God's Imitator

Cheng Wen was still somewhat anxious. ”But Brother Lin, there isn’t much game time left. How about when the next dividend comes, we at least exchange half of our chips first? I’m feeling nervous keeping so many chips in hand.”

After leaving ‘Sea Minesweeper,’ Lin Sizhi had been earning chips in the ‘Auction Tycoon’ room the whole time.

Cheng Wen had arrived slightly later, but he had also already earned quite a few chips from this room.

Following Lin Sizhi’s instructions, Cheng Wen hadn’t exchanged all the chips for visa time, even though the 1:1 ratio looked very tempting.

The two of them still kept quite a few chips in hand.

But now the problem arose. If players weren’t even using the auction terminal in the hall, how could they possibly come use the auction house in ‘Auction Tycoon’?

Cheng Wen felt that there wasn’t much game time left, so it would be safer to secure the profits.

Otherwise, once these chips couldn’t be sold, they would be worthless.

Lin Sizhi continued browsing the product list and asked, ”First tell me the specific situation on the ’Equipment Forging’ side.”

Cheng Wen had just run all the way here and was still a bit out of breath. He hurriedly explained, ”That player called Chen Guangming has actually taken control of the ’Equipment Forging’ room. He’s selling game station usage times.”For players, forging equipment in that room is clearly more cost-effective than auction house transactions.”

Cheng Wen gave a simple explanation. Clearly, Chen Guangming’s scheme wasn’t complex. Most players could understand it.

But understanding it didn’t mean they could counter it.

Cheng Wen continued, ”Moreover, Chen Guangming’s plan clearly doesn’t stop there!

”Using the ’Equipment Forging’ method to change cards currently seems much more cost-effective than transaction taxes, but it’s only temporary!

”Because as the game progresses, players acquire more and more visa time, and the cards in their hands also increase. Similarly, the quantity of chips produced by each room will also increase.

”At the very beginning, players might only have one duplicate card, so they only need a very small cost to exchange it in the ’Equipment Forging’ room.

”But if a player already has four different cards, then the cost of exchanging again will suddenly increase.

”Because each forging might duplicate with existing cards, and if they want to forge again, they have to pay an additional 500 points of chips each time.

”Chen Guangming’s operation actually fundamentally blocks the possibility of players using the auction terminal.

”Without the ’Equipment Forging’ room, players would all list their duplicate cards on the auction terminal for trading. Because enough cards are listed, they would circulate better.

”When the game enters the later stage, the more duplicate cards players have, the more frequent the trading, and the price adjustment mechanism of the auction terminal would work better.

”But ’Equipment Forging’ blocked players from trading on the auction terminal from the very beginning, making players with a small number of duplicate cards choose to prioritize using the ’Equipment Forging’ method to exchange.

”This will cause a shortage of items on the auction terminal, creating a vicious cycle. Because the number of Death Immunity Cards was small from the start, more and more players won’t list them for sale here and will also choose ’Equipment Forging.’

”Once this inertia continues, even when the game reaches the later stage and players have accumulated many duplicate cards, they still won’t list them on the auction terminal for sale.

”But at that point, using ’Equipment Forging’ to exchange cards is actually no longer cost-effective.

”At that time, Chen Guangming will most likely choose to raise prices, increasing the cost for players to use game stations. For example, requiring 2,500 or even 3,000 minutes of visa time to purchase the 1,000 chips he lists.

”He might even raise the price to slightly higher than ’30% transaction tax,’ because in the later stage, without enough cards on the auction terminal, players who are still missing one or two cards and can’t find suitable exchange partners will have no other choice.

”This way, Chen Guangming can maximize his profits!”

Lin Sizhi nodded. ”That’s right.

”And there’s one more thing. The chips in the ’Equipment Forging’ room will always maintain their value.

”Because this room has a stable way to consume chips.

”When players keep forging Death Immunity Cards, if they don’t get the card they want, they have to keep forging and keep consuming.

”This consumption will maintain a rough balance with the chips produced in this room.

”So there won’t be a situation like in the ’Compare Sizes’ room where there are too many chips.

”It’s precisely because the chips in this room always maintain their value that players are willing to spend visa time to purchase the chips sold by Chen Guangming’s small group, because they default to viewing these chips as exchangeable for visa time at 1:1.

”If the chips in the ’Equipment Forging’ room also rapidly depreciated like the chips in ’Compare Sizes,’ even reaching a 10:1 ratio, then players would likely no longer recognize the value of ’Equipment Forging’ chips, and it would be very difficult for Chen Guangming to sell chips.

”This plan would have the possibility of failing.

”But clearly, the God’s Imitator who designed this room was very clever and calculated the ’chip depreciation’ situation in advance.”

Cheng Wen was stunned for a moment. ”Brother Lin, you’ve never left this room, but you know everything?”

Lin Sizhi looked at him. ”The rules for all rooms are clearly written. I’ve looked at them all. What’s strange about that?”

Cheng Wen was rendered somewhat speechless by the question. He thought for a moment. ”But... if Chen Guangming’s plan is successfully implemented, what do we do?

”Players are all taking their Death Immunity Cards over there to forge. No one is coming to our room at all!”

Lin Sizhi looked at him. ”What do you think is the main reason players aren’t coming to our room?”

Cheng Wen thought briefly. ”Do I even need to say? There are basically three reasons.

”First is that this room has a 100% transaction tax.

”Second is that many players don’t know the method for stable profits in this room because testing requires relatively high time costs.

”Third, and most importantly, although this room’s chip value has remained stable, even considering a 1:1 ratio, making a Death Immunity Card circulate requires at least over 10,000 chips. Apart from the two of us, other players don’t hold enough chips.

”They don’t have enough chips and can’t obtain that many chips in a short time. So when the currency supply is insufficient, the entire trading process can’t circulate.”

Lin Sizhi nodded. ”That’s right. So what we need to do now is very simple: speed up the circulation of chips in this room.”