Ch. 24 - Zhao Ming's Counterattack, Mo Xiaomo: I Have a Million-Strong Army?!
We Agreed to Create Casual Games, What the Hell is this World War Nonsense?This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
Inside his office at Polar Star Games Company, Zhao Ming had already exited the game, still looking somewhat unsatisfied. Such weak mental stamina—logging off after dying just twice.
When you go back to copying our game, won't you be absolutely furious?
Seeing that Xu Huan's account went offline, Zhao Ming also lost interest in continuing to play. The main thing was that the game had opened up, download numbers had risen, and too many players were already playing.
Earlier, everyone was playing for the first time, so no one noticed why there were anti-aircraft guns lying flat on the beach. Now that there were more people, he couldn't be so blatantly obvious about it.
Getting up from the virtual haptic pod and walking out, Zhao Ming found that Shen Qinghan had just finished a round. Seeing the game's high popularity, she immediately left to return to her company to prepare for continued promotional spending.
Zhao Ming arranged for people to compile online comments before starting another round. He destroyed Xu Huan once more, and only after seeing him go offline did he finish.
Returning to his computer, Zhao Ming began browsing the trending topics. The top three trending headlines were all about their company.
【"World War II: Rise of Empire" download count breaks 200,000 in five minutes!】
【Parents boycott Polar Star Games Company, claiming its bloody content damages teenagers' physical and mental health.】
【The untold story between Polar Star Games Company and Emperor Penguin Group...】
【Sky Shark Streaming's top gaming gods are just this level? I could do better~】
The bloody intensity and hellish difficulty of "World War II: Rise of Empire" and its opening "Normandy Landing" instance directly shocked the entire internet. Quite a few streamers who played horror games saw this scene and immediately downloaded it, promoting it on their own initiative.
The key was that the opening was too brutal—Yu Feng, the sniper god with millions of fans across the internet, and Fang Ming, the all-around FPS specialist with millions of fans, both failed to survive five minutes in this game.
It even topped the trending topics with a key phrase: 【I could do better~】
This trending topic's main firepower was concentrated on Fang Ming. After all, he was known for trash-talking, and getting wrecked this badly sent quite a few haters rushing to his homepage to spam 【I could do better~】, infuriating Fang Ming in the live stream so much that he once again dragged Yu Feng and others into starting a new match.
Knock knock knock!
The sound of knocking rang out, and Zhao Ming looked toward the door. "Come in."
The company's customer service representative, Chi Xue, an energetic girl who had just graduated from university, walked in carrying a projection tablet. She walked to Zhao Ming's desk, clicked once, and three-dimensional comment projections appeared above the tablet.
"Boss, the statistics have been compiled. Currently, online comments fall into three main categories."
"One type is those boycotting our game, saying it's too bloody and violent—these so-called 'parents,' though quite a few accounts are the same internet trolls who were smearing us before. They didn't even have time to delete their previous comments, so they should be Emperor Penguin Group's hired trolls."
"Another group consists of people watching for entertainment, mainly haters of those FPS streamers mocking them, plus some bystanders. This group brings in quite a bit of traffic."
"The last type includes accounts of fanatics who normally advocate for war online. They're all promoting our game, but these people might bring negative influence."
Zhao Ming thought for a moment, then spoke. "Don't worry about the first type. President Shen's team will handle them with counter-trolls."
"For the second type... find some hired accounts to create small profiles, pretending to be haters of other FPS streamers, and mock them for being too scared to play Polar Star's cinematic games. Stir up some buzz."
Currently, the main attack from online haters was targeting the streamers that Zhao Ming had given gifts to and who were now live streaming "World War II: Rise of Empire." There were also quite a few FPS streamers who had taken Emperor Penguin Group's money and were live streaming the new content updates for "Wasteland Future: 2100."
"As for the third type..." Zhao Ming leaned back in his boss chair and said, "We're just a game company—we have nothing to do with politics. Let them shout if they want to. Our game is legal and compliant, having passed federal review with proper qualifications."
"Besides... they can't just shout forever; they'll inevitably have to play too. There are quite a few of these people, and they can bring significant download numbers to the game."
"Besides, other than shouting, there's nothing else they can do. The game battlefield is right there—whoever goes becomes cannon fodder. Equally abu—cough, cough—treating every player equally is our company's mission."
Chi Xue's expression was strange. Did she just mishear? Did the boss just say... abuse?!
But whatever the boss decided, she'd just follow orders. After all, jobs were hard to find these days. "Understood."
This was actually related to Blue Star's environment. Due to rapid technological advances in earlier years and continuous development of new energy sources, society had resource surpluses in many aspects—supercomputing power had long exceeded demand.
A game company like Zhao Ming's, with 60 million Federation coins in investment, would require at least dozens to hundreds of people to operate on Earth. But on Blue Star, just one position, one professional, plus the computing power of photon supercomputing clusters—one person could do the work of ten people.
This meant many industries only needed to hire a few people to operate efficiently. When Zhao Ming first arrived, he was still puzzled about why AI hadn't emerged despite this abundance of supercomputing power.
Later, after researching, he learned that such technology had long been banned. Federation citizens already had difficulty finding work. Ordinary people were grateful just to have a job, with almost no hope for advancement.
If you didn't work, well, with resource surpluses anyway, the federation could support you for life—barely enough for daily living needs.
Those fanatics online advocating for war used promises like reshuffling society, becoming high officials, becoming elite overlords to encourage citizens to wage war. Some people wanted to freeload for life, while others wanted to be elite overlords controlling power, so these war-advocating fanatics could never be completely eliminated no matter how many were caught.
The [Anti-War Competition] was held to appease citizens and give them hope and opportunities for advancement. Various categories, large and small, with annual competitions—as long as you had sufficient creativity and imagination, as long as you won awards, you'd receive federal support and rewards. This was much more stable than war.
Under these circumstances, if AI were introduced, further squeezing citizens' living space, things would get even worse.
There was basically very little information searchable online, just a few scattered announcements banning large-scale AI use from over a hundred years ago. If Zhao Ming hadn't transmigrated from Earth, he probably wouldn't have thought of AI either. Probably only the Six Major Federations had AI now.
Zhao Ming planned to use Emotion Points to exchange for an AI from the [Database] to help cover for the increasingly massive game background as updates continued. After all, others just creating background settings for exclusive NPCs was one thing, but "World War II: Rise of Empire" had complete life stories even for ordinary civilian NPCs—could anyone handle that alone?
Zhao Ming needed to find reasonable cover, and AI was the best choice.
Moreover, as long as the company's few employees weren't laid off, even if the federation investigated, there'd be no problem. The company had maintained this number of people since its founding—this many people before using AI, still this many people after using AI. There was no question of squeezing citizens' living space.
However, Zhao Ming didn't plan to let these people sit idle. "Cyber Blue Star: 2077" was, after all, the company's hard work—how could he let Emperor Penguin Group copy it for nothing?
Zhao Ming looked toward Chi Xue. "What's the situation with the new DLC update for 'Wasteland Future: 2100'? Has all the data been collected?"
Chi Xue's lips twitched slightly. After thinking, she said, "Emperor Penguin Group's new DLC update seems to be betting on our new game's content. Their update's background is that in 'Wasteland Future: 2100,' after experiencing a second war, a force called the Empire rises to oppose the federation."
"And they've opened a Hellfire battlefield where players can explore and treasure hunt. As for the data, it's already been compiled."
"Should we sue them?" Chi Xue asked with confusion. After all, given the company's new game's momentum, suing Emperor Penguin Group might actually succeed for Polar Star Games—this would be unprecedented.
How many game developers had been ruined by Emperor Penguin Group's methods, but now the company definitely couldn't be ruined, and might even win awards. According to Chi Xue's thinking, they definitely should go to federal court to sue them and get revenge!
Zhao Ming's expression was somewhat strange. "Sue? Why would we sue?"
Chi Xue was somewhat confused. "The gameplay copyright is in our hands. We're not suing them?"
Zhao Ming looked surprised. "Yes. So why would we sue?"
"Take all the collected data on 'Wasteland Future: 2100' and feed it into the photon supercomputing cluster's software. With their 500 million Federation coins worth of data and content, we've saved several hundred million on our side."
"After everything's done, work overnight to launch 'Cyber Blue Star: 2077.' They release new DLC, we update DLC. They release premium weapons, we copy them over and give them away with a click."
"From now on, this game will survive off of Emperor Penguin Group. If they sue us... the gameplay copyright is in our hands. I'm being generous by not suing them—how dare they sue me?"
Chi Xue listened with complete bewilderment. What kind of brilliant reverse parasitism was this? That's why he's the boss!
Chi Xue's voice couldn't suppress her excitement. "Understood! I'll immediately tell them to copy... no, to reclaim our creativity!!!"
Zhao Ming nodded with satisfaction. Not bad, not bad. Chi Xue was indeed a promising student.
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At this time, in Sky Shark Streaming's gaming section, inside Mo Xiaomo's livestream, she had already entered the immersive storyline experience. After completing the tutorial and introduction, Mo Xiaomo appeared in the Prime Minister's office, extremely excited.
Examining everything around her, looking at the huge world map and annotations in the center of the office, Mo Xiaomo excitedly said, "Brothers!"
"Although 'Normandy Landing' is very difficult, this immersive storyline is really amazing! I'm actually the Prime Minister! And I'm the Prime Minister managing such a big federation, the Polish Federation—this is incredible!"
"Look at this map! The Empire only has 470,000 square kilometers of area, but my Polish Federation actually has 385,000 square kilometers—there's not much difference!"
"My god?! Look at these defensive lines and annotations! My Polish Federation still has 39 infantry divisions... 11 cavalry brigades... a total army of 1 million people, plus over a thousand tanks and more than 400 aircraft?!!!"
"How could this possibly be blitzkrieged? How incompetent must the original Polish Federation's NPC Prime Minister have been?!"
"Brothers, watch my micro-management! Since I know this, I must blitzkrieg the Empire!!!"