Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

“Why not try looking for a small studio? Nowadays, small studios making casual games seem to be doing much better than many big companies. My classmate’s small studio, with only 8 people, made a casual computer game similar to Wind Cloud Dream, and sold 2.6 million copies!”

“It’s not a good time! It’s already December, where can I find a reliable position?”

…

When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter.

Gary sighed in his heart, but then couldn’t help but laugh at himself: isn’t he the same?

Over the weekend, he contacted Jason, who also promised to help him inquire after starting work on Monday.

Now he’s anxiously waiting for Jason’s news.

*

But for now, Jason is too busy to attend to his old colleague’s request, as he is attending his first meeting after joining Cloud Dream.

Whether it’s having a meeting in the virtual world or the content of the meeting itself, it all feels very new to Jason.

The first thing is: Cloud Dream’s meetings have a much larger scale of attendees than NetDragon’s.

This isn’t to say that Cloud Dream has more middle and high-level employees than NetDragon, but rather it seems that many departments have mobilized collectively to attend the meeting.

Thanks to the virtual world, there are such spacious and comfortable conditions to accommodate so many people.

Apart from that, there’s also a big difference in the content of the meetings between Cloud Dream and NetDragon.

Richard wouldn’t be like Lincoln, enthusiastically discussing the details of an in-game event with his employees.

And not discussing the sales, publicity, and fame that the event can bring, but the specific details of how the event is done.

As the meeting progresses, Jason soon discovers: Lincoln doesn’t look like a businessman at all.

—He’s different from all the other businessmen Jason has ever seen.

His uniqueness is manifested in various ways.

For example, when the [Virtual Xiajing] project team reported their progress, they said that the team has grown rapidly, and the number of people has now exceeded 60.

And due to the internal structure of the buildings, the need for a high level of realism requires more and more manpower, so they plan to continue recruiting until they reach 100 people.

Lincoln agreed without blinking an eye, without even asking if there was a more cost-effective way.

Later, he even stated: 5% of the revenue from [Virtual Xiajing] should be set aside to establish a special fund for the maintenance of these public buildings and public spaces in reality.

Jason can’t understand why there’s a need to build such a large department just to complete the [Virtual Xiajing] project as quickly as possible when there’s no urgency or necessity for it.

It was still this department, and a person Jason didn’t know, who reported, “Some store owners have approached us, saying they are willing to pay a higher price to purchase a [Virtual Xiajing Online Shopping Permission].”

“We didn’t say anything, and they took turns raising their prices on their own. Now, the price is already more than six times our original offer.”

“Should we hold an auction?”

When he heard this, Jason thought Lincoln was eager to build [Virtual Xiajing] to harvest the merchants’ leeks.

As a result, Lincoln immediately said, “No need.”

“The key is the quality of the products and the reputation of the stores among consumers, not advertisement fees. We’re not here to do virtual real estate.”

Just as Jason thought Lincoln was selfless and didn’t care about money, Lincoln added, “Of course, if the product is good and they give us more money, it’s not impossible to give them some convenience…”

… Jason completely gave up on thinking.

*

Next is Little Chun’s report.

The first thing Little Chun mentioned was not the Redstone Challenge, but the issue of mods:

“In ‘My World’, there are mods that charge fees privately. Do we need to intervene?”

“Paid mods?” Lincoln was surprised, “Ordinary players? Or professional studios?”

“Players.” Little Chun seemed to have thoroughly investigated it.

“Indeed, many studios are researching mod development, and a few have even completed development and released them for players to try. However, none of them charge fees, probably because they’re afraid Cloud Dream will hold them responsible.”

As soon as he heard it was about players, Lincoln got interested: “What mods did they make? Since people are willing to pay, they must be very attractive, right?”

“Well…” Little Chun hesitated for a moment, “The first one is [Harem Hunting Battle], where the main gameplay is to capture scantily clad female NPCs. Upon a successful capture, the NPC will perform a striptease on the spot.”

“According to their latest announcement, it seems that they have recruited five female members and three homosexuals to the team and are currently developing [Harem Hunting Battle: Gender Swap].”

In the virtual office, laughter erupted.

“Ahem!” Lincoln coughed awkwardly, “Is there anything more serious?”

“Yes, [My World: Survival].”

“They built a city-style architectural complex imitating the metropolis, and then threw in a massive amount of ferocious zombies to attack the players.”

“To give the players the ability to fight so many zombies, they added a lot of ridiculous enchantments, making cold weapons as powerful as hot weapons.”

“These weapons and enchantments were placed in different treasure chests, and they also set up the experience and levels of players’ weapon equipment according to the monsters they defeated, basically making the mod into a game of leveling up by fighting zombies.”

“Because the overall rhythm is well controlled and the experience of harvesting monsters is great, it has a good reputation among the players.”

“However, the team has no plans to expand its staff, so content expansion is slow.”