Chapter 71 - Spreading Playerbase

As the days go by, the agreed date of a month from release inches closer and closer.

The sales of Guardian of the Holy Spring have noticeably slowed down, especially in the last two weeks, where the daily growth rate fell by 15%.

Qiu Bin was metally prepared for this as Guardian of the Holy Spring heavily depended on the support by the Emperor Dynasty gaming platform. It also took a lot of inspiration from Plants vs Zombies, which many players didn’t find interesting anymore.

Even if the quality was improved, it would never come close to the success of Plants vs Zombies.

If both games never got any support from any distribution channels, would Guardian of the Holy Spring reach the number of sales that Plants vs Zombies achieved? Most likely not.

Guardian of the Holy Spring managed to nearly double the sales of Plants vs Zombies thanks to how well distributed the game was, and Qiu Bin was more than satisfied by that.

On the other hand, the downloads for I Am MT continues to sky-rocket, with hundreds of thousands of downloads every day.

This explosive growth made Qiu Bin worry.

“How can the game gain hundreds of thousands of downloads every day?” Qiu Bin was confused.

The assistant replied, “Well… It’s a free game after all, and it doesn’t reflect actual sales. Don’t worry about it.”

Qiu Bin shook his head, “But more players mean more paying players. At this speed, he would have more than three million players in the first month!”

The assistant didn’t say anything in reply, as they didn’t know how to explain this situation either. It would be slightly absurd if Chen Mo somehow managed three million players in the first month, as Guardian of the Holy Spring only had about eight hundred thousand, which means that I Am MT had about four times the players.

But I Am MT is a free to play game after all, this amount of downloads are reasonable right?

After some thought, the assistant said, “Don’t worry too much about it sir, I think the downloads metric can totally be faked. His game is free after all, it wouldn’t cost much to fake the number of downloads right?”

“Moreover, even if he did have three million players, and with a generous ten percent of them who are willing to pay in game. And if each of them pays twenty RMB, it would only result in a monthly income of six million, which is still a ways off what we have.”

Qiu Bin nodded in agreement, not excluding the fact that Chen Mo could have hired someone to hype up his work.

“Let’s not be rash and have a second look,” said Qiu Bin as he reinstalled I Am MT onto his phone.

—

In the Subway.

Two boys were on their way to catch a train to school.

A boy who was wearing glasses yawned and brought out his phone, and started playing I Am MT on his phone.

The other boy asked, “What game is this?”

“I Am MT, never tried it?”

“Nope, isn’t that an animated series? It also has a game?”

“Of course it does, it was recently released.”

“Recently released? Is it fun?”

“Uhh, it’s alright, not bad for killing time.”

“How much is it?”

“It’s free.”

“Free? Then how does it profit?”

“Uhh, by in app purchases. It really depends if you want to spend money on it.”

“And is that a standalone game?”

“Nope, it’s an online game. You can play together with friends. Why don’t you download it and give it a try? It doesn’t cost anything just to try it out.”

“Sure, I’ll do that when I get back.”

“You can just download it now, it’s less than 200M, so it’s not going to use up much of your data cap.”

“Sure, I’ll download it and try it out.”

—

In some random university dorm.

Four guys sharing the same dorm were on their beds playing I Am MT.

“Huh? Zhang Er did you change your team leader? Wasn’t it MT before? Why did you change it to Nosuke Shinsuke?”

“This card is incredible! I got it from buying credits. It was super strong when I tried it out.”

“Really? How strong is it?”

“It can carry and heal. If you bring her along, everything else you bring along just has to be fodder.”

“Really? That’s starting to sound good.”

“You guys can try it out using the friendly aid function and see how well it works”

“Let’s me try it out. Oh my, it really is good! It’s better at carrying that MT? And its normal attacks lifesteal, that so strong!”

“Oh my, I’m forking out some money too!”

“… Calm down you guys!”

“Yeah, I saw another super strong card the other day, even stronger than this one.”

“Who?”

“Elder Sister.”

“Oh, that’s The President’s sister right? Is it strong?”

“Super strong… I could never hope to beat that level, but that guy with the Elder Sister carried me right through like was nothing.”

“Really? How do you get Elder Sister then?”

“Not sure, let me check. Uhh, it seems like it’s a gift from buying credits.”

“How much?”

“Uhh, seems to be two thousand?”

“Two thousand runes? That’s like two hundred RMB, that is quite pricey…”

“No, it’s two thousand RMB, twenty thousand runes…”

“…”

A short moment of silence followed.

“What the, what’s the problem with this guy! Two thousand RMB for one card, are they crazy?”

“All I can say is that we’ll never understand the world of the rich…”

“I don’t have anyone in my friend’s list that has an Elder Sister!”

“Of course, whales like these are few and far between…”

“Huh? My friend’s friendly aid has an Elder Sister! I’ll send him a friend request. I’ll get them if I can’t beat anything in the future.”

“What? Their friend’s list is already full!”

“…Whales are so popular!”

“I wish for a friend who has an Elder Sister!”

—

A random company, lunch time.

Two employees were playing I Am MT.

“What the! This guy I’m facing is a monster! They have an Elder Sister! I’m gonna be destroyed!”

“What can you do about that? They’re rich…”

“This company doesn’t even guarantee a level playing field! They just have their eyes set on money!”

“… I thought you knew that from the moment you started the game?”

“No! I must give it a bad review! I’m so mad that I’m still being bullied after paying over two hundred RMB!”

“… Is it that weird that you’re being bullied by someone who’s paid two thousand RMB when you’ve paid two hundred?”

“I don’t care, I’m going to leave a bad review! What a garbage game for wasting my youth and my money!”

“If you’re quitting, let me have your account.”

“Who says I’m quitting! I spent more than two hundred RMB on this! Quit trying that to try and take my account!”

“Your imagination is quite good I see!”

—

The growth of I Am MT’s player base showed no signs of slowing down.

It goes without mention that I Am MT’s friend system was one of the most classic designs, comparable to the use of alliances in Clash of Kings whereby guildmates help each other by speeding up building.

And using the most classic design sometimes achieves the best result.

I Am MT had no way of including co-op because of the design of the combat system. However, I Am MT’s friend system addresses this problem extraordinarily well.

After becoming friends, players will be able to help each other in combat. Although it wasn’t much, it was enough to attract players to add others based on how strong they are.