168: Chapter 168 "The Sword of the Archangel" Project Launched

"What about overseas?"

"The overseas budget is about 300,000 USD, which is around 2 million RMB. Adding domestic and overseas together, the total budget is 3 million."

Wang Jing closed the folder, her tone becoming a bit more firm. "Mr. Chen, this budget is already the bare minimum. If we compress it any further, we'll have to cut the QQ ad slots or reduce their duration, and the effectiveness of the feed ads will also be compromised."

Chen Fan thought for a moment; a budget of 3 million was still a bit risky.

Anyway, the company had money in its accounts now, so why not just increase it to 5 million, extend the time period, and make the rollout schedule more relaxed?

Money isn't saved; it's spent. He understood this principle in his past life, he just never had the opportunity to put it into practice.

Thinking of this, he looked at Wang Jing. "Keep the domestic budget at 2 million, and make the overseas one 3 million. That's 5 million in total."

"5 million? Mr. Chen, isn't that too much?" Wang Jing was taken aback for a moment. She had thought reporting 3 million was already high, and she was afraid Chen Fan would think it was too much and cut it down.

In the few companies she had worked at before, the boss's first reaction upon hearing a budget was always, "Can we make it less?"

She hadn't expected Chen Fan not only not to cut it but to actually increase it to 5 million. This left her stunned for a moment.

"It's not much. If we extend the timeline, 5 million is just about right."

He paused, then continued, "However, now that I've given you the budget, you need to deliver results. Don't end up spending 5 million only to get the results of a 500,000 marketing campaign."

Wang Jing's fingers tightened on the folder.

She had handled promotions for several projects, from client-based games to web games, but this was the first time she had 5 million in her hands.

She took a deep breath, looked up, and met Chen Fan's gaze without flinching. Her voice was quiet but steady. "Rest assured, Mr. Chen, I guarantee I won't let you down."

"Alright. Do you have enough manpower on your side?"

Wang Jing thought for a moment and said, "Currently, with the two new hires, it's barely enough, but I'd like to specifically hire someone for overseas operations. Their English needs to be good, they should be familiar with overseas gaming media and social platforms, and ideally, they should have experience with projects launching abroad. I'm afraid I'll be spread too thin if I have to monitor both domestic and overseas markets. I'm already very familiar with domestic channels, but for overseas, language, time zones, and cultural differences—each one is a potential pitfall. Without someone dedicated to monitoring it, I'm worried problems will arise."

Chen Fan nodded. "Alright, I'll speak to Zhou Min. You can coordinate the specific hiring requirements with her."

Wang Jing acknowledged this, opened the door, and walked out.

Chen Fan leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.

How much of an effect 5 million would have once spent remained to be seen after the game launched.

However, compared to the apprehension he felt when "defend the carrot" launched, Chen Fan was quite calm this time.

It was mainly because he had already been through it once, and Chen Fan had gained experience.

Another reason was that "defend the carrot" had already achieved great results.

Currently, its monthly revenue had already exceeded 10 million, so even if "happy elimination" failed, it would only mean a loss of some funds for the company.

It wouldn't reach the point of being a crippling blow.

...

In the following time, everything in the company was progressing steadily.

On Zhang Tao's end, "happy elimination" had already entered the final testing stage.

During this time, Chen Fan also took some time to talk to him about the issues with some of the employees in his team.

After listening, he promised Chen Fan that he would definitely reduce such occurrences.

Chen Fan gave him a chance.

However, if such situations continued in the future, Chen Fan was prepared to fire a few people.

Fortunately, perhaps it was because Zhang Tao's management had an effect, or perhaps the arrival of the new team in the company had created a sense of crisis for them.

During this period, the overall work state had improved a lot.

The technical team ran test cases every day, troubleshooting bugs one by one, and optimizing performance round after round.

Zhang Tao was the first to arrive at the company every morning and the last to leave at night, and he even followed up on progress in the group chat on weekends.

According to the current pace, it was expected to officially launch on December 10th. Chen Fan glanced at the calendar; there were less than two weeks left.

On the operations side, advertising partnerships for most channels had already been negotiated.

Advertising slots on 17173, Duowan, and U9 had been locked in, and grassroots influencers on Weibo had also been scheduled; they were just waiting for the game to launch to start the promotion simultaneously.

Wang Jing had turned the rollout schedule for each channel into a Gantt chart, hanging it on the whiteboard in the office area. It was marked in red, blue, and green, with every milestone clearly labeled.

Besides that, Technical Lead's new team had also been mostly recruited.

In the conference room, besides Chen Fan in the main seat, there were four people sitting there—lead programmer Technical Lead, who was also the project manager for the entire team; lead designer Wang Yun; and lead artist Gu Ning.

Wang Yun was in his early thirties, wore black-rimmed glasses, had slightly long hair, and was wearing a gray hoodie. He looked like a tech nerd, but he was actually doing design work.

He had a notebook spread out in front of him, with several pages filled with dense, neat handwriting, as if he had already organized everything he wanted to say before the meeting.

He didn't talk much, but when he did, he got straight to the point. Chen Fan had held a few meetings with him and was very satisfied with his efficiency.

Gu Ning was thirty-two, had an intellectual look, long hair draped over her shoulders, and was wearing a dark gray knit sweater with a thin silver bracelet on her wrist.

The three of them sat on both sides of the conference table, waiting for Chen Fan to speak.

"I called everyone here today to discuss your team's project."

Chen Fan said, opening the PPT prepared on his computer.

The project introduction page for "archangels sword" was immediately projected onto the big screen, with a Western fantasy-style concept art as the background.

An angel clad in armor held a longsword, wings spread out behind, with heavy clouds overhead, and a few beams of light shining through the gaps in the clouds.

The composition of the image was very impactful; the angel's posture looked as if it were diving down from the sky, with the sword tip pointing at the audience outside the screen.

This image was made by Sun Zheyuan, an artist from Zhang Tao's team, and it had been revised over a dozen times.

The first version had wings that were too small, making it look like a bird-person; the second version's armor was too flashy, looking more like a fashion show model than a warrior; the third version's lighting effects were too dark, not holy enough; the fourth version's composition was too crowded, lacking a sense of breathing space.

Chen Fan could find faults in every version, and Sun Zheyuan was pushed to the brink of a breakdown by him, but finally, this version was approved.

"This is the project you are going to work on: a Western fantasy-themed web game, an MMORPG," Chen Fan said, pointing at the keywords on the screen.

Everyone present looked at the big screen. Technical Lead stared at the concept art for a few seconds, his eyes slightly narrowing, as if he were deconstructing the technical requirements behind the image.

After a while, he couldn't help but say, "It feels a bit like the style of 'mu online'."