Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

By the afternoon, the schedules and match lineup for the [Qualification Battle] of [Card King] and [Mahjong God] were officially announced!

Now, only 3000 players remained in each competition, whether they were playing cards or mahjong, which were all multiplayer competitions.

Doing the math, [Card King] only has 1000 rounds of competition, while [Mahjong God] has even fewer, with only 750 rounds, which could easily be completed within a week.

The operation team of “Speed Chase” even had the time to send questionnaires to all players, asking them which day they would prefer to compete.

Their aim was to accommodate the players who work or go to school during the day, and schedule their match during the evening.

However, because of the potential for donations during live-streaming, over 80% of the players hoped they could compete between the prime time of 6 to 8 in the evening for higher rewards.

Of course, this was not feasible!

If all matches were scheduled at the same time, with hundreds of games being live-streamed concurrently, the players might not even know whom to watch.

By then, not only would the broadcasting effect be poor, but their earnings would also drastically decrease, and those with bad luck wouldn’t obtain any money at all.

This was obviously unsuitable.

So, the operation team decided to randomly arrange the matches first and then ask the players to confirm if they could make it on time. If they couldn’t, they would explain their reasons and adjustments would be made.

Of course, this wasn’t actually random. Matches directly colliding between popular players were intentionally separated.

It’s not like there was any foul play.

Taking into account that competing against popular players could bring more live-streaming revenue, many people were even willing to compete against them.

It’s not just the earnings. If they directly defeated a popular player, perhaps they could skyrocket to fame themselves!

When the match schedule was sent out, the players’ reaction proved this: many had to change matches due to time constraints, but not a single player scheduled against a popular player requested any change of opponent.

Perhaps this is a unique feature of playing cards and mahjong. Regardless of the opponent’s previous record, before the game starts, no one believes they will lose.

This is unlike competitions such as sprints, high jumps, and table tennis.

For those competitions, if competitors find out that their opponent is a world champion, they would definitely beg to change the opponent, as no one believes they could defeat the champion by a sudden burst of potential.

But playing cards or mahjong is different.

“Isn’t he just luckier than me?”

Even after the [Qualification Battle], changing the game from a simple “chip count system” to a more fault-tolerant, technical “points system” couldn’t change their mindset.

What’s more interesting is that at the end of the competition announcement, Cloud Dream boldly reminded the audience in bold and enlarged font to “consume rationally.”

The influx of a large number of older users made Cloud Dream exercise caution in every detail.

Especially for those who have retired, their giving record is archived by Cloud Dream, doing mental preparation for a full refund at any time.

The netizens, while looking at the schedule and searching for the competition time of popular players, were guessing how much income they could bring to players by simultaneously conducting multiple matches.

…

Camille Victoria had just started broadcasting and hadn’t logged into the virtual world yet. Right now, she was looking into the competition schedule released by Cloud Dream using her tablet.

She was mainly looking for the match times for two people –

One was the[Card Demon]Jennifer Zhang, a player she adored immensely.

The other was her good friend Shuihua.

Yes, Shuihua had advanced successfully.

Moreover, surprisingly, without spending much time on playing cards and live-streaming, Shuihua had become a popular player with extremely high attention.

Some clubs and brand businesses have approached her wanting to sign a contract, but all were rejected by her.

Because Shuihua felt that the third year in high school was already very hard, to spare time for games was not easy already, she didn’t have any energy to handle more things.

“It’s tomorrow evening…” Camille Victoria found the match time for Jennifer Zhang. Thinking that she still had to wait another day, she was a bit disappointed.

Just as she was about to search for the timing of Shuihua’s game, her phone suddenly rang.

While searching, Camille Victoria casually picked up her phone, glanced at the caller ID and her eyes widened, her energy levels immediately spiked.

“Lincoln?!”

She didn’t pick up the phone immediately, instead she hesitated if she should first block the live stream signal.

But she had already blurted out Lincoln’s name. If she were to stop the live broadcast now, wouldn’t that seem suspicious?

That would lend fuel to the rumors of them ‘having a thing’.

After a few seconds of hesitation, she decided to do nothing and just answered the call nervously on the live stream: “Hello?”

“Big Sis Camille Victoria?” Lincoln’s voice with a hint of laughter echoed from the phone.

“No, no, no!” Camille Victoria frantically denied, “I can’t accept that! Just call me Camille Victoria, Camille Victoria will do…”

“Okay, Camille Victoria, good afternoon.” Lincoln instantly obliged.

“Good afternoon.” Camille Victoria breathed a sigh of relief, “What’s the matter?”

“Well, I was wondering if you were free tonight.”

“Huh? Tonight? To do what?”

——Camille Victoria got a little panicked, and the audience in the live room started frantically sending question marks.

But they all overthought.

“Tonight I plan to live-stream ‘Battlefield’. If you are free, you can join us.”

“Yes! I am free!” Camille Victoria immediately agreed without thinking.

However, as soon as she spoke, she suddenly remembered something, “Wait… If it’s live streaming, I might have to check my contract. I think my contract does not allow me to participate in live broadcast programs on other platforms…”

As she talked, she visibly became disheartened, her voice full of regret.

However, Lincoln didn’t take it to heart at all: “No worries. If you’re willing to come, it’s fine. Leave everything else to me. So, see you at 7 o’clock tonight?”

“Huh? Oh, alright!” Camille Victoria agreed, somewhat dazed.

“See you tonight.”

Before Camille Victoria could react, Lincoln abruptly ended the call with a click, leaving her staring blankly into the camera.

…

Next, Super Tomato also received a call.

The process was almost the same, after Lincoln assured him that “the contract is not a problem, I’ll take care of it,” Super Tomato immediately agreed.

The difference was: Super Tomato’s audience were just excited, shouting “add one more, add one more,” without making any weird joking comments.

Then it was Yi’s turn.

Yi’s contract didn’t have any limitations, so he agreed without hesitation.

Yelang, who was broadcasting on the same platform as Lincoln, was also invited to join.

When inviting him, Lincoln casually asked: “Considering cross-dressing? A submachine gun plus a sailor suit is a powerful fan magnet.”

“Ah?” a dumbfounded Yelang asked hesitantly, “Can I say no…?”

“Of course you can, I was just saying. Don’t take it to heart.” Lincoln hung up after saying that.

Meanwhile, in Yelang’s live broadcast room, the audience got excited:

“Good lord! Taking advantage of his position in front of hundreds of thousands of people!”

“What the heck! It’s just exposing XP!”

“Cross-dressing boss + JK, so that’s Lincoln’s taste.”

“Hypothetically speaking, if I wore JK for an interview at Cloud Dream, would that increase the chance of success?”

…

Just as everyone was chattering, the room administrator suddenly jumped out, urgently questioning, “Wait! You guys are neglecting one thing!”

“That Lincoln is talking about cross-dressing in the virtual world! In ‘Battlefield’! Not in reality! So what does this suggest?”

Yelang was still confused: “What does it suggest?”

“Cross-dressing in the virtual world implies you get an additional virtual avatar! If you agree, you’ll have two characters in the virtual world! A unique trait amongst players!”

– Although Princess and Shuihua already have multiple characters, they wouldn’t admit it, so this statement isn’t technically wrong.

But as a well-known male streamer, gaining a soft and cute JK girl as a virtual image, along with the title of “first multi-character ownership in a virtual world,” does it actually count as a good thing?

Yelang couldn’t decide.

All he knew was that Lincoln was too damn infuriating!

If he was given a chance to “choose a second virtual avatar,” he would have fought for it without thinking.

But Lincoln wouldn’t even allow him to choose…

Aggravating, isn’t it?

“Why not disgust him?” the room administrator suggested, “Reverse your makeup, display leg hair, a big beard, moles with hair growing out of them, expose a large stomach wearing a tiny sailor suit, and the moment you meet, grab his arm and call him big brother!”

Upon imagining that scene, Yelang’s face scrunched: “It’s a good plan, but I don’t want to die yet, why don’t you do it?”

After all, Lincoln did mention while inviting them, that if they had friends who wanted to join in, they were welcome to come along too.

After all, Lincoln’s plan was to team up and compete in National War Mode that involves as many as 100 players, so having a few more players wouldn’t make a difference.

“I’ll do it then!” the room administrator boldly claimed.

“Once the words are out?” Yelang’s mischief spirit was aflame.

“Words are like arrows shot, they can’t be taken back!” the room administrator was resolute.

“Awesome!” The chat room’s audience were fired up!

…

After Lincoln contacted these familiar streamers, he dialed Leander, who was the head of Cloud Dream Live Streaming, asking Leander to get in touch with Camille Victoria and Super Tomato’s live streaming platforms to discuss cross-platform interaction.

For the audience and streamers, it was a sensitive matter that required caution. One careless step could lead to warnings, fines or even the banning of the live broadcast room.

But for Lincoln, it was really just a phone call.

He didn’t even need to make the call himself.

As expected, 15 minutes later, Leander called Lincoln back and reported that everything was settled.

There was no need to negotiate cooperation or sign agreements, and there were no fees involved. It was as if the restrictions had never existed.

Furthermore, those two live streaming platforms enthusiastically recommended other streamers from their own platforms, hoping they could join as well.

The reason was easy to understand, these top streamers broadcasting with Lincoln could not be described as Lincoln piggybacking on their fame.

If anything, it might be the other way round.

Even though Lincoln didn’t stream often, the number of fans in his live broadcast room was no fewer than any other streamer’s.

Since communication was completed, without further delay, Lincoln logged into his Spiritual Rhinoceros account and started to post the live streaming notice —

[Tonight at 7 PM, live streaming National War Mode, don’t miss it.]

He even altered his live broadcast room’s title to “Lincoln and His Little Pals”.

The moment this post was made, as expected it received continuous cheers from the players.

In fact, before the post went up, the player community was already buzzing.

After all, he wasn’t hiding anything and openly invited streamers.

Whether it was Lincoln’s streaming or cross-platform interaction among top streamers from different platforms, these were things that the players were interested in.

Now that both were happening simultaneously with the most attention-grabbing ‘Battlefield’ National War, it was undeniable this live stream would attract countless eyes on it!