Chapter 403 - 276: The Devil Workhorses Are in Position

Chapter 403: Chapter 276: The Devil Workhorses Are in Position

"Achoo!"

Zog sneezed and rubbed his nose.

He had a vague feeling someone was talking about him, maybe saying something about how the game he invested in would lose money.

’What a nice person.’

’I just love these kinds of consumers.’

But in all seriousness, the investment in "Path of Conquest" hadn’t been recouped yet.

After making adjustments and relaunching, they had poured in a massive amount of additional funding for marketing and promotion due to the excellent first-day revenue.

The money spent advertising this game was already more than twenty times its production budget.

Scrooge was a true expert when it came to advertising. According to him, when consumers chose a product, they subconsciously picked something they were familiar with.

Therefore, the primary goal of advertising wasn’t to showcase the product’s features, but to brainwash the product’s name into people’s memories.

The ads Scrooge designed were thus completely different from the ones commonly seen on the market today.

They were mostly just repetitive ad slogans. They didn’t explain the gameplay, but repeatedly emphasized that playing was fun and that playing well could earn you money, and they placed these ads everywhere imaginable.

It wasn’t just the usual newspapers and traditional media platforms like Demon Vision; countless YouTube video creators, forums, and message boards were all plastered with the presence of "Path of Conquest."

They also sponsored many influencers, giving them High Level equipment and having them play with their fans. They were paid based on the number of fans they brought in, with additional bonuses if any of those fans spent money.

This led countless influencers to extend their greedy little hands toward their own fans.

Although Scrooge had no requirements for how the influencers played the game—whether they focused on conquest, cosmetics, or life skills was up to them—there was one rule they had to follow: they couldn’t say the High Level equipment was given to them by the developers. They had to claim they bought it themselves.

The equipment they received was just powerful enough to put them at the peak of the second tier, a level where spending just a little bit more would push them into the first tier of the server.

This subtle numerical control made many of these "salaried" players unable to resist the urge to become stronger, and they spent their own money to enter the first tier.

Human desire is bound to inflate.

Once they took that first step of spending money, they would start to think, ’Could I climb up a bit from the bottom of the first tier...?’

This caused many influencers to become heavy spenders, spitting back all the promotional money they earned from Zog and even throwing in a good chunk of their own.

In addition to the online efforts, Scrooge invested even more resources into offline promotions.

He established marketing teams in every city with internet cafes. These teams primarily collaborated with local business groups, plastering small ads all over the streets—you could even see them in bathrooms—while also planning events tailored to the specific market.

Things like "get free eggs for trying the demo," "buy a headset, get free equipment," "visit the market fair for a chance to win a pet," and so on—all sorts of bizarre tactics emerged one after another.

Just one week after the revised version went live, "Path of Conquest" had acquired over three million players. The peak concurrent user count broke six hundred thousand, an increase of more than two hundred times compared to the pitiful three thousand it started with.

Moreover, the player growth rate showed no signs of slowing down. This was the benefit of a game that had broken into the mainstream; its name was so famous that even people who weren’t the target audience would give it a try.

It was just like that one game, *Game 5*.

’Damn it, who is still buying that thing!?’

The answer was that every year, a new batch of fresh high school graduates would buy it to try it out, causing it to stay permanently on the bestseller list.

It would probably only disappear from the bestseller list on the day its sequel was released.

But compared to the rate of new player acquisition, what was even more insane about "Path of Conquest" was its player retention and payment rates.

Free-to-play games are different from premium games, where all that matters is selling a copy; whether the person plays it or not is their business.

Being free-to-play means you have to keep players in the game, maintain engagement, and increase their willingness to pay.

Thus, retention rate becomes an extremely important metric.

The first-week retention for "Path of Conquest" was as high as 47%.

That might sound like less than half, but it’s actually an incredibly exaggerated figure.

Because the barrier to entry for free-to-play games is lower, many people just play casually with a "let’s try it" attitude, which also makes them more likely to quit.

Even for many premium games, the percentage of players who complete the first Chapter is only around sixty to seventy percent. Yes, buying a game and not playing it is quite common, let alone one you don’t even have to buy.

It seemed the people of Feilin really bought into things like daily sign-ins and daily quests.

’A brand-new strategy they’ve never seen before!’

’Missing even one day is a loss!’

At the same time, the payment rate reached a ridiculous 35%.

This was even more absurd than the retention rate. Free-to-play games generally followed the 80/20 rule: 20% paying players and 80% freeloaders.

A 35% rate basically meant the game had a limitless future.

A numbers-driven, pay-to-win game like "Path of Conquest" would also follow another 80/20 rule: the top 2% of players contribute 98% of the revenue.

However, Feilin was even more exaggerated. According to current revenue statistics, over 90% of the revenue was provided by less than 0.2% of the players.

’The nobles are just too rich.’

Currently, the single account with the highest spending belonged to a Mage named Holy Human Emperor.

He had already topped up over thirty thousand Gold Coins.

’Is there something wrong with him?’

Zog simply couldn’t understand.

It wasn’t that he was looking down on this player—when it came to people rushing to give him money, the more the merrier.

But from a gamer’s perspective...

’This is just insane, right?’

What was he planning to do, spending over thirty thousand Gold Coins on this game?

You couldn’t even spend that much money if you bought everything available in the current version of the game.

Out of curiosity, Zog went to investigate the owner of this account.

In principle, the Zog Group was staunchly committed to protecting the private information of all its users.