Pascal's Wager Developer's Story: From Kidney Failure to Apple Presentation

At the presentation of the iPhone 11, Pascal’s Wager was announced. It was presented by Yang Yang, the founder of TipsWorks. He opened his studio with the funds he collected for a kidney transplant.

App2Top.ru publishes a translation of Abacus material about the unusual path of the founder of TipsWorks.

Yang Yang at the Apple presentation
When Yang Yang entered the stage of the Theater.

Steve Jobs with his new game, then few people imagined how long his path was.

For TipWorks and Yan, the presentation of the game on the Apple stage was the culmination. They went to him for several years. Perhaps they wouldn’t have been able to reach it if Ian’s kidney hadn’t failed. He saved money for the operation, but then, together with other former Konami employees, decided to create TipsWorks in Shanghai. And he invested his personal savings in the studio, including funds for a kidney transplant.

It wasn’t easy for the new studio to succeed. Jan even considered giving up the project for the sake of working in a large company. But it turned out that none of them were interested in him.

“Even though I spent many years in the industry, at that time no company dared to hire me because of health problems,” Yang said in a telephone interview for Abacus. “That time” is two years during which Yan struggled with uremia and underwent blood dialysis three times a week. “There was nowhere to go, so I had to stay,” he added.

TipsWorks had problems, and part of them was that it deliberately ignored the main mobile trend — frituplay with IAP. Often games with this monetization model are sarcastically called “pay-to-win” — “pay and win” — because of the artificial slowdown in progress. But Ian didn’t want his game to “let real gamers down.”

“In recent years, many Chinese mobile companies have engaged in small projects for the sake of quick success and profit,” he said. “We decided it wasn’t for us.”

It is not surprising that the path, which did not guarantee success and profit at all, did not attract investors too much. Only last year TipsWorks finally found its buyer.

“A number of investors have rejected TipsWorks for the reason that the business model for premium games has limited potential,” said Bill Wang, vice president of Giant Network. It was this company that acquired TipsWorks in 2018.

The first episode of Pascal’s Wager will be free, but you will have to pay for the rest of the game. According to Yan, this project is head and shoulders above other mobile games. “It’s a mobile title, but it’s very similar to a console one,” he said, and that was enough to attract Apple’s attention.

Yang did not discuss the details of TipsWorks’ relationship with Apple, citing the NDA. But he noted that the struggle to get on stage was very tough. “Along the way, we experienced a lot of falls,” said Yan, “and until the last we didn’t know whether we would succeed or not.”

Jan has already performed at major gaming exhibitions, even such global ones as E3. Among them, Apple’s presentation is an industrial benchmark. So it was a whole new level of responsibility for the TipsWorks team.

“I was already hardened by various events in China, but this event was especially important. When the whole world is watching your every move, and the giants of the industry are sitting in the hall …” — said Yan.

As a result, the presentation at the Apple presentation became TipsWorks’ finest hour. However, such a great success entails more attention and greater responsibility for the future game.

Pascal’s Wager will be released before the end of 2019. What about Jan’s health? He had a successful kidney transplant earlier this year.