The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 707 The Star-Making Project!

The higher the ranking, the more players have played it, and the higher the level of discussion on the internet.

The result is that the higher the game's ranking is announced, the louder the cheers from the players.

After entering the top 10, the entire audience cheered, and the applause rose in waves.

"The Legend of Flying Clouds" successfully entered the top 10.

"Seeking Feathers" ranked 8th.

With its extremely rich network of character relationships and ingenious plot design where every little thing has a ripple effect, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" quickly rose into the top 3.

"XCOM" slightly outperformed "The Craftsman" and took second place.

From the advanced testing to the official competition, "Hell Ballet" has seen its popularity soar, firmly securing the championship title.

The players were not surprised at all by this result.

—These games had already been showcased in advance play before the main competition began, and had received a lot of exposure and positive reviews in advance.

On the first day of the official launch, it also inherited the data from the advanced trial and ranked at the top of the creative sea.

Every player who comes to the Sea of Creativity will notice them at first glance.

After gaining an advantage on the first day of the main competition, it was a smooth snowballing process from then on.

Their own qualities are indeed high enough, so the snowball keeps getting bigger and bigger, and more and more solid.

Ultimately, they successfully maintained their lead until the very last moment.

After the last image of the sizzling, devilish older sister disappeared, the half-hour-long "Top 100 Creative Competition Videos" finally came to an end.

The lights returned to Xu Meng.

"OK, these 100 games are the top 100 list for the first Creative Competition!"

“All games on the list will receive an additional bonus of 1000 million summer dollars.”

"The three games their development team will create next will all receive more favorable revenue-sharing agreements."

"I have also prepared a special reward for the top 10 development teams."

"But I'll tell you what the reward is later. For now, let me keep you in suspense."

"Let's start by talking about something that's of great concern to the entire industry—"

"What should game developers around the world do after the creative competition ends?"

The rewards for the top 100 are truly enviable.

Players were excited about the 1000 million prize, while savvy developers were thrilled by the "more favorable revenue-sharing agreement."

But as soon as Xu Meng started talking about the future, everyone immediately put aside the rewards and listened attentively to his next plans.

Many people speculate that the creative competition not only made money for many developers, but also that Zhumeng, as the platform and engine provider, would still make a fortune even though Xumeng has already given away too much profit.

Therefore, the creative competition is likely to continue.

Everyone is looking forward to this result.

Fortunately, Xu Meng did not disappoint everyone:

My answer is simple: Let's move on to the second round!

"The ocean of creativity is vast and can easily hold even more games!"

"Keep playing the music and keep dancing!"

The moment Xu Meng finished speaking, the press conference hall erupted in cheers.

"Great!"

"Keep going! Keep going, really hard!"

"They say there are tens of thousands of games, but only about 20 are to my liking. That's not enough to play at all!"

……

Amid cheers, Xu Meng raised her right hand, signaling the audience to be quiet.

Then, smiling, he said, "The first creative competition has given us a lot of valuable experience."

"One very important point is that when there are too many games, players' wallets will be severely tested."

"Therefore, starting with the second Creative Competition, we will launch a brand new paid model - [Pass]."

"[The pass] will be a monthly subscription service; you can think of it as a monthly membership for the creative competition."

"While the pass is active, you can move freely in all world bubbles that have been added to the pass!"

"Of course, developers don't need to worry. Dream Building will not force all participating teams to join this pass - we will provide additional subsidies, exposure and incentive policies for the games that join, but the final decision on whether to join is in your own hands."

Now, the cheers became even louder!

If players are most dissatisfied with the creative competition, it's their wallets.

Xu Meng mentioned hundreds of thousands of games, and in the end, there were still more than 30,000 left. But in reality, most players will not play more than 10 games in a month, and they will only skim through more than 30 games.

After all, players have limited energy.

Even just 10 items can be a significant burden on your wallet.

Not to mention that these 30,000+ games are enough for everyone to digest for a long time, and there must be many games that are to everyone's liking but have not yet been noticed.

This means that the expenses will be even higher.

Switching to a monthly subscription system would undoubtedly greatly reduce the pressure on players.

For the development team, this may not necessarily be a bad thing.

After all, the games that really make big money are the ones with the highest rankings.

Just like the more than 3 games that survived the current creative competition, they have all undoubtedly made money, but those ranked at the bottom have not achieved significant sales or revenue.

Players are less likely to buy these less popular games.

They will find it difficult to earn long-tail revenue in the later stages.

Instead, by switching to a monthly subscription fee, players won't feel any psychological burden and will be more willing to try out lesser-known games, thus bringing them more popularity.

Zhumeng will then turn this "popularity" into subsidies and distribute them to these developers.

Xu Meng stood on the stage, smiling as she watched the players cheer below.

After a long pause, he spoke again: "Over the past four months, we have seen many developers working day and night, giving up almost all their rest time to work overtime and catch up on their work."

"This state is unhealthy and unsustainable."

"Therefore, the cycle of future creative competitions will be adjusted to six months, with one competition in the first half of the year and one in the second half."

"so--"

"The next creative competition will begin tomorrow."

Developers from all over the world are welcome to participate!

Thunderous applause erupted once again.

But Xu Meng glanced at the time and, without waiting for the applause to stop on its own, continued speaking:
That concludes our discussion of the creative competition. Now, let's move on to the press conference!

"In addition to the creative competition, we have some brand new projects that we would like to share with you in the new year."

The excited clapping audience had to stop quickly so as not to disturb Xu Meng's voice.

"I'm sure everyone remembers that I mentioned two things when the Aurora Satellite Array was first launched—"

"[Hardware Revolution] and [Twin Earth]."

"Now, I am happy to announce some good news: we have met the prerequisites for both projects."

"And the satisfaction far exceeded expectations!"

As Xu Meng spoke, Xiao Meng operated the machine.

And so, a scene similar to the "Genesis Launch Event" played out once again—

The entire press conference hall vanished, and everyone present simultaneously appeared in space.

"Oh!"

The place was agitated.

Everyone looked excitedly down at their feet, expecting to see the giant islands and lakes of the digital planet, as well as the boundless rainforest.

But when the image of the planet beneath their feet came into view, everyone was stunned.

That's not the digital planet where the Sprawling City is located.

It was the vast, boundless, azure sea; the familiar outline of the continental plates; the snow-capped poles… it all felt so familiar.

That's Earth.

Then everyone realized: "That's right! Mr. Xu was talking about twin Earths!"

But soon, they were stunned again: "It's done already?"

"So fast??"

of course not.

Xu Meng's voice rang in everyone's ears: "What you see now is just an outline."

"Although it looks very detailed and realistic from this distance, it is just an illusion."

"This planet was simply generated by stitching together images obtained from the aurora satellite array scans, and there are still many flaws in the details."

"It's still a long way from being usable."

"But that's not the point. I didn't bring everyone here to see it."

"But——"

Points of light lit up along Earth's orbit.

Having learned from past experiences, both the players in the universe and the viewers in the live stream immediately understood: each point of light was a satellite.

Xu Meng has already demonstrated a similar scenario.

But this time, the number of light spots far exceeded the last time!
They are evenly distributed in the planet's near-Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit, forming a network of three layers at varying heights.

"Aurora Satellite Array"

"In the past two months, we have been operating at full capacity and have successfully carried out a total of 36 launch missions with only one failure. That failure did not affect the overall launch schedule."

"To this day, there are 1050 satellites in Earth's orbit, which have initially established the basic framework of the [Auroral Zone], [Skylink Zone], and [Watchtower Zone]."

"The Twin Earth project has met the conditions for launch."

"Starting tomorrow, we will begin team building, and developers from all over the world are welcome to apply and join us."

"Furthermore, we welcome aerospace workers from around the world to join us. There is no upper limit to our demand for talent in the aerospace industry!"

"As for the hardware revolution, I have to say we've been really lucky."

"Just this month, we acquired an extremely powerful technology – wireless charging technology."

A barrage of question marks scrolled across the live stream screen.

Wireless charging technology is something we all use in our daily lives to charge our phones and headphones.

It was so relatable that everyone was a little confused when they saw Xu Meng so happy.

Until Xu Meng said the following:
"This technology is different from what you see in your daily life."

"This is a long-distance charging technology!"

"How far? A city only needs to build one charging center to charge all the devices in the city!"

This technology was discovered by the expert team from Xia Kingdom during a comprehensive analysis of the entire facility after he led the players to successfully take down the giant tower in the Sea of Information Universe intact.

—That artificial sun that never goes out is not just a simple decoration.

Xu Meng works in game development and loves creating all sorts of wonders, so she wasn't surprised at all when she saw the giant tower housing the artificial sun.

But the older professors were different; they felt something was off the moment they saw it.

Shouldn't this thing be wrapped in layers of protection?
Driven by this idea, they paid extra attention when analyzing the entire tower.

It was this dedication that led them to quickly discover that this giant tower could power all the robots in the city!
"Therefore!" Xu Meng raised her voice, "the preconditions for a hardware revolution have been fully met!"

"Not only the computing module, heat dissipation module, and display module, but also the heavy power supply can be streamlined!"

These words were truly shocking!

Players, netizens, media, and high-ranking officials from various countries around the world were all stunned and speechless upon hearing this.

What are you doing?
Isn't this about games?
Weren't we talking about virtual planets?
What do you mean by suddenly pulling this thing out?

This was so sudden that it caught everyone off guard!
Not to mention countries overseas, even netizens and many scientific research experts in China were stunned by Xu Meng's appearance, their minds filled with "Impossible!"

Especially experts in the field of electrical engineering.

They are all too aware of the problems with wireless charging—not to mention anything else, just the energy is lost by more than half when it is transferred from the city center to the edge! In fact, less than one-tenth is lost!

How can we solve this terrible drain on resources?

Unless you have unlimited energy, who can afford to squander it like this?
If someone else said that, they would immediately be torn to shreds!

But the person saying this now is Xu Meng.

Even if he doesn't demonstrate any products or mention any technical solutions, just by talking, he still sounds very convincing!

So they could only watch the live stream anxiously, hoping Xu Meng would elaborate on the technique.

But Xu Meng didn't say that. She simply said, "These two projects will be launched simultaneously in the new year!"

"but……"

Xu Meng drew out her words, whetting everyone's appetite.

Then he looked around at the starry sky, and the entire solar system, and even the distant Milky Way, came into view.

"If there are only these few planets, the universe is far too empty."

"So I'm also planning to launch a brand new project—[the star-making project]!"

Xu Meng waved her hand.

Ten planets of different colors and sizes appeared directly above the twin Earth.

"I previously teased that I had prepared extra rewards for the top 10 teams in the creative competition."

"Now we can reveal the answer—"

"I will give them a planet."

The entire room fell silent for a moment.

Then a huge wave of sound and barrage of comments suddenly erupted!

Holy crap! A planet!

"Planet Governor!!"

"Are you fucking kidding me??? You win a game competition and instantly earn a planet???"

"I...I can't breathe!"

"Boss Xu!! I! Want! One too! Please! Please!!"

……

Netizens have gone crazy.

That's an entire planet!

Even if it's just a virtual planet—with a dream machine and a creation engine, what's the difference between virtual and reality?!
At this moment, it's not just netizens who are going crazy.

Meanwhile, the world's wealthy and powerful watching the live stream were also experiencing heart palpitations and dry mouths.

A powerful desire arose!

Those who knew that Xu Meng had already touched the threshold of "consciousness upload" were especially excited!

Those who acted quickly have already started contacting the 10 lucky teams that acquired the planets, wanting to know if ownership of these planets can be transferred.

Amidst the frenzied cheers, Xu Meng had no choice but to raise her voice:
"You can unleash your creativity on this planet! Build your own world according to your own ideas!"

"Furthermore, this award will be extended to future creative competitions!"

"To encourage more teams to join the battle pass, the top 10 teams in all games that join the battle pass will also receive this reward!"

"Players, don't worry, the great space voyage in the virtual world has begun!"

"You can also form your own fleet, embark on expeditions, explore and conquer a planet."

"You too can completely reshape the planet according to your own will!"

"As long as you're willing to invest, you can be a captain too!"

"To facilitate everyone's activities, we will significantly increase the number of habitable planets in the universe!"

"A vast number of seeds of life have been sown."

"Once you break through the metal necromancers at the edge of the solar system, the entire universe will open its arms to you!"

"Let's take action, warriors!"

"The infinitely vast universe awaits you!"

The even more enthusiastic cheers completely drowned out Xu Meng.