Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Having successfully joined Cloud Dream, Princess Camille Victoria had one less worry. She felt lighter all around.

Thus, she excitedly pedaled on, bringing the little boat closer to Lake Center Island. She took Lincoln on a tour of the island.

Due to the scorching heat, they only wore masks and no hats; they were nearly recognized by others.

Frightened, they quickly switched to a ferry and went back to join their classmates.

She seemed to have endless energy all day long, eager to try out whatever caught her eye on the road.

Lincoln followed her all the way, already feeling worn out.

He decided to take some time off after returning home to properly rest. Though this gathering had been quite enjoyable, it was also exhausting.

The thought of his hard work made him feel like he deserved to take a couple days off as a reward.

Everyone had a great time playing all day. On the return trip by bus, quite a few were nodding off from fatigue.

Princess Camille Victoria rejected Lincoln’s suggestion to ride back in Jordan’s car, opting instead to join the group on the returning bus. She curled up in the seat next to Lincoln, covered with a thin blanket and quickly fell asleep.

After returning to Xiajing City, everyone went their separate ways, and the night passed without a word.

The next day, Lincoln did exactly as he said. Other than delivering a few small gifts he bought from the amusement park to Sisi, he didn’t even step out of the door the entire day.

Aside from eating and sleeping, he lounged on the small sofa in the virtual world, playing console games witn IVIaVIS or watcnea 010 moues wnlle munching on popcorn.

Don’t ask why he doesn’t play VR games in this world – he simply isn’t physically capable. Less than twenty minutes of play would exhaust him.

In the evening, Randall suddenly paid a visit and handed Lincoln a box.

Lincoln took the box, puzzled. On asking what was inside, Randall didn’t reply, merely waved his hand and left.

Lincoln opened the box and was surprised to find a full box of letters.

He pulled out a stack and glanced at the envelopes to find that they were all addressed to him at Cloud Dream Studio.

He opened and looked through a couple.

Without exception, all were about “Traveler of the Wind”. They described their emotions and insights from the game, expressed their gratitude for the chance to play such a game, and thanked him sincerely for creating it.

Lincoln didn’t know what to say for a moment. He suddenly remembered something: he posted on Spiritual Rhinoceros, thanking gamers for their letters.

After posting that, he went straight to bed, completely forgetting about it.

Now in just one day’s time, Cloud Dream Studio had received a whole box of letters. Apparently, that post had made a bigger splash than he imagined.

He quickly took out his mobile phone and saw that the simple post had garnered over four hundred thousand likes and more than eighty thousand comments.

Unbeknownst to him, he had taken another spin on the hot searches of Spiritual Rhinoceros.

The comments below were similar to those in the “Traveler of the Wind” comments section of the Cloud Dream Website, full of praises for the game or recounts of unexpected encounters with strangers in-game.

Some seized the rare chance to post messages here in search of friends they’d met in the game.

Most astonishingly, some were actually successful!

They joyously added each other as friends, planning to revisit “Traveler of the Wind” for a nostalgic trip together.

This was precisely why Lincoln had opened up communication and friend-adding functions during players’ second run-through of the game: to increase replay rates.

Of course, no matter how many times you’ve cleared the game, or whether you’ve donned a white robe with full patterns, if you encounter a new player who’s on their first playthrough, don’t even think about communicating. You’d better just express your feelings through resonance.

Lincoln took a picture of this box of letters and posted another update on Spiritual Rhinoceros.

“Thank you all for your love for ‘Traveler of the Wind’. I’m very honored to see that you have found unique joy and rewards in this game.

However, as you can see, when there are too many letters, I, alone, can’t go through all of them in time. After all, I’m also busy creating the next game, so my time is rather limited.

So why not share this joy with your family and friends?

Once again, thank you for your love for ‘Traveler of the Wind’.

Ps. At eight o’clock tomorrow morning, 1.6 million Mirage Game consoles will go on sale as scheduled. Those of you who are interested can prepare in advance.”

Lincoln’s post, as usual, attracted a large number of fans to comment. The advance announcement of the release time for the Mirage game console also led to a rapid increase in the number of comments.

“Good lord, yesterday was just one letter, today it’s a whole box. Just wait one month, he’s going to need a whole study for all the thank-you letters!”

“Too small! You’re thinking too small! Isn’t it better to rent a whole house just for the letters?”

“What do you mean rent a house? That’s beneath us! Listen to me, just buy it! Inside the Third Ring of Xiajing city, house prices never drop, buying is the right choice!”

“Spend millions to buy a house just to store player letters? You guys are nuts! By the way, @Lincoln, Boss Lin, do you need a steward for your villa? I majored in archival management. It’s right up my alley! ”

Those who play into the joke always seize the comment section first, but those who care about the new batch of Mirage consoles far outweigh those who care about the letters, and eventually dominate the discussion.

“1.6 million units! That’s huge! I’ll definitely get one this time!”

“The first batch was 200,000 units, the second batch was 600,000 units, why is the third batch not 1 million units or 1.8 million units? Why is it 1.6 million units? This inconsistency is making my OCD act up!”

“Dude above got madd math skills!”

“I don’t care, you all better not compete with me! I have to get one this time!”

“What’s the rush? Seeing how quickly they’re increasing production, I bet Cloud Dream could crank out several million in a week! Everyone will get one.”

“Bullshit! My sister has already finished ‘Traveler of the Wind’, and I haven’t even got the equipment yet! You want me to keep waiting?!”

“Originally, I had a reservation at the Cloud Dream Experience Store five days from now, which feels like an eternity! But now that I’ve seen this news, awesome! I’m going to cancel the reservation. With 1.6 million units, I got this!”

“Bro, no offense, but let me advise you, don’t rush. What if you can’t get one?”

The comment section was buzzing with heated discussions, industry insiders were also paying close attention to this news. After all, every Mirage unit is hot commodity now.

Especially those companies who want to buy the equipment for reverse-engineering purposes.

The number of units they need is not small, so naturally, they want to snatch as many as possible.

Warner, the director of the NetDragon R&D Department, has been keeping a close watch on Lincoln’s Spiritual Rhinoceros account, and upon seeing this post, he immediately sent out a notification in the workgroup.

“Attention, everyone:

Come to work one hour earlier tomorrow, no one is allowed to be late!

Prepare to order the Cloud Dream console in advance. Whether or not we can secure the consoles and meet the company’s requirements for reverse-engineering and the R&D schedule is extremely important! Everyone should take this seriously!

I repeat, no one is allowed to be late.. Everyone must arrive at the company ahead of time and be prepared for the sale!”