250: Chapter 250 continues to be a hit

In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.

During the five days since the launch of "archangels sword", the first thing Chen Fan did every morning upon arriving at the office was to go to Technical Lead's workstation to check the previous day's data.

It wasn't that he didn't trust the reports; it was just that sitting in front of the screen and watching those fluctuating numbers felt more reassuring than looking at any report.

On the first day, the initial daily revenue reached 7.2 million, with a peak of 200,000 concurrent users.

On the second day, revenue fell back to 6.8 million, with concurrent users stabilizing at 160,000.

On the third day, it was 5.6 million, with 150,000 users. It continued to decline, but the margin was getting smaller and smaller.

On the fourth day, it hit 8.4 million, with 250,000 users. It shot up significantly again.

On the fifth day, it was just over 6 million, falling back to a normal level.

Chen Fan looked at the data curves from the past few days, and he already felt confident.

As it stood, "archangels sword" had stabilized. Although daily revenue fluctuated, sometimes high and sometimes low, it was generally staying above 6 million, and the lowest point hadn't even dipped below 5.5 million.

If it continued on this trend, breaking 200 million in monthly revenue would be absolutely no problem.

With 200 million in revenue, after deducting taxes, server costs, bandwidth, and labor, the net profit would be over 100 million.

The monthly profit from this game was more than the previous two games combined.

Technical Lead stood up from his workstation, carrying his water cup over to Chen Fan's side, and said half-jokingly, "President Chen, is it time to hand out bonuses yet?"

Chen Fan glanced at him and smiled, "That's a must."

Chen Fan had seen all the hard work put in by the employees of the Second Department over these past few days.

Throughout the entire Labor Day holiday, not a single person had taken a break; everyone had been working overtime at the company.

Chen Fan naturally wouldn't treat them poorly. In addition to the standard triple pay, there were extra daily subsidies.

He also specifically instructed the administration to prepare food and water every night. It wasn't the cheap ten-yuan boxed meals, but rather dishes ordered from nearby restaurants: four dishes and one soup, balanced with meat and vegetables, with fruit and yogurt provided after the meal.

These things didn't actually cost much, but the sentiment felt by the employees was different.

Meal subsidies and overtime pay—the money spent on these would ultimately turn into the motivation for employees to stay and keep working.

Of course, this wasn't really anything.

With the game achieving such great success, Chen Fan wouldn't be stingy. Bonuses were a must.

He planned to set aside at least 5 million as a project bonus to be distributed.

5 million sounded like a lot, but compared to the monthly revenue of over 200 million, it really didn't amount to much.

However, Chen Fan didn't plan to tell them yet; he would wait until the first month's revenue figures were out before distributing them.

On Wednesday noon, while Chen Fan was in his office checking the backend data, Wang Jing knocked on the office door and walked in.

"President Chen, several channels have contacted us, asking if we have any interest in joint operations."

"Joint operations?" Chen Fan was a bit curious. "Which channels are they?"

Wang Jing opened her notebook and read off a list of names: "Baidu, Tencent, 360, 7K7k... they've all reached out. They've sent over their revenue-sharing proposals and traffic estimates."

After listening, Chen Fan tapped his fingers lightly on the desk and fell into deep thought.

As of now, given the operational status of "archangels sword", there was absolutely no need for joint operations with other channels.

If they did joint operations, they would have to share a portion of the revenue with the channels.

But that wasn't the way to look at it.

Having one more joint operation channel meant one more traffic entry point for the game.

Platforms like Tencent, Baidu, and 360 controlled extremely powerful promotional channels.

Some players might not watch the "Zhajiahui" ads, might not use Weibo, and might not browse gaming forums, but when they were browsing these gaming platforms and saw the large featured images on the homepage, they might just click in.

These users were ones the official website could never reach.

Besides that, there was one most important point—you should try not to eat alone at any time, otherwise, others would easily get jealous.

Thinking of this, Chen Fan looked at Wang Jing. "Let's just choose those three: Tencent, Baidu, and 360."

Wang Jing nodded. "Okay, I'll go talk to them."

Soon, time reached the middle of May.

The operational data for "archangels sword" remained stable, with daily active users hovering around 200,000 and daily revenue sitting steadily at over 6 million.

Although it wasn't surging as aggressively as it had in the first few days of launch, its strength lay in its longevity.

For a web game, "stability" was more precious than "bursting"—a burst only lasted a few days, but stability could last for months.

Chen Fan had seen too many products in his past life that surged to over a hundred thousand concurrent users on the first day of launch, only to drop to twenty or thirty thousand a week later.

The fact that "archangels sword" could hold its position meant that players weren't just coming in for the novelty and leaving, but were actually staying.

On May 10th, the game launched a brand new combat power pack.

That's right, it was exactly the kind of activity that would become ubiquitous in pay-to-win games over a decade later.

Without purchasing, one only received basic rewards; after purchasing, one could claim both basic and advanced reward tiers.

Although battle passes were something that would be played out over a decade later—every game would copy them, and players would be long tired of them.

But in this world in 2011, this thing was a first—a true original.

Players had never seen this model before. If they didn't buy it, they could only claim basic rewards; if they bought it, they could claim advanced rewards. And every item within those advanced rewards was like a hook, snagging them.

Rare mounts, limited-edition skins, enhancement materials, and lottery tickets—each and every one was something players wanted but usually couldn't bear to spend money on.

In fact, Chen Fan had other pay-to-win activities common in his past life in his mind, but he didn't launch them yet.

The main thing was, if a game wanted to last, it couldn't be too pay-to-win.

If he launched them all at once, not only would it look greedy, but it would also give many players a bad impression of the game, causing them to abandon it.

So Chen Fan's idea was to wait and introduce them gradually later on.

This way, he would make money without ruining the game's reputation.

On the day of launch, the backend recharge data started to soar. By the third day, the daily revenue had directly broken through 10 million.

When Chen Fan saw this number, he didn't have much of a reaction.

He had long known that the battle pass would be a hit; this model had been verified countless times in his past life, and he was just bringing it out a few years early.

It wasn't that he was amazing; it was that the model itself was amazing.

On Tuesday morning at eight, Chen Fan drove to school.

It just so happened he had nothing to do today, and there was nothing at the company that currently required his worry.

In terms of management, there was Fang Hongsheng; for technology, there were Technical Lead and Zhang Tao keeping an eye on things; and for operations, Wang Jing was running it. As the boss, he had actually become the person with the most free time.

When school started, he had promised Counselor Shen Na that he would come to class occasionally every month, so Chen Fan was here today to attend class.

The car pulled up to the school gate, and Chen Fan walked onto campus.

The teaching building was still the same teaching building, and the corridor was still the same corridor, but as he walked inside, he actually felt a sense of unfamiliarity. It was mainly because he had come too few times this semester.