I was exposed for adding my female boss to my group of female friends.

Although the latter was much more ethical than the former, Zhao Yuanhai knew that it was still essentially a scam to cheat players out of their money.

Anime-style games often invest very little effort in gameplay development. Even games like "Onmyoji" that expand into different gameplay styles and turn games into a job have their pros and cons.

More commonly, works like "Red Line" and "Old Ark" invest a lot of effort in art, creating the most beautiful cyberpunk waifus.

But the art style of our own company's game is completely different from the ones mentioned above!

Zhao Yuanhai pointed at the screen and said, "Are you sure this is actual gameplay footage? Can we really play these things in the game?"

Qin Sulan and Xu Zheqing both nodded at the same time: "Yes, what's wrong?"

"Look at the screen, the main character is moving! It's all in 3D!"

“Yeah, so what?” Xu Zheqing said confidently, as if it were all perfectly natural.

Zhao Yuanhai asked, "And this is an open-world game?"

"Yup!"

Zhao Yuanhai rubbed his forehead and asked, "Can a mobile phone run this kind of game?"

Xu Zheqing and Qin Sulan both fell silent.

Have you ever played mobile games? Have you ever seen a game on a phone where you can jump, run, and fight monsters, and it even has 3D models?

On mobile phones, it seems that I haven't seen this kind of game before.

Qin Sulan was a little flustered by what he said and whispered, "Brother Zhao, do you mean...?"

Zhao Yuanhai stared at the video and said, "Damn it, I can't wait to play this kind of mobile game."

"what?"

Chapter 354 Is it going to be acquired?

His words were quite unexpected.

He had so many questions just now, the two of them thought he was going to say something bad.

Zhao Yuanhai adjusted his glasses and said:

"I'm a seasoned mobile gamer and a ten-year-old homebody. How could I not know whether a game is fun or not?"

"I've been playing this cardboard cutout game for ten years. I've even lost my house playing it. It's a game where you can jump, leap, and spin 360 degrees. How could I not know how fun it is?"

"If this game comes out, I'm going to spend all my money on in-game purchases!"

Xu Zheqing felt he was getting a bit like a wolf warrior, so he patted Zhao Yuanhai on the shoulder and said, "Brother Zhao, calm down. This is our company's own game."

Zhao Yuanhai calmed down a bit and apologized, "I lost my composure. Let's look at the comments."

The video was only two minutes long, and by then many people, like Zhao Yuanhai, had finished watching it and were leaving comments.

"I thought it was a new song, I was really looking forward to it, but it turns out it's a game... I'm even more excited now! What kind of game is this?! It looks amazing!"

"I originally thought the author was just a songwriter, but I never expected him to be a game developer. I underestimated him..."

"What kind of game is this? Can it be played on a mobile phone? Do I need to buy game cards? When will it be released?"

"I'm in a real hurry! What game is this? Can someone who knows about this tell me?"

"It just took me a moment to realize that the uploader isn't a full-time songwriter; is he actually a game developer?"

Reply: "Yes, their company is the same company that made 'Sheep and the Sheep'."

Replying to the previous comment: "Damn! They actually made 'Sheep'?! No wonder the game used 'Ordinary Disco' as its soundtrack; I thought it was plagiarized!"

"Grandpa, your favorite music YouTuber is making games!"

"..."

After reading the comments for a while, all three of them felt very satisfied.

After all, you belong to the company, so praising the company is the same as praising yourself. Who doesn't like to be praised?

Their work had temporarily come to an end, and there was nothing else to do. According to the company's principle of flexible time management, they could have left work, but they all voluntarily stayed at the company.

Every now and then, they would check the video comments to see if there were any new messages, and bask in their satisfaction.

So many comments, all positive, not a single negative one.

The internet environment is terrible these days; even saints get criticized. It's truly rare that no one is criticizing this video.

The reason why no one is criticizing it is because it has few followers. Currently, the comments are all from die-hard fans of the account, who naturally have a higher level of goodwill.

Furthermore, domestically produced games have consistently been of poor quality, and gamers have long lamented their misfortune and been angry at their lack of progress. This PV, on the other hand, appears to be of genuinely high quality, so players are generally inclined to show goodwill towards it.

After all, other major game companies have given up and given up, and they're too tired to criticize anymore, so who would bother criticizing a startup game company?

...Two days later, the company's PV (page view) began to spread.

The company did not contact the Pineapple website for operations, but because of its excellent page views, it attracted a lot of attention and the website featured it on its homepage.

As a result, the video data exploded.

The video quickly garnered over a million views and received five to six thousand comments.

With the influx of a large number of new viewers, the composition of the comment section has become more complex.

"Is this really a game from a domestic game company? Or is it a PV scam?"

"I agree. Don't we all know what kind of thing domestic game companies are like? They call it an open world, but it'll definitely be auto-pathfinding, one-click sweep, equipment transmogrification, and one-hit kills to level 999..."

"I don't care if it's a scam or not, just for this character art, this model, those breasts and those long legs, I'm totally sold! I'd play it even if it only hits for 999 damage!"

"Add one. Game PVs can deceive people, but my second brother won't."

"The domestic gaming environment has been ruined by mobile games. Companies are not making progress, and companies that really want to make games can't get ahead."

"What's with the single-player Brahman showing off his superiority? What's wrong with mobile games? If you really want single-player games to take off, go buy a few more copies of Gujian to support domestic games!"

"Hehe, I won't stoop to your level. I'll naturally buy the game if I like it, and for games I don't like, I'll just play the learning version for 50 hours or so to show my support. I won't turn mobile gamers into a fandom."

"Heh, still a bootlegger."

"@#￥%..."

"What are these people arguing about in the void? I think this game is pretty good, isn't it? It says it's an open world game, so it should be a single-player game. If the price is below 60, I'll still support the Chinese version."

"This is the same company that developed 'Sheep and the Sheep,' so this should be a mobile game."

"How could this be a mobile game? The game's quality... can a mobile phone even run it?"

...Qin Sulan, Xu Zheqing, and Zhao Yuanhai developed a habit of checking the comment section of the game's PV every day.

Just as he was enjoying the show, Zhao Yuanhai suddenly sighed.

"What's wrong, Brother Zhao?" Xu Zheqing asked, holding a bag of potato chips.

"That comment actually makes some sense," Zhao Yuanhai said in a low voice. "Do you think any mobile phone on the market right now can run our games smoothly?"

Xu Zheqing thought for a moment and said, "I don't know anything about equipment."

Zhao Yuanhai frowned: "I don't think there have ever been any open-world games on mobile phones, right? Oh, Minecraft is one."

“Minecraft is pixelated, so the image quality is worlds apart,” Qin Sulan said. “Take the characters for example, any character in this PV has a polygon count that is thousands of times higher than Steve’s.”

Zhao Yuanhai nodded: "That's why I was worried that the machine wouldn't be able to handle it."

The market has long proven that simply pursuing high game quality is not enough; the Titanfall incident becoming a graphics card disaster is not without precedent.

To capture the largest player market, games need to be compatible with the performance of mid-to-low-end devices as much as possible, since these are the most widely used devices on the market.

Xu Zheqing winked at Zhao Yuanhai: "Brother Zhao, how about we subtly hint at it to President Shi Chuandong?"

Zhao Yuanhai looked back and nodded: "I think we should remind you about this."

Beichen has been very successful in implementing a flat organizational structure. At least in the minds of these middle and lower-level employees, the idea that they can directly communicate with senior management if they have any problems is deeply ingrained.

The three of them mustered their courage and, when Ishikawa went to the coffee shop to get water, pounced on him and told him their idea.

Ishikawa Takashi, holding his coffee, listened to their thoughts and said, "I understand your thoughts."

The three waited for his answer.

"My answer is, don't panic. We developed it to be compatible with mid-range and low-end models, so it will definitely run."

The three of them breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this.

"Furthermore, our game isn't just for mobile; it's a cross-platform game," said Ishikawa Takashi. "Mobile, PC, console—our goal is to make it playable on all platforms."

The three of them were somewhat taken aback after hearing this.

"This... is quite ambitious." Zhao Yuanhai said after a long pause.

As the group was chatting, they suddenly saw the company doors open, and Chen Ya led a group of people in suits into the company.

Judging from Chen Ya's expression, he seemed quite serious.

It's rare to see him without a smile on his face.

Ishikawa Tō quickly put down his coffee, placed his hands in front of him, and acted obediently.

General Manager Chen often strolled around the company, and the group had never seen Ishikawa Takashi look so serious before.

But no matter what, let's get serious together with him first.

Only after Chen Ya and his men disappeared from the office did Ishikawa Dong finally let down his guard and breathe a long sigh of relief.

"Do you know who that was just now?" Ishikawa Takashi asked the three of them in a low voice.

"who?"

“People from the pearl factory,” Ishikawa Takashi said gravely. “They’re planning to acquire our company.”

"Ok??"

The news shocked all three of them.

"Zhuchang" is the abbreviation for "Zhuzhou Juyi Internet Technology Co., Ltd."

Within the industry, everyone knows about the pearl factory, just as everyone in the West knows about Jerusalem.

The domestic game industry is generally characterized by "one superpower, one dominant player, and many strong players".

The "Chao" in this context refers to "Ejiang Xuanji Computer Systems Co., Ltd.", commonly known as "Ejiang Factory".

The "dominant" one refers to is the pearl factory.

The domestic game industry landscape is largely dominated by two companies: Zhujiang and Ezhou.

What's frightening about these two companies is that although the bulk of their revenue comes from video games, their core business, on which they built their fortunes, is not gaming.

E-factory is a "computer systems" company that made its fortune developing social media software.

Zhuchang, on the other hand, started by making portal websites and its main businesses are in media, e-commerce and other industries.

Both companies announced their entry into the gaming industry almost simultaneously when their existing businesses were thriving.

It's important to know that the video game industry was once a highly discriminated-against industry in the country.

At first, everyone was operating on a small scale, with a turnover of only a few hundred thousand or a million at most.

In the eyes of most middle-aged and elderly people, games are a scourge, the culprit that harms the younger generation.

If you were a game developer, you wouldn't dare tell your relatives when you got home.

In their eyes, making a game is not as good as setting up a betting pool at the beginning.

Therefore, the development of the domestic game industry has always been relatively slow.

Until the two giants entered the market.

After the two companies entered the market, they quickly destroyed the existing business model.

Those once-thriving game companies were either squeezed out of the competition or acquired and merged.

Those who survived by sheer luck either accepted investment or eked out a living.

In the past few years, the entire industry was almost completely controlled by two companies. It wasn't until the Anti-Monopoly Law was introduced that the industry environment improved.

However, both companies have long held considerable power and are virtually unchallenged in the industry.

Employees of other game companies would instinctively bow down when they saw employees from Zhuchang and Echang.

So when the three of them heard that it was people from the pearl factory who had arrived, they all took a deep breath and had their own thoughts.