As for the current ndscape of the gaming industry, it was basically simir to the situation Pei Qian remembered from 2009 in his previous life.
For instance, the most popur online game shifted from World of Warcraft to Fantasy World, Counter-Strike to Counter-Terrorism Pn, and DOTA to Divine Revetion. While the branding had changed slightly, gamepy remained rgely the same.
However, mobile gaming had significantly improved, likely due to faster hardware development.
For example, card-based mobile games emerged around 2012 in Pei Qian’s original world, benefiting from the rise of smartphones. But in this parallel world, due to earlier smartphone popurity, simir games had already become prevalent around 2008, and were now mature and refined.
"This makes things clearer."
"All I have to do is buy temptes and art resources on the ESRO marketpce, spend the full fifty thousand yuan, produce a game that nobody wants to py or buy, and after two weeks, it’ll count as a total loss."
"Perfect!"
Having made his decision, Pei Qian started browsing the ESRO resource marketpce for temptes.
Basic driving simutor tempte: 20,000 yuan, comes with vehicle interior and exterior textures included.
Scenery tempte: Desert highway, 15,000 yuan. Environmental dynamic effects (sunrise, sunset, sandstorms) add another 8,000 yuan, totaling 23,000 yuan.
"A bit pricey, but I precisely want something expensive!"
"There’s still a bit of money left."
Radio music pack: Select 30 songs from 100 avaible tracks, or let the system py randomly, 6,000 yuan.
"Only 1,000 yuan left… hmm, let's buy a simple leaderboard function. Can't afford anything else anyway."
After some quick decisions, Pei Qian frantically pced orders, quickly exhausting all 50,000 yuan.
To be honest, these resources weren’t expensive at all for game development.
The basic driving simutor tempte, for instance, came with fundamental driving-game mechanics already built-in—acceleration, braking, steering, collisions—everything included.
The desert highway scene allowed users to freely adjust the length of the road within the editor, with random variations occurring throughout the environment. With the additional environment simution feature, pyers could experience changing times of day and sandstorms.
Since these were all standard temptes, many indie game developers bought them as well, meaning asset overp was guaranteed.
Some developers invested more to avoid looking identical to other games by commissioning customized art resources, but Pei Qian didn’t care at all.
So what if the image in his game overps? It would make it even better! After all, he aimed for a loss—pyers refusing to py because the game looked too generic was exactly what he wanted.
Pei Qian began developing the game.
Although he aimed to lose money, the game still needed to pass ESRO’s review and be successfully listed for sale.
If the game were incomplete or severely broken, it wouldn't pass ESRO’s approval, and the system would likely fg Pei Qian for viotions.
Therefore, no matter how awful the game was, it had to fulfill basic requirements.
Pei Qian dragged the base driving simutor tempte into the editor, followed by the desert highway scene.
The general framework was now complete—pyers entering the game would immediately be able to drive down a lonely desert highway.
But since he'd bought other resources, he couldn't let them go to waste.
Pei Qian implemented the in-car radio feature, allowing pyers to randomly listen to music while driving. Of course, the music selection consisted entirely of obscure or very cssic tracks; popur hits weren't attainable for such a small sum.
Now, a critical question arose:
What was the core gamepy loop of this game?
Pei Qian had no idea.
Racing?
Impossible—he had no money to implement it.
After all, he'd only bought the basic tempte, which included just one car texture and one scenery setting.
Those fancy race tracks, beautiful cars, and complicated racing mechanics—he simply couldn’t afford them!
How could he create proper gamepy without money?
Pei Qian spped his forehead suddenly, coming up with an idea.
The game's core gamepy would be incredibly simple: just driving.
Pyers would start from the beginning and drive all the way to the finish line, completing the game.
But merely piecing together generic resources wouldn't pass ESRO’s review—it cked innovation entirely.
He needed some changes to pass the approval process—but these modifications couldn't be too attractive, as he still needed the game to lose money!
After some consideration, Pei Qian decided to stretch the desert road scene infinitely long.
He extended it so the entire gamepy would st a total of eight hours!
Yes, pyers had to drive down a desert highway for eight full hours, with the road making occasional turns along the way.
Pyers couldn’t just press one button to finish easily.
This way, the gamepy differed slightly from other driving simution games on the market, ensuring it could pass ESRO’s review.
Plus, a game with such absurd, tedious gamepy would surely earn the anger of countless pyers. How could it possibly turn a profit?
Pei Qian became increasingly excited, convinced of his genius.
Finally, he added an extremely simple completion screen, dispying just a single line:
"Congratutions, you've successfully wasted 8 valuable hours of your life!"
Even if someone did complete the game, they'd be so annoyed they’d never py another game from his company again!
The leaderboard feature couldn’t go to waste either, so he created a "Time-Wasting Leaderboard," tracking pyers' "Number of Completions" and "Total Pytime."
The leaderboard had no practical value—it merely served to use the paid feature.
The implementation was straightforward, requiring nothing more than simple dragging and parameter adjustments within the editor—easy enough for anyone with functioning hands.
Including the time spent learning the editor, buying resources, and assembling the game, it took Pei Qian less than two hours.
"A game this terrible is destined to lose money!"
Once finished, Pei Qian ran the game on his ptop to test it.
Five minutes in, he nearly threw up from boredom and quickly quit.
All pyers could do was drive endlessly—pure boredom and torture.
Pei Qian felt extremely satisfied and immediately prepared the game for release.
Game Name: Lonely Desert Road
Description:
"Driving alone for hours on an empty desert highway, you'll gain some insights about life."
Pei Qian struggled a bit when writing this description.
Should he exaggerate the game’s qualities?
No—if the exaggerated description attracted clickbait-driven pyers, it might reduce his intended losses.
Should he openly criticize it as garbage?
That wouldn't work either—it would be too obvious. Not only could the system fg it as a viotion, but it might also trigger pyers’ curiosity, causing reverse psychology to kick in.
Thus, Pei Qian opted for a truthful yet dull description to ensure minimal interest.
Next came the pricing.
Pei Qian priced the game at 1 yuan.
He didn’t dare set the price too high—if, by some twist, pyers impulsively bought it at a higher price, it would reduce his intended losses.
At such a low price, even if a few dozen pyers accidentally bought it, it wouldn't significantly affect his losses.
After finalizing everything, Pei Qian uploaded the game and waited for ESRO’s review and subsequent release on the official gaming marketpce.
Typically, approval took anywhere from a few hours to two or three days.
The official marketpce used an automated recommendation system. New games in the same batch were promoted based purely on data performance. Unless malicious activity occurred, marketpce administrators wouldn’t intervene.
Pei Qian wasn’t worried at all.
For such a garbage game, it was guaranteed to be utterly ignored after release and quickly fade into obscurity. Two weeks ter, the 50,000 yuan would convert into his personal funds—how delightful!
Pei Qian closed his ptop, feeling deeply satisfied and filled with happiness.
