253: Chapter 253: First Month Revenue Reaches 230 Million

In the blink of an eye, more than half a month passed, and it was now June.

Ever since his last visit to the school, Chen Fan had not gone back there.

So even though his classmates were very curious about him, because Chen Fan never showed up, their interest in him gradually waned and soon died down completely.

Chen Fan didn't pay attention to school matters either; he was still busy running his two companies.

Last month's total revenue for "archangels sword" was released—230 million yuan.

This figure caused quite a stir within the company, and many employees in Division Two were already wondering how much bonus they would receive.

Beyond the company, the industry's focus on "archangels sword" had never stopped since the day the game went online.

When the first-day figures of 200,000 concurrent players and 7.2 million yuan in revenue came out, it had already shocked many people.

Later, when the battle pass system was launched and the daily revenue broke 10 million yuan, it pushed the game directly into the industry spotlight.

The first month's revenue of 230 million yuan made those who were previously taking a wait-and-see attitude completely unable to sit still.

Major gaming media outlets published special reports. Some dissected the marketing strategy of the "Zhajiahui" advertisements, some analyzed the design logic of the battle pass system, and others, looking from an industry height, hailed "archangels sword" as the "new benchmark for web games."

What really caught Chen Fan's attention was not these reports, but something else—several companies had already begun contacting the IP owner of "mu online."

"archangels sword" itself was developed after obtaining the official IP license for "mu online."

The massive popularity of this game made everyone see the monetization potential of the classic "Miracle" IP in the web game sector.

Thus, those envious developers went straight to the source of the IP—the South Korean company Webzen and its domestic licensing agents.

They planned to buy the same IP license to make their own "Miracle web game" and openly take a piece of the pie.

Other companies felt that Webzen's licensing fees were too expensive, or that the "Miracle" IP had already been preempted by "archangels sword" and didn't want to go head-to-head, so they turned their attention to another classic IP of the same tier—"the legend of mir."

It shared the same nostalgia of old players, the same user base accumulated over more than a decade, and was equally suitable for adaptation into a web game. Instead of spending a fortune to buy an IP that had already been proven by someone else, it was better to mine an untapped gold mine.

When Chen Fan saw this news, he leaned back in his chair and thought for a long time. The fact that people were coming to grab a share of the food proved that the food was indeed delicious.

He couldn't stop others from buying the license for Miracle, nor could he stop them from making web games based on "the legend of mir."

The only thing he could do was to make his own product well and retain the users. What others couldn't steal was truly yours.

Besides this, there was another outcome that left Chen Fan somewhat amused.

A few days ago, Nick Cheung called him personally.

On the other end of the line, his voice carried a touch of politeness, but his tone revealed a sense of genuine gratitude.

He said he had recently been contacted by several game companies asking if he would be willing to endorse their web games, and his words were filled with gratitude to Chen Fan for giving him this opportunity.

Nick Cheung spoke very sincerely over the phone.

Although he was a Best Actor winner and had won the Hong Kong Film Awards, to be honest, he had always been lukewarm in mainland China.

He had won awards and acted in films, but his commercial value had never risen. He had very few endorsements, and the occasional ones he took were for small brands—not very prestigious, and not paying much.

He knew in his heart that in the eyes of mainland audiences, he was an actor who "acted well but whose name couldn't be recalled."

But once the advertisement for "archangels sword" came out, everything changed. The name "Zhajiahui" went viral on Weibo, memes were flying everywhere, and parody videos got millions of views. Even he himself hadn't expected to become so popular.

What was even more unexpected was that after he became famous, the ones knocking on his door weren't movie directors, but web game developers, one after another, with each offer higher than the last.

He spoke with a chuckle, but also with a touch of emotion.

Although they were all low-end web games and not major brands, these endorsement fees were real, hard cash.

And it wasn't just one or two companies, but many, with some offering prices that even he found absurd.

Having worked as an actor in the mainland for so many years without making much money, he never expected to go viral through a web game commercial—so suddenly and so inexplicably.

He was grateful to Chen Fan, not because of how much money Chen Fan had paid him, but because Chen Fan had given him an opportunity—an opportunity to be remembered by mainland audiences.

As they chatted further, Nick Cheung opened up and lowered his voice to tell Chen Fan something.

He said that not only himself, but famous artists in Hong Kong had also been contacted recently.

Nicholas Tse, Louis Koo, and Jordan Chan—not a single one was left out, and the offers were getting higher and higher.

Some deals had already been finalized, while others were still being negotiated. The most absurd thing was that even Big Brother Jackie Chan had received an invitation, with a game company offering tens of millions in endorsement fees to have him endorse a "the legend of mir"-style web game.

Chen Fan was stunned on the spot.

He hadn't expected that by hiring Zhajiahui to endorse a game once, he would trigger a craze of Hong Kong stars endorsing games.

He could already foresee web game advertisements endorsed by various Hong Kong stars flying all over the place in a few months.

At the thought of this, Chen Fan found it both funny and annoying.

Chen Fan didn't take the actions of these companies to heart.

The fact that people were coming to grab a share of the food proved that the food was indeed delicious.

He couldn't stop others from buying the license for Miracle, nor could he stop them from making web games based on "the legend of mir."

The only thing he could do was to make his own product well and retain the users. What others couldn't steal was truly yours.

...

Monday, June 6th.

At ten o'clock in the morning, in the company meeting room.

Chen Fan sat in the head seat, with Fang Hongsheng on his right. Others attending the meeting included Zhang Tao and several key members of Division One, Technical Lead and several key members of Division Two, and Wang Jing from the marketing department.

Wang Jing had now been promoted to manager of the marketing department.

This was because she now had more than just two or three people working under her.

The entire marketing department was now divided into an operations team and a customer service team.

The operations team had expanded to ten people, while the customer service team had twenty.

In fact, when the customer service team was first being formed, Fang Hongsheng, in his role as Fang Hongsheng, had opposed it.

His suggestion was that customer service could be outsourced to a professional customer service company, paid per seat, paying for as many people as needed. This would be flexible and could reduce costs by at least one-third.

From a corporate management perspective, there was absolutely nothing wrong with this suggestion.

Outsourcing customer service was a common practice for many game companies at the time, especially web game companies. With high turnover, low entry barriers, and high standardization, outsourcing was much more cost-effective than hiring in-house.

Not just web game companies; in his past life, even many large tech giants outsourced their customer service.

But Chen Fan refused.

The main reason was that the service quality of outsourced customer service was simply too poor.

Most of them just read from scripts with stiff tones and cold attitudes, passing the buck whenever they encountered a slightly complex issue, treating players like a ball to be kicked back and forth.

To have good service, they had to recruit, train, and manage the team themselves.

So in the end, they still built this in-house customer service team.

Chen Fan snapped back to reality, looked at everyone, and signaled for the meeting to begin.

First, Zhang Tao reported on the development progress of the new game, "fanti warm warm."

He opened the PowerPoint presentation and went through it page by page, explaining each module clearly, from art assets to system architecture to numerical balance.

The technical framework had already been built, the core gameplay loop was fully functional, and the numerical system had been adjusted through three versions, showing no major issues at present.