The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 706 Top 100 List, Unparalleled Game Awards
For the past two weeks, Zhumeng has been in the eye of the storm.

Developers and players around the world are interacting wildly, and major countries around the world are following in the footsteps of Xia Guo and the United States, investing heavily in promoting the popularization of the Dream Machine, creating an unparalleled momentum.

The players, of course, couldn't stay idle either.

While having fun in the sea of ​​creativity and outwitting developers, they also support the "virtual human rights" movement on the internet, cheering on the marches, and welcome new players in the sprawling metropolis and various games, helping them get through the most difficult initial stage.

Especially the last one.

The surge in new residents has brought about a problem that no one had ever considered before—

The cityscape of Mansheng City has been severely affected!
Today, the number of online players in the Free Mode of the Spreading City has exceeded that of the Peace Mode by more than 20 times, and its urban vitality and community activity are overwhelmingly superior.

New users are naturally more inclined to join this mode.

Even amidst the excitement, danger lurks—

You might be walking peacefully down the street when suddenly a hovercar falls from the sky and hits you squarely;

While having tea with friends in a coffee shop, a group of players rushed in to do a wanted mission;

Even accidentally stepping on a manhole cover could cause a violent explosion in the sewer, blowing the person and the manhole cover into the air.

You don't know why the sewer exploded, nor why it happened exactly the moment you stepped on it.

Anyway, it exploded.

The rampant spread of free-market behavior is that dangerous.

But in the virtual world, since no one actually dies, danger and excitement are synonymous.

Moreover, the longer you stay, the more experience you gain, and the more skillfully you can avoid most dangers—that's how veteran players are.

This bustling atmosphere, ironically, attracted more and more players to join.

The concept of "city appearance" didn't exist before in this bustling and chaotic urban environment.

Until this month, there was simply too much influx of new residents, and their starting methods were all too similar—

Begging.

This is when the problem came to light.

As everyone knows, the fastest way for newcomers to get started in the virtual world is by begging.

The beggars that have sprung up on the streets of the metropolis have never disappeared.

Most of the time, they are newcomers.

Even if veteran players accidentally run out of credits, they can sell some collectibles or borrow some from friends, so they won't end up in dire straits.

Therefore, when veteran players see newcomers begging on the street, they often lend a helping hand and provide some financial assistance.

If you're lucky, you might encounter a generous and cheerful veteran player who can even give you a large sum of credits, or even expensive weapons and items.

But now, there are just too many beggars!

They lined up and lay on the roadside, surrounded the central square, crowded every main road, and gathered outside every popular shop, begging loudly.

That's going too far!

It's good that veteran players are willing to help newcomers, but who would be in the mood to give money when they see such a large-scale begging scene?
Credit points don't just fall from the sky.

The number of veteran players willing to give alms has decreased rapidly.

But the number of players begging hasn't decreased; on the contrary, it's increasing! It's even disrupting the normal operation of many shops.

When Xu Meng released the announcement, a group of players who had reached their limit finally formed a large team and began to patiently persuade these begging players to leave.

Use a submachine gun.

The effect is very good.

As a result, many players in the Mansheng City watched the excitement for a long time before noticing the announcement posted by Xu Meng.

By the time they noticed, netizens around the world had been discussing it passionately for a long time, and many trending topics had emerged.

The most popular event was undoubtedly the creative competition, where participants guessed the rankings.

In the sea of ​​creativity, games with good reputations rank higher, and games with more players have larger world bubbles—these are all readily available references.

Therefore, everyone's guesses about the game rankings were based on evidence, and an unofficial list of the top 100 was quickly produced.

There is little controversy over the top 10, but there is a lot of debate about the specific rankings.

The most popular post in Mengjin quickly garnered tens of thousands of replies.

On the contrary, the press conference themed "Infinity" left everyone somewhat bewildered. They had no idea what Mr. Xu was going to say, and they had no clue what to guess, so they could only wait.

This is what everyone has been doing for the past month: waiting.

Fortunately, this time, we didn't have to wait long.

Two days and one night passed in the blink of an eye as the world eagerly awaited their arrival.
-
At 10 PM on December 31st, the last two hours of 2016, the official Dream Building live stream began.

Audience numbers skyrocketed!

It's not just players, not just netizens, and not just the media.

Executives from numerous companies around the world, and even high-ranking government officials from various countries, are watching Dream Building's live stream.

They didn't care about the final rankings of this creative competition, but they had to pay attention to Xu Meng's press conference.

There's no way around it; Xia Guo and the United States are joining forces to do the same thing, which is terrifying.

Especially those countries that profit from the conflict between two behemoths, playing both sides and benefiting from both, never even considered this possibility in their worst nightmares—

Two sworn enemies actually want to make peace one day?

Just thinking about it makes their hearts race and their breathing become labored; they feel like their good days are coming to an end.

The sense of crisis is truly at its peak!

Xu Meng, the creator of the Dream Machine and the key link in the cooperation between the two behemoths, is definitely the key figure who caused this abnormal situation!
Now that this key figure is holding a press conference, how can they not care?

At the Dream Building Games company, located in the bustling metropolis, the press conference hall was once again packed with players.

Everyone still remembers very clearly what happened at the last "Genesis Press Conference".

Those who missed the chance to experience the creation of the world from God's perspective were very disappointed.

This time, they certainly didn't want to miss it again, so they sat here an hour or two early to reserve their spots and wait for the press conference to begin.

Honored players were almost all present, enjoying special treatment by sitting in the first three rows.

A clear, resonant chime quickly silenced the scene.

The lights go out.

It lit up again.

Xu Meng appeared on stage.

"Good evening everyone!"

He smiled and waved to everyone present and in the live broadcast room.

Without further ado, let's get straight to the point:
"The Global Developer Creative Competition has now concluded its main competition!"

"Thank you to all the developers and players around the world for your support!"

"Here, I'd like to first release a set of data—"

"Over the past few months, a total of 187,846,649 people worldwide have registered for the Global Developer Creativity Competition!"

This number shocked the world.

The comments section erupted in an uproar:
"Wardfa!? 180 million?? Are there that many dream machines?!"

"Dude, is this number for real?"

"Are you even going to talk about the Basic Law anymore!?"

However, what Xu Meng said next immediately made everyone realize what was going on—

"Of the 187.84 million registered developers, more than 6721 million opened the [Genesis Engine] user guide."

Xu Meng's speaking speed began to increase:
"3814 million people watched all the tutorials without speeding up."

"2677 million people launched [Genesis Engine] and created their own game files."

"442 million people have completed and uploaded the game to the virtual world."

"713,324 projects were approved by AI in the initial review."

"130,600 projects were approved by Xiaomeng and will ultimately participate in this month's official competition."

"After being tested and evaluated by players around the world, 92754 world bubbles were eliminated by the undercurrents of the sea of ​​creativity."

"Finally, the number of world bubbles remaining in the Sea of ​​Creativity is: 37846!" "I am pleased to inform the creators of these 3+ world bubbles: you have passed the players' test and have earned the right to keep your world in the Sea of ​​Creativity!"

"And those that were especially popular with players—yes, I'm talking about the top 100 in this creative competition—have also been decided."

"Come on, let's witness the final rankings together!"

Xu Meng's pace is indeed quite fast.

The audience was still immersed in the series of increasingly smaller numbers, and was just about to complain about how quickly the dream chasers who had joined in the fun gave up, when Xu Meng had already moved on to the clip segment.

Seeing the huge holographic number [100] pop up, everyone could only suppress their urge to complain and first look at the rankings—

【100】

【Summer Entertainment Rampage】

"?"

Standing on the stage, looking at the rankings with the others, Xu Meng had a huge question mark on her head.

WTF? ?
Although he's been busy lately, he hasn't neglected the creative competition—after all, the competition itself is a key step in expanding the volume of content in the virtual world.

However, his energy was limited, and he focused most of his attention on the top-ranked games—mainly the top 10, and he only remembered the names of the top 50 games.

Later on, the level of popularity had already fallen far behind the previous ones, so I didn't pay much attention to them.

Seeing this title suddenly, I immediately felt something was wrong.

"It's not what I thought, is it?"

His eyelids twitched wildly.

Unfortunately, it turned out exactly as he had imagined.

After the title appears, there is a 20-second video montage of game clips.

In the first 10 seconds, the protagonist, a newcomer to the industry, is charming and romantically involved with various female singers, actresses, and idols.

They exchanged glances and flirted with each other in almost every scene.

They would flirt with each other whenever they had the chance.

There are even scenes of love triangles and rivalries.

Xu Meng was shocked.

How do I beat this game?
Wasn't it flooded with comments from these celebrities' fans after it went live?
Won't they get so many court summonses they're stuffed?
Is the money you earned enough to cover your losses?
And won't this type of male-oriented game be criticized by female users?

How come he didn't hear a thing?
He quickly understood why—

If the first 10 seconds were a dream come true for all male players, then the next 10 seconds are a dream come true for all female players.

She still dates, flirts, and has romantic relationships with celebrities.

This time, however, it's the interaction between the female lead and the male celebrity.

Xu Meng finally realized that all these male and female celebrities had used pseudonyms and had their appearances altered.

But that's not a problem. Developers meticulously sculpted the faces and adjusted the body shapes, making these virtual stars even more attractive than their real-life counterparts!

"Okay, okay, so male and female players are united and even keeping an eye on each other to avoid talking about this game online, right?"

Xu Meng understood.

The players at the scene and the viewers in the live stream understood it.

The bursts of laughter in the hall almost lifted the roof off.

Amidst laughter, the long 20 seconds finally passed.

Jump to the next video—

【99】

【My Double Life with My Billionaire Husband】

"??"

"Isn't it?"

Xu Meng's head was a little sore.

But unfortunately, yes.

He guessed right again.

The video has started.

Unlike ordinary game trailers that can only show fragmented game content, "My Double Life with My Billionaire Husband" uses those 20 seconds to show an entire chapter of the story!
A blonde girl in the United States, bullied by her stepmother, is forced to marry a poor young man.

Little did they know that this poor young man was actually a billionaire in disguise!

"Using the Genesis Engine to make short dramas, huh??"

The most abstract thing is: after this 20-second clip ended, the press conference had already started announcing the 98th place, and there were still a bunch of comments in the live stream asking:
"And then?"

"Will you then give your stepmother a good slap in the face and get revenge?"

"Add this to my memo: I'm going to have fun as soon as the press conference ends! It's so addictive!"

Xu Meng was speechless and could only silently move on to the next one:
【98】

[Reborn in 1997: My Path to Becoming the World's Richest Man]

"Snapped!"

Xu Meng slapped her forehead, feeling her vision go black.

"Switched to male-oriented content again, huh?"

Even more abstractly, the trailer didn't start with a game, but rather with "Adapted from a popular online novel, the most exciting business wealth creation story ever!"

Then you enter the game content.

Xu Meng thought this was ridiculous.

But thinking about it again, it seems quite reasonable.

Whether it's a short drama or an online novel, the main focus is on the thrill.

Now, some people are using the Genesis Engine to turn stories that were originally only meant to be read into games, allowing users to experience them firsthand, which is undoubtedly doubly enjoyable.

Think about it, you can slap the vicious female supporting character with your own hands, or you can create a business empire with your own hands!
That's definitely more enjoyable than watching videos or reading text!
Xu Meng accepted this premise.

So when I saw [97 - Rebirth of Ximen Da Guanren], I was completely numb and no longer surprised.

The players were absolutely laughing hysterically.

"Hahaha, what are these weird things?!"

"Look at Mr. Xu's expression! It's hilarious, hahaha."

"What creative competition! I think it's clearly a competition for adapting short dramas and online novels!"

"You know what, I really want to try it. I've been so focused on playing the biggest world bubble game that I've missed out on so many great games!"

"Write this down, write it down, and go see Pan Jinlian later!"

Players and netizens alike found it very entertaining, with bursts of laughter echoing throughout the game.

But the expressions of the executives of large corporations and high-ranking officials from various countries who were sitting in the conference room watching the live broadcast were quite awkward.

In particular, many development teams are well-versed in the promotional strategies for "Project Frost and Snow". As long as there are eye-catching and sexy scenes in the game, they will definitely cut them into the trailers.

—This press conference itself is an excellent form of publicity, and the development teams certainly won't miss this valuable opportunity.

This has led to countless executives and top-level managers around the world having to sit in meetings with serious expressions and watch one short drama or web novel adaptation of an incredible game trailer after another.

They must also maintain a serious and focused expression at all times to demonstrate their professionalism.

This hilarious yet agonizing process lasted a long time.

The games only started to get serious once the game footage entered the top 50.

—At least in terms of the name and the broadcast, let's be serious.

The laughter from the players gradually faded and turned into applause.

The live stream chat was no longer filled with monotonous "hahaha," but instead began to feature discussions about the game.

Everything is finally back on track.

On the stage at the press conference, Xu Meng breathed a long sigh of relief.

(End of this chapter)