In Pei Qian's previous life, the smartphone boom started around 2010-2011, and riding that wave, popular mobile games—especially card-based games—emerged around 2012.
But in this world, smartphones had come out much earlier. Thus, by around 2008, card-based mobile games had already become prevalent.
Now, in 2009, the genre had already become oversaturated.
When card-based games first emerged, they were indeed an innovative and refreshing game mode, immensely popular for a long time.
However, due to the massive influx of cheap, reskinned card games, players had grown weary and resentful. The previous lucrative practice of releasing identical games with merely a new skin no longer guaranteed profit.
In this world, the pioneer of card games was "Cute Three Kingdoms" (Q萌三国). Its popularity could largely be attributed to factors such as cute chibi art and traditional card-collecting mechanics.
At that time, the Three Kingdoms IP had yet to be overused, and players still widely accepted it.
Thanks to the rapid adoption of smartphones, Cute Three Kingdoms became an overnight sensation, earning enormous profits and making other companies green with envy.
Given the advanced nature of game editors in this parallel world, countless indie developers jumped in immediately. Numerous clones flooded the market, quickly eroding the genre's freshness. What could have remained popular for several years had rapidly declined after just over a year.
Today, many players had an instinctive aversion and resentment toward card-based mobile games.
This was exactly what Pei Qian wanted!
Additionally, Pei Qian noticed a significant difference between Cute Three Kingdoms and the mobile card games from his previous life:
Monetization was notably restrained.
In this world, the game was sold at a buyout price of only five yuan. Furthermore, the pricing for in-game items was relatively fair. Outrageous offers such as "Spend 2,000 yuan to guarantee a rare card!" simply did not exist.
In fact, the game's pay-to-win ceiling was around 1,000 yuan. Beyond this amount, there wasn't even anything meaningful left to buy.
Yet, even with such modest monetization, Cute Three Kingdoms still regularly faced complaints about being money-grubbing.
The reason lay in this parallel world's unique environment.
Due to strict copyright enforcement, piracy was extremely rare, and single-player game developers actually thrived.
Thus, the gaming landscape was dominated by buyout single-player games and subscription-based online games. Players were already accustomed to these models.
Given this context, the creators of Cute Three Kingdoms didn't dare push the envelope. They opted for a small buyout fee of five yuan and added only minor in-game purchases.
Yet, they were still mercilessly criticized by players.
After completing his market research, Pei Qian began to contemplate how he could ensure his new game would fail.
The simplest strategy was to copy something wildly successful!
When there was already a highly successful pioneer, any imitation would almost inevitably crash and burn.
Since card games were a red ocean, Pei Qian decided to jump right in.
Cute Three Kingdoms was popular, wasn't it? Then he'd create another Three Kingdoms-themed card game!
Copying the gameplay mechanics would be straightforward—buying a similar card-game template from the official asset store would probably cost him around 100,000 yuan without much effort.
Of course, he couldn't copy the original artwork, as that would lead to copyright infringement.
Not that Pei Qian intended to copy the art style anyway. He needed something different—something expensive—to quickly burn through his remaining money. If he just bought templates, how could he possibly spend all 300,000 yuan?
But another critical aspect of the game was the monetization strategy.
While Cute Three Kingdoms showed considerable restraint in monetization, should Pei Qian make his own game ruthlessly pay-to-win?
No! Absolutely not!
Pei Qian knew the players' psychology far too well. Most of them were hypocrites—they complained bitterly about greedy developers and unfair monetization, vowing never to spend money again—
But the moment an expensive, shiny new item appeared, those whales would immediately open their wallets while cursing the developers all the way.
If he raised the spending cap to something ridiculously high, say tens of thousands, what if some wealthy players appeared?
A single whale's spending could easily match that of thousands of regular players. Just a handful of these big spenders could suddenly turn the game profitable, making Pei Qian vomit blood in frustration.
So, he had to reverse his thinking!
To prevent whales from spending excessively, he must set an extremely low spending cap!
Considering that Cute Three Kingdoms already had a cap around 1,000 yuan, Pei Qian decided to push it even lower—500 yuan?
No, that's still too high. 100 yuan?
Still too much. How about 30 yuan!
He'd make sure the whales wouldn't even have anywhere to spend their money!
Of course, as a card game, it needed both common and rare cards.
The usual practice was to put rare cards behind expensive gacha draws to boost revenue.
Pei Qian rejected this idea outright, as he didn't want to boost revenue—he wanted to lose money!
Thus, the most expensive item in his game would be a lifetime membership card, priced at only 30 yuan. Purchasing this card would grant players just a few extra card draws each day.
Other than that, players couldn't spend money even if they wanted to!
Want to donate money to Tengda? Impossible!
Even if players didn't spend the 30 yuan, they could still draw cards, just slightly fewer than paying players.
This would eliminate almost every incentive to spend money!
Regarding the game's pricing, Pei Qian initially considered making it free, but soon reconsidered.
Currently, most mobile games aren't free; the lowest price was generally around 1 yuan.
If he made it free, it could unintentionally attract a massive number of players, risking accidental popularity.
So, Pei Qian did the exact opposite and set the buyout price at 10 yuan!
This was double the price of Cute Three Kingdoms!
The 10 yuan buy-in alone was a huge deterrent, effectively driving away 90% of potential players.
Think about it—who would willingly pay twice the price of a popular, innovative game for a clone with zero creativity?
Of course, Pei Qian couldn't set the price too high either.
Ten yuan was enough to discourage most players. If he set it higher, even fewer players might join, but Pei Qian would earn more per sale—thus losing less money overall.
That would be unacceptable!
So, Pei Qian finalized his goals:
Firstly, the game would be a shameless clone with only the most basic card-game mechanics.
If other card games didn't have certain features, this game definitely wouldn't have them either.
Even if other games had certain features, this game might still omit them!
He'd present only overused mechanics, ensuring zero innovation or creativity!
Secondly, it would directly collide head-on with Cute Three Kingdoms.
Same Three Kingdoms theme.
Same card-game gameplay.
The original was genuine; his was blatantly fake.
Players would have no reason whatsoever to choose this game over the popular Cute Three Kingdoms!
Finally, he'd use pricing strategies guaranteed to repel players.
The initial 10-yuan price tag would push away most regular players.
The laughably low 30-yuan spending cap would completely block whales from spending significant amounts, ensuring zero potential for profit!
"I'm an absolute genius!"
"This plan is flawless!"
Pei Qian was thoroughly impressed with himself. With such a blatantly idiotic game concept, how could it possibly earn money?
Impossible—absolutely impossible!