Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 3: Marketing Strategies for Otakus
In just half an hour, the thirty most famous adventurers in the entire Falvi continent all received a magical message:
"I found a bug that increases attack power by 40 points. I'm selling it for only 500 gold coins. No account or password required. Face-to-face transaction. On-site demonstration. Delivery first, payment later. Guaranteed effectiveness. Believe it or not."
The senders of these messages are numerous, all with names that have a strong business flavor, such as "Selling everything to marry a wife", "Atypical professional businessman", "Jumping off a building and selling blood to pay off debts after parents' persuasion", etc. They have one thing in common, that is: before this moment, they have never appeared on the Falvi continent.
As we know, there is a special state of soul in this world called "trumpet", and they are all like this.
They received replies from those adventurous masters one after another. Not long after, in the corners of many cities and some deserted and secluded areas, these junior trumpets and those peerless masters had a historic meeting. After the meeting, the masters left the scene with a pair of level 12 "boxing gloves" with satisfaction, and every time a transaction was completed, a mysterious witch named "Fei Yin" would have 500 more gold coins in her pocket.
Now, this mysterious female magician is standing in front of me, smiling silly and swallowing her saliva as she counts the gold coins in her pocket over and over again. The "rustling" sound of counting money is just noise to ordinary people, but to this woman it sounds like the sound of nature.
"Isn't it too much to sell a level 12 junk for 500 gold coins?" I couldn't help but ask after a moment of silence. You know, the same pair of gloves can only be sold for 12 silver coins at a roadside stall. Although I was thinking of making a lot of money at the beginning, the profit of more than 4,000 times was still too shocking to me.
"You're wrong to think like that." Feiyin righteously lectured me while counting the money, "How many times have I told you that those who can reach this level so quickly are all otakus? Otakus, do you know that?"
I looked confused and shook my head.
"The so-called otakus can always be found online. If they want to choose, they will choose the most violent profession, practice the highest-level skills, directly Solo the Boss, and pull at least five or six monsters, such as undead, demons, and trolls. They will pull all the monsters they can. Kill the Azure Dragon with the left hand and the White Tiger with the right hand. There is also a circle of Minotaur monsters blocking the middle. They are all elite and very durable. Pull the monsters over, regardless of attack, defense, magic, or treatment. Use whatever skills you have. Look up and count. There are sixteen attribute states. It's very face-saving..."
The violent scenes depicted by Feiyin frightened me. If everything is as she said, then "otaku" must be the most terrible creature in the world. In front of them, the battle maniac Changgong Sheri that we are familiar with is as gentle as a little lamb.
Well... one thing that needs to be specially clarified is that I am definitely not referring to the Yan Zhen's battle pet sheep, MeeMee.
"...When you have money, you can increase the attributes. First, increase the attack power. The critical hit rate alone must be increased to 20%..." Feiyin continued to introduce the living habits of a group of crazy people, "...Then increase the defense, agility, health points, and magic points. In one word, high! The attributes of the people around you are either increased to 3,000 or 5,000. If you buy a piece of equipment and only increase the attributes by 3 or 5 points, you are embarrassed to say hello to others. How much do you think such a otaku is willing to spend to buy 40 points of extra lethality?"
I lowered my head and calculated for a while, then made a bold guess: "Then I think it's at most two hundred gold coins."
"Two hundred? That's the reserve price. My price of five hundred is a conservative estimate. Don't think it's expensive, it's cheap. You have to study the psychology of otakus. Those who are willing to spend thirty or fifty thousand gold coins on a set of armor don't care about spending five hundred gold coins on a pair of gloves. Do you know what an otaku is? An otaku only buys things with high attributes, not low prices. So our slogan is: not suitable, but high price!"
I thought about it carefully and suddenly found a small problem: "Since they already know that you are giving them boxing gloves, if they don't buy them, can't they just go and get one themselves? Why would they fall for your trick?"
Fei Yin laughed wickedly and said, "You don't understand, how long does it take to make a pair of boxing gloves? That would delay their upgrade speed. Since they can buy it, they won't waste this time."
I frowned: "Isn't this stupid?"
Feiyin patted my shoulder approvingly and said, "Congratulations, classmate. You have finally accurately summarized the most prominent characteristics of otaku."
I:"……"
…
Before long, Feiyin's tentacles of making money extended to those adventurers who were ranked below the top 30 but still at a high level. Compared with the 30 hardcore "otakus" that Feiyin first targeted, these lower-level guys were much smarter - at least they knew how to bargain. Soon, the trumpets sold more than ten pairs of boxing gloves at prices ranging from 300 gold coins to 100 gold coins. Almost every few minutes, a large sum of money was transferred to Feiyin's mailbox. Then, the president who had been guarding the mailbox would immediately take out the money and carefully delete the transfer message without leaving a trace.
After estimating the time, Fei Yin probably felt that the time was ripe, and immediately gave the "action begins" order to the five guild members who had been prepared.
In a moment, in front of the presidents of the top five guilds in the Falvi Continental Alliance camp, there will be a "deeply affectionate and loyal" good friend standing. These good friends will tell these presidents the special effects of the boxing gloves without reservation, and at the same time encourage them to hurry to Dongcherd Port to seize the production resources of boxing gloves.
Everything went very smoothly. A few minutes later, the five people who tipped off the matter replied one after another, saying that these guilds had collectively gone to Eastcherd Harbor to seize territory.
Feiyin nodded with satisfaction, and then issued her third instruction.
I immediately took out my magic notebook, opened the contact page, and sent a message like this to each name on it:
"Have you heard? There is a bug in the boxing gloves. Anyone can wear them. They can increase your attack power by an extra 40 points. I only tell you my friends. I won't tell anyone else."
More than twenty members of the guild immediately executed the order. As for another guild member in another time and space dimension, some other members used QQ, BBS and other magical devices that were completely unfamiliar to me to transmit the information.
I doubted how far this news could be spread by only twenty or so people. But it turned out that I underestimated the primitive information transmission method of "word of mouth"! A few minutes later, I found that the number of people on the street who were looking down to send and receive magic messages had increased significantly, and gradually it had increased to the point where only a few people did not read the messages.
With the help of these mysterious magic communication devices, the coverage of this news is expanding rapidly in an explosive manner. Just when I sent this message to the 35th person in the magic notebook, the name of the 36th person suddenly began to flash - that was a signal that he was sending me a message - I opened the message and saw a familiar sentence written on it:
"Have you heard? There is a bug in the boxing gloves. Anyone can wear them. They can increase your attack power by an extra 40 points. I only tell you my friends. I won't tell anyone else."
Looks like I don't need to continue...
In just half an hour, the special effects of boxing gloves had spread throughout the streets and alleys of the continent. I can't guarantee that everyone knows about it, but there are definitely only a handful of people who don't know about it.
The time was almost up, and Feiyin's fourth instruction came one after another.
At this time, a group of mysterious merchants of unknown origin will immediately appear in all major cities of the Falvi Continental Alliance, with a clear banner of "Boxing gloves, limited edition, ten gold per pair". This will be the last appearance of these merchants in this world. When the gloves on their stalls are sold out, these people will disappear forever in the crowd. No one will know where they have gone, just as no one knows where they came from. There is no evidence to show that these black-hearted merchants have any connection with our guild.
At this time, Feiyin's superb business skills have been fully demonstrated:
Why would Feiyin so generously provide such valuable information to other guilds for free? If she put a price on it, she might be able to get a better price.
"Only by allowing those big guilds to completely monopolize the production channels can we create an extreme shortage of goods in the market in a short period of time, and then we will have the opportunity to raise prices and ship goods." This is what Fei Yin said in response to the question.
I didn't understand most of what she said, but what was happening before my eyes was enough to explain the problem:
Soon, those who rushed to East Child Port had to return empty-handed - at least for three days - the members of the top five guilds in the Continental Alliance had surrounded the entire port area, and all places that could produce boxing gloves must have been occupied by them. In front of this group of well-organized guild members, those scattered air enthusiasts would definitely not be able to get a pair of gloves.
When people could only search for boxing gloves in the street market, the stalls of those mysterious merchants suddenly became the busiest places in the city. Not far in front of us, a dwarf warrior named "I want to squeeze Carrefour" was selling boxing gloves. I was very sure that he was the trumpet of someone in our guild, but I couldn't tell who he was.
Now, he was surrounded by people in three layers, each of them holding their wallets and looking pitifully at the pile of boxing gloves in front of him, their eyes almost popping out of their heads, but no one paid - the price of ten gold coins for a level 12 equipment was really not fair.
"It's too expensive..." These people sighed, glancing at the stall owner from time to time, as if they were hoping that he would take the initiative to lower the price.
"I want to squeeze Carrefour out of business" ignored them. Now this was the only store in the city that sold boxing gloves, and he had the final say on pricing - to be precise, it was Feiyin who had the final say.
Things remained in a strange stalemate for a few minutes, and no one broke the deadlock.
I sighed softly, walked forward to separate the crowd, and went straight to the side of "I want to squeeze Carrefour":
"Give me one." I tried to sound urgent.
"Ten gold coins, no bargaining!" The stall owner was stunned when he saw me, then said in a muffled voice. From his expression, I saw a hint of a hidden snicker.
"Ten gold is ten gold." I paid the money without hesitation, and then put my fingers into the gloves in full view of everyone. Although everyone must have heard of the special effects of boxing gloves, they couldn't help but exclaim in amazement when they saw the changes in my properties with their own eyes.
Knowing that there is a bug is one thing, but seeing a living person jumping around and gaining 40 points of attack power out of thin air is another. My live demonstration immediately broke through the last rational bottom line of the commodity value law in the minds of everyone present, greatly stimulating their strong desire to buy.
As soon as I walked out of the crowd, a second hand immediately threw out ten gold coins, followed by the second and third. Once someone took the lead, the people behind them immediately rushed forward waving their gold coins as if they had received some kind of guarantee, one after another, one after another. An unprecedented buying frenzy was set off by this group of crazy buyers, and even some passers-by who had no idea what was going on inside and couldn't even see the signs threw themselves into the crowd without hesitation.
"Hey, what are they doing in there? Why are there so many people?" A minotaur dived into the crowd, squeezing many of them to the ground.
"Why are you squeezing in if you don't know?" A dwarf who was about to be trampled to death beside his thigh cursed angrily.
"There must be good things where there are many people..." The Minotaur answered as a matter of course.
"People at the back, line up, line up. Can you please have some manners?" A clear female voice came from the crowd. It was so crowded that I couldn't tell from which head the voice came.
"We are queuing here..." a group of people outside echoed.
Well, in a sense, everyone here is indeed queuing up in an orderly manner. However, although the queue is not very long, it is very thick...
Feiyin and I stood aside, watching coldly as a large group of people lined up to be held down and bled. I really couldn't understand what was going on in these people's minds. Anyone with a little bit of thinking ability knew that the five major guilds could not occupy the port of East Cherde forever, and there would be more and more boxing gloves. Sooner or later, they would only need to spend three or five silver coins to make a pair of boxing gloves for themselves. But now, they would rather spend a lot of money that is far from worth it, and rush to be the scapegoat, for fear of falling behind others.
In fact, many things are like this. When it comes to making a decision, most people are unwilling to make it themselves, but would rather choose to follow others, as if if they stand on the side of the majority, even if it is wrong, it can become right. They never seem to think: for a stranger you don't know, why do you trust him instead of yourself? Why do you know that his judgment is wiser than your own?
Why do all intelligent creatures live in groups?
Perhaps they want to find spiritual dependence in each other.
This is how the so-called "babysitter" came into being.
"Who is that person?" Feiyin glanced at the businessman and asked me.
"Buddha laughs." Although it was only a short sentence, I still recognized his familiar voice.
Soon, Foxiao sold the last pair of boxing gloves neatly, and then without stopping for a second, he immediately crossed the plane and left the Farvi Continent. He finished selling at the right time. Less than three minutes , several more boxing gloves merchants appeared on the street one after another - I guess they were all from the five major guilds. The price of boxing gloves immediately dropped sharply due to their mutual price-cutting, falling from ten gold coins at the beginning to eight, six, five, four, and finally roughly stabilized at three gold coins.
Those who first spent money to buy gloves immediately realized that they had become the specific object and vivid example of the term "suckers" in an instant, and they complained bitterly.
I wonder if they would feel better if I told them that thirty foolish fellows had spent five hundred gold coins to buy a pair of tattered gloves exactly like theirs, and that these thirty people were all "famous people" they were familiar with.
Just as I was daydreaming, Buddha’s smile, which had returned to its original form, came to us:
"Hey, you lazy tin can. I'm setting up my stall just fine. Why are you coming here to make trouble?" As soon as he showed up, the swordsman in white started complaining to me.
"You are so ungrateful! If it weren't for me, you probably wouldn't have opened yet!" I immediately retorted.
"I could have sold it for ten more gold coins, but you ended up wasting them!" Fo Xiao completely ignored my promotional purpose.
I immediately threw my boxing gloves at his face: "Don't forget, you still owe me ten gold coins."
After a few jokes, Foxiao handed the proceeds from the gloves to Feiyin, looked around at his colleagues, and said angrily, "President, these people have taken away our business. Should we get more gloves to squeeze them out?"
Fei Yin rolled her eyes at him and said, "Are you an idiot? There are more than 20 people in our guild, including fake members and rookies. Who can we squeeze out of the five major guilds? Besides, the price can't be raised anymore. It takes so much effort to make a small profit, but it's not as much as killing monsters and selling equipment. Only a fool would join in the fun."
Feiyin smiled meaningfully and said, "Come and sell. The more people sell, the better. If everyone rushes to do this business, we won't be so conspicuous."
"So...what should we do now?" I asked curiously.
Feiyin smiled sweetly:
"Contact the GM and report a bug. We are law-abiding citizens..."
