The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 612 The Wave of Delays! (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
Yu Liyan, Meng Man, Shi Ying, Lu Jinjin...

Developers who had previously complained and described their current predicaments on social networks were now overwhelmed with excitement.

They are hoping that Zhu Meng will take some action.

But no one expected Xu Meng to act so quickly!

"Genesis Engine!"

"Developer Transformation!"

"The artwork has entered the virtual world!!"

Yu Liyan even jumped onto the table, excitedly pumping his fist every time he repeated a word.

Finally, he excitedly concluded:
"Brothers! Listen to me—we're alive!!!"

The guys under the table were looking up at the boss, and they were cheering.

Upon hearing this, someone quickly interrupted, "Wait a minute, boss! It's too early to open the champagne now!"

This reminded the other two: "Right, right, boss, come down quickly, opening champagne halfway through is too dangerous!"

"The competition hasn't started yet! Let's get ready first."

"Prepare my foot!" Yu Liyan waved his hand dismissively. "Go to sleep!"

The people under the table all had question marks on their heads.

"There's nothing we can prepare for now. Once the Genesis Engine is released, we'll race against time and work day and night to get to work!"

"Before that, the only preparation I can do is get a good night's sleep and conserve my energy!"

"Now, put down everything you're doing and go home!"

"Let's go get some drinks!"

The entire industry is celebrating right now, and it's unlikely we'll be able to fall asleep until this excitement wears off.

Why not celebrate properly!
Of course, before heading out for drinks, he didn't forget to first retweet Xu Meng's post as a key member of the "Tiangong City Affairs" team—

"Boss Xu is awesome!!!"
Regardless of the final theme chosen, the development team of "Tiangong City Affairs" will dedicate all their efforts to participating in this competition!
Of course, it would be even better if the final topic was [management adventure]!

You all know what I mean, right?

After sending the message, he excitedly took his three remaining best buddies out for drinks.

In a small restaurant where he was drinking, he also met a colleague from the same industrial park.

They used to communicate frequently, but in the last six months, everyone has been half-dead and has lost interest in communicating.

Now that they've met at the restaurant, they've regained their previous high spirits and ambition.

As Yu Liyan walked over, he could still hear them saying, "No need to even think about it! With our abilities, we can definitely impress the players!"

"We don't lack ability or creativity, we just lack an opportunity! And now, the opportunity has arrived!"

"Brothers, let's work together to make our business bigger and stronger!"

"I won't say any more! It's all in the wine, I'll drink it first!"

……

Yu Liyan smiled and walked over to say hello, then sat down next to him and started ordering food and drinks with his team members.

—Given their current financial situation, they can only afford to eat at these small street restaurants without private rooms.

But clearly, no one minds.

They ate, drank, and celebrated as usual.
-

At the same time, other game developers and development teams also recovered from their surprise and appeared on social networks to share Xu Meng's posts.

They differed in their word choice, but their attitudes were highly consistent.

We are shocked by the public release of [Genesis Engine] by Zhumeng and amazed by Xu Meng's generosity and contribution to the industry.

They expressed strong anticipation for Xu Meng's [Game Developer Creative Competition], stating that they would immediately devote all their energy to participating as soon as the competition started!

Players had mixed feelings after seeing this statement from the development team they followed.

The development team survived and continued developing games, even virtual games.

This is of course a good thing.

But the fact that they all want to devote "all their energy" to it is a bit...

Some players immediately asked, "What about the older games that have been delayed? Are they still going to be made?"

Most of the attention people are paying to the development team stems from their unfinished game.

They're acting like they're abandoning old games and focusing entirely on virtual games now—this is outrageous!
Their inquiries have not yet yielded any results.

Because it happened so suddenly, none of the development teams had thought it through.

Not to mention the teams that were already drinking heavily in broad daylight and hadn't even noticed this.

The next day, upon waking up, an even bigger piece of news arrived—

The official account of Zhumeng Games released an announcement stating that a special press conference on the Genesis Engine will be held in three days.

This press conference was primarily aimed at global game developers, with the goal of providing a comprehensive introduction to the [Genesis Engine] from a professional perspective.

Genesis Engine will be officially launched after the press conference.

Even though Xu Meng announced yesterday that he would release the Genesis Engine, developers around the world were still shocked.

This is too fast!
It was so fast that it caught people off guard!

However, this surprise was quickly replaced by excitement.

Developers around the world are eagerly awaiting the emergence of new tools.

In contrast, players were much calmer about the news.

They are, after all, separated by a layer, and don't need this thing—those who say they want to participate in this competition are just talking the talk.

The identities of "[player]" and "[developer]" seem close, but are actually quite far apart.

It's easy for developers to become players, but for players to become developers, it often requires a long period of hard work.

Therefore, compared to the brand-new game engine, players are more concerned about the competition topics.

……

This day was truly tough for the players.

After waiting anxiously until the afternoon, the 24-hour period for Xu Meng to solicit topics finally passed.

Next, it's time to officially begin voting.

However, after waiting for 20 minutes, Xu Meng still did not release the poll, which left everyone a little confused.

"Such a big thing, we can't forget it, can we?"

The valiant sniper, along with Seven Flower, Phantom Moon, and Orange Juice, crouched in the Hibernation Hall of the Lost Ship, waiting for the voting to end so they could play a game together.

Previously, the brave sniper tried to trick Nana into playing "Deep Space Echoes" because he wanted to see Nana, who was bad at horror games, be scared to tears by the red monster.

Qi Huahua was indeed fooled.

But the problem is: she can't reach the lost ship.

She tried eight times, but all of them ended tragically in the rainforest; she never managed to reach the hibernation hall.

The brave sniper and a large number of fans who were eager to see her cry in fear were extremely anxious.

Before even activating the demo of "Deep Space Echoes," Qi Huahua was already spoiled by netizens, who revealed in advance that the monsters in the [tutorial level] are bloody and terrifying.

The conspiracy of the valiant sniper and his fans thus failed.

This incident even greatly reduced Qi Huahua's willingness to leave the city.

Ultimately, it was because someone said: if you participate in the test before the game's official release, you might receive commemorative items after the official launch.

Qi Huahua continued her journey and finally arrived at the Lost Ship that afternoon, gaining permanent access to the game.

She took the opportunity to tackle the teaching hurdle as well.

Even though I had prepared myself mentally beforehand, I was still quite frightened by the red monster while playing. I was chased and screamed almost the entire time, providing a lot of fun for the fans.

Even now, when she speaks of it, she still seems a little shaken: "Perhaps... there were too many conflicting opinions?"

“Very likely.” Orange Juice strongly agreed with Qi Huahua’s idea.

He had been keeping an eye on the comments section of Xu Meng's post.

Players from all over the world flocked to leave comments. The replies were incredibly diverse, and the suggestions regarding themes were even more bizarre.

Some people even suggested several different topics at the same time, saying things like, "Any of these is good."

Or some ambiguous statements like "let's have some impactful topics" or "it has to be something delicious."

Even worse, some people use this place as a wishing machine, frantically posting their own XP.

This only increases Xu Meng's workload.

The group discussed and waited, and it wasn't until half an hour later that Xu Meng finally appeared online.

"Do you remember the last sentence of my last announcement?"
"Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the voting results will determine the topic for this competition."

Now, an unexpected event has occurred.

Can someone explain to me why there are over 30 people who want developers from all over the world to work together on [adult games]?

Do you really not know that this thing is illegal in Xia Country?

There's also [18+ games], which received over 180 million likes.

[Fu Rui's Romance], 70 likes.

[Collection of beautiful girls/cute boys], 40 likes.

……

I knew it! I had to be prepared for this!
Now, I have decided to exercise my right of final interpretation and remove all topics that are offensive to public morals from the options.

(This is a public, serious global event; wake up!)

The vote will be launched in 10 minutes.

To ensure the accuracy and validity of the vote, this vote will be conducted in Mengjin, and non-players are not allowed to vote.

Voting will last for 72 hours to ensure all players complete their votes.
-

Loud laughter soon erupted in the hibernation hall.

Of course, some people are very dissatisfied with this result, feeling that Xu Meng is biased against Huang You.

Listening to the different opinions of the players behind her, Huan Yue shook her head speechlessly: "The adult games in the virtual world are not the same concept as the adult games on traditional platforms. It's impossible just by thinking about it."

“Yeah,” Orange Juice nodded in agreement, “Doing that in the virtual world is no different from doing role-playing in a brothel…”

Qi Hua Hua squinted, not participating in the topic.

She knew neither about brothels nor about erotic shops.

Or rather, her knowledge of brothels mostly came from Mansheng Metropolis—she was also a gold card member of the Pacemaker Club.

Although the card was a gift from a fan, she did secretly go to see Alicia's performances a few times.

Five minutes later, Xu Meng had to reappear and release another statement—

"In the comments section of the previous post, there were as many as 8 comments from players who hoped that this competition would not have any set topics and would allow all developers to create freely."

These 8 comments received over 260 million likes.

and so……

Although this approach completely contradicts our initial method of soliciting topic suggestions and will cause significant trouble for the later selection process, I have still decided:
Add this option to the official vote!
-

Ten minutes later, Xu Meng finally released the topic selection poll.

Everyone who followed the link he posted was redirected to Mengjin, and then they were all greatly surprised—

That was an incredibly long poll with a whopping 86 options!
It includes not only common game genres such as [action], [simulation], and [character development], but also story genres such as [science fiction], [history], [adventure], and [monster].

It’s dazzling to see.

After watching the video, the valiant sniper became completely indecisive.

After hesitating for a long time, I decided to submit my vote to the last option, "[No restrictions]".

But just as he was about to submit, the webpage froze and displayed a submission failure message.

This greatly surprised him:
"How many people are voting right now?"

"Could it overload the super servers of Dream Building?"

However, when he tried to click submit again, the powerful servers of Zhumeng had already completed dynamic expansion at an astonishing speed.

This allowed him to successfully cast his vote.

So he quickly put the matter out of his mind and dragged a few friends to rehearse "Deep Space Echoes".

They are now planning an ambitious project—

Build a highway between the Lost Ship and the Overgrown City!
This allows players to quickly reach the Lost Ship and activate Echoes of the Deep for free.

And it has to be fast!

—In the announcement, Dream Building stated that players who activate their accounts during the "test period" can obtain permanent game access for free.

It's hard to say whether this benefit will still be available after the product is officially released.

Therefore, we must act quickly!

……

After casting their votes, the players put the matter behind them and went back to their own business.

Game developers don't have it so easy.

On the first day, they checked the voting results almost every hour.

The next day, they began thinking about what games to develop for the leading options.

On the third day, the voting results were finally released.

The top three are—

[Space Sci-Fi]: 840 million votes
[Real-world Recreation]: 790 million votes
[No limit]: 750 million votes
The top 10 only has two specific game genres, [war] and [sports], and both are ranked at the bottom.

The rest are all relatively broad topics.

Another noteworthy point is that the top three options are vastly different from the later options.

The fourth-ranked [Historical Revisit] category has only 510 million votes left.

After holding a short meeting at the company, Xu Meng made an adjustment to the competition rules, which had not yet been officially released:
The competition now features three topics instead of just one.

However, since "no restrictions" means no topic selection, it allows for greater creative freedom, which is unfair to development teams that choose fixed topics.

Therefore, 15% of the score will be deducted in the final selection stage to balance the results.

The rules for the entire [Game Developer Creative Competition] have now been finalized.

Today was a really busy day for developers around the world:

In the morning, I stopped all my work to watch the [Genesis Engine Special Launch Event] presented by Li Xingyun and learn about the brand-new game engine.

In the afternoon, I saw the specific rules of the developer innovation competition, and began to determine my topic and develop a development plan.

They had to be quick.

Because according to the competition rules released by Zhumeng, the development cycle for this competition is only 3 months!

Even though they had already heard about the power of the Genesis Engine from Li Xingyun, the incredibly short development cycle still threw them into disarray.

Based on their past experience in game development, even a small game takes years to develop, so three months is truly just a blink of an eye.

But now, DreamBuilding is actually asking them to learn a completely new engine they've never used before, while simultaneously developing a new game within three months?!
That's way too much!
Faced with such demanding requirements, they made a decisive choice—

Put down the game you're developing, put down everything else in your life, and put all your manpower and resources into this game!

In the days that followed, a wave of "delayed tickets" swept the world!

More than 9% of the games that were originally scheduled for release within the next six months suddenly announced delays!
The media and players were in an uproar.

But none of this could change the determination of these development teams.

After sincerely, regretfully, but resolutely announcing the game's delay, they quickly fell silent.

They began developing their first virtual game project in a state of near isolation from the outside world.

Vapour, the last major gaming platform in the industry that wasn't wiped out by Zhumeng, has been unexpectedly dealt a heavy blow!
They quickly realized that Vapor had reached a life-or-death moment.

But sadly—

At this point, nobody even cares whether it lives or dies...

(End of this chapter)