wealth Conversion—]
[System Funds: 514,723.5 Yuan]
[Personal Funds: 2,371.8 Yuan (↑2,147.2)]
Seeing these numbers, Pei Qian felt utterly drained.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined card-based mobile games could earn money so effortlessly!
Part of this 500,000 yuan came from ongoing sales of The Lonely Desert Road. Although it only cost a yuan per download, the cumulative revenue was still significant.
Yet, this was only a small fraction.
The vast majority of this money had come directly from Ghost General!
Pei Qian used his limited mathematical skills to roughly estimate the earnings—and felt his heart sink further into despair.
Within just a week, the net profit from Ghost General reached roughly 500,000 yuan—meaning the game's total revenue had already surpassed a million yuan.
And next week, as its popularity continued to snowball and more players flooded in, revenues would only rise further!
Even though the game's monetization methods were minimal, potentially limiting long-term revenue, given the market size, it would still take at least two or three months before revenue significantly declined!
According to this current trend, the monthly revenue of Ghost General could easily exceed 5 million yuan!
In reality, a mobile game making 5 million yuan monthly was just average. For a small company with twenty or thirty employees, it might be decent, comfortable revenue.
But for Pei Qian, the situation was entirely different. He'd practically developed this game by himself from start to finish!
Ma Yang had merely helped by filling out a character design sheet, receiving a modest salary of just 3,000 yuan. Everything else—the code templates, art assets—had been purchased externally for around 300,000 yuan.
The game had fully recouped its costs within its very first week, even netting a profit of 200,000 yuan!
While these numbers weren't particularly extraordinary by industry standards, Pei Qian still felt utterly defeated.
Even more distressingly, Ghost General would continue to generate ongoing revenue for him in the future!
After all, Cute Three Kingdoms had remained popular for an entire year…
What did that mean?
It meant that no matter how desperately Pei Qian tried to lose money in the future, he might never succeed!
Each month from now on, there would be a steady income stream added to his system funds. The system judged losses or profits based on the baseline of initial system-provided funds!
For this settlement period, the system had a straightforward calculation method: it simply compared the current amount in the system funds to the original 300,000 yuan provided. Anything above that was considered profit; anything below was a loss.
If extra funds kept flowing in every month, the system funds would consistently exceed the original amount—thus the system would always determine Pei Qian as making a profit!
This was catastrophic—a disaster of epic proportions!
Pei Qian felt like dying.
"This can't be happening, right?"
"I earned 200,000 yuan, but it's only converted to 2,000 yuan for personal use?"
"From now on, I'll practically make money lying down—I can't even lose money anymore?"
"No, wait! There must be a mistake somewhere. Calm down, calm down!"
"Let me think carefully again. Maybe things aren't as terrible as they seem…"
Just as Pei Qian barely regained his composure, new notifications appeared on the system interface:
[Next Settlement Date: 90 days from now]
[System Funds Being Replenished, Target Amount: 500,000 yuan]
[Detected current system funds exceed 500,000 yuan, no replenishment necessary.]
[System Funds: 515,792.5 yuan]
[Personal Funds: 2,371.8 yuan (↑2,147.2)]
"As expected…"
This confirmed Pei Qian's worst fears—his previous speculations had been correct.
Every time a settlement period ended, the system would replenish the system funds.
Each settlement period's length and replenishment amount varied.
This time, the replenishment target was 500,000 yuan—but because Pei Qian already had over 500,000 yuan, no additional funds would be provided.
If Pei Qian had managed to lose all 300,000 yuan previously, the system would have replenished him with 500,000 yuan this time…
Pei Qian felt completely hopeless.
What should have been an easy 300,000 yuan had now become a measly 2,000 yuan.
Who could bear such a loss?!
And to make matters worse, in just these few minutes, system funds increased by another thousand yuan—because Ghost General continued generating profits.
Pei Qian felt profoundly frustrated, even questioning himself.
"Maybe… I should reconsider my approach? Should I start actively trying to earn money in the future?"
"No, it's too late now…"
"Besides, I doubt I'll always be this lucky."
For a brief moment, Pei Qian even considered seriously trying to make money, but quickly dismissed the thought.
The reason was simple: the conversion rate was far too inefficient, and it wasn't realistically achievable!
Both The Lonely Desert Road and Ghost General had succeeded due largely to extraordinary luck!
Could he count on having such great luck again in the future? That was uncertain!
His biggest fear was that he'd earn neither enough nor manage to lose any money if he seriously tried making profits—how embarrassing would that be?
Most importantly, the mode had already been chosen, and couldn't be changed!
The profit conversion rate was a mere 100:1—earning a million yuan would only net him 10,000 yuan personally. The cost-effectiveness was just too poor!