Almighty Game Designer

Wu Zhao who was keeping an eye on Thunderbolt Tabletop was panicked by the number of downloads in the first day.

He felt like he severely miscalculated the situation, especially with Chen Mo’s tactics.

Wu Zhao did tabletop games himself, and ever since Thunderbolt Tabletop went online, the daily users for tabletop games for Emperor Dynasty Entertainment had dropped by several hundred thousand, which was no longer a small number.

Obviously a big chunk of these players went to Thunderbolt Tabletop, some left in search of something fresh, others left for the prizes.

Moreover, Wu Zhao felt that he was in danger at the first moment. Moreover, he felt deep down that this was only the beginning.

Wu Zhao couldn’t do much else but ask Lin Chaoxu for advice.

—

Lin Chaoxu wasn’t in such a good mood in his office.

“You said it wouldn’t do too much damage to our user base, but look what happened now? Hmm? We lost a few hundred thousand in the first day, is that not a big loss?”

Wu Zhao wiped the sweat off his forehead, “Mr Lin, please let me explain.

“This Chen Mo guy planned it from the start, but the installer he sent us didn’t reveal any information like this, causing me to miscalculate the consequences.

“He had planned from the start to promote his game using the prizes. I thought that the tournament mode was just to add some flare to the game from yesterday’s demo. I didn’t expect he would expand on that, which is why the estimations were so far…”

Lin Chaoxu asked after a few moments in thought, “Is there any way to save this? Emperor Dynasty Tabletop in particular. We’ll give out gaming pods too, ten times the amount he’s doing! We’ll make more decisions after we manage to retain the players.”

Wu Zhao replied, “Mr Lin, It’s not as simple as that. We could give out gaming pods too, but we don’t have a tournament mode!”

Lin Chaoxu scowled, “If there isn’t a tournament mode we’ll just give it out using draws. The players will have a chance to win if they play a certain amount of hours or play a certain amount of games. Wouldn’t that drag up our daily players?”

“Mr Lin, there’s still a problem. The players feel like they won’t be lucky enough to make the draw if we do that idea, so it wouldn’t get much popularity. We have millions of players, even if we give out ten or even thirty gaming pods, the chance of getting one would be one in a hundred thousand.

“Moreover, players wouldn’t actually play the game if we do it that way. Most players would AFK in game or grind it out to make it into the draw, so there would be no incentive to play daily.

“Although Chen Mo isn’t giving out much from his competition, just giving out three every week, but he is giving the players a sense of hope. The players think that as long as they are good enough, they will have a chance at winning.”

Lin Chaoxu scowled yet again, “How about we make a tournament mode as well. How long would that take, a week?”

“I’ve already ordered people to work on that, but the rules of a tournament mode is a bit complicated. It would be about 30% of the game, including testing and improvements, I’m afraid it’s going to take two weeks,” replied Wu Zhao.

Lin Chaoxu was visibly upset, “Two weeks? That’s too long. I don’t care if you work throughout the night or take adreneline supplements. Finish it within a week. Before that’s done, I want you to give out prizes using lucky draws. Gaming pods, phones, PCs, gift cards… Give out anything that is needed to retain the players!”

Wu Zhao nodded without hesitation, “Yes, Mr Lin. I’ll arrange that immediately!”

—

Emperor Dynasty Entertainment reacted pretty quickly, doing lucky draws only one day after Thunderbolt Tabletop was released. Players need to play a certain amount of hours and games to have a chance of drawing anything from gift cards to gaming pods.

It was obvious this was in retaliation to Chen Mo’s attacks. They weren’t dumb enough to just taking, but this method of lucky draws wasn’t anything to be proud of.

As Emperor Dynasty Tabletop didn’t have anything resembling a tournament mode, that was the only thing that had in the bag for now.

After that, the players of Emperor Dynasty Tabletop started to stabilize, and even showed signs of rebounding. However, most of these players were just there to have a chance at the draws, not many players were actually there to play the game.

On the contrary, a large amount of players at Thunderbolt Tabletop were having the time of their life. In particular, it didn’t take long for Thunderbolt Poker to develop its own fans, and more and more players started looking into the strategies for the game.

Many players realised that better players were more likely to win in Thunderbolt Poker than Dou Dizhu or Mahjong. As long as you keep playing your hand well and folding when you get bad cards, you could guarantee a stable winning.

Of course, many players didn’t like this play style, feeling that this card game was too constrained as it required staying calm and not making any rash decisions, otherwise, the chips went out faster than they came in.

However, this didn’t affect the popularity of Thunderbolt Tabletop. Even if the players didn’t like Thunderbolt Poker, they could play the usual Dou Dizhu or Mahjong.

More and more player discussion of Thunderbolt Tabletop started appearing.

“The new player guides are really nice, it feels like they paid much more attention compared to other tabletop games.”

“This game feels nice, free beans every day as well as bankruptcy protection three times a day. It works well for god-tier donors such as myself.”

“Previous poster, you’re only losing a few thousand beans a day, how could you consider yourself a god. You’re probably just a charitable dog.”

“I didn’t think there would be so many pros. I’ve always thought I was decent at the game but I don’t even have enough credits to reach the top hundred.”

“Get out of my way, the VR gaming pod is mine!”

“Although I’m still not that good, the champion next week will be me!”

“I’ve already decided to switch over to Thunderbolt Tabletop, because this game gives out so many free beans…”

—

Sunday.

There were now more than 1.5 million players, it was growing faster than I Am MT!

Of course, the vast majority of players weren’t paying players, meaning that the revenue of Thunderbolt Tabletop would never come close to I Am MT. However, the growth of players was enough to shock industry professionals.

There was no question that Thunderbolt Tabletop was trending, there were even streams who switched over from Emperor Dynasty Dou Dizhu to Thunderbolt Dou Dizhu during their free time.

There were also some tabletop game streamers who changed their title to “Gaming pod winning stream”, with tens of thousands of people watching.

This idea was trending without a doubt. The new tournament mode as well as the unique playstyle of Thunderbolt Poker started to spread from tabletop games players to a larger audience.