Sales of the Space Box continue to be booming, with sales exceeding eight million units in the first three quarters and the number of registered users worldwide surpassing twenty million. While fourth-quarter sales figures are not yet complete, achieving the annual target of ten million units sold and thirty million registered game users is a breeze.
The box's price remained unchanged at $50,000, a strategy set by Mei Yiqiu. This resulted in annual sales revenue exceeding that of the world's number one Walmart Group. If FSK and HW Company's production lines hadn't been unable to keep up, this figure would have been even more staggering.
Although Mei Yiqiu split the game's publishing rights and the sales channels for the Space Box into many different companies in order to quickly expand globally, the technology company newly established by the Third Space Foundation for the game still rose rapidly, and Mei Laboratory, which possessed the core technology, became a darling of the capital market.
Astute capitalists flocked to Professor Mei, hoping to get a share of this promising project. Professor Mei was annoyed by their constant visits and eventually shut himself away from everyone, communicating only with the outside world through an internal quantum communication network.
This relieved Hou Biao, who had been very nervous, and also kept Mei Ziqing extremely busy lately.
The Lunar New Year is just around the corner, and the first day of the Lunar New Year will mark the one-year anniversary of the release of the game " Dream Guide " and Space Box. Penguin Group responsible for publishing the game, has proposed holding a global annual celebration before the new year to better promote the game. Huanyu International and BFB also support this idea.
Mei Yiqiu didn't care. He knew perfectly well that the allure of " Dream Guide " was incomparable to those mindless games. Those games needed to constantly stimulate consumption through advertising and celebrity endorsements, but Dream Guide didn't. It was a game more addictive than opium; once you entered and played it once, creating your own world, you could never put it down.
It doesn't rely on the poorly crafted worldviews of game designers and architects; instead, it reconstructs a completely new world from your subconscious, utilizing all the memories in your brain. You can unleash your imagination to the fullest; in this game, nothing is impossible, only unimaginable.
When you create this world, it exists. It remains real in your memory, in your dreams, in your subconscious, like your past and future lives. You will gradually come to regard it as a real world parallel to this one. You are fascinated by it and unwilling to give it up, just as you were reluctant to leave this world after you came into it.
However, Mei Yiqiu was happy to see the annual gala plans completed by several companies. Making some progress was a good thing. The newly built production base in China had been completed, and three brand-new production lines were being tested. Production could be increased after the New Year.
This grand event not only invited a large number of celebrities, but also gathered many top billionaires and investors. Since the first batch of players in the world were wealthy people, the game first gained recognition in the circle of the rich.
Although he agreed, Mei Yiqiu his own ideas. He didn't want to turn this annual gala into a farce or a farce, nor did he want to provoke the resentment of most people in the world who couldn't afford to play games right now.
Those investors may not care about the feelings of the poor, because they can make enough money just by circulating among the wealthy. In their eyes, such an expensive box, selling ten million sets a year, will take ten years to reach the middle class, and thirty years before it can spread to the general consumer group, until the technology costs are significantly reduced. This is unbearable for capital, so their annual gala has become nothing more than a feast for the rich and a display of wealth in front of the poor.
Ke Mei Yiqiu's goal is to sell one billion units within five years!
He hadn't told anyone about this goal except a few core team members. If he did, people would just call him a " Madman old man."
The number of wealthy people is limited, and at the current cost of the Space Box, it's impossible to sell too many. But Mei Yiqiu has his price reduction plan, and eventually, the box could be free so that even the poor can afford it. He can't tell these things to the investors, because it would be pointless.
Therefore, he had no choice but to take a hard line to change their grand event plan and move it in the direction he desired. He didn't want to offend the poor, and he was even more worried about exposing the true purpose of the game.
Mei Ziqing was extremely busy with this matter. She needed to convey Professor Mei's message to those who planned this grand event. However, these wealthy people and the professor had completely different minds. They took themselves too seriously, or rather, they took their money too seriously. The professor, on the other hand, disdained to talk to them directly. Mei Ziqing had no choice but to act as a mouthpiece between them again and again.
Later, the professor probably got annoyed and said to Mei Ziqing, "Anyone who thinks too highly of themselves is fired!"
Mei Ziqing said, "They all invested money, and they said they would withdraw their investment if we didn't do things their way."
The professor said, "To hell with the money! Money is the cheapest thing in the world! If they want to withdraw their investment, let them. We'll find someone else to run it. I don't care!"
"But professor, we signed a contract with them."
" The United States even signed the Paris Agreement!"
With Mei Yiqiu's instructions, Mei Ziqing began to speak more assertively at the investor meeting. As soon as she spoke, the investors immediately backed down and repeatedly expressed that they would continue to support the game's release and the sales of the Space Box. As for the global grand event, everything would be done according to Professor Mei's wishes.
Mei Ziqing finally understood the true colors of some people. When you hand him a piece of cake, he always complains while trying to bite your hand and the Tushu in return. But if you shove the cake directly in his face, he will obediently lick his portion clean and never covet the rest of yours.
"Professor, everything has been arranged." Mei Ziqing returned to report.
"Oh, you've worked hard!" Mei Yiqiu, puffing out puffs of smoke from his pipe, his white hair standing on end, seemingly even stiffer than before.
"Professor, you're not turning on the air purification system!"
Mei Ziqing reached out to press the switch on the wall, but Mei Yiqiu stopped her.
"Don't move, this is good!" Mei Yiqiu's face was hidden behind the smoke. "If you're afraid of smoke, you can go outside first."
"I'm fine, Professor. I was just worried about your health," Mei Ziqing said, brushing away the secondhand smoke swirling around her.
Mei Yiqiu kept staring at the computer screen, which displayed rows of data analysis tables. Pointing to a line of numbers on the screen with his pipe, he said, "There's still a problem with the game data!"
"What's wrong, Professor?" Mei Ziqing asked.
Mei Yiqiu said, "Based on the data collected through the Space Box during the Black Box Stage, there are only a little over 300 abnormal cases so far, and these people are all suspected Parasites. However, the number of registered players in the game is close to 30 million, so based on this number, the parasitic ratio is only slightly more than one in 100,000."
Mei Ziqing exclaimed in surprise, "Isn't this proportion high? There are seven billion people in the world. One in ten thousand is more than 70,000 people, which means that 100,000 people worldwide have already been parasitized. I think that's terrifying!"