The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 698 World Bubble Battle Royale! (Seeking double monthly votes at the beginning of the month!)

This was a fateful day for all individuals and companies involved in game development—and indeed for the entire game development industry.

Game developers who receive high praise in creative competitions can earn enough money to last a lifetime in just one round.

If there are enough people and teams making money, allowing many companies to survive and employees to avoid unemployment, then it will be a major boon for the entire industry.

If, by any chance, this competition generates more revenue for the industry than the total annual revenue of traditional distribution methods, and Mr. Xu is willing to continue holding this competition year after year.

The entire game development industry will instantly rise from its coffin and may even leap into a golden industry far surpassing anything before!
—After all, in the past, game development cycles were measured in years, and additional money had to be spent on promotion and adaptation to different platforms when the game was released.

The time, effort, and money involved are all substantial.

But in the virtual world, it's completely different!

With the Genesis Engine provided by Xu Meng, the development speed was as fast as flying.

Although this situation is special, developers around the world are working overtime to compress the time into four months, and they have made many trade-offs.

Even if they didn't work so hard, and the team relaxed and took their time with development as if on vacation, a year would be enough to complete the project.

There's no need to overthink promotion – the events hosted by Mr. Xu attract hundreds of millions of users worldwide, making them the best promotional platform!

If this creative competition is a great success, and if Mr. Xu is willing to support it, then the golden age of the game industry will surely come!

Xu Meng was naturally willing to support it.

But in his view, there is one indispensable element to this logic—

Players are willing to support it.

Xu Meng certainly has enough financial resources to support all the developers, but that's definitely not a good idea.

If that's done, without a sufficient sense of crisis and competition, developers' creativity will only gradually decline, and the content they produce will become worse and worse.

In the end, Xu Menghua spent more and more money buying increasingly homogenized and low-quality content.

Even though players don't spend money, their experience will get worse and worse.

Until they lose interest in the entire event and all the new content, and stop participating.

From a long-term perspective, the idea of ​​"Xu Meng funding developers, developers developing games, and players playing for free" is a seemingly beautiful and promising approach, but ultimately it will lead to a complete loss.

It will only waste precious time and computing power that is worthless now but will be equally valuable in the future.

Therefore, while supporting global developers, Xu Meng also plans to put some pressure on them!
Following the announcement from Zhumeng that the Global Developer Creative Competition was officially launched, Xu Meng also released her own announcement—

Dear players:
Hello everyone!
The Global Developer Creativity Competition is now open!
As you all probably know, thousands of games have already participated in the early access trials, and tens of thousands of players have reviewed these games.

Although they weren't able to try out all the games, they still created over 200 million reviews.

On behalf of the event organizers and the participating developers, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to them.

To show respect for their achievements, on the first day of the competition, the size and position of the world bubble in the Ocean of Creativity will remain unchanged.

After 24 hours, a tsunami will erupt in the Sea of ​​Creativity, wiping out all data and resetting the size and position of the world bubble.

All participating games are now officially back on the same starting line.

One month later, we will rank all participating development teams based on three key parameters: the size of the world bubble (number of players), the location of the world bubble (player approval rating), and the game's sales (player support). We will then select the top 100 teams in this creative competition and offer them a cooperation agreement and resource support.

but……

That would be a bit too bland, wouldn't it?

So, let's get exciting!
In the early testing phase, some astute players have already discovered that world bubbles with incomplete rules or game bugs may be stuck and crash, causing the world bubble to shatter.

This has happened 381 times in the past two weeks.

I sincerely hope that the creators of those bubble worlds have fixed the bugs, because—

From now on, every player who breaks the world bubble from within the game will receive a cash reward of 30!
—This portion of the money will be drawn from the sales revenue of Dream Building and the game.

If the game crashes and fails to reach the revenue sharing threshold (100 million summer dollars), or if the sales revenue is less than 600 million and the revenue sharing is less than 30, then Zhumeng will make up the difference in bonuses.

You can only claim the reward once per world bubble.

Besides that, there's no upper limit!
In theory, it's possible to win over 100 million in prize money in one go!

So, how about it? Intrigued? Then give it your best shot!

If the World Bubble doesn't crash during the entire event, then the 30 points will be awarded to the development team.

So... developers, let's work hard too!
Finally, in the lower reaches of the sea of ​​creativity, turbulent undercurrents will emerge.

If too many world bubbles sink, and their volume is too small to withstand the wind and waves, they will likely be torn apart by powerful undercurrents, turning into debris and sinking forever into the bottomless abyss.

And this is the day the world bubble ends.

I know this decision is cruel, but I hope everyone understands—to ensure that the sea of ​​creativity always remains vibrant, it must undergo metabolism.

Eliminate subpar works to free up space and computing power for more and better works.

So, dear players.

Come on! Exercise your rights—

"Determine the fate of these game worlds!"

Even though gamers around the world are excitedly rushing into the sea of ​​creativity, Xu Meng's lengthy announcement still caused a stir in the entire gaming industry.

The entire gaming community was shocked, and the comments section exploded with replies:
"As expected of Boss Xu! He's got a knack for creating entertaining content!"

"A battle of wits between players and developers?! I love watching this kind of drama, hahaha!"

"But isn't that ridiculous? Destroy the entire world? How is that possible? Only you and Xiaomeng can earn that money, right?"

"Am I the only one who noticed that Dream Building's revenue share is only 5%? Isn't that incredibly generous? They provide the engine, the platform, and handle the marketing, and they only take 5%???"

"A tiered commission structure, where the higher the sales volume, the higher the commission, with a capped commission at the end? This can be seen as supporting individual developers and small teams."

"So the higher up the world bubble, the more comfortable life is; the lower down, the more garbage it is. When it gets too garbage, it will be crushed. Isn't that a waste of computing power? It's really cruel!"

"Okay, okay, a battle royale game, huh? Awesome!"

"Um... if you get bombarded with malicious negative reviews, wouldn't that be like going straight to hell? Online trolls and whistleblower groups are ecstatic!"

"What's there to be happy about! Do you really think Mr. Xu can't wield a knife?!"

……

The heated discussion was flooding the comments section.

Soon, netizens felt that this was not enough and began to forward Xu Meng's statement and express their opinions on their own homepages.

Then, the statement quickly spread to other social media platforms.

All the players were excited.

Some players don't even know why they're excited.

Until Huodao published a long article, they saw Huodao's passionate writing—

"The life and death of the game, the honor and money of the development team, all of it comes from the same place - the players."

It is an undeniable truth. But over the years, too many people and organizations have tried to distort this view.

They tried to convince everyone that it all came from media ratings and trophies, from the concept and ideology of "progress," from pioneering development ideas...

Regardless of anything else, it has nothing to do with the players.

But Xu Meng fully admits: All these rights come from the players!

Even if he is the most qualified person to give all of this.

But he still believed in and fully accepted all of this.

They even developed a whole set of rules to embody this right, so that players worldwide can clearly see how their rights are being realized.

Every penny you spend, every minute you play, and every positive or negative review you leave will directly affect the position of these games in the sea of ​​creativity.

Even life and death!

Friends!
Please be aware of this, value the power you hold, and make your choices carefully.

... "

The article by Huodao quickly garnered a large number of likes and its popularity soared.

It even surpassed the opening announcement of the [Creative Competition], jumping to second place on multiple platforms' trending searches, second only to Xu Meng's statement.

With the booming development of the virtual world and the continuous surge in the number of players, the identity of "player" is no longer what it used to be, but has become the second identity of almost half of the netizens.

Its influence is growing day by day!
As a result, their image in society and public opinion has continued to improve and become more and more positive.

It's no surprise that Huodao's article caused such a huge reaction.

After giving Fire Blade and Xu Meng a thumbs up, the players did indeed exercise that right.

Just one hour later, Yu Liyan released an announcement—

Thank you for your support, players worldwide!
The sales of "Tiangong City Affairs" have officially exceeded 300 million copies!

Thank you everyone! Thank you for building dreams! Thank you for this competition!

To thank everyone for their support, we will be giving away a game music pack and three limited-edition outfits to all players who purchased the game on the first day.

Yu Liyan's announcement seemed to awaken other development teams, and they quickly followed suit.

Lu Jinjin, the lead creator of "The Legend of Flying Clouds," announced that the book's sales have exceeded 330 million copies.

After expressing their gratitude, they gifted all players a small pet.

In the original storyline, the little girl would receive a magical cloud on her way home after finding her father.

Now, in addition to clouds, players will also receive an adorable little Qilin.

Soon, more development teams realized:
This is not only a way to express gratitude to the players, but also an excellent form of publicity! It can also have a certain promotional effect.

So they all followed suit.

Those with sales figures boast about their sales volume, those with players boast about their online player count, and those with neither sales nor online player count still have to send gifts even if they have to bite the bullet.

Anyway, it's all about taking advantage of the situation—no, it's about expressing gratitude and showing respect to the players!

……

Two hours later, the craze not only swept across the country but also spread overseas.

Overseas development teams have also taken action, flexing their muscles and thanking players.

Games that have been tested half a month in advance and have already gained considerable popularity have a huge advantage in this muscle-showing competition!

Both player visits and game sales far exceed those of lesser-known games.

Therefore, they became even more generous with their spending.

Even among games that have already gained a certain level of popularity, there are still differences in quality.

The most impressive of them all is, of course, the most famous—

Hell Ballet!
After the creative competition officially started, the game sold 800 million copies in just one hour!

Considering that all games had a three-hour free trial during the creative competition, selling 800 million copies in one hour is already a very, very impressive achievement.

Even more astonishingly, just one hour after they also released a "thank you announcement," sales skyrocketed to 1700 million copies!

Their thank-you gifts undoubtedly played a significant role in this.

"The first DLC for 'Hell Ballet' is 30% complete and is expected to be finished within two months."

We will be giving this DLC away for free to players who purchase Hellballs during the first week.

In addition, we have partnered with [Gokuraku-hime], a world-leading AI companion robot company, to produce a 1:1 scale version of the boss, Lilith, in humanoid robot form, with an estimated production quantity of no less than 100 units.

These robots will be given away to lucky players who purchase the game in the first week through a random draw.

We hope our game will not only bring joy to players in the virtual world, but also accompany them in real life.

They didn't just talk the talk; they actually showed a video of a prototype developed by Gyokuhime.

Exquisite and meticulous, fluid movements, intelligent language, and at the same time...

Extremely sexy!

The Princess of Paradise immediately reposted and commented: "In full production!"

Clearly, this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision based on Xu Meng's rules and the current public opinion; it was pre-arranged!

Their comment section exploded immediately:
"Wow! It's Princess Gokuraku! That's incredibly powerful!"

"Gokuragi...is it already a [world-class AI companion robot company]? Is it that amazing?"

"And what do you think? Ever since they partnered with the engineers at Zhumeng, their technical capabilities have skyrocketed! They've become ridiculously strong!"

"Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!! Please, I'm begging you this once in my life!"

"I'm afraid I won't win the lottery, can I just buy it directly? Please, please mass-produce it! Trust me, you're guaranteed to make a profit!"

……

The development team's update on "Hell Ballet" has added fuel to the already lively "thank you" frenzy!

Let's make this grand event in the gaming world even more exciting!

All game development teams that are performing well and aspire to be in the top 100 have started holding emergency meetings, racking their brains to figure out how to give players benefits, and some are even becoming obsessed with it.

Xu Meng did not stop her.

When an industry undergoes tremendous changes, various setbacks and unexpected events are inevitable.

The process of getting to know each other is always inevitable, and he has enough patience and composure.

Moreover, compared to this, he had more important things to care about—

The [Game Life Development System] is responding!
[Virtual jump] has finally taken a crucial step!
(End of this chapter)