Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

“Huh?” Lincoln was stunned for a moment, “Of course! I’ve been listening.”

“So what did I say?” Wu Di’s eyes were full of suspicion.

“You said… um, you said the pace was too slow, and it takes a month just to complete the entry-level tasks in Assassin’s Way. Players who lack patience might get agitated. Also, the world is too peaceful, so there’s no place to use the strength you acquire. Transportation is not convenient either, and you have to run everywhere by yourself…” Lincoln repeated what he heard from Mavis’s voice in his ear.

Wu Di was a bit surprised but didn’t say much, nodding and continuing, “Yes, those things I can understand since the game is not yet complete. But isn’t the quest line way off? I’ve spent seven days and haven’t even completed a third of the progress.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Lincoln reassured, “This quest line and ability improvement curve were just made by a few staff members when they had free time, it’s a little more complicated because they took lots of real-life martial arts experts’ opinions into account. When the game is officially released, these will definitely be significantly modified.”

“When will the game be released?” Wu Di asked with great anticipation.

“Well… uh…” Lincoln was a bit tongue-tied, “I can only say it’s coming soon, very soon…”

Without waiting for Wu Di to ask further questions, Lincoln immediately changed the subject: “As for transportation issues, there will definitely be improvements when the time comes. I have a suggestion for you: after the release of Battlefield, you can try cavalry and practice horse riding.”

“Battlefield?” Wu Di immediately asked the same question again, “When will Battlefield be released?”

Lincoln paused for a few seconds, “…soon, very soon.”

Wu Di was speechless: “Anyways, everything is coming soon, right?”

However, he also knew that the release date of a game was indeed a big deal, and it was normal not to talk about it casually.

So he changed the subject and continued talking about his gaming experience for the past week.

They chatted for a full half-hour, discussing everything they could think of before Wu Di logged off and left.

In another hour, he had to lead a group of aunties to do their exercise routine, so he needed to get ready in advance.

*

Lincoln, on the other hand, took note of the things he had discussed with Wu Di.

He entered some of the information into his agenda, then forwarded the relevant parts to the Virtual Chang’an team.

After that, he returned to the small sofa on the Spaceship to find Mavis.

At this time, Mavis was curled up on the sofa, with dozens of screens of various sizes in front of her, clearly still intensely following the gossip.

When she saw Lincoln come in, the screens slowed down, allowing him to see them clearly as well.

Lincoln sat down and looked at the screens—

[NetDragon headquarters and R&D center sealed off! Massive SWAT deployment on-site, suspected of involving serious criminal offenses!]

[The dust settles! Lincoln’s grudges with NetDragon finally coming to an end today?!]

[Breaking news! NetDragon boss Richard sent to jail, once the leading game company, finally reaching a dead end?!]

…

Under each report, numerous netizens were enjoying the drama and gossiping.

Scenes of NetDragon’s headquarters surrounded by SWAT and police tape, videos of Richard being escorted out of the company, expressions of panic on numerous NetDragon employees as they left the company—these on-site records were everywhere.

Especially the photo of Richard looking pale and desolate like a beaten dog, which had already made its way to the second spot on the Hot Searches list.

Why wasn’t it the top Hot Search?

It’s because the top Hot Search was even more outrageous!

It was a picture of Lincoln sitting in the co-driver’s seat of the box truck with a hat on, leaning out of the window to glance at NetDragon’s headquarters.

Initially, this was to give Mavis a clearer view of the drama, but when more people gathered, especially when reporters appeared, Lincoln had honestly retreated back into the car.

They still managed to take a photo, though.

However, he was mentally prepared for this and wasn’t surprised.

What truly surprised him was the outrageous title attached to this picture—

[The Number One Grudge Holder in the Modern-Day Internet!]

Shockingly, the comment section highly approved of this absurd title—

“[Steals from his enemies at their weakest moments!]”

“[Merciful heart, lightning-fast moves!]”

“Ever since Lincoln debuted on the Internet, we’ve never seen him suffer any losses! Apologizing, paying compensation, going to jail, his opponents never end well! I was wondering why NetDragon kept going without admitting their mistakes, and how it would all end. Turns out they’re getting raided! Awesome! Lincoln never disappoints me!”

“The No.1 ruthless man on the internet today! Refreshing!”

“Such satisfying revenge! A role model for our generation!”

…

Due to Cloud Dream’s consistently high reputation and the massive user base, its advantage in the Internet public opinion warfare is simply enormous.

After browsing through a bunch of netizen comments, Lincoln only saw a few people criticizing him, saying things like “too extreme,” “an apology would have sufficed, but you had to send someone to jail,” and “being so ruthless, you must not be a good person, and your charity work is probably all for show.”

However, these comments were immediately drowned out by dozens or even hundreds of times more comments from other netizens.

The current hot topic of discussion has shifted to “Will Lincoln buy NetDragon?”

Seeing this, Lincoln couldn’t help but shake his head. He had no interest in NetDragon, so why would he buy an already outdated company?

Only if he was crazy would he buy NetDragon.

However… he could consider acquiring the IP rights of the “Blaze” series.

When the time comes and he has some free time, he can have Randall, Fred, and the original Flaming Project Team staff to work on “Blaze 4” together.

This would be the true “Blaze” sequel, made by the original team for a genuine experience!

However, as the most famous and valuable IP, NetDragon might not be willing to sell it off easily.

They would probably wait until they really can’t hold on any longer, and the company is about to go bankrupt, before they’d be willing to sell.

“Let’s just wait a bit longer.”

Lincoln wasn’t in a hurry, because he felt that after this hit, the day that NetDragon goes bankrupt is likely not far off.

As for the massive number of netizens that went to his comment section, frantically mentioning him and hoping for him to say something…

Lincoln planned to pretend not to notice.

Although he was happy to see NetDragon suffer, there was no need to be aggressive on the internet since he was already satisfied.

Moreover, he had more important things to do – the release of the early access version of “Battlefield”.

Although he told Wu Di that the time for both “Chang’an” and “Battlefield” was “almost there,” the meaning of “almost” was entirely different for each case!

For “Chang’an,” it’s the “almost there” of creating a new folder, while for “Battlefield,” it’s genuinely almost ready for release!

To be more precise: it’s this coming Friday, the day after tomorrow!

Once again, it follows Cloud Dream’s tradition of “testing or releasing trailers and selling one week later”.

However, to cater to the sales of “My World,” they didn’t announce the release date earlier.

After delaying for two consecutive weeks, the deficiencies in the single-player campaign have been fully compensated, and even the armory of various military types has been expanded to some extent.

In their spare time, the development team members have already conducted several trial runs – the “Battlefield” development team is currently the largest team in Cloud Dream, capable of easily assembling teams of 30v30, 60v60, or even 100v100.

These “internal tests” have indeed helped them discover some minor issues.

However, being developers themselves, they often have a limited perspective, so their testing can’t replace actual player testing.

Especially large-scale, long-term, and diverse tactical player testing – it’s impossible to replace.

It’s important to note that the gameplays imagined by developers and the actual gameplays players choose aren’t always the same, sometimes even running completely against each other.

*

When the lunch break was over, Lincoln logged into the virtual office and found Samuel.

He needed Samuel to evaluate whether announcing the “Battlefield” early access version on Thursday would be affected by the NetDragon incident.

If it was only domestic sales, Lincoln was fully confident that it wouldn’t matter at all.

However, NetDragon had a relatively comprehensive international sales channel, meaning that they also had a certain player base overseas.

On the other hand, Cloud Dream has only just started its venture into several European countries two or three weeks ago; they might not have established as large a player base as NetDragon in those regions.

Just now, when he was on the small sofa, he noticed some character content other than Chinese characters among Mavis’ posts – apparently, the impact of this incident has quickly spread overseas.

The grudges between Cloud Dream and NetDragon will undoubtedly be unearthed and reported.

In this situation, releasing a new game, especially an “unfinished” one, might be unpredictable in its effects.

Worst case scenario, if players overseas think that he’s doing this to “step on rivals,” opting to release the game at this time regardless of player experience and game completeness, it would be terrible.

——Sales being affected is a small matter, but Cloud Dream’s reputation being affected is a big deal!

Therefore, he needed Samuel to evaluate the situation beforehand.

If there really were negative effects, they could consider releasing the “Battlefield” early access version only in Chinese-speaking areas first, and delaying the release in other regions for another week.

After clearly explaining everything to Samuel, Lincoln finally went to the “Battlefield” development world.

However, before he could check the development logs from the past two days, Fred suddenly came over and asked, “Boss, are you interested in poaching some talent from NetDragon?”