Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 219 - 219: 217: Price Bloodbath

Translator: 549690339

Friday night passed amid the laughter of gamers.

Although Saturday was originally a good time to sleep in, the alarm clock rang, and Lincoln, despite his reluctance, forced himself to get up.

Mavis was still beside him, quietly cheering him on, as if waking up on time was an extraordinary accomplishment…

Lincoln sadly discovered that although he was becoming wealthier, his opportunities to sleep in seemed to be getting fewer and fewer.

All kinds of matters piled up before his eyes.

As he began to wash up, Mavis methodically put 17 million Mirage Consoles up for sale.

Countless netizens had already been waiting and preparing to make a purchase half an hour or even earlier.

Taking into account the precedent of “Light Encounter” going online 20 minutes ahead of schedule yesterday, netizens this time started refreshing the page half an hour in advance, fearing that Cloud Dream would quietly go on sale early and miss out on their chance.

This was clearly a futile effort.

Lincoln might bring forward the scheduled time on a whim, but Mavis has always been punctual. The consoles will only be available at the precise time announced, not a second before.

The consoles were still selling at an astonishing speed. In the ten or so minutes it took Lincoln to wash up, they were all sold out.

As game industry insiders exclaimed at the terrifying speed, some unusual occurrences began to appear.

At 8:15, a large number of Mirage Consoles started appearing on the second-hand trading platform Sweet Fish, all with prices above 80,000 yuan.

However, unlike before, there was no rush to buy them this time.

In the first five minutes, the number of consoles sold was less than 100,000!

People then realized that selling the consoles was not as easy as they thought. Weren’t they supposed to sell immediately once they were listed?

How come nobody has bought them after five minutes?

Ten minutes passed, 15 minutes passed, and still nobody bought!

Cunning sellers began to lower their asking prices in an attempt to get rid of the inventory faster.

Initially, they cautiously dropped the price by one or two thousand, but the sales from this price reduction were even fewer. Transactions plummeted to one-tenth of the previous amount, with less than 10,000 units sold. As more people saw the price drop, they wondered if it would drop further.

And of course, the answer was: yes!

Did they really expect millions of inexperienced ordinary people, many of whom were competitors, to cooperate and control prices?

What kind of pipe dream is that?

Under slogans such as “grab it and profit, resell for 100,000 yuan,” many Mirage Console buyers didn’t really need one.

Of the users who participated in the rush to buy, less than half really wanted to play with the console.

For many of them, 10,000 yuan was not a small amount, and their risk tolerance was quite low.

Now, seeing the sluggish sales and price reductions, they naturally followed the trend and lowered the price in order to cash out sooner.

Furthermore, the earlier they sold, the more they could potentially profit!

But they forgot one thing: the buyers thought the same way.

As long as the sellers lowered the prices, the buyers would start waiting.

Buyers who really wanted a console and had ample funds, but didn’t care much about the extra money, had largely already bought consoles in the past two months — after all, there were already 35 million units in the market.

And since they could afford the high premiums, it wasn’t too difficult for them to get a console.

Now, the players who still wanted to buy Mirage Consoles would be much more rational.

They were willing to pay extra for a console, but their tolerance for excessive prices was limited. They would carefully consider the price and not blindly spend money on impulse.

As buyers kept on waiting, more and more sellers panicked, lowering their prices more frequently and in larger increments, dropping by one or two thousand every few minutes.

Well, seeing the price dropping so quickly, buyers are even less likely to make a purchase!

The Mirage Console in the second-hand market embarked on an endless downward trend.

The 100,000 buyers who placed orders at 8:15 saw this situation and began to cancel their orders one after another – after all, no one wants to be a big loser!

At this time, the sellers hadn’t even received their consoles yet. They could only watch in pain as their orders were canceled and then join the vast army of price slashes.

There is no such thing as “once sold, no returns” on online trading platforms.

Even on second-hand trading platforms with less stringent rules, it’s impossible to say, “Once you’ve placed an order, you can’t change your mind!”

There is almost no cost to bottom-fishing on online trading platforms.

When the price of the consoles dropped to 50,000 yuan per unit, more than 100,000 orders were traded again.

But when the buyers saw that the prices continued to fall without any signs of stopping, these orders were all canceled one after another.

Then, as the price dropped to 40,000, 35,000, 30,000, 25,000, 20,000, and other key nodes, a large number of orders were traded almost every time, with the transaction volume getting bigger and bigger.

But no matter how many were traded, they would all be canceled within 5 minutes afterward.

As the sellers were lowering their prices, they also had to deal with refunds, feeling so frustrated that they almost wanted to vomit blood.

But there was no other way. Who asked them to want to earn this money, but couldn’t predict the direction of the market?

It wasn’t until the price dropped below 15 grand that it finally stabilized, and the genuine transactions began to appear one after another.

This meant that after a full two months, the Mirage console’s second-hand market price finally saw a stable day.

From then on, there would be no more sky-high-priced consoles in the market.

As more consoles are listed, the real price of the second-hand market is bound to become on par with the official price, and this is no longer far away.

It might even be as early as next week!

People who buy consoles for resale will inevitably disappear, and Lincoln’s long-awaited normal market environment will finally arrive.

Mavis quickly informed Lincoln of this news, and he was naturally very happy.

At the same time, he didn’t find it surprising. After all, with his nearly week-in, week-out release of new products, this kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later.

Not to mention that this week, a whopping 17 million units were released, virtually doubling the market inventory!

Players who saw this large shipment volume would definitely not be willing to buy high-priced goods anymore.

They’d rather wait for another week. After all, there would be more than 10 million units next week, making it much easier to buy them.

“Since the market has become stable, there will definitely be fewer people rushing to buy next week, and the sales speed will slow down. Let’s not expand production capacity next week. Let’s make it an even 15 million units.” Lincoln set up the delivery plan for the new week.

“Is there anything else?”

If there’s nothing else, he’ll need to go for a job interview for a career manager.

“There is!” Mavis immediately replied, “It’s a new technology that has been decrypted!”

“Save it for later.” Lincoln said casually.

In fact, last week’s record-breaking sales of “Assassins’ Alliance” also broke the record for the number of online users.

New technology had been successfully decrypted during that week, which was a very high-end “counter-attack technology” specifically designed to counter Al. But Lincoln was too busy and asked Mavis to save it for later.

“It’s different this time!” Mavis didn’t obey, and instead, she reiterated uncharacteristically: “Master, you might really need this technology!”

“Oh? What technology?” Lincoln was curious.

“Hibernation Warehouse!” Mavis replied happily.

“Hibernation Warehouse? Space travel technology?”, Lincoln found it odd, “Why would I need this technology?

“Wait a minute!” Lincoln suddenly realized, “You mean, this technology can solve the problem of players’ physical motor function decline due to long periods of lying down playing games?”