"Phew, that was unexpected!"
Inside his rented apartment, Chen Xu looked at the sales statistics in his Official Game Platform backend with some surprise.
The increase in the data had far exceeded his expectations.
On the first day, there had been 162 sales—not high, but not low either.
On the second day, sales had directly surged by around four times, reaching a full 610 copies.
The main reason was his promotion campaign.
With a budget of twenty thousand yuan, conventional advertising was out of the question.
On one hand, the money was insufficient. On the other, the game was somewhat special.
So Chen Xu turned his attention overseas, to a forum frequently visited by gentlemen.
After all, all Chen Xu wanted was exposure.
As for the method, it was the relatively old-fashioned approach of elite astroturfer posts.
He had never considered bombarding people with astroturfers on a massive scale.
That would not produce good results and might even backfire.
So Chen Xu's approach was to buy accounts and take the elite route.
He bought some older forum accounts, then used them to post reviews.
After the posts went up, astroturfers from other platforms would bump them and boost the discussion.
Of course, the most crucial point was that the game's quality had to be good enough.
Otherwise, this sort of promotion would actually be less effective than large-scale astroturfing.
The key to whether this model could succeed was turning players who learned about the game into allies, making them voluntarily recommend it to friends and fellow gentlemen.
As a professional game designer in his previous life—and an honest, simple player—Chen Xu naturally understood one principle very well.
What were players interested in?
The theory was simple: most players liked doing one thing.
They liked doing naughty things in normal games, and normal things in naughty games.
That sense of contrast made these players utterly unable to stop.
Just like a joking saying among online players: men have two great hobbies—dragging virtuous women into depravity, and persuading women of the red-light district to reform.
Players were the same.
There were always some players who liked pulling off outrageous stunts in games.
Of course, this alone was clearly not enough to make a game successful. In the end, it still came down to the game's quality.
But at the very least, this trait could attract players into the game, and that was enough.
Judging from Magic Mirror's sales now, this promotional strategy could be considered a complete success so far.
After all, Chen Xu had thought long and hard before choosing Magic Mirror. It was not a decision he had made on a whim.
He had researched every aspect in advance: how competing games of the same type performed in the market, whether gentlemen's preferences differed from those in his previous life, as well as the sales platform and the feasibility of promotion.
Chen Xu had calculated everything.
Under those circumstances, Magic Mirror's success was entirely within Chen Xu's grasp.
The only thing he had not expected was that the gentlemen's enthusiasm would far exceed what he had imagined.
With 610 sales on the second day, Chen Xu believed this growth was only the beginning.
As time went on and players spread the word, Magic Mirror's sales would definitely climb bit by bit.
"Mm, at this rate, I can pay back the money I owe the payment app next week."
"Good thing the overseas Official Game Platform settles payments in real time. As long as players pass the refund period, the money goes straight into my account."
"Still, just like in my previous life, the cuts taken by third-party platforms are really hard to stomach."
Thinking of that, Chen Xu could not help smacking his lips.
The Official Game Platform took a thirty percent cut, mainly for routine platform maintenance, game engine upgrades, and research into the latest technologies.
As for the other third-party game platforms, they were far more exploitative.
Especially when mobile channels were involved, they generally started at a fifty-fifty split.
Some were even worse, offering a thirty-seventy split—though of course, the developer got thirty while the platform took seventy.
They were comparable to the Penguin Company and the major mobile app stores from his previous life.
Of course, there were benefits as well. These third-party platforms truly had sizable user bases, and the official platform had fewer recommendations and less-than-scientific algorithms.
So although many of these platforms took high cuts, game studios and companies could still make money.
It was just that they could only drink the soup while the platforms devoured all the meat.
But for Chen Xu at the moment, he had only paid a little attention to those platforms. They held no real appeal for him.
It was not that he thought they were too exploitative and did not want to join them.
In fact, if he did join them, his early-stage capital accumulation would definitely be faster.
The main reason was that Magic Mirror was a little too special. Even if it were listed there, the platforms would not give it any recommendation slots.
Of course, that applied to domestic platforms. Overseas platforms had fewer restrictions.
But with the Official Game Platform available, there was no need to use third-party channels.
Those domestic platform operators had very little influence overseas.
Their primary focus was the domestic market.
From the afternoon until night, Chen Xu kept watching the game's sales data.
That was also the golden period for sales growth.
Every time he refreshed the backend data after an hour, he could see Magic Mirror's sales steadily rising.
It had gone from adding a little over a hundred copies per hour to over two hundred during this prime period.
Clearly, through all sorts of information channels, the name Magic Mirror was gradually reaching the ears of gentlemen everywhere.
Each increase in sales represented the support of kind and friendly gentlemen.
And as player ratings were unlocked, Magic Mirror's score was successfully displayed as well.
A 9.7 rating—an absolutely explosive score.
However, Chen Xu was not overly excited.
The main reason was that, as an 18R game, players were extraordinarily tolerant toward this type of game, with a much higher threshold for criticism.
Compared to traditional games, this score did not hold much reference value.
Unlike forums filled with insults and rabble-rousing, forums where gentlemen often gathered were incredibly harmonious.
Users either posted things like, "The OP is a good person. May good people live in peace," or exchanged their viewing experiences and expressed their love for certain actresses.
The only thing Magic Mirror's score proved was that, in the players' eyes, this game was absolutely worth buying and recommending.
After all, who could refuse such an interesting beautiful girl Match-3 game?
Before you continue