Chapter 127: The Annual Gala

The first day of the tour concluded, and the second day arrived quickly. Today was set aside for observing the actual production process of a reality-based game. Su Xing led the group to the location early in the morning. It was situated beneath a stretch of ocean, far from the newbie city.

Because they were traveling in a specialized submersible, the group could take in the entire construction site on the seabed at a glance. There were countless robots that looked like spiders, each carrying a bundle of compressed materials. With these specialized packs, they moved back and forth like the print heads of a massive 3D printer; in their wake, towering buildings rose from the ocean floor. Whenever a structure was completed, a staff member would go up to inspect it for compliance.

"I recall that there are finished, pre-built houses for sale, right? You place an order, and they can be delivered in less than a day," an operations manager asked.

In this era, so-called "finished houses" were buildings that had already been constructed and packaged for shipping. Once an order was placed, specialized freighters would deliver them. As long as the funding was there, an entire planet's worth of infrastructure could be completed in a single day.

Su Xing shook his head at the question. "Real estate developments are copyrighted. Using them in a game requires paying additional licensing fees. As for custom orders, one or two is fine, but the price quickly exceeds the budget once you scale up. It’s more cost-effective to produce them ourselves. Although the speed is much slower, we have plenty of time, so there’s no need to rush."

After explaining this, Su Xing led the group for a closer look. He also shared some tips on setting up dungeons and discussed the differences between the audit restrictions for reality games versus virtual ones.

The day passed quickly.

The third day arrived. This day was dedicated to learning about the operation of reality games, which was the main purpose of their visit. They did not leave the base this time; Su Xing brought them into a studio filled with people.

"Our game activities are adjusted to varying degrees depending on the specific star system," Su Xing explained. "Therefore, each star system requires a dedicated operations manager. You must communicate with players, understand their attitudes toward the game in real-time, analyze their thoughts and actions, and formulate the most appropriate activities. Beyond that, you should select certain players to participate in the game's development and give the winners small rewards. This is a very effective way to increase player stickiness..."

As Su Xing spoke, he would occasionally pose questions to test these Qiyou operations managers. He wanted to see if there were any hidden talents among them besides the three he had already scouted, but clearly, there were none.

Soon, the third day of training was complete. After returning the group to their quarters, Su Xing began his mission to poach talent. He had in-depth conversations with Hu Chao and Tian Yi separately. The entire process went very smoothly; under the generous benefits offered by the Goose Factory, their resistance was fragile.

Having secured the two, he instructed them to keep it quiet while Qiyou’s team was still there for training. Confident, Su Xing arrived at Yu Jia’s door and knocked.

...

[Notification: You have a new message.]

In the game, Yin Jian, who was busy learning from the strengths of other designers, heard the notification in his mind and immediately pulled up his light-computer.

He looked at the new message. It wasn't from Zhou Shun, but from his old university class group.

Zhang Hu: @Everyone, our first anniversary since graduation is coming up soon. I’m hosting a get-together; how about we all meet up?
Zhang Hu: Let me know if you’re coming so I can get a headcount.

Yin Jian looked at the sender's name and it took him a long time to remember who it was. During university, this guy had been the perpetual runner-up in their major. The top student was Yu Jia, and as for himself—for certain reasons—he was the one who wrote the exam questions, so he didn't participate in the tests.

"I remember Zhang Hu’s family was quite well-off. Before graduation, his family had already paved his path, and he was quite smug about it for a while." Yin Jian stroked his chin, guessing the motive behind this class reunion.

It was easy to guess. It was nothing more than showing off in front of everyone and networking. Yin Jian wasn't very interested in that; to him, such dinners were a waste of life.

Thinking this, he reached out to close his light-computer to continue his unfinished 'studies.' However, Lu Guo sent him a message at that moment.

Lu Guo: Yin Jian, are you going to this class reunion? I heard Zhang Hu invited people from other majors in our cohort too.

"Other majors?" Yin Jian raised an eyebrow, immediately gaining a bit of interest.

Yin Jian: Which majors?
Lu Guo: Besides gaming, there are music, architecture, economics, and so on.

Seeing Lu Guo's reply, Yin Jian fell into deep thought. The complexity of reality games far exceeded that of virtual ones. The difficulty in production increased geometrically; he certainly wouldn't be able to do it alone when the time came. He had to recruit talent from various industries. After all, creating a reality game was almost equivalent to developing a planet, and theoretically, it was far more difficult. Because even with the same amount of construction, a reality game also required complex settings. That alone would raise the workload by several tiers.

In short, when he eventually struck out on his own, his demand for talent would become terrifying. Consequently, Yin Jian replied to Lu Guo.

Yin Jian: When is it?
Lu Guo: You're going?

Lu Guo was clearly surprised by Yin Jian's response, as he felt that with Yin Jian’s personality, he wouldn't attend such a networking dinner. However, he didn't ask for the specific reason and replied directly.

Lu Guo: Zhang Hu says it's roughly in May. The specific date depends on the headcount, then he’ll notify everyone. If you're going, we can go together.
Yin Jian: Hmm.

After replying to Lu Guo, Yin Jian reopened the class group and signed himself up.

Yin Jian: Count me in.

Far away on the other side of Baiqiao Star, Zhang Hu was leaning back in his boss's chair, looking at the replies in the class group and recording the names of those who would attend one by one. When he recorded Yin Jian's name, his eyebrows arched.

Yin Jian had been a prominent figure in class during university, so he naturally garnered extra attention. He was curious about what this "ambitious" classmate had been doing recently.

Zhang Hu: Yin Jian, what have you been up to lately? How's work?

...

After waiting for a long time, Zhang Hu saw no reply from Yin Jian. His face twitched involuntarily. Then, as if realizing something, his eyes lit up.

"With his personality, if he had found a good job, he would have started bragging long ago. But now he’s saying nothing..."
"Then there can only be one truth!"
"He hasn't found a good job, or perhaps he doesn't even have a job at all!"

Thinking this, Zhang Hu felt a sense of relief. Back in school, he had almost been fooled by Yin Jian. If he hadn't been woken up by his parents' "mixed doubles" beating, he might have ended up like Yin Jian suggested—not relying on his parents, not having a cent, and going out to get beaten by society.

"We'll see what you have to say at the reunion," Zhang Hu smiled, then added Yin Jian's name to the registry. He was determined to settle the score for the humiliation he felt in school.

...

In the days after resolving the class reunion matter, Yin Jian spent his time in the game. Not long ago, he had spent a huge sum to have Zhou Shun buy him a T-9 gaming pod. He did it for no other reason than to take advantage of the time he had to play more reality games for reference.

After playing a reality game for a day, Yin Jian logged out and activated the pod's massage function. As he enjoyed the full-body treatment, he opened the link to Qiyou's annual meeting video. It was now March 15th. According to the news Yu Jia sent after finishing her training, he learned that Qiyou would announce something extremely important at the annual meeting.

"It must be about reality games," Yin Jian thought, his eyes fixed on the screen, waiting for the meeting to begin.

It was said that besides announcing major events, this year's meeting would invite several platinum-level designers to give speeches and share their experiences. Among them was the designer of "Super God Machinery," Pipi Jia. Thinking of this, Yin Jian had another layer of anticipation beyond the announcement itself.

He didn't have to wait long. The designated time arrived. On the black screen, a point of light appeared and quickly brightened. A scene appeared before Yin Jian and the other operations managers.

It was a short story of less than a minute. The general moral was that as long as you persevere, there will come a day when your dreams take flight. After watching it, Yin Jian felt that Qiyou’s annual meeting was quite creative, unlike some companies whose meetings began with endless boasting about how awesome they were. It was vulgar as hell.

The story ended, and a stage replaced the screen. In the darkened venue, several spotlights focused, illuminating a man in his forties with a strong-looking hairstyle. He was wearing a striped shirt and didn't have the typical air of a corporate elite; rather, he gave off the feeling of someone from a scholarly family.

As a Qiyou designer, Yin Jian naturally recognized this man. He was the current public head of Qiyou, Chen Guang!

In the past, the lives of virtual designers were much harder than they were now. It was only after Chen Guang took charge that things began to improve, breathing new life into the sunset industry of virtual gaming. This undoubtedly reflected his outstanding personal ability.

Chen Guang walked to the center of the stage. He first greeted everyone, used an interesting joke to capture everyone's attention, and then began to talk about the main topic.

"This year, the number of signed designers at Qiyou has increased by a full thirty percent compared to last year!"
"I am very happy about this..."

After briefly mentioning Qiyou's current status, Chen Guang moved on to the topic Yin Jian was interested in.

"After years of development, the virtual game market has stabilized, allowing designers' monthly income to increase continuously. But in my eyes, that is far from enough."
"I said when I took this position: I not only want every virtual game designer who loves games to be fed, but I also want them to make money so they aren't forced by life."
"Thus, the 'Joint Plan' was born!"

As Chen Guang spoke, he swiped his finger, and the brief information of the Joint Plan appeared before everyone. This was a plan to use the massive traffic of reality games to promote virtual games. It covered many aspects. However, although Yin Jian recognized every single character on the plan, once they were connected, reading even one sentence gave him a headache. It was all professional jargon he had never heard of. He didn't know who started this evil trend—clearly, things could be explained in simple words, but they insisted on using obscure terms to make others guess, just to make themselves seem professional.

Yin Jian rubbed his throbbing head and refocused on Chen Guang. He decided to just listen to the explanation.

Chen Guang on stage waited for everyone to browse the content before continuing:

"Virtual games are still too niche. Even if you plaster advertisements everywhere, the effect is still very unsatisfactory because people subconsciously ignore information they aren't interested in. This greatly discounts the effectiveness of advertising."
"Therefore, I thought of using reality games to drive virtual games."
"I have already experimented with this with the Goose Factory—adapting 'Super God Machinery' into a reality game."
"The final result proved my idea was correct. 'Super God Machinery' achieved unprecedented success."
"Shortly after the reality adaptation, sales of the virtual version of 'Super God Machinery' skyrocketed dozens of times over! It set an amazing record for the first Qiyou game to exceed one billion in daily sales for a month straight."

As Chen Guang said this, thunderous applause erupted from the audience. These were all designers who had come to the venue, each of them a master-level designer earning at least ten billion a year. Their approval brought a confident smile to Chen Guang's face. He scanned the room and continued:

"After discussion, Qiyou has finally decided to make a game of our own. The choice for this reality game is not an adaptation of an existing virtual game. Instead, we are launching a design competition."
"You could say everyone has the chance to become the chief designer of Qiyou's first reality game."
"As for the competition rules, they haven't been finalized yet and are still under discussion, but it won't take long—no later than May."
"So please, stay tuned!"