Chapter 9: New Employees and Game Promotion

A week later, Tianba Technology Co., Ltd. was officially established in Jiangning City.

At the same time, the platform also settled the sales of [Cold Window Study Simulator] from last month, and a hefty sum of 540,000 yuan after tax was transferred into Chen Ba’s bank account.

The receipt of the game sales share greatly eased Chen Ba’s financial pressure and gave him more confidence in recruiting people.

After all, when you don’t have money in your pocket, it’s inevitable to feel a bit guilty when discussing salary and benefits with others.

But not anymore.

With money in hand, besides continuing to hire employees, Chen Ba also purchased necessary computer equipment according to needs, including monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, tables, chairs, and other common office items.

The house he had set his sights on was already rented, and a sign of "Tianba Game" was hung at the entrance.

However, currently, there were only three people in Tianba Game besides Chen Ba himself: Yang Dong, a senior from the same college recommended by Wang Kun, and the newly hired artist, Zhang Xiaojun.

The classic trio: the three of us!

Yang Dong, who is from the neighboring Zhonghai, has a slender build and wears glasses, two years older than Chen Ba. As Wang Kun introduced, he’s also a graduate of Jiangning University, only a year ahead of Chen Ba.

Zhang Xiaojun is a native of Jiangning, with a chubby round face that always beams with a smile, though her art skills and design are just average.

To be honest, Zhang Xiaojun being recognized by Chen Ba was primarily for her cheerful and infectious personality, rather than her ability.

For a fledgling team, having someone who is always laughing to keep the atmosphere lively is not a bad thing.

Besides, considering how little Chen Ba is offering in salary, looking for exceptional talent is really not necessary.

Yang Dong was the first employee to join, followed by Zhang Xiaojun. Considering the start-up needed some morale boosting, Chen Ba also revealed the existence of [Cold Window Study Simulator] to them.

"Awesome!"

Yang Dong’s eyes lit up, "I bought this game too, I didn’t expect it was made by you alone, junior."

Before coming here, he actually wasn’t too optimistic about Tianba Game, planning just to earn a few months’ salary before seeking another job.

This is quite normal.

After all, countless studios like this have closed down in the industry. If it wasn’t a dire need for a job, he wouldn’t have accepted the invitation.

However, after learning about the existence of [Cold Window Study Simulator], this thought vanished immediately.

Having played the game himself and being in the industry, he knew how remarkable it was.

One could say that Chen Ba, who single-handedly created this game, had already attracted him with his technical prowess alone.

Zhang Xiaojun had never played it, so she didn’t quite understand what Yang Dong was exclaiming about.

But once she found out that the newly established Tianba Game already had a completed game under its belt, she immediately decided to try it out.

"Play whenever you want!"

"Since we can’t officially start work with people not fully gathered, you don’t need to wait until after hours to play games, you can play now."

Chen Ba generously promised to give Zhang Xiaojun an activation code, allowing her to download the game for free, as a welcome benefit.

Although this benefit was a bit meager, almost trivial, Zhang Xiaojun immediately applauded the idea that she didn’t have to spend money to purchase it.

"Oh no!"

Yang Dong wore an expression of regret, "If I’d known, I wouldn’t have rushed to buy it. Now I’m out by eighteen bucks."

"It’s just 18 bucks! I can refund you, ok?"

Chen Ba rolled his eyes.

Just a trifling 18 bucks, and yet he’s lamenting like this. Think about it, is this eighteen bucks really a loss?

The first thing to do after joining Tianba Game Studio was to play the game.

At the very least, getting to know the current state of the studio and understanding its sole game was essential to smoothly starting work.

But except for Zhang Xiaojun, who hadn’t played Cold Window Study Simulator and was thus quite into it, both Yang Dong and Chen Ba had finished it several times and had lost interest.

So, they had other things to do.

Chen Ba was responsible for contacting a recent graduate who had just called to inquire about the studio, inviting him for an on-site visit.

Yang Dong was tasked with reaching out to big streamers on various live-stream platforms and big content creators on video sites to negotiate deals for streaming or making videos about [Cold Window Study Simulator] under the guise of business collaboration.

That’s right!

Previously, Chen Ba didn’t promote because he didn’t have the funds, thus not daring to approach big streamers and big content creators.

But things were different now.

With the first share of sales from the platform and more income to come, Chen Ba decided to seek out big streamers and big content creators for promotion.

Of course, it involves paying them...

Most of these streamers and content creators have "Contact XXX for business cooperation" written on their main pages, and any unexpected elements in their streams or videos are almost advertisements.

What?

Your favorite streamer started playing a certain two-word open-world game today, and you’re overjoyed?

Haha! Don’t be too happy too soon.

Maybe they just picked up a business deal for that game. The Mi Family is known for being generous with payments, big streamers earning thousands for an hour of broadcast, making money that easily!

Of course...

The price of such promotions is generally judged by the overlap of audiences in different sections.

For example, if Game A’s users happen to highly overlap with those of Game B, both being fans of the same genre, Game A would spend big money to invite Game B’s streamers to do promotions.

Conversely,

If Game C has little connection with A or B, one being an FPS game and the other a match-three puzzle game, the FPS game wouldn’t spend big money to hire a puzzle game streamer for promotion.

Ultimately, it’s all about interests!

Game companies aren’t fools who blindly throw money, promotion depends on its effectiveness, you can’t just draw any traffic to your own.

[Cold Window Study Simulator], in terms of genre, is a single-player simulation game.

So Yang Dong targeted streamers in the single-player section on certain seafood and tooth live streaming platforms.

"Most of these streamers’ fans love single-player games, mainly being Steam platform users."

Yang Dong analyzed, "At the same time, these streamers also have recapping content creators on other video sites, optimizing the marketing effect to the fullest."

"Sounds good!"

Having just finished a call, Chen Ba nodded in agreement with Yang Dong’s plan.

"Though try negotiating the prices, their quotes are way too high..."

Chen Ba felt it was weakening his resolve.

With not much initial capital, these big streamers had outrageous asking prices, some even demanding 200,000 yuan for a four-hour stream, half of which had to be turned into platform gifts, leaving Chen Ba speechless.

That’s simply impossible. While he could afford that amount, he didn’t want to be a sucker. The number of fans and their loyalty for that streamer couldn’t justify the price.

Cost-effectiveness is key!

Streamers with a decent fan base and high viewer loyalty, expected to yield a good conversion rate, are the ones Tianba Game should consider cooperating with.

Major streamers are not being considered for now.

The bigger the streamer, especially those top ones on each platform, aren’t even within Tianba Game’s reach, being just a small setup.

Even if their asking price was met, it wouldn’t be financially viable for Tianba Game, becoming a pure money-losing deal...