Explosive Results

Meanwhile, in the villa of Huangtu Game Company.

The sky had gradually darkened. Normally, by this time, the four of them would have already left work.

Only Wang Chuan would remain in the villa, free to do whatever he wanted.

But not today. Today, they were all sitting in front of their computers, eyes fixed on the screens, refreshing every now and then.

Their gazes were locked onto the data for "Soul Knight."

Yeah, the afternoon's events had left two of them feeling a bit awkward. Even now, Huang Shanshan's eyes kept darting away.

Wang Chuan, though, was fine. He was a man, after all, with a thicker skin. His expression was still natural.

He hadn't been glued to the "Soul Knight" data, only glancing at it a few times.

Most of his attention was on the news in the gaming forums.

"Manager Wang, how's our data looking now?"

"Are we going to flop? We won't even recoup development costs, right?"

"I heard Penguin's downloads have already passed twenty thousand!"

Aside from Huang Shanshan, the other three crowded around Wang Chuan, their faces full of worry as they asked.

Wang Chuan knew exactly what was on their minds.

"Alright, alright. The game's already live. Whatever the results are, they are. Is all this worrying really necessary?"

"Instead of this, why don't you take a look at the follow-up update proposal I gave you earlier?"

"And let me tell you straight up—I have full confidence in this game!"

Wang Chuan was exasperated, caught between laughter and tears. He had no choice but to shoo them away cleanly.

He was starting to regret letting them have so much free time. If they were all busy with work, none of this would be happening~~~

Of course, that was just a thought. He wouldn't actually act on it.

After all, these people meant well. They were hardworking and had contributed a lot. They were the founding members.

If he ruthlessly squeezed them dry, would he even be himself?

"Manager Wang, we know what you're saying. How about this—just take one look. It'll put our minds at ease."

"Fine~~~"

Out of consideration for them, Wang Chuan opened the Pangu Editor and pulled up the backend.

He had to admit, the power of free was real.

In just this short time, across the PC version, Mobile version, and the official game platform, downloads had already exceeded three hundred thousand.

And since players had been playing for over two hours now, the comment section had filled up with quite a few reviews.

Oh, right—the game's rating had also come out: 9.9 points!

Keep in mind, the max score was only ten points!!

9.9 points—that was almost too ridiculous!

Of course, while Wang Chuan was surprised, he understood deep down.

This score wouldn't last forever. It would eventually drop.

After all, no game could please everyone.

And so, no game could ever achieve a perfect score~~~

Besides, that so-called perfect score was mostly for media ratings or player praise.

When it came to an open rating system, no game had ever scored a perfect ten!

Take "The Stanley Parable," for example.

At the very start, that game had scored a perfect ten.

But as time went on, the score kept dropping.

9.9, 9.8, 9.7—finally settling at 9.6.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! We're number one on the new game download chart right now!"

Zhao Jing's eyes went wide, her face full of shock as she blurted out.

"That's not all! We're on the new game sales chart too, but... only at number seventeen!!"

Liu Qiang's excited tone instantly turned to disappointment when he saw the ranking.

That new game sales chart was the one topped by "The Parable of Illidan."

But that was to be expected. After all, that game had Penguin backing it, with its own platform!

"Alright, don't lose heart—this data is already pretty good!!"

Seeing the numbers, Wang Chuan's tone carried a hint of excitement.

"Huh???"

"No way? Manager Wang, you're not messing with us, are you?"

The others were a bit surprised, staring at the data in confusion.

Seven hours had passed since launch, and the revenue had already hit over two hundred thousand yuan.

Was that a high number?

If The Parable of Illidan hadn't been in the picture, they'd have been more than satisfied.

But since The Parable of Illidan was sitting at number one, with sales breaking twenty thousand and even climbing higher—

A rough estimate put their revenue at around six hundred thousand yuan.

That was more than triple theirs!

And in the gaming industry, judging whether a game was a success still came down to revenue.

After all, even the most beloved game meant nothing if it couldn't make money.

"Haha, don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Come on, let's call it a day—I'm treating you all to a feast to celebrate."

A mysterious smile crept onto Wang Chuan's face, but he didn't say more.

Just as he'd said, he knew what he was doing.

Because this data had already told him—Soul Knight was fine!

In just seven hours, Soul Knight's growth figures had revealed everything to him.

It all came down to the download trend.

After the initial pre-launch hype, Soul Knight pulled in twenty thousand downloads in the first hour.

That was a solid, unremarkable number—nothing wrong there.

But in the second hour, instead of dropping, downloads actually rose to over thirty thousand.

And from there, it got even more ridiculous—the numbers kept climbing higher and higher.

Each hour beat the last, until now it had reached over three hundred thousand.

On top of that, the comment section was overwhelmingly positive.

That signaled one crucial thing—Soul Knight was a success.

Since players had to register a Huangtu Game platform account before logging in, Wang Chuan could easily see that the active player count in Soul Knight was already around two hundred thousand.

And the number of paying accounts had surpassed ten thousand.

Soul Knight was a light-spending casual game, so that level of monetization was already impressive.

In fact, Wang Chuan's initial benchmark was simple—if Soul Knight could achieve a ratio of active players to paying players of thirty to one, that would be acceptable.

But looking at it now, it wasn't just thirty to one!

It had already hit twenty to one—couldn't ask for better than that.

And Wang Chuan had a pretty good idea why this was happening.

It must be because this world had no piracy—a strong sense of legitimacy meant almost everyone was willing to pay.

That was what led to such an exaggerated ratio.