Chapter 696 - Investing in Cherry Workspace

Liang Qingfan was taken aback.

Who would pick houses without appreciation potential to buy?

Could it be…?

Boss Pei actually meant to buy a popular property in the city center?

Popular real estate had been speculated at very high prices so the room for growth was relatively small. To say that the appreciation potential was lower seemed to be right.

Liang Qingfan instantly understood and nodded quickly: “No problem, Boss Pei!”

He obviously also noticed that Boss Pei’s attitude towards ‘buying building’ had changed dramatically.

Before, he kept picking up rubbish. Buildings with bad layouts, remotely located buildings—buying all types of commercial and residential buildings.

However, now, they have to buy buildings with little potential for appreciation; that was some popular properties in the city center.

Why was that?

Liang Qingfan combined this with the Sloth Apartments 2.0 model to speculate that this should be a strategic transformation.

He started to pick up rubbish mainly to highlight the core concept of the Sloth Apartments.

For example, in the promotional video of Sloth Apartment, the two buildings in Binhu District were completely renovated from garbage buildings that no one cared about… became livable. This created a huge topic and attracted a lot of attention.

Now that the Sloth Apartments has gained attention, they must continue to explore and establish a higher brand value.

Therefore, Liang Qingfan supported Boss Pei’s idea with all his heart.

Pei Qian suddenly felt guilty for no reason, seeing Liang Qingfan’s face of ‘great minds think alike’ expression.

However, after thinking about it, it was useless to keep picking up trash. When the time comes, the value would rise wildly, and he would be back again when it came to settlement.

It was the lesser of the two evils. Pei Qian thought for a long time and decided to stick to his current idea.

Let’s try the Sloth Apartments 2.0 model first; he would think of other ways if it didn’t work.

…

…

October 21st, Friday…

Beijing, Cherry Workspace…

“Quickly, quickly, everyone clean up your work stations; don’t leave a bad impression.”

A tall and thin young man, who looked less than 30 years old, was cleaning up his messy desk full of books while instructing the other three people sitting next to him.

The other three people looked younger than him. One boy was round and looked a bit naive, the other boy was slightly fat, and there was a girl with glasses and a single ponytail.

There were many such small independent game studios in Beijing.

Three or four people could develop an independent game by finding an incubation space.

The tall and thin young man was the owner and producer of Cherry Studio, named Jiang Fan.

The guy who looks a bit naive was Yang Liang, the main designer of the game; the fat boy and the girl with a single ponytail were the chief systems designer and the art designer of the game, respectively.

Moreover, everyone was actually a part-time function designer, and everyone knew how to use the game editor to make games.

The girl was in charge of art, but she drew a few art resources by herself. Most of the time, she would be communicating with people on the resource station, give her demands, and accept art resources.

Such a small team of four was the current standard team of independent game studios in China.

Any smaller, and the development cycle would be longer. Moreover, it would be difficult to guarantee the quality of the games made, and it would be based on pure luck. However, the company might not survive if there were more people.

Independent game companies must be stretched in terms of funding. Every dime was precious.

Even if there were an official editor and an official platform to match the search for art resources, costs still existed in developing an independent games platform.

Rent had to be settled, staff salaries had to be paid, and art resources had to be bought.

The official games platform might have preferential policies for independent game producers, but all that would amount to nothing if the games could not be sold. The investments would have been lost.

The naïve chief designer Yang Liang cleaned up a little reluctantly: “Brother Fan, let’s not clean up; I think it’s useless. Several investors came to ask questions before. No one really wants to invest in a risk like us.

“The probability of failure in independent games is too high after all so they are not willing to invest.

“We should fix one or two more bugs during this time.”

Jiang Fan was also a little helpless: “There is no other way, Old Liang. The financial situation of the studio is too bad now. We will last a month at most if no one invests in us. We won’t even be able to pay the salary then. I can’t let it all work for nothing. Let’s try again.

“I asked a few friends in the industry and verified that Boss Qiu, who is coming today, is indeed a well-known figure in the industry. While he has not invested in any company, he did get in touch with a few of them, showing that he has this intention.”

Yang Liang continued to pack things up: “Really? Brother Fan, do you think we have a chance to get the investment?”

Jiang Fan shook his head. “I can’t tell either.

“This Boss Qiu used to make games with paywalls, but I don’t know why he suddenly contacted domestic standalone game companies since last week, especially independent game studios like ours. I know that he had spoken to three in Beijing alone.

“They said that he seems to be investing in domestic standalone games and independent games. For us, the probability of being invested is much higher than that of other investment companies.

“However, none of the three companies I heard received any investment.

“It is understandable that the first two did not pass. They seemed to be too unreliable, but the third one is very reliable. The framework of the game has been completed, and the game content is quite good. They needed one last spur before the final release. However, Boss Qiu did not invest in them either.

“I don’t know exactly what his requirements are.

“But anyway, this is a good opportunity for us. Try to seize it.”

The four people in the studio took the time to tidy up the workstations a bit while waiting for the arrival of Boss Qiu.

Jiang Fan looked anxiously at the time on the phone.

Jiang Fan’s cell phone rang two minutes before 2 pm.

Jiang Fan hurriedly picked it up: “Boss Qiu, are you here? Wait a moment, I will bring you up right now!”

Jiang Fan gave everyone a look before he left. Everyone immediately sat upright at the workstations and began to work seriously, waiting for Boss Qiu’s arrival.

Jiang Fan brought Qiu Hong to the workspace several minutes later.

Ever since Qiu Hong accepted the mission of the ‘Destitution Plan’ from Boss Pei, Qiu Hong settled his personal affairs and rushed straight to Beijing.

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were places where game companies gathered so Qiu Hong chose Beijing as his first stop.

Qiu Hong’s mission was to invest in standalone game companies and independent game studios across the country, but he did not need to fly between cities every day.

The most efficient way would be to stay in Beijing for a month, inspect one company every day, and choose the companies in Beijing before changing to another city.

Qiu Hong had visited five companies but only invested in one.

Three companies looked like very unreliable small workshops. The bosses themselves don’t know the game very well, and they are a bit of an insider guiding the insider. Qiu Hong felt that they might have the tendency to defraud investors.

Boss Pei said no investment if they were not reliable.

There was a company that was good in all aspects and had a high degree of completion of the game. Qiu Hong tried it and felt that the probability of success was high.

However, Boss Pei also said no investment if the company seemed too reliable.

Therefore, there was only one that was well-regulated and obtained the investment of Qiu Hong’s ‘Destitution Plan’.

Today, Qiu Hong came to Cherry Workspace to continue his inspection.

In fact, his job was the easiest and least stressful. When he was a game producer, he had to rack his brains to think about the gameplay. He was afraid that one wrong decision would ruin the whole project, but now, he doesn’t need to do that anymore. He could just look at the company’s situation and decide whether to invest or not.

Moreover, the bonus now has nothing to do with whether the investment was profitable. The more he invested, the more bonus he could get. Where else could he obtain such a good deal?

Without stress, he needed not to worry about gains and losses, and he was more rational and clear-headed when making decisions.

Jiang Fan moved a chair to Qiu Hong from the side and took a cup of hot water from the water dispenser next to him. He then began to introduce the basic situation of Cherry Workspace.

Qiu Hong listened while drinking his water.

According to Jiang Fan, Cherry Workspace was basically a standard ‘doing something from the heart’ story.

Jiang Fan originally worked in a law firm, and his profession has nothing to do with games. Starting to make games was only because of the existence of official platforms and editors, which greatly lowered the barriers to game production and gave him the idea of trying out making a game after work.

Jiang Fan usually worked very slowly and could only spare one hour a day to make games with the official game editor.

In this way, he spent two full years on his own making an Interactive Fiction based on a Defense Lawyer, and it turned out to be quite well-received after it went live.

The sales volume was not very high; after all, indie games did not cost too much. It sold nearly 200,000 copies for five yuan each. After taking into account various preferential policies of the official platform for indie games, he made about 600,000 yuan.

Therefore, Jiang Fan made a very important decision in his life. He gave up his job as a lawyer and decided to set up Cherry Workspace to make independent games full-time.

The other three employees were also found by Jiang Fan through his own player group. They went through simple interviews. These three also voluntarily gave up their previous jobs and came to Cherry Workspace to receive wages that could only guarantee basic living standards.

It was not that Jiang Fan was stingy. The key was that there was only 600,000 yuan in total, and he had to pay for the rent of the office space and the purchase of art resources. There is really no way to pay more salary.

The game they were developing now was called ‘Survival Guide for Working Adults’. It was much bigger than the game that Jiang Fan developed before, but it was precisely because the size exceeded Jiang Fan’s ability to control that Cherry Workspace had not enough money to sustain.

In a little more than a month, he might not be able to pay wages, and the game had yet to reach the level to be launched.