OGP CH49
February 7th was the Spring Festival. The nanny auntie had gone home for the New Year, so only the two brothers were left in the house. Xie Xinghe called their older cousin Ming Zhi over to eat the New Year’s Eve dinner together. He heard that her husband, who worked at a European game company, had also returned.
At 10 AM, the doorbell rang outside. Xie Yunfan turned around to open the door, and sure enough, he saw Ming Zhi’s family of three arriving at the door carrying bags of gifts big and small.
As soon as Ming Xiaoyou saw him, her eyes curved into a smile: “Uncle!”
Xie Yunfan gently rubbed the little girl’s head: “Xiaoyou, you seem to have grown taller again?”
Ming Xiaoyou said proudly: “I grew 5 centimeters taller!”
Xie Yunfan gave a thumbs up: “So formidable.”
He looked at the young couple in front of him and said: “Sister, Brother-in-law, long time no see. Hurry in and take a seat, my brother just went out to buy groceries.”
Ming Zhi and Kent entered the door together.
Kent worked at a top-tier European game company; the globally popular holographic fighting game Mecha Apprentice was their company’s work.
Ming Zhi had been called back by Xie Xinghe three years ago to serve as the Financial Director of Xingyun Group. The couple had been in a long-distance relationship for a long time, but their feelings were actually quite stable.
Kent had quite a hearty personality. Having not seen Xie Yunfan for a few years, he didn’t feel unfamiliar, saying with a chuckle: “Yunfan, that Ghost Realm of yours is very popular in Europe. People are queuing up every day at the Qihang Game Experience Center.”
Xie Yunfan said: “Has Brother-in-law played this game before?”
Kent said excitedly: “Of course I’ve played it. In order to play this game, I even specially bought a Qihang gaming cabin.”
Ming Xiaoyou ran over and interjected: “Uncle, during the Spring Festival last year, you said you were going to make a game I could play. Where is it?”
The kid actually had quite a good memory.
Xie Yunfan took out his phone and said softly: “Uncle’s game is already made. It’s called Soul of Music, a music game, kids can play it too.”
Ming Xiaoyou’s eyes suddenly lit up. She immediately took the phone and ran to the side to take notes. She was very interested in this game and even pulled Ming Zhi along to play together.
Not long after, Xie Xinghe returned, carrying bags of fruits and vegetables big and small. Xie Yunfan hurriedly took the bags and went to the kitchen to help his brother cook the New Year’s Eve dinner.
The family bustled about making a table full of delicious food.
While eating, Xie Yunfan also gave the little kid a thick stack of New Year’s lucky money, making Ming Xiaoyou thrilled.
Ming Zhi proactively spoke up: “Xinghe, Yunfan, after the holidays, I’ll be going to Europe with Kent. Xiaoyou will also go abroad with us to attend school.”
Speaking of this, her eyes turned slightly red, and she choked out: “Opportunities to meet will be even fewer in the future. You two must take good care of yourselves.”
She had grown up in the Xie family since childhood. Later, when the Xie family experienced such a huge unforeseen event, Xie Xinghe almost committed suicide; thinking about it still left her with lingering fear.
Fortunately, Xie Yunfan was very promising, and the few games he made all became explosive hits. The Xie family had finally made it through the economic crisis as well.
Ming Zhi looked at Xie Xinghe with complex feelings: “Live your life well in the future, don’t back yourself into a corner. When encountering any problems, listen more to Yunfan’s opinions, got it?”
Xie Xinghe smiled and scratched his head: “Got it. Sister, rest assured. Take good care of yourself abroad, and Xiaoyou too.”
Xie Yunfan said: “If there’s an opportunity to go to Europe, we will come visit you.”
With red eyes, Ming Zhi nodded.
Kent had already established a firm foothold in the company in Europe. Returning to the country this time was precisely to pick up the mother and daughter.
After eating the New Year’s Eve dinner, the family of three drove away from the Xie residence.
Standing on the balcony, watching the receding figure of the car, Xie Xinghe couldn’t help but sigh with emotion: “I was still pondering whether to call Sister Ming Zhi back to continue being the Financial Director of your studio. I didn’t expect she would actually go abroad.”
Even if she didn’t go abroad, Xie Yunfan wouldn’t have let her manage the company’s finances.
He didn’t like running a family-style enterprise. Getting a bunch of cousins, aunts, and uncles to come help at the company would instead tie his hands and feet.
He only wanted to recruit capable talents.
The Financial Director, as his right-hand man, needed to do a good job with the investment budget and launch risk control for every game, ensuring the studio’s accounts had sufficient cash flow. They absolutely couldn’t have the company directly go bankrupt just because one game encountered a slight problem.
Xie Yunfan didn’t voice these words out loud. He said in a low voice: “Brother, I should still recruit people myself. As long as the salary offered is high enough, there’s no worry about people not coming.”
Xie Xinghe asked actively: “How about I stay here and help you after the New Year, and after your studio finishes recruiting, I’ll go back to Qihang?”
Xie Yunfan said: “Luo Hang told me to release you back after the holidays. You need to hurry up and finish the Fighting Master project. Over here at the studio, I can handle it.”
Xie Xinghe looked at him with concern: “Will you be okay by yourself?”
Xie Yunfan: “Mhm, I know what kind of work partners I need. Don’t worry, Brother.”
Xie Xinghe set his mind at ease and went upstairs to sleep.
Xie Yunfan returned to the study, turned on the computer, logged into Yangfan Studio’s Weibo account, and posted a message—
“Today is the Lunar Spring Festival, wishing everyone a healthy, safe, and smoothly successful New Year. The little sailboat will also continue to work hard and make more fun games for everyone in the New Year ^^”
As soon as this message was sent out, the comments quickly broke ten thousand.
[Happy New Year little boat~]
[Looking forward to your new games!]
[Hope the next one isn’t 18+ (adult/horror), I truly don’t dare play horror games]
[Little boat, previously when we gathered for the New Year we would play cards, now many young people have switched to playing Soul of Music! The ensemble mode is indeed very suitable for gatherings]
[Don’t even mention it, I just played two rounds of ensemble with my cousins]
[The downloads for this game have soared recently; it has a very explosive look to it!]
[Are there any games made by little sailboat that don’t explode in popularity?]
After these two days of word-of-mouth fermentation, plus exactly catching the “New Year” day when relatives and friends gathered, young people recommending it to each other, and family members entertaining together—it was very easy for a swarm of people to run off and download the game.
Anyway, it was only 2 bucks. Even players who normally didn’t have the awareness to pay were willing to take out 2 bucks to try it.
In the backend of Mobile Games Home, the downloads for Soul of Music were like riding a rocket, breaking through the 5 million mark in two days and boarding the Best-Seller List.
This game had already become a must-play item for this year’s Spring Festival period. It had to be said, the timing chosen for the launch of Soul of Music this time was too clever.
Of course, he also had to thank President Qin for the banner recommendation on the homepage. As soon as you clicked into Mobile Games Home, you could see this rhythm game, drawing in quite a lot of passerby traffic.
Looking at the comment section, Xie Yunfan was in a very good mood.
He already had quite a few fans now, so he didn’t have to worry about promoting his next game. When many players saw “Produced by Yangfan Studio,” they would go download and try it out. This was the importance of “accumulating word of mouth.”
At the same time, the two grand awards from the Annual Gala allowed him to thoroughly establish a resounding reputation in the industry; there was no one in the game industry who didn’t know the name Yangfan Studio.
Now was precisely the best timing for the studio to recruit.
However, for management personnel like the Financial Director and HR Manager, there was no need to directly post on Weibo to recruit; that would expose the secret that “Yangfan Studio is an empty shell.”
He had already made three explosive hit games. Aside from Luo Hang and Xie Xinghe knowing the inside story, everyone else thought Yangfan Studio was very awesome and had a very large scale.
Just let everyone continue to think so.
Xie Yunfan thought for a moment and decided to low-profile recruit a wave of management position talents first.
The time had exactly reached 0:00 midnight. Xie Yunfan turned on his phone and sent a message to Luo Hang: “Happy New Year~”
Luo Hang also sent a WeChat message: “Happy New Year.”
The two truly had a telepathic connection, sending blessings exactly at midnight.
Xie Yunfan raised the corners of his mouth and quickly typed: “Not asleep yet?”
Luo Hang said: “A few guests came over to the house, playing cards and chatting downstairs. I can’t sleep, so I ran out to the balcony to look at the snow scenery.”
Xie Yunfan: “Is it snowing in the Imperial Capital?”
Luo Hang casually snapped a photo and sent it over to him. In the night, the profusely falling snow seemed to be dyed with a layer of golden radiance under the illumination of the lights.
It wouldn’t snow in Rong City during the winter. Xie Yunfan actually really wanted to go to the Imperial Capital to see the snow scenery. However, he was busy to death right now; he’d talk about it when there was an opportunity in the future.
Xie Yunfan: “It looks like it’s coming down quite heavily. Pay attention to keeping warm these next few days, the Imperial Capital is much colder than our Rong City.”
Luo Hang said: “You’re still not sleeping?”
Xie Yunfan said: “Thinking about the studio’s recruitment.”
Luo Hang asked: “Need help?”
Xie Yunfan said without standing on ceremony: “I do.”
He closely followed up by quickly typing out a paragraph: “You should have a list of talents from game companies that went bankrupt within the last half-year, or those managing poorly and about to go bankrupt, right? Give me a copy to take a look~”
For the past half-year, he had been busy reviewing for makeup exams and doing his graduation project, so he hadn’t paid attention to the industry’s trends. But Luo Hang’s company had dedicated personnel keeping an eye on the movements in the game industry at all times.
Luo Hang’s hands definitely held these talent lists, and their company’s HR headhunters would also recruit the suitable talents over.
Luo Hang’s company and Xie Yunfan’s studio were both game companies, but there was actually no conflict. Luo Hang only made holographic games and needed technical talents more to research and develop holographic gaming cabins. Xie Yunfan was currently mainly making mobile games.
It was precisely because of this that he would directly seek out Luo Hang to ask for materials.
Luo Hang said: “Are you going to poach people from bankrupt or about-to-bankrupt game companies? Not considering poaching from Cool Play and Wings of Dream?”
Xie Yunfan said straightforwardly: “Better forget about that. In case I poach a commercial spy over, wouldn’t that be asking for trouble?”
This guy actually thought things through quite thoroughly. Luo Hang smiled slightly and said: “Wait a moment, the materials are on the computer, I’ll go find them for you.”
After a moment, Xie Yunfan’s phone received a document. Inside were the contact methods, detailed work resumes, and background check information of some people.
Xie Yunfan sent a crying cat emoji: “Thank you so much President Luo.”
Luo Hang: “You’re welcome.”
Actually, he was quite happy inside that Xie Yunfan was willing to seek him out for help. This showed that Yunfan already viewed him as a friend, directly seeking him out when needing help, without so much concealment and misgivings.
The two’s companies were not in a competitive relationship; cooperating for a win-win was also very good.
Next, Yunfan was going to make mobile games, and over on Luo Hang’s side, he would also hurry to get Fighting Master launched. After that, he would have to concentrate on upgrading the gaming cabins.
Qihang had recently recruited many senior engineers in the intelligent computing field, hoping to break through the technical bottlenecks and resolve the issues of physical collisions within holographic games, multiplayer online data processing, and so on as soon as possible.
If one day in the future, Qihang’s gaming cabins could support multiplayer online play, by then Yunfan’s studio would also be mature enough, and they could join hands to make a large-scale multiplayer online holographic game.
When that time came, all players could personally experience the joy of running dungeons and grinding bosses in a holographic game…
This could also be considered making up for the regret of many PC client games shutting down their servers back in the day.
At noon on the first day of the Lunar New Year, inside a bachelor apartment in Rong City.
Liu Muyao opened the recruitment webpage on her computer and earnestly flipped through the recruitment information, wanting to pick a few companies to send her resume to.
She was originally the HR Manager of Xinghai Game Company. This company spent a whole year making a game, only for the sales to be dismal after launch. Unable to recover the costs, the team was forced to disband, and she also lost her job.
Actually, she had stayed at two other companies before that. Due to various reasons, the companies ultimately either went bankrupt or disbanded the team.
Most game companies were very “short-lived.”
Many bosses smashed money into making games; if they couldn’t make money, they disbanded the team. The current gaming market was a mix of fish and dragons (good and bad people/entities mixed together); wanting to find a stable job was too difficult.
As Liu Muyao was looking at the website, her phone suddenly rang. She lowered her head and glanced at the unfamiliar caller ID reminder, answered the phone, and said: “Hello.”
A boy’s voice came through the earpiece, very clear and pleasant: “Hello, may I ask if this is Ms. Liu Muyao?”
Liu Muyao: “That’s right. You are?”
Xie Yunfan said directly: “I am the head of a game studio. I wanted to ask, after you resigned from Xinghai Studio, have you found a new job?”
Liu Muyao said: “I haven’t found a job yet, I’ve been resting for two months.”
Xie Yunfan asked: “Are you interested in coming to our studio to be the HR Manager?”
Liu Muyao was extremely surprised: “HR Manager?”
Xie Yunfan said: “Mhm, you served as the HR Manager at Xinghai Game Company and managed the profiles of over a hundred employees, I believe in your capabilities. According to my understanding, you were also in charge of HR at other companies previously, your experience should be very rich.”
She was just worrying about how to find a job, and as a result, a job came knocking on her door? Liu Muyao said happily: “Thank you for your affirmation, is it convenient to ask about the salary and benefits?”
Xie Yunfan said: “Five insurances and one housing fund, starting annual salary of 300,000. Year-end bonuses and project commissions are calculated separately. Three free meals on workdays, plus housing and transportation subsidies.”
Liu Muyao: “!!!”
What kind of company was this? Weren’t these benefits a bit too good?
Her heart moved fiercely, and she hurriedly said: “I am willing to join your team. May I ask where your work location is? My home is in Rong City. If it’s out of town, I have to arrange accommodation in advance.”
Xie Yunfan said: “I’m also in Rong City. If it’s convenient, let’s meet tomorrow. You set the place.”
When a stranger directly asks to meet, most girls would have defensive psychology. But letting the girl set the place was much safer.
She could totally set it near her own home and find a familiar restaurant.
Liu Muyao no longer hesitated and said: “Okay, I’ll add your WeChat. After I’ve set it, I’ll send the address to you.”
After a moment, Xie Yunfan received an address on his phone.
It was quite far from him, practically from the westernmost end to the easternmost end. However, it didn’t matter, he could take the subway over.
For this Liu Muyao, Xie Yunfan had read her profile in detail. The profile not only had her work resume but also a detailed background check compiled by Qihang’s HR headhunters.
Graduated from a prestigious university, a top student during her school years, won countless awards in various speech competitions, and had very good eloquence. Her work resume was relatively bumpy; after graduating, she tossed and turned between four companies and experienced multiple team disbandments.
In the game industry, making a game halfway and disbanding the team was very common. The companies that could break through and succeed in this industry were only a minority.
Xie Yunfan proactively contacted her, hoping to absorb her into his team.
An experienced HR Manager could help him handle the onboarding procedures for a massive number of employees, do a good job with the company’s personnel arrangements, and negotiate salary and benefits with every employee… With such a helper, he could save a lot of worry!
At noon the next day, Xie Yunfan arrived on time at a restaurant in the Eastern District of Rong City.
The girl sitting by the window wore a milk-tea-colored coat and had her hair tied in a neat ponytail, looking extremely capable and experienced.
Xie Yunfan proactively stepped forward to greet: “Hello, Ms. Liu?”
Seeing this handsome face, Liu Muyao was instantly stunned: “Xie Yunfan?”
Xie Yunfan was somewhat surprised: “You know me?”
I am a loyal player of Soul of Music, and I’ve been saving up fragments to exchange for the guzheng codex entry these past few days! Liu Muyao forcibly restrained the excitement at the bottom of her heart and said as calmly as possible: “At this year’s award gala, you took two grand awards consecutively. Everyone says you are young and promising, with boundless prospects.”
These words weren’t flattery; people in the game industry indeed thought so.
Xie Yunfan smiled slightly: “Then I won’t hide it from you. Yangfan Studio will be recruiting a massive number of talents in the near future, and we lack a capable HR Manager. We chatted on the phone yesterday, the benefits can still be negotiated. Are you interested in joining?”
Deeply afraid of nodding too slowly, Liu Muyao hurriedly said: “Of course I am willing. I believe that with your strength, the company will definitely have very good development prospects. I am extremely honored to be able to join such an ascendant team.”
Xie Yunfan proactively extended his hand: “That’s great, welcome aboard.”
Liu Muyao felt she had truly stepped in dog-shit luck.
After the previous company disbanded, she hadn’t rushed to find a job, mainly because her health was a bit poor during that time and she wanted to rest a bit.
She hadn’t expected this decision to actually help her.
Look here, she had waited until she found a very promising company.
Her luck was truly too good!
Holding a contract in his hand, Xie Yunfan handed it to Liu Muyao: “This is the HR contract compiled by our company’s legal consultant. Take a look first. If there are no problems, sign it and give it to me later. The subsequent recruitment will still need your help.”
Liu Muyao immediately nodded: “Okay, no problem.”
At the same time, in a medium-sized game company in the Imperial Capital, a man wearing glasses was at his desk, staring blankly at the backend data on the website.
This time’s merchandise only sold 500 copies… Truly miserable, going to get scolded again.
Most of the games the boss made in recent years were neither warm nor hot (lukewarm). Some merchandise he felt he had designed very well, yet after listing them it was also very hard to make money.
His brain was stuffed full of ideas, but unfortunately, he couldn’t put them into practice.
The sales of game merchandise derivatives were truly a case of the drought-stricken dying of drought, and the waterlogged dying of waterlogging (massive inequality). Aside from being linked to design and quality, the factor with the biggest impact on merchandise sales was the game’s degree of popularity.
Merchandise for explosive hit games could earn tens of millions or even over a hundred million. For a mini-game’s merchandise, no matter how exquisitely you made it, how many players would be willing to pay the bill?
Those pieces of merchandise from Wings of Dream and Cool Play weren’t made better than his. But their sales volume was a hundred times or even ten million times his…
There was no helping it, the player volume of the games wasn’t even on the same level.
He had been the Marketing Manager at this company for five years. The boss was also particularly stingy, only giving an annual salary of 150,000. It was truly meaningless.
Song Qian sighed, always feeling his prospects were bleak.
Should he resign and seek another way out? He had been hesitating the whole time.
After returning home that night, his phone suddenly rang: “Hello, may I ask if you are Song Qian, the Marketing Manager of Dream-Chasing Games?”
The boy’s voice sounded very young, sunny, and straightforward, giving a quite good first impression.
Song Qian said: “I am.”
“I am the head of a game company. I have looked into the several pieces of merchandise you developed; the player evaluations are very good. Furthermore, you have five years of working experience in the marketing department. Have you considered changing places to work?”
“…” Was this someone coming to poach him?
Song Qian had long since stopped wanting to work at this company. The resignation report was already written on his computer; he just hadn’t made up his mind to submit it.
Since the other party had looked into him and knew the situation of his merchandise R&D, they clearly came prepared.
Song Qian didn’t directly refuse, and asked: “Is it convenient to understand the compensation?”
“Starting annual salary of 1 million, plus year-end bonuses and project commissions.”
“Starting at 1 million?!” Song Qian’s breathing instantly became rapid. He hadn’t misheard, right? This salary and compensation was indeed too tempting!
“If you have the intention, we can have a face-to-face interview.”
“Unfortunately I signed a non-compete agreement. Within three months of resigning, I cannot go work at a game company of the same category,” Song Qian said with extreme regret.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s only three months, I can wait for you.”
“…” Was he this nice? Song Qian was simply moved beyond words.
“I have seen the merchandise you produced, the craftsmanship is exquisite and the designs also have a lot of thought behind them. I feel your talent shouldn’t be buried.”
“To tell the truth, staying at your current company doesn’t have much development prospects. You are still young, do you want to consider coming to my team?” Xie Yunfan said sincerely.
“May I ask, which studio are you from?”
“Yangfan Studio.”
“No need to consider it, I will go submit my resignation report tomorrow!” Song Qian almost excitedly threw his phone away.
He had heard it—this voice was Xie Yunfan.
Not long ago, when receiving an award at the Game Gala, the young Xie Yunfan delivered an acceptance speech on the main stage, not nervous at all.
Xie Yunfan had actually come to poach him personally?
What virtue and ability did he have to receive the favor of this cutting-edge planner?
If he still failed to appreciate the favor, then he would be too stupid.
If it was said that his current company was in its twilight years and the end could be seen at a glance; then Xie Yunfan’s company was in its prime years with limitless prospects.
Yangfan Studio, the team with the most potential in the game industry.
Made three games, every single one an explosive hit!
When he was playing Soul of Music these past two days, he had even been thinking, if only they could release a set of “All Codex Metal Bookmarks,” that would be great. Practical and good-looking, and could also be used for collecting.
Following Xie Yunfan to work in the future was simply his greatest honor.
After hanging up the phone, Song Qian still felt like he was dreaming.
He had always had a sense of helplessness and frustration of “having a brain full of ideas that can’t be implemented.” Staying at this kind of half-dead company indeed wore away a person’s willpower.
Now, he had finally found a broader way out!
Rong City, a certain accounting firm.
A young woman with neat short hair received an unfamiliar phone call: “Hello Ms. Ling Xiao, I am the head of a game company in Rong City. May I ask if you are interested in the position of Financial Director?”
Ling Xiao smiled slightly: “I have my own accounting firm, I don’t want to go work for someone else.”
Xie Yunfan said: “As far as I know, there are eight partners in your firm. I’m guessing the shares you hold aren’t very many, right?”
Ling Xiao fell silent.
This background check was done clearly enough, huh? He even knew how many people were in their firm. She was indeed the one holding the fewest shares in the firm, and recently, the internal firm had caused quite a few conflicts over benefit distribution. She was indeed very mentally exhausted.
Should she change environments? But she was used to staying here, and changing environments meant starting over from scratch.
Xie Yunfan persuaded her gently: “Your firm has experience cooperating with large-scale game companies, and I also opened a game company, which is why I found you. I am inviting you to join with much sincerity. Starting annual salary of one million, plus year-end bonuses and project dividends. The income won’t be worse than now.”
“…” A million annual salary plus project dividends? This boss was sufficiently tyrannical (generous/wealthy).
Accounting firms also earned quite a lot of money, but currently, the toxic competition in the industry was severe. Moreover, their firm cooperated with many companies; they were busy to death all year round.
If she went to a game company to be the Financial Director, she wouldn’t be as busy as she was now, and could still take a million-yuan annual salary… It sounded quite good.
“May I ask which game company you are?”
“Yangfan Studio.”
“I’ve heard of it, is it the one that made Ghost Realm?”
“Yes.”
She was only in charge of finance and auditing, but having cooperation with game companies, she also understood some news from the game industry. Furthermore, a few days ago, the news of Yangfan Studio consecutively reaping two grand awards had even gone on the trending searches.
The one looking for her wasn’t some “third-rate studio,” but a highly potential newcomer studio.
The annual salary offered wasn’t low either, it was indeed possible to consider changing work environments.
“Thank you for your invitation. Let me consider it, and I’ll give you a reply later.”
Two days later, Ling Xiao decisively withdrew from the “accounting firm” she had co-founded with her classmates, which was constantly squabbling.
She headed to the place agreed upon with Xie Yunfan for a face-to-face interview and signed the contract.
Liu Muyao was also there; this was the HR Manager Xie Yunfan had just recruited.
Closely following, a gentle-looking man wearing glasses arrived. Named Song Qian, he said he was the future Marketing Department Manager.
Xie Yunfan took the few of them to stroll around the office location in the Nanyang Park.
He introduced them very happily: “Here is where we will be working from now on. The environment is quite good, right?”
Looking at the empty office building, the few of them looked at each other in dismay.
No… Boss?
So it turns out the few of us are the backbone of the company?
Where are the other people in your company?
You’re a bare commander (a leader without troops) running around poaching people?!
Catching white wolves with empty hands (starting a business with no resources)!
__
Author’s Note:
Xie Yunfan: Deceiving them over one by one, won’t there slowly be more people ^^
– Normally, when a company recruits middle management, it can do confidential recruitment and poach people through headhunting companies.
Fan-fan directly sought out Luo Hang to ask for Qihang’s internal materials! It’s equivalent to Luo Hang’s headhunters helping him screen through them once, so he could precisely locate people to recruit. I am writing it like this because I didn’t want to waste word count.
If you don’t like this segment of the plot, you can skip it.