Coming to an End

After all, "Soul Knight" is synonymous with traffic right now.

It would be strange if the media didn't follow the trend.

But some media outlets, seeing the flood of homogenized news online, racked their brains to play a different angle and grab attention.

They focused all their reporting on Wang Chuan and Tian Boxun, Penguin and Huangtu.

And surprisingly, it actually gained a bit of traction!!!

Plenty of players and media flocked to social platforms, leaving "well-meaning reminders" under Tian Boxun's personal account!!

"Oh ho ho, isn't this the producer of 'The Parable of Illidan'? I heard your results are out!!!"

"Oh, sorry, our 'Soul Knight' is still sitting at number one, accidentally kicking 'The Parable of Illidan' down to third."

"Gotta say, this Tian Boxun was smart—didn't impulsively bet Wang Chuan on anything back then, or he'd have no way to back out now."

"Heh, the guy above, was that smart? It's clearly because he knew he'd lose for sure!!!"

Among this, Tian Boxun's earlier reply of "just wait and see" was also dug up.

Of course, Tian Boxun acted like he knew nothing, giving no response at all.

But in this situation, playing dead had become the most effective method.

Wang Chuan paid zero attention to what was happening with Tian Boxun.

Why bother? To join in and mock Tian Boxun?

He wasn't that bored~~~

Back when he clashed with the guy, it was just to ride his wave of traffic, promote "Soul Knight," and because he simply disliked what Tian Boxun said.

Now, "Soul Knight"'s massive success had proven his strength.

So he didn't need to care.

As for the media, he cared even less.

He knew that while the media were on his side now, it was only because "Soul Knight" had such explosive results.

If "Soul Knight" hadn't been this hot, the news would probably have turned into something like:

"Wang Chuan's genius is just inspiration, but Tian Boxun is the true powerhouse producer."

And so on.

So for Wang Chuan, maintaining "Soul Knight"'s popularity and planning future version updates were the most important things.

As a Roguelike game, "Soul Knight" was still different from others.

That difference lay in the areas for repeated profit and repeated spending.

Those other games could keep generating revenue endlessly, even without new content, and still attract players, all because they had deep enough gacha pools and very high spending ceilings.

But "Soul Knight" was different.

The game's spending points were only characters and skins.

Though it had in-app purchases, it was basically like selling DLC.

If you thought of "Soul Knight" as a buy-to-play game, and the new characters and skins as DLC, that made it easy to understand.

And through the Pangu Editor, Wang Chuan could see the backend data.

"Soul Knight"'s revenue had been steadily declining.

Even though daily income hovered around a million.

But the player base for "Soul Knight" was exploding every single day.

In this situation, the fact that daily revenue could only barely hold steady, and even showed signs of dropping, already indicated that the game's future income wasn't very promising.

It was only because so many new players kept joining that the current situation was sustained.

And Wang Chuan could tell from the data that the growth rate of new players was slowing down.

This meant "Soul Knight"'s audience was nearing saturation.

More players would still join later, but there wouldn't be another explosive surge like before.

Without Wang Chuan finding ways to maintain it, "Soul Knight"'s daily revenue would keep dropping until it leveled off.

In the Villa of Huangtu Game Company, Wang Chuan leaned back in his chair, pondering life!!!

Future version updates for "Soul Knight" were a must, and he had to be careful about them.

Of course, since he had a company now, he didn't plan to do it all alone anymore.

He intended to create the first part himself, make a template, and leave the rest to the four of them to handle.

His main role was still to steer the four of them in the right direction for the overall content.

As for version updates, there were two main considerations.

First, since this was a Roguelike game, all future versions had to stay true to that genre.

After all, the core gameplay of Soul Knight was its Roguelike mechanics—that was the most fundamental element, and it couldn't be changed.

Moreover, the randomness inherent to Roguelikes was a key reason players could maintain a steady, endless sense of freshness.

With that premise, the direction of Soul Knight's subsequent updates was already set.

New characters, new skins, new classes, new dungeon maps, and so on.

Beyond that, there also needed to be expanded gameplay modes like endless mode and tower defense.

Another point was the content Wang Chuan had prepared for the four of them—stuff he simply had no time to handle himself.

For him, Soul Knight was just one project among many, not his sole focus.

If it were any other game studio or developer, having a hit like Soul Knight suddenly blow up, they'd naturally build their entire strategy around it, doing everything to maintain its popularity and profitability, rather than moving on to new games.

That was exactly why most games felt increasingly exploitative to players.

Every game has a lifespan; as its vitality wanes, revenue drops.

Forcing revenue growth leads to predatory practices, and eventually, players leave.

So Wang Chuan's approach was to set a long-term sustainable path within the game's original framework, prioritizing content and player experience.

That way, players who loved Soul Knight could keep playing and enjoy it.

Yeah, all the day-to-day work was handed off to the four of them—otherwise, why hire them in the first place???

As for himself, he was going to work on new games and didn't have the energy to maintain Soul Knight's content going forward.

With that in mind, Wang Chuan opened the Pangu Editor and began drafting the initial version updates he had in mind.