In Pei Qian’s previous life, the smartphone boom started around 2010-2011, and riding that wave, popur mobile games—especially card-based games—emerged around 2012.

  But in this world, smartphones had come out much earlier. Thus, by around 2008, card-based mobile games had already become prevalent.

  Now, in 2009, the genre had already become oversaturated.

  When card-based games first emerged, they were indeed an innovative and refreshing game mode, immensely popur for a long time.

  However, due to the massive influx of cheap, reskinned card games, pyers had grown weary and resentful. The previous lucrative practice of releasing identical games with merely a new skin no longer guaranteed profit.

  In this world, the pioneer of card games was "Cute Three Kingdoms" (Q萌三国). Its popurity could rgely be attributed to factors such as cute chibi art and traditional card-collecting mechanics.

  At that time, the Three Kingdoms IP had yet to be overused, and pyers still widely accepted it.

  Thanks to the rapid adoption of smartphones, Cute Three Kingdoms became an overnight sensation, earning enormous profits and making other companies green with envy.

  Given the advanced nature of game editors in this parallel world, countless indie developers jumped in immediately. Numerous clones flooded the market, quickly eroding the genre’s freshness. What could have remained popur for several years had rapidly declined after just over a year.

  Today, many pyers had an instinctive aversion and resentment toward card-based mobile games.

  This was exactly what Pei Qian wanted!

  Additionally, Pei Qian noticed a significant difference between Cute Three Kingdoms and the mobile card games from his previous life:

  Monetization was notably restrained.

  In this world, the game was sold at a buyout price of only five yuan. Furthermore, the pricing for in-game items was retively fair. Outrageous offers such as "Spend 2,000 yuan to guarantee a rare card!" simply did not exist.

  In fact, the game's pay-to-win ceiling was around 1,000 yuan. Beyond this amount, there wasn’t even anything meaningful left to buy.

  Yet, even with such modest monetization, Cute Three Kingdoms still regurly faced compints about being money-grubbing.

  The reason y in this parallel world's unique environment.

  Due to strict copyright enforcement, piracy was extremely rare, and single-pyer game developers actually thrived.

  Thus, the gaming ndscape was dominated by buyout single-pyer games and subscription-based online games. Pyers were already accustomed to these models.

  Given this context, the creators of Cute Three Kingdoms didn't dare push the envelope. They opted for a small buyout fee of five yuan and added only minor in-game purchases.

  Yet, they were still mercilessly criticized by pyers.

  After completing his market research, Pei Qian began to contempte how he could ensure his new game would fail.

  The simplest strategy was to copy something wildly successful!

  When there was already a highly successful pioneer, any imitation would almost inevitably crash and burn.

  Since card games were a red ocean, Pei Qian decided to jump right in.

  Cute Three Kingdoms was popur, wasn't it? Then he'd create another Three Kingdoms-themed card game!

  Copying the gamepy mechanics would be straightforward—buying a simir card-game tempte from the official asset store would probably cost him around 100,000 yuan without much effort.

  Of course, he couldn’t copy the original artwork, as that would lead to copyright infringement.

  Not that Pei Qian intended to copy the art style anyway. He needed something different—something expensive—to quickly burn through his remaining money. If he just bought temptes, how could he possibly spend all 300,000 yuan?

  But another critical aspect of the game was the monetization strategy.

  While Cute Three Kingdoms showed considerable restraint in monetization, should Pei Qian make his own game ruthlessly pay-to-win?

  No! Absolutely not!

  Pei Qian knew the pyers' psychology far too well. Most of them were hypocrites—they compined bitterly about greedy developers and unfair monetization, vowing never to spend money again—

  But the moment an expensive, shiny new item appeared, those whales would immediately open their wallets while cursing the developers all the way.

  If he raised the spending cap to something ridiculously high, say tens of thousands, what if some wealthy pyers appeared?

  A single whale’s spending could easily match that of thousands of regur pyers. Just a handful of these big spenders could suddenly turn the game profitable, making Pei Qian vomit blood in frustration.

  So, he had to reverse his thinking!

  To prevent whales from spending excessively, he must set an extremely low spending cap!

  Considering that Cute Three Kingdoms already had a cap around 1,000 yuan, Pei Qian decided to push it even lower—500 yuan?

  No, that’s still too high. 100 yuan?

  Still too much. How about 30 yuan!

  He'd make sure the whales wouldn't even have anywhere to spend their money!

  Of course, as a card game, it needed both common and rare cards.

  The usual practice was to put rare cards behind expensive gacha draws to boost revenue.

  Pei Qian rejected this idea outright, as he didn’t want to boost revenue—he wanted to lose money!

  Thus, the most expensive item in his game would be a lifetime membership card, priced at only 30 yuan. Purchasing this card would grant pyers just a few extra card draws each day.

  Other than that, pyers couldn’t spend money even if they wanted to!

  Want to donate money to Tengda? Impossible!

  Even if pyers didn’t spend the 30 yuan, they could still draw cards, just slightly fewer than paying pyers.

  This would eliminate almost every incentive to spend money!

  Regarding the game's pricing, Pei Qian initially considered making it free, but soon reconsidered.

  Currently, most mobile games aren't free; the lowest price was generally around 1 yuan.

  If he made it free, it could unintentionally attract a massive number of pyers, risking accidental popurity.

  So, Pei Qian did the exact opposite and set the buyout price at 10 yuan!

  This was double the price of Cute Three Kingdoms!

  The 10 yuan buy-in alone was a huge deterrent, effectively driving away 90% of potential pyers.

  Think about it—who would willingly pay twice the price of a popur, innovative game for a clone with zero creativity?

  Of course, Pei Qian couldn't set the price too high either.

  Ten yuan was enough to discourage most pyers. If he set it higher, even fewer pyers might join, but Pei Qian would earn more per sale—thus losing less money overall.

  That would be unacceptable!

  So, Pei Qian finalized his goals:

  Firstly, the game would be a shameless clone with only the most basic card-game mechanics.

  If other card games didn’t have certain features, this game definitely wouldn’t have them either.

  Even if other games had certain features, this game might still omit them!

  He'd present only overused mechanics, ensuring zero innovation or creativity!

  Secondly, it would directly collide head-on with Cute Three Kingdoms.

  Same Three Kingdoms theme.

  Same card-game gamepy.

  The original was genuine; his was btantly fake.

  Pyers would have no reason whatsoever to choose this game over the popur Cute Three Kingdoms!

  Finally, he'd use pricing strategies guaranteed to repel pyers.

  The initial 10-yuan price tag would push away most regur pyers.

  The ughably low 30-yuan spending cap would completely block whales from spending significant amounts, ensuring zero potential for profit!

  “I’m an absolute genius!”

  “This pn is fwless!”

  Pei Qian was thoroughly impressed with himself. With such a btantly idiotic game concept, how could it possibly earn money?

  Impossible—absolutely impossible!