Operating Model

First, there's the issue of profitability—a goal and objective present in nearly every game.

After all, with a company this large and a considerable number of employees, everyone is waiting for the game to turn a profit.

As long as "Soul Knight" achieves this goal, it will also significantly aid Huangtu Game Company's future development!!!

Second, there's the long-term growth that Wang Chuan values more.

Wang Chuan set it up so that "Soul Knight" requires players to register an account and complete their personal information before playing.

Why do this??

Naturally, it's for future channel considerations.

Without your own channels, you're ultimately like duckweed on water—surviving is fine, but rising up is extremely difficult.

Having a user base as large as Three Factories is an incredibly, incredibly tough thing to achieve.

But, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and a sea is formed from countless streams.

Wang Chuan never expected a single game to amass a massive user base—that's just unrealistic!!

Still, the more you can save up, the better.

Over time, quantity will inevitably lead to a qualitative change!!!

"However, should 'Soul Knight' be operated exactly like it was in the previous life?"

Wang Chuan was a bit indecisive, pinching his chin as he pondered.

In the previous life, "Soul Knight" achieved success, so its own monetization method was worth referencing and learning from.

In the previous life, "Soul Knight" used a free-to-play model with in-app purchases.

The game itself was free, but in-app purchases existed.

For example, characters, skills, and skins in the game.

All of these had monetization points.

Of course, this kind of monetization was normal in the previous life.

Oh, right, there were also ads in the game.

Players who died and wanted to revive, or double their stage rewards, had to watch ads.

Seeing this, everyone might think "Soul Knight" made a ton of money, right???

The answer is no!!!

Although "Soul Knight" seems to have many monetization points, like a hodgepodge.

In reality, "Soul Knight" adopted a small-profit, high-volume approach.

And its revenue was very, very low~~~

The reason lies in operations and third-party issues.

"Soul Knight" itself had no encryption, leading to rampant modding tools.

You could say any modding tool on the market could modify player resources, and almost everyone had cheats.

Plus, the game had no cloud save, causing issues with player purchases.

Money spent but not credited, characters bought but saves lost, etc.

These situations happened all the time.

However, these situations were no problem for Wang Chuan!!

With the lessons from the previous life, he had already prepared countermeasures from the start.

No cloud save?

Fine, I'll add cloud save so you never have failures again.

Cheats and cracked versions?

No worries—this world's uniqueness means no one dares to make cheats or cracked versions. Anyone who tries gets caught. If you want free room and board, feel free to consider it~~

"Uh, then let's drop the ads and go with free-to-play plus in-app purchases!!"

After thinking for a long time, Wang Chuan finally made up his mind.

Referencing the payment model from the previous life, the game itself is free, but some special classes still require spending.

Also considering the loyal players and grinders in every game.

Wang Chuan also set up many characters that could be earned through grinding.

As for ads, Wang Chuan scrapped them.

He had been a player himself, so he directly cut out this experience-ruining element.

The reason he chose this monetization method, while referencing the previous life's game.

Was more because he was familiar with it.

Because "Soul Knight"'s profitability goal was very important, and he couldn't afford any carelessness.

Roguelike games have randomness as their core mechanic.

It gives players a sense of novelty after every death.

What items will I get this time? What boss will I face? What skills will I have?

That anticipation of the unknown is the heart of the game.

And that heart is also where the game makes its money.

Can you play Soul Knight without spending a cent? Can you beat it?

Of course you can—no question about it.

But you'll eventually get tired of the same old levels, characters, skills, and classes.

When that happens, you want to chase that fresh feeling again.

And for that, you need to spend some cash!

Unlike other mobile games, you don't have to pay at every stage just to experience the content.

Soul Knight is like a DLC—it offers different ways to play.

But when it comes to the price tag, you've got to think it through.

From a player's perspective, Wang Chuan axed the whole setup where the second skill for each class required real money.

He changed it so you could unlock it with in-game gold.

Of course, that killed two birds with one stone.

After all, the original version of Soul Knight didn't have enough progression content to keep players around long-term.

Making players grind gold to unlock second skills was another form of progression in itself.

With the monetization model settled, Wang Chuan kept fleshing out the framework.

Since Soul Knight was going to be free-to-play with in-app purchases, player retention was crucial.

You could even say the game's profits were tied directly to it.

So, Soul Knight needed some progression content added in.

The previous life's Soul Knight did the same thing.

Things like character upgrades, gear crafting, and the garden system.

But Wang Chuan didn't want to cram all that in at once.

After all, the game's success came from being easy to pick up—if he dumped everything in at once, the barrier to entry would be too high.

Sure, he needed to add some progression content, but only when the player base had grown enough.

And when they started getting bored with the existing gameplay—that was the perfect time to introduce it.

So, Wang Chuan decided to package all that progression stuff as DLC.

When the time came, he'd update the game with new versions and new content on that foundation.

Beyond that, there were some finer details he wasn't sure about, but instead of using the Memory Searcher, he worked them out himself.

After getting all the work ready, Wang Chuan thought of Huang Shanshan.

Right—the art assets Huang Shanshan had brought over.

"That little girl..."

Remembering how she'd fled in a panic, Wang Chuan couldn't help but smile.

Shaking his head, he opened the Pangu Editor and started checking the art assets.