Shi Yuzhu is most skilled in such psychological tactics: first give players a little benefit, issuing wages today and sending out red packets tomorrow, making them feel like they're getting a bargain and can profit. Once the players increase their investment further, the path to profit is quickly blocked.
In the real economy, there is no God, but in the virtual economy, there is God, and Shi Yuzhu is that God.
Monthly Profit of $8.5 Million Record
"In 'The Journey Online,' everything we do is for equipment. All equipment is for killing, all equipment reflects money, showing how wealthy someone is and whether they can get by in society." This is how player "War God V" summarized 'The Journey Online'.
This 25-year-old young man has, over the past year, invested 70,000 RMB into one 'The Journey Online' account, which isn't even the most extravagant; within his server, there are many accounts worth hundreds of thousands of RMB. In his small southern city, there are quite a few rich young masters like him, whose parents run factories with businesses extending overseas, while the children stay at home enjoying life, living in houses worth millions of RMB, driving cars worth tens of thousands, holding leisurely jobs earning two or three thousand RMB per month, with their parents regularly depositing money into their bank accounts.
These facts confirm just how precise 'The Journey Online's business model is - "earning money from the rich." How many bored rich people are there in the world?
However, what fun is there in a few rich people wielding the best equipment and slashing at each other?
"Nurture 100 people to entertain one person," said Shi Yuzhu.
Thus, in his design, 'The Journey Online' only has two types of players. One type are the rich, who have so much money that spending tens of thousands of RMB on a set of virtual equipment wouldn't make them blink. Shi himself is the best example, having often spoken about his experiences playing 'The Legend' in various settings, where he spent 50,000 RMB without hesitation. This 'Legend' experience became the direct inspiration for his creation of 'The Journey Online'. The other type are the poor, unmotivated students, young adults from smaller towns working tirelessly day and night. Though they don't have much money, they have plenty of free time every day, feeling like they've found a great deal when they hear about free games to play. After 'The Journey Online' started issuing wages, more and more people were attracted.
Such a simple and crude classification of players determined that 'The Journey Online' would be a game of low taste, but it aligns with Shi Yuzhu's consistent style of doing business. To him, making money is the only thing that matters; fame and reputation are cast aside. At the end of 2004, when he first entered the online gaming industry, many insiders thought that someone who made health supplements wasn't reliable for this field, being too ostentatious and causing dislike. But in just two years, 'The Journey Online' achieved monthly profits of $8.5 million, with concurrent users exceeding 1 million, second only to NetEase. On one hand, people in the industry bitterly criticized 'The Journey Online', and on the other, they earnestly studied its money-making secrets. After all, this is an industry without rules, where the winner takes all. Game developers struggle to adapt to the environment, prioritizing the "profit" character above all else. Who would sacrifice money to accommodate unrelated moral standards?
The Most Money-Burning Equipment System in History
For 'The Journey Online' players, equipment is the core of all activities in the game. Rich players spend lavishly, while poorer players work hard to earn money, all for the purpose of purchasing a good set of equipment in the game, capable of both attacking and defending. Even if they can't dominate the world, at least they can safely navigate the game's landscape.
'The Journey Online's equipment system is the most money-burning among domestic online games. Unlike older games like 'The Legend', 'The Journey Online' doesn't directly sell equipment but rather materials. A full set of equipment consists of 12 pieces, including clothing, necklaces, helmets, shields, shoes, wrist guards, belts, rings... Each piece of equipment must first be synthesized from various raw materials into crafting materials of different levels before it can be completed.
When Shi Yuzhu developed 'The Journey Online', he set the material grade at nine levels, with higher grades costing more. Raw materials come in two categories: basic materials include cotton thread, soft leather, jade, iron ore, sandalwood, etc., and advanced materials include silk thread, hard leather, crystal stones, silver ore, black wood, etc. Five raw materials can synthesize one first-grade crafting material, five first-grade materials synthesize one second-grade material, and so on. Currently, 'The Journey Online' materials are only open up to the sixth grade, with a unit price of about 300 RMB. Five sixth-grade materials synthesize one seventh-grade equipment, costing at least 1500 RMB. If you want to craft a whole set, multiply by 12, allowing you to calculate the cost yourself.
Even after gathering all the materials, it's not enough. 'The Journey Online' has an extremely complicated upgrade system for equipment. Each level-up adds a star, and when reaching 12 stars, all stars turn into suns. Continuing from one sun, it upgrades to 14 suns. Each level-up costs a significant amount of RMB. This isn't even the most expensive part; finally, you need to consider the success rate of upgrading. If the upgrade fails, it's back to square one, requiring another large sum of money... By the time a set of equipment is complete, tens of thousands of RMB are easily handed over to 'The Journey Online'. According to one player's calculation, if one day 'The Journey Online' opens up to the ninth grade of materials, a set of ninth-grade equipment could cost over a million RMB.
Such a mad pursuit of top-tier equipment is because in 'The Journey Online', the price of equipment is absolutely proportional to its lethality, while level is less important. With bad equipment, a level 160 player cannot defeat a level 100 player; with good enough equipment, one can hold off ten thousand others, exaggeratingly speaking, "one person could destroy a whole country."
Of course, such extravagant games are only affordable by a minority of rich people. To attract more non-RMB players, 'The Journey Online' provides them with several ways to earn money. Intelligence quizzes, transporting goods, collecting resources, planting, and more.