Chapter 7: Game Sales (2)
Early the next morning, William was woken from a deep sleep by someone pounding on his dormitory door.
William tried to ignore it, but the person outside was persistent.
"God, can't a guy get any sleep?" William grumbled as he stumbled to the door.
He opened it to find Hammer. William complained, "You bastard, what time is it?"
"Sorry, William, I'm just too excited." Thinking of the 400 pounds he had made yesterday, Hammer felt a rush of adrenaline.
"You won't believe it! I sold all 200 game discs yesterday, and tons of people are still waiting to buy one! William, time is money!"
William froze for a moment, then a wide grin spread across his face. "What did you just say?"
William grabbed Hammer by the shoulders excitedly. "How did you do it? You're a natural at marketing! God, we're going to be rich!"
Hammer was just as excited as William. "Of course, we're going to be rich! No time to waste, give me more game discs. I'm going to try selling in other communities."
"And last night, I submitted a proposal to my professor. I'm going to write a paper on what we're doing."
"If our sales method succeeds, it could be a new model for marketing all sorts of university-related products. We could even sell the data as a youth preference survey report! That's something else we could sell."
Hammer continued, "The professor loved the plan. I don't have to go to class for now, I just need to document everything I do for the paper."
"If he's satisfied, he might even recommend my paper for publication in a journal. This is great! I can make money and get a paper published, which will be a huge help for graduation."
"I think I can sell 500 discs a day. That's a profit of 1,000 pounds! Do you know how much money that is? I've never made so much money in my life!"
After he finished, William thought the guy was going crazy, high on the prospect of earning money.
Hammer pulled out 1,200 pounds. "Hurry up, I'll take 300."
After taking the money, William had an idea. "I'll give you 500 discs. Pay me back for the extra 200 after you sell them. Consider it a bonus for your hard work."
"Really? Man, you're a good guy. Don't worry, I'll sell these out by tonight. We're going to be rich!" Hammer stuffed five bundles of discs into his backpack and ran off.
William thought to himself that Hammer was truly talented. All it took was the desire for money to unlock his potential.
After his morning classes, William received calls from the classmates who had contacted him yesterday. They were all asking for more game discs.
At noon, many students who hadn't been part of the initial group came to him with money, asking for discs. By that evening, he had a list with over 100 names on it.
Dozens of these students were taking 100 discs or more. At this rate, he would sell over 3,000 discs in just two days.
He now had over 12,000 pounds on hand. To get the price per disc down, he would need to place a much larger order. Seeing the current demand, selling them throughout London wouldn't be a problem.
An order of 50,000 discs would cost about 0.5 pounds each, for a total of 25,000 pounds.
Having made his decision, William picked up his phone and called the disc manufacturer.
When the manufacturer heard William wanted to order 50,000 units, he was ecstatic and gave him a better deal, lowering the price to 0.46 pounds per disc. He then asked if William would be interested in signing an exclusive production contract.
William thought about it and shook his head. Given the current trend, the game could potentially sell across Europe, the United States, and maybe the whole world.
If he signed an exclusive contract now, he'd be selling himself short. He couldn't sign any agency or production deals yet. He had to wait until the game was a true hit and the major players came to him.
He rejected the manufacturer's proposal, not wanting a small-time deal to affect his future profits.
That afternoon, he finalized the order with the manufacturer, paying a 10,000-pound deposit. They agreed he could pick up the goods in two batches to ease his cash flow issues.
He declined the manufacturer's invitation to dinner, rushed back to campus, bought a pizza, and returned to his dorm. He hadn't even finished a slice before Hammer was knocking at his door again.
Out of breath, Alexander Hammer emptied his backpack.
"I'm finally back. Man, you don't know how nervous I was today, carrying all this cash. I was terrified I'd get robbed."
He handed 800 pounds to William, then dumped the rest of the money in a pile.
Today, he had sold all 500 discs. He paid William the 800 pounds he owed, and he still had 2,200 pounds left over, which was enough to buy another 500 discs.
Hammer grabbed the pizza from William's table and started eating without any ceremony. Once he'd finished, he took another 500 game discs, left 2,000 pounds as payment, and departed.
In the following days, William was steadily selling 3,000 copies of the game every day.
He now had a network of over 150 students from the University of London selling discs for him. He was no longer an unknown figure on campus; many classmates and their friends were making extra money because of him.
Some, like Hammer, were selling around 500 discs a day, earning thousands of pounds. Others were making a few hundred.
Most of the students in William's year now knew who he was, and they no longer treated him like he was invisible.
Many attractive girls started greeting him on campus, and some of the bolder ones would even come up and flirt with him.
*Capitalist girls are so pragmatic,* he thought. *The girls back in Greater China are better, for now. But in a few years, it will be the same all over the world. First, they check if you have money, then if you're handsome. If you have neither, you might as well be invisible.*
Within a few more days, several small-time London game dealers approached him, wanting to buy the game's copyright outright.
But after speaking with several of them, the highest offer was only one million pounds.
"Tsk, trying to get rid of a beggar," William scoffed. He had already sold nearly 50,000 discs and earned almost 200,000 pounds himself. "One million pounds for the entire copyright? Go to hell."
One million pounds wouldn't even be enough for the London distribution rights, and they wanted to buy the entire copyright. *Do they think I'm a fool? You can't find a bargain like that.*
Even before the first 50,000 discs were sold out, he had already negotiated with the manufacturer for another 100,000.
Now, twenty percent of the marketing students at the University of London were selling discs for him. To skip classes and make extra money, many of them were selling discs off-campus under the guise of helping Hammer with his research project.
Some of the smarter ones even ventured outside of London, selling at secondary schools and universities in the surrounding cities. After a few days, posts started popping up online asking where to buy *Plants vs. Zombies* game discs.
The university was also paying close attention to this emerging marketing case. The strategy was clear: become famous at one university, spread to others, then filter down to middle schools and primary schools, and finally capture the attention of society at large. This sales method proved that if a product was outstanding enough, a company didn't need to spend much on publicity to cause a social sensation.
Families care most about their children, so parents pay attention to what their children like. In schools, from universities down to primary schools, students pay attention to what their popular classmates are into. Everyone has friends, and it's embarrassing to have never heard of or played something all your friends love. Once something becomes popular with the youth, it can become popular with the whole of society.
After he sold 150,000 game discs in London and its surrounding areas in less than a month, a major game company finally came looking for William.
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