<h4>Chapter 158: A Popr Game</h4>
Trantor: _Min_ Editor: Yukira_
After lunch, Ayesha returned to the gym saying she was going to clean the ce. After all, she had been injected with a gic vine, and thus she was almostpletely recovered at the moment.
Jiang Chen was sitting on the sofa while watching TV to pass the time. Yawning, he was about to get up and go back for a nap when his mobile phone suddenly rang.
He took out his mobile phone and read: Xia Shiyu.
He pressed the answer button andzily put the phone to his ear.
“Hello? What’s up?”
“Mhm, I have something to tell you. It’s about a game,” Xia Shiyu’s excited voice came through which made Jiang Chen extremely surprised.
“I guess it’s a good news.” Jiang Chenughed.
“That’s right,” Xia Shiyu leaned backed against the office chair with a rare proud smile appearing on her face. “After a period of marketing and beta testing, ourpany’s first mobile game ‘New Era’ is now officially live! ording to the recent daily statistics that had just been released, its first day of downloads exceeded 15-million mark, setting a record for highest downloads for mobile games!”
After practicing in front of the mirror numerous times, when Xia Shiyu finally shared the good news with the boss, her voice still went off-key due to extreme excitement.
“What the fu*k!” The news practically made Jiang Chen jumped up from the sofa.
“Ahem, no cursing please,” Xia Shiyu admonished lightly before continuing, “ording to the server’s data, the highest number of concurrent users broke through 5 million…it’s better for you toe to thepany this afternoon, so I can show you the back end stats directly.”
“I’ll be there right away.” After saying that, Jiang Chen hung up the phone and was immediately out the door.
…
Wanghai University, men’s dormitory.
A guy with a pair of sses was staring at the screen of his mobile phone, his fingers moving swiftly on the touchscreen. His spectacles reflected the fighting scene of a roleying game character.
“Four eyes, what are you ying? Or are you watching porn?” Tian Zhongjie, his bunkmate, moved his chair closer and stretched his neck to take a peek at his screen.
Tian Zhongjie had just finished ying ‘League of Legends’ and had almost smashed his keyboards because of those noobs. He was so angry that he didn’t want to y anymore. After 20 losses, he closed the game directly, and then opened the file, and uninstalled the game.
This was his tenth time of uninstalling this game.
Most online games were either filled with RMB yers (1) or filled with cheats. Although a lot of noobs yed ‘LOL’, the quality of the game itself was still quite good. At least, the RMB skins wouldn’t increase the user’s attack damage. Thus, after his anger had abated, he would find himself unable to stop from downloading the game again. Despite that, every time he finished uninstalling, he would swear that he would chop his hand off if he ever installed it again.
Chen Hong cast his friend a sidelong nce before returning his gaze back to the screen and then controlled his character to the direction of the main city.
“What are you being so mysterious about?” Tian Zhongjie had just AFKed, so he had nothing better to do. He then got up and stood behind him.
Chen Hong ignored him and continued to stare intently at the screen.
Just then, the dormitory door opened and Gao Fei, who had just finished ying basketball, walked in.
“Yo, four eyes, didn’t you say that only dumbass y mobile game? Then why are you ying it?” Gao Fei quipped. He curiously stood behind Chen Long trying to see what he was ying.
“What, no way! Is this truly a mobile game?”
As a result, Gao Fei was also unable to peel his eyes off the screen either.
The texture of the image, the detailed character design, as well as the spectacr gamey, those 3D mobile games are nothingpared to this! No, not just mobile games, even ‘Skyrim’ on his desktop couldn’tpare to this game!
“That’s right, this is not a mobile game, and that’s why I’m ying it,” Chen Hongteng pushed his eyesses up and scowled at thepletely stunned Tian Hongjie.
Gao Fei gulped and jeered, “The graphics is so good, the game content must be meh.”
Chen Hong nced at him before continuing, “Open world and 2:1 continental-scale map. Itbined the adventure element of an RPG and the management element of an SLG. yer can choose to roley as an adventurer or be a lord managing a piece ofnd. You can also open a business and be a merchant to fight pirates in the sea. Whether it’s the graphics or the content, even if it’spared to PC games, it’s a 3A godly masterpiece” Chen Hong said with absolute certainty. Although he had always been extremely critical when it came to games, he had yet to find any ws in ‘New Era’.
“Could your crappy phone even handle a map with a size of two continents?” Tian Zhongjie’s jaw was about to drop to the ground, he felt like his ‘LOL’ addiction was still not beyond redemption!
“The game is only 300 MB.”
“300 MB, you’re pulling my leg!” Gao Fei uttered inplete disbelief.
“Thepany stated that they used the newest datapression technology as well as cloudputing technology…Anyway, I don’t understand any of that stuff, I only can care about ying. O For a day, I consumed 10 MB of data, so it’s not very high.”
Chen Hong killed another monster and deftly picked up the loot of silver coins and equipment and then locked onto the next one.
“I can see that you have been killing monsters for a while now, don’t you find that boring?” Tian Zhongjie noticed that he had only been killing monsters after watching him y for a long time. Sure, the fighting scene and graphics were great, but wouldn’t it be too boring to be hacking monsters constantly?
“Would you still feel bored if there’s money involved?” Chen Hong responded to him as though he was talking to an idiot.
“Money?”
“RMB, you know that, don’t you?” he added, sighing.
“What the fu*k, the in-game currency can be exchanged for RMB?” Gao Fei asked in disbelief, his eyes almost popping out.
“The game operator doesn’t exchange gold coins, but they offer a tform simr to ‘Diablo 3’s’ auction house. yers are free to price and sell gold coins on a consignment basis. This system is somewhat simr to the stock price, where the lower price is given preference. The game operator will only collect 5%mission fee, and they only take 10%mission for the equipment auction.”
While speaking, Chen Hong’s eyes were burning with passion like crazy.
“During beta testing, Future 1.0 distributed a high amount of activation code to VIP members. There’s quite a number of wealthy yers ying this game ording to the official data collected during the beta phase.”
“That’s to say, there is a high probability that RMB yers would beat your sorry ass.” Gao Fei said in derision.
“That’s how an average person would think.” Chen Hong cast him a haughty look. “‘New Era’ didn’t create an item mall. The purchased points can only be used to expand the warehouse or purchase skins that don’t affect the bnce of the game.”
“In other words, it’s s simr to LOL’s store?” Tian Zhongjie’s eyes lit up, and he suddenly felt an urge to download and y the game.
Chen Hong ignored his friend’s question and muttered, “Do you remember what I said before? There are many ways to y this game. You can be an adventurer, a lord and so on.”
“Does it has anything to do with those RMB yers?” Gao Fei asked, frowning.
“Of course!” Chen Hong’s eyes were practically indistinguishable from gold coins. He licked his cracked lips before continuing, “The condition to be a lord is one has to buy a city lease for 100,000 gold coins and then get the city qualification. Imagine if you were a rich yer, would you rather hunt monsters like what I’m doing, or would you rather be the lord of a city with countless followers?”
“That’s nonsense!” Gao Fei scoffed, but he seemed to have suddenly thought of something as his eyes widened, “Wait, if the city lease costs 100,000 gold, the auction house…”
“That’s right, if you y the game normally, it would be impossible to obtain 100,000 gold coins in such a short amount time. Killing a single boar would only drop 2 silver coins and killing 50 would barely give you 1 gold coin. So to be a lord, the only way to acquire gold coins is through the auction house!”
“But would there be that many people willing to buy a city lease?” Tian Zhongjie asked.
“Let me give you a straightforward data. At present, the price of a single gold coin in the auction house is set to 5 RMB. So for every 10 boars I kill, I would make 1 RMB.” The more Chen Hong talked, the more motivated he became.
“What the fu*k, and lease will cost half a million RMB? That is insane!” Gao Fei uttered in disbelief.
“You noob, there are rich people who are not afraid to squander 1 million while ying ‘nts vs. Zombies’. Don’t you know building a territory is simr to “farming”? Moreover, through taxation, production of materials and other ways to earn money, would you still be worried about not making a return?”
“I’ll tell you a rumor that I heard from one of my friends. Have you heard about Blood Sea guild of ‘Sword 4’? Because of the poprity of ‘New Era’, they are nning to switch to this game. They are also currently raising funds in preparation for something big. Not only wealthy people, a lot of game workshops are also eyeing this city lease, so you can just imagine the future of this game.”
“Isn’t ‘Sword 4’ a PC game?” Tian Zhongjie could not help but ask out loud.
“If the mobile game is more fun than PC game, would you rather y a PC or a mobile game? The future belongs to the mobile tform!” Chen Hong himself was bing passionate about the future.
“Not only that, it can also be said that city building is the biggest feature of the game. The sandbox-like settings would allow the yers to design their city based on their own preference. The city can be built anywhere from a certain distance from another city. And depending on the terrain and the map itself, the established city will receive a corresponding reward that would allow recruitment of special NPCs to attract other solo yers.
“Do you know what this means? This means the earlier the city is established, the higher your advantage will be! You can get mines that produce iron ore, coastal areas fit for ships to dock, as well as unique NPCs roaming on the map…All major guilds are buying gold coins in order to seize those good spots!
“My n right now is to kill monsters to gain gold coins and then sell the gold for money. Once I leveled up, I will explore the deeper parts of the continents. It’ll be great if I can trigger some hidden mission. That would be really crazy!” An ambitious expression appeared on Chen Hong’s face.
“But wouldn’t the value of gold depreciate after a while if everyone purchased the city lease?” Gao Fei asked anxiously.
The reason why he was asking was because he suddenly had the idea of making money from the game. Just killing ten monsters would earn him 1 RMB. This was something really enticing for someone who doesn’t have much pocket money.
“You’re overthinking it. Wouldn’t you need to build establishments after building a city? Wall, city hall, residential buildings, farm, ect., all of which cost money. In addition to city lords, there are sea explorers! Although putting up a shop would not cost 100,000 gold, a small shop would at least be 500. As for the mega vessel, it costs 1,000 gold and above.”
The auction house wouldn’t interfere with game content, and the difference between the demand for gold and RMB would prompt frequent trading between the yers. As long as the operator continued to push new game contents which would prevent the value of gold from depreciating, the game would continue to survive.
Considering the impable game quality, the number of users, as well as the continued growth of Future 1.0…
Gao Fei’s eyes turned brighter and brighter the more he thought about it.
“Four eyes, I have an idea. Why don’t we, of dorm 101, start a game workshop…”
(1) RMB yers: the equivalent of pay to win yers.