“Wenwen, you might think 760,000 is quite a lot, but our company has been open for over half a month now, and we haven’t earned a single cent. We’ve been spending your investment money the whole time.
And Wenwen, you wrote 2048 yourself, so you should know how simple it is to make. I figure once 2048 gets popular, within a week at most, all kinds of pirated versions will pop up on the market.
By then, the only place we can still make money is the iPhone store. But even there, it’ll just be slow money at that point. Do you still think 760,000 is a lot?”
Hearing Luo Ming say all this, Lin Shuwen also realized she’d gotten excited too early.
“So, Luo Ming, how long can we keep making this quick money?” Lin Shuwen asked.
“From what I can tell, about half of the first batch of 2048 downloads are your fans, and the rest were probably recommended by your fans. In other words, 2048 isn’t really popular yet—it’s just gained some recognition in a small circle.
But 2048 is a really fun game. Barring any surprises, its popularity will spread fast.
People have a herd mentality. When they see others playing it—especially when a lot of people around them are playing it—they can’t help but download 2048 and try it themselves. That’s probably when 2048 will hit its peak.
I estimate that within about half a month, 2048’s popularity will reach its peak.
Your fans who were going to download it have already done so today. Tomorrow and the day after, there won’t be as many downloads—and of course, we won’t make as much money.
Starting the day after tomorrow—that’s Saturday—barring any surprises, once word of mouth for 2048 builds up, downloads will pick up again.
At that point, we should see about two weeks of steady growth, and then pirated versions will start appearing on the market. That’s when our window for quick money will close.”
“Can we sue the people making pirated games?” Lin Shuwen asked.
“It’s difficult—or rather, almost impossible. Suing them takes time and energy, and in the end, you’d be lucky to get an apology. You won’t get much in the way of financial compensation.”
Lin Shuwen fell silent at that. The feeling of being plagiarized really sucked!
Luo Ming guessed what she was thinking and said with a smile: “Wenwen, don’t worry. Remember, 2048 is just our test run. Plants vs. Zombies is our company’s first real product.
Mutou has already handled all the approvals. We’ll finish the game before New Year’s, start promoting it, and release it after New Year’s.
By then, students—the main consumer group for games—will be on holiday, and that’s when we’ll really start making big money.
If 2048 can already bring us this much revenue, Plants vs. Zombies will definitely make even more.”
“You’re right! Plants vs. Zombies is our real focus. I’m going to keep working hard and try to get involved in game development as soon as possible.” Lin Shuwen said with determination.
Over the next two days, Luo Ming attended two more commercial performances in Shanghai.
Friday afternoon, after the performances ended, Sister Shan transferred the 160,000 yuan performance fee for the four shows directly into his card.
With that, Lin Shuwen’s financial crisis was temporarily resolved.
And on Lin Shuwen’s end, she finally got to participate in game production on Friday.
Early that morning, Lin Shuwen suddenly appeared in the tech team’s office area.
Seeing Lin Shuwen come over, Zhao Ningyuan tentatively asked: “President Luo, are you done with your stuff on your end?”
“Not yet, but there’s not much left. Senior Zhao, you can assign me some tasks today. I’ll work on them whenever I have time.”
“Great! Then President Luo, please help adjust the art assets for levels 4-8 and 4-9!”
Lin Shuwen nodded and agreed.
The art assets Zhao Ningyuan mentioned—in the context of Plants vs. Zombies—mainly refer to the texture sizes for environment backgrounds, the number of zombie bones, the number of plant material spheres, and the overall particle effects in the environment.
To put it in simpler terms, in a single game level, if you think of zombies as characters, their mesh models have tens of thousands of polygons, plant material spheres have hundreds of thousands of polygons, and if you just copy assets directly, you’ll end up with irregular texture maps in 1024-pixel and 2048-pixel sizes scattered everywhere.
Animation bones can even number in the hundreds. In an asset environment like that, reorganizing textures is a must. On top of that, there’s debugging of more details down the line—making sure every sub-level within each major level looks roughly consistent and preventing art assets from expanding excessively.
This work isn’t technically very difficult, and it doesn’t take too much time either. If it were Luo Ming, he could probably finish the game assets for these two levels in about two hours.
But Lin Shuwen started at 10 AM and didn’t finish until 4 PM.
Aside from taking a break from 12 to 1 for lunch, she spent the rest of the time grinding away.
After finally finishing the task Zhao Ningyuan assigned, Lin Shuwen felt only one thing: an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.
She copied her finished work, took the USB drive, and walked over to Zhao Ningyuan’s desk.
“Senior Zhao, I managed to get it done in my spare time. Take a look!”
Zhao Ningyuan plugged in the USB drive and checked it, then praised her: “As expected of President Luo—perfect.”
Lin Shuwen’s lips curved up slightly, and she even unconsciously lifted her head just a tiny bit.
She had finally gotten involved in game production!
Of course, happy as she was, Lin Shuwen wasn’t about to lose her composure. She smiled and said: “Senior Zhao, you flatter me. I still have things to take care of, so I’ll head back now. If I have time tomorrow, I’ll come help you guys again.”
“Okay, take care, President Luo.”
After watching Lin Shuwen leave, Zhao Ningyuan looked over the organized art assets once more and couldn’t help but sigh: “This junior brother of mine—being skilled is one thing, but he’s also so meticulous. After organizing all these textures, there’s not a single mistake.”
“Team lead, President Luo is that good?” The only newcomer in the company, a fresh graduate named Xu Jiale, leaned in and asked.
“At the very least, President Luo’s skills are better than mine.”
“But isn’t President Luo a fresh graduate like me? How is he so amazing?” Xu Jiale scratched his head, his eyes full of confusion.
“President Luo and President Rong were winning competitions back when they were still in school. Have you ever won any awards, kid?”
“Of course I have! Team lead, don’t underestimate me! I was the first-place team winner in our Beijing Normal University campus CS tournament.”
Zhao Ningyuan’s mouth twitched. He shouldn’t have expected anything from this kid. When he’d heard the boy say “of course I have,” he’d actually taken him a bit seriously—only to find out the award was from playing video games.
“Get out, get out! Stop being an eyesore. Go back to work. I’ll give you one more week. If you still can’t handle things on your own by then, pack your bags and leave!”
“Don’t, team lead, please don’t! I’ll work hard!” With that, Xu Jiale dashed back to his seat like a gust of wind and stared fixedly at his computer screen.
Zhao Ningyuan shook his head helplessly. This young man was actually quite talented at programming—he just couldn’t settle down and fully commit to his work.
