Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

From a 300-meter tall building, one could not see clearly what was happening on the ground.

However, one person was an exception, a special correspondent for the Xiajing Public Technology News – Jim.

Jim was once a senior reporter for the newspaper, but after becoming blind due to illness, he voluntarily resigned and left the newspaper.

However, the newspaper still invited him as a special correspondent, asking him to write commentaries and columns from time to time.

He knew it was the newspaper’s kindness and did not refuse, but while grateful, he couldn’t help but feel bitter about his situation.

The appearance of the [Eight Sides] auxiliary headband changed everything.

After regaining his vision, Jim immediately rejoined the newspaper and the newspaper reimbursed him for the cost of buying the headband.

At this moment, he stood at the edge of the rooftop, staring dumbfounded at the magnificent promotional material in the sky, with the sounds of explosions and gunfire echoing in his ears — he had bought the top configuration version, so he could naturally hear the sound as well.

His colleagues noticed him staring blankly at the empty sky, and, not understanding why, asked him, “What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”

“You can’t see it?” Jim subconsciously replied.

Seeing the confusion on his colleague’s face, he immediately realized the problem and touched the headband on his head.

“There’s a promotional video playing in the sky.”

“Huh?” This response completely baffled his colleague.

Not only Jim, but also a few people on the streets wearing [Eight Sides] headbands, as long as they had the visual aid function, received the visual signals transmitted by the airship as a base station, and could see the grand promotional material when they looked up.

The difference was that some people could hear the sound, while others couldn’t.

However, the large outdoor screens on the streets were already playing advert, so the sound was naturally audible.

With Jim’s prompt, the reporters on the rooftop began to take out their mobile phones in search of information.

And then they immediately discovered: the internet was completely exploding!

The first battlefield was undoubtedly under the latest promotional material released by Cloud Dream, where players were frantically posting comments:

“Amazing! Invincible! Cloud Dream is the strongest, mark my words! If you don’t agree, come and duel me!”

“My friends! I love sniping!”

“This tank looks so much more powerful than it did when Lincoln live-streamed!”

“Nonsense, can it be the same on a battlefield?! That thing can actually fire!”

“Where is the time? Where’s the time? Where’s the time?! My wallet can’t wait any longer!”

“No release date is one thing, but not even a testing time? Have you even made this game?!”

“I can’t wait for one more day! I want to fire! I want to charge! I want massacre!”

…

The speed of the rise in popularity is astounding.

But the members of the Spiritual Rhinoceros operation and maintenance team merely smiled: They had prepared for this!

Since the launch of the airship, they were ready for expansion, and were not panicking at the moment.

They were even overjoyed: the user discussion heat today was simply unbelievably high.

Not only the promotional material officially released by Cloud Dream, but also the photos taken by numerous residents as soon as the airship took off, were surging like a geyser, becoming the absolute center of discussion.

And now, the large outdoor screens in the central business district of Xiajing City were all playing the same video simultaneously. This astonishing uniformity created a visual effect that could only appear in science fiction movies, undoubtedly very breathtaking!

At this moment, on the streets of the business district, everyone stopped to watch the promotional video. Even those who never played games and had no interest in games stopped and looked around at the surrounding screens.

Related photos, videos, and topics were also exploding simultaneously, and the popularity was a mess!

Their combined discussion heat was even higher than that of the Cloud Dream promotional material.

After all, this was Xiajing’s core business district!

Ordinary people saw so many large screens operating simultaneously and thought Cloud Dream must have spent a large sum on their advertisement, and that the quality of the promotional video was very high.

But in the eyes of advertising professionals, what they saw was not the promotional video, but bundles of cash burning away!

*

Aboard the airship, the promotional video had already finished playing.

However, the players still seemed to want more, and they surrounded Lincoln to ask him questions.

Lincoln was afraid of letting anything slip, so he feigned ignorance and only told everyone to “please look forward to it.”

Everyone had no choice but to take out their mobile phones and chat and interact with their online friends.

Lincoln strolled leisurely away on the deck.

His journey had accomplished all his goals, and he had finished everything he needed to do, so he was naturally at ease.

He saw Lance, with a look of excitement on his face, as he looked at his mobile phone and said in relief, “Great! I don’t have to play cards anymore!”

He also saw Zoe, with a camera hanging on her chest and a voice recorder in her hand, talking to herself as she recorded her inspirations for the article.

Camille Victoria happily saw the little girl Vivian, whom she had not seen for a long time, and pulled Vivian’s hand in excitement asking questions.

It seemed that Vivian had been frightened by the promotional video, and her face wasn’t looking too good. But under Camille Victoria’s comfort, she soon cheered up and talked with Camille Victoria about her recent studies and life.

Vivian’s mother stood by, her face filled with a satisfied smile.

Lincoln, having seen enough scenery, left the deck and returned to the cabin. He saw the princess wearing a headband, her face curious, looking at Mavis.

Mavis also cocked her head and stared at Camille Victoria.

They had met in Cloud Dream’s virtual office, but they didn’t interact much. Now Camille Victoria felt like she had a rare opportunity to get to know Mavis better.

Lincoln, fearing that Mavis might reveal something about “living together” or other shocking topics, quickly walked over and joined them.

*

Meanwhile, the aggressive media outlets on Lincoln’s blacklist were helplessly watching as the online discussions were dominated by the content of “Battlefield.”

What about the quality of “My World”?

It seemed that no one cared anymore; everyone was busy discussing the new game!

So naturally, no one wanted to pay any attention to those media outlets.

Having no feedback made it hard for them to continue their attacks, but giving up was not an option. The boss had made it clear that they had to keep attacking until the end of the day.

No one to argue with? Can’t find a topic?

No problem, they could use their personal accounts to make up excuses for Cloud Dream and then use their company accounts to pick apart and rebut those excuses.

No matter if the players cared or not, today they had to nail down the idea that “Cloud Dream is arrogant, and their new game is rushed and sloppy!”

…

Apart from these media outlets, there were some people who didn’t have time to care about the news of “Battlefield.”

They were the players who were still fighting in “My World.”

Players of [World No.22] brought their extensive TNT explosive skills to [World No.6], significantly enhancing their destructive power.

Ordinary buildings couldn’t withstand such explosions.

In the early stages of the battle, the Daxia players took advantage of their numerical superiority to drive back the Baekje players.

– In this server, Daxia players were the most numerous. Even after expansion and Baekje players were the first to start recruiting people, only about 50,000 people joined in.

But Daxia originally had more than 90,000 players, plus the 30,000 who joined later, making a total of 120,000 players.

Izumo players had the least number of people, only about 20,000.

The less than 10,000 scattered players left were from other countries.

But the Izumo players had a clear strategy; they immediately allied with Daxia players, determined to kill all Baekje players down to quitting the server!

Daxia players were less vicious; their goal was to completely discourage the idea of ​​occupying servers on a national basis. They didn’t intend to completely annihilate individual Baekje players in the game.

Of course, they wouldn’t stop others from doing so either.

So, Daxia and Izumo players joined forces to encircle and suppress the Baekje player groups.

Baekje players quickly shifted from attacking on all fronts and causing destruction to retreating and adopting a defensive position.

In the end, they had no choice but to make a large number of obsidian blocks and use them to build solid obsidian fortresses.

Even TNT explosives could not destroy these sturdy blocks – not everyone had a diamond pickaxe at this time.

Unable to break through the obsidian quickly, their opponents would inevitably be raided by the Baekje players inside the fortress. As a result, the Daxia and Izumo players faced serious setbacks in their offense.

But giving up was not an option.

It’s not like only they knew how to build obsidian fortresses!

So the situation evolved into fortress warfare: Daxia and Izumo players quickly built their own obsidian fortresses, surrounding the Baekje fortresses.

Then they began to play the scorched earth strategy, dismantling all the surrounding blocks they could, making the opponent’s fortress float in the air, and cutting off any hope of escape.

But that was about the limit.

In the absence of long-range attacks, offense was extremely difficult. What’s worse, the enemy had placed respawn points inside their fortress, and without destroying the points, they were just feeding the enemy supplies.

For a time, the battle was in a stalemate.

Everyone had to explore more creative tactics, such as producing large amounts of water sources above the fortress to drown all the enemies and then attack.

But it turned out to be useless: the people inside had enough time to collect the water or remove a block of obsidian to drain it out. After all, the water itself was harmless.

So someone suggested pouring lava into the fortress, as long as it was fast and abundant enough, it would scald them to death!

However, obtaining lava wasn’t easy; they had to dig very deep to find lava lakes and obtain large amounts of it.

Moreover, the environment was extremely dangerous, with various hostile monsters. If one wasn’t careful, they could die en route and suffer a loss instead.

As everyone was struggling to find a solution, someone suddenly shared a link in the joint combat group chat, saying, “Check this out! A technique for artificially producing large amounts of lava!”

Seeing this message, tens of thousands of people clicked on the link, switched the interface, and arrived at the pilipili video website.

The publisher of this video was none other than the top uploader and anchor: [Super Tomato].

The video description looked very serious:

“My World” special gameplay mechanics discovery and partial applications, including: [Iron Farming Machine], [Flower Brushing Machine], [Infinite Lava], [Villager Breeding Machine], [Villager Discount Machine]… and other application modes and production methods.

Attached also are: A potentially unlimited specialized block – [Redstone], usage scenarios speculations and prospects, looking forward to experts in circuit design to join and uncover the real potential of this material!

Please believe: The only thing that can restrict us is our own imagination!

Compared to the video description, the video title was quite exaggerated –

[“My World”: Infinite potential, unlimited possibilities!]