Transmigrating Into a Book, the Villain Becomes the White Moonlight!

11: Chapter 11 is all about speed!Lin Guohua had always thought Su Bai was just messing around, making a simple web game or a small mobile game for himself to play, which was why he had agreed so readily.

He hadn’t expected this kid’s ambition to be so vast!

”If that’s the case, the budget will need to be significantly increased. How much do you initially plan to invest?” Lin Guohua’s expression became much more serious, and he unconsciously leaned forward.

Su Bai took a mouthful of rice and said casually, as if discussing what to have for breakfast tomorrow, ”Uh, my mom said she has about a billion in spare cash she can move. She said it should be enough. If it’s not... I’ll find a way to ask her for more.”

”A billion!?”

These words were like a sudden clap of thunder. Aside from Lin Guohua, who was somewhat prepared and only showed it through his dilated pupils, Wang Xiu and Lin Wan both gasped simultaneously.

The soup spoon in Wang Xiu’s hand fell into her bowl with a ’clatter’.

Lin Wan snapped her head up, her cold eyes widening for the first time in front of Su Bai as she stared at him in disbelief.

A billion? For a game?

Is this the world of the Su Family?

This wasn’t just ’playing around’ anymore; this was... this was being a complete spendthrift!

Lin Wan’s brows furrowed tightly, her gaze toward Su Bai filled with confusion and even a hint of anger.

Lin Guohua also recovered from his shock, his tone becoming exceptionally solemn with a hint of dissuasion: ”Xiao Bai, a billion-dollar investment is no small matter. Game R&D cycles are very long. From solidifying your idea to actual development, repeated testing, and finally going live, it takes a long time, and there are many variables in between...”

”Right, that’s why I said we don’t have enough people and need to keep recruiting,” Su Bai interjected, seemingly failing to catch the subtext in Lin Guohua’s words.

He simply wanted to speed up the game’s progress so he could play it sooner.

Su Bai casually picked up the sketchbook that had been his companion for a week and pushed it in front of Lin Guohua.

”As for the game itself, you don’t need to worry. The main character prototypes, skill settings, core gameplay framework, and what I consider important art style references are all detailed in here.”

Lin Guohua took the sketchbook with a skeptical look, flipping through it while speculating, ”Are you trying to emulate those large-scale overseas AAA games and profit by selling game copies?”

This was the most logical business model he could think of based on ’a billion’ and ’global synchronization.’

”Uh, no,” Su Bai’s answer defied his expectations once again. ”The base game, I plan to make it completely free.”

”Free?!” Now even Lin Guohua was completely bewildered. He looked up at Su Bai as if seeing him for the first time, his voice rising a few notches. ”Invest a billion to make a free game? Then how do you plan to recover the costs? How will you profit? I see you have special character skins in here; are you relying on those?”

”Yes, in-game character skins will be part of the profit,” Su Bai explained further.

”I see then,” Lin Guohua said, thinking he had caught onto the logic, following the model of some currently popular domestic games. ”So you’ll sell stat boosts, VIP privileges, and things like that, right? But competition in that model is fierce. Currently, only two or three top games in the market can profit stably from that.”

”Not that either.” Su Bai shook his head again, negating the guess. ”Skins are purely cosmetic and won’t have any stat boosts. Of course, skins will definitely cost money—there’s no doubt about that—but that’s only one of the profit points.”

He paused, leaning forward slightly, his eyes shimmering with a look of reminiscence. ”My vision is that once the game’s launch stabilizes, we will rely on the game itself to create official regional circuits worldwide, support professional teams, and organize major leagues. Through broadcasting rights, team sponsorship cuts, brand endorsements, and a massive amount of game merchandise... we, as the game’s officials and rule-makers, will take a cut from every link in this entire ecosystem.”

Lin Guohua listened, feeling a bit dazed. He felt Su Bai’s ideas were too advanced, even bordering on fantasy. ”Can a single game... have that much influence? Can it support such a massive commercial ecosystem?”

”It’s a game; the core is making it fun to attract enough players to form a community and culture.”

Su Bai leaned back in his chair, his tone returning to his previous casualness. ”My family is responsible for the investment and providing the core creative ideas. Your Lin family will be responsible for realizing my ideas and building it. A clear division of labor, that’s all it takes.”

Lin Guohua nodded in contemplation.

Setting aside whether the grand blueprint Su Bai described was realistic, from a cooperation standpoint, this matter was indeed purely beneficial to the Lin family with no downsides.

Even if the game ultimately lost everything, the loss would be the Su Family’s hard cash; it wouldn’t burn him.

On the contrary, if this project actually took off, even with just a small profit, the share Su Bai promised would allow the Lin family to make a fortune and firmly establish themselves in A City.

”The art style and background music must be the best. The modeling must be detailed, and the movements smooth. Most importantly, the underlying code architecture must be clean. Don’t give me a pile of ’shit-mountain’ code that can’t be maintained later.”

Su Bai emphasized the technical requirements, then politely added, ”In this regard, I’ll need you to put in some extra effort to oversee things, Uncle Lin.”

”Don’t worry about that; I’ll keep an eye on it personally.” Lin Guohua agreed readily. Flipping through the characters in the sketchbook marked with voice acting requirements, he suggested a common promotional strategy: ”I see you have character voice-overs marked here. we could find some popular stars to do the voices and use their fame for a wave of publicity...”

”Don’t!” Su Bai interrupted almost immediately, his attitude exceptionally firm. ”No celebrities. We must find the most professional voice actors. What I want is a voice that fits the character’s soul, not a gimmick for traffic. Don’t let those messy crossovers get involved and ruin the characters.”

By the end of the meal, Su Bai had rejected almost all of the conventional business suggestions Lin Guohua had proposed.

But there was no sign of anger on Lin Guohua’s face. He knew very well that in this project, the control over capital and creativity was in Su Bai’s hands; he was more of an executor and collaborator.

”Actually... with such a detailed blueprint covering character skills, world-building, and the business model, the early planning and direction of the game’s development will be very clear. Progress can actually be quite fast,” Lin Guohua evaluated objectively as he closed the sketchbook.

”I hope to be able to play the beta version by this time next year at the latest,” Su Bai gave a direct timeline. ”So we must increase investment, expand the team, and ideally have three shifts working twenty-four hours a day. People can rest, but the game’s development progress cannot stop.”

He made his stance clear: he was going to disregard the cost and use money to buy efficiency, pushing this game to the market at the fastest possible speed.