Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Saturday, Cloud Dream Experience Store, as always, fully packed.

However, it was different from the usual silence. As the testing time hadn’t arrived yet and everyone had signed the agreement, they were all gathered in the lobby, enthusiastically chatting with each other.

Around the several famous anchors and video uploaders, there were some fans who were busy taking selfies and getting autographs.

Some uploaders even held cameras and started recording material directly.

Although the content of the “Assassins’ Alliance” test was confidential, the closed beta testing process wasn’t. For them, this was all valuable video material.

Being able to turn the camera on and record at any time was quickly becoming an essential skill for successful uploaders.

Streamer Yi was an exception.

He wasn’t an uploader, but at this moment, he was also holding a camera while tightly clutching a dark blue cloth bag in his other hand. He never let it down, even when interacting with fans.

He kept glancing at the entrance to the experience store, as if expecting someone to show up.

Unfortunately, by the time everyone had arrived for the closed beta test, Lincoln still didn’t show up.

Lincoln wasn’t a fan of participating in lively events, especially considering it was Saturday.

Asking him to get up early on a weekend just to spout meaningless platitudes in front of over a hundred people would have been too demanding of him.

So, he didn’t plan to come in the morning and left all those tasks to Liang Tian.

The experience store didn’t have weekends, and employees took turns taking days off. Lincoln didn’t feel guilty about offloading this task.

However, the employees of Dream Cloud Studio weren’t as carefree as their boss: many of them didn’t want to wait until Monday to review the recordings, so they volunteered to come to the experience store to help.

They brought their equipment, and once the test began, they would log into the virtual world to monitor players’ closed beta process in real-time.

Of course, Lincoln didn’t want to just go through the motions—he cared about the game’s closed beta and would also be paying close attention in the virtual world.

He and Mavis were now snuggling on the small sofa in the bridge.

In front of them were various snacks, and the mini-fridge was always stocked with drinks. Recently, they even added a hand-pressed coffee brewing device.

Of course, using a coffee maker in the virtual world was entirely for the ritualistic feeling.

After all, the taste of coffee was determined by pre-set parameters, not the coarseness of the ground beans or even the type of beans.

But when Mavis was holding the handle of the hand-pressed coffee maker and grinding coffee beans with great effort, Lincoln’s mood turned especially great each time he saw her.

In front of them, several holographic screens hovered. For the time being, the screens were blank, as the players hadn’t started the game yet.

Mavis was wearing a loose casual T-shirt and pink shorts, sitting cross-legged on the sofa with a bucket of popcorn on her lap, eating happily and occasionally feeding Lincoln some popcorn.

08:00, Cloud Dream Experience Store.

A hundred players started their Mirage devices and logged into “Assassins’

Alliance”.

The game began with a movie clip.

A suit-wearing, well-combed assassin, Mr. X, got off a taxi and took an elevator to a high-rise. As he asked an Indian woman about the origin of the bullet, he witnessed her being sniped from a distance and quickly left the room.

In the hallway, he demonstrated extraordinary physical prowess, bursting through the glass exterior of the building, leaping between buildings, and killing the ambushing shooters in mid-air before being sniped from an even greater distance by a cross.

The clip clearly showed Mr. X using an old-style rifle to fire a curved bullet in midair, killing the shooter hiding behind cover.

After the movie clip ended, the players officially entered the game.

But at this moment, all the heavy gamers were stunned, feeling they had just seen a bullet that could curve!

Super Tomato was extremely doubtful. Was he seeing things wrong?

Meanwhile, Lance had his eyes wide open in disbelief. As a professional player, he fully trusted his observational skills!

That bullet he just saw definitely curved!

With such doubt in mind, the game began.

Lance found himself lying on a bed, with the roar of a passing train coming from outside the window.

Before the roaring sound ceased, the blanket beside him was lifted, and a blonde woman sat up, her loose sleepwear hinting at a good figure beneath.

She was very angry, complaining loudly about how the train was too noisy and impossible to rest.

Without giving Lance a chance to respond, she looked disappointed in him and complained non-stop: “What use are you? When are we ever going to move? When can we live in a proper place?”

As she griped, she got out of bed, wearing her sleepwear through the messy room and went into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.

Lance felt none of the male protagonist’s irritation and oppression from the game setting. Instead, at this moment – his face turned red!

As a 17-year-old pure-hearted young man, who would have thought that one day he would wake up in the same bed as a strange woman?!

Moreover, a blonde foreign woman!

He didn’t know where to look or what to say in response to her complaints.

As a side note, thanks to the rich experience of people like Randall in controlling violence and explicit content, “Assassins’ Alliance” was successfully rated as a “16+” game, which means anyone over 16 can play it.

This is actually not low, as many gunfight games on the market are rated around “14+”.

Control over rating scale is a necessary skill for a mature producer in the industry.

Another point worth mentioning is that in this world, Daxia’s game companies go through three stages of game review.

In the early development stage, the game must be submitted for a record check, during which a preliminary review will determine whether the game can be successfully released.

At this point, there are only two outcomes: “pass” and “fail”, but it does not involve rating.

After the production progress is more than halfway, the game can be submitted for an interim review, during which playable parts and the description of subsequent content must be provided. At this point, the rating can be determined.

The last time is before the official release, to ensure no misconduct in the subsequent content. As long as there is no misconduct, the rating generally won’t change.

However, it is worth saying that this opening scene, waking up in the same bed as a blonde “girlfriend,” is quite a shock for all the pure-hearted young men.

This is also a small “reward” that Lincoln left for the players in consideration of the upcoming oppressive content, so as to keep them engaged and not discouraged.

Lance got up and found himself wearing a full set of sleepwear, completely covered from head to toe, leaving no room for imagination.

Following the task prompt floating in front of his eyes, he tried to change his clothes.

Then he found that only the jacket could be put on manually, while the other clothes were all “one-click changing”.

This eased him a bit, and without paying any attention to the blonde “girlfriend” in the bathroom, he followed the task prompt and hurried off to work like a thief.

On the other hand, Yi experienced something completely different.

When he saw a blonde woman suddenly waking up beside him and venting her complaints, he was shocked at first, but he soon adapted to the situation.

Moreover, he felt very immersed and immediately retorted: “Move? Are you out of your mind, woman? Do you know how expensive housing is? Are you paying for it? All you do is nag and complain all day, it’s annoying!”

Then he looked around at the messy room, “You never do anything constructive, just look how messy the room is. Is this even fit for living? You can’t even clean up the place, what good are you?”

This tit-for-tat exchange left the female NPC at a loss for words..