Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

When Yi began to add friends and shake people, Lincoln also got up.

Today, Cloud Dream has two big things to do, and he’s been thinking about them, even making an exception to allow employees to apply for overtime if they wish.

—Those who are not willing will be on normal leave, after all, the boss, Lincoln, has already left beforehand.

With Mavis’s help, the important work is being watched, and Mavis can handle it on her own once the time is right, without the need for employees to work overtime.

Employees are deeply moved: the boss works at home and lets the employees take time off. What kind of spirit is that?

Can they live up to such a good boss without working overtime?!

It’s also because of Mavis’s presence that Lincoln finds it hard to be nervous.

Getting out of bed inevitably delayed some time, the alarm starting at 07:10, he pressed it every 10 minutes to sleep again, until 07:40.

Mavis couldn’t bear to see her master being tortured and simply turned off the alarm for him.

From the bedside speaker came Mavis’s voice: “It’s okay! Mavis has already done everything!”

“Ah, that’s good.” Lincoln breathed a long sigh of relief and fell back onto the pillow.

But he was no longer sleepy, so he opened his mouth and asked Mavis, “How’s the situation?”

“Congratulations, Master! All 5 million consoles have been sold out! Now, considering only the latest top-tier gaming consoles, our Mirage is number one!”

Despite Mavis’s addition of prefixes like “latest” and “top-tier,” Lincoln couldn’t help but feel inflated.

What an important milestone!

From now on, who dares to call themselves the industry leader in front of me?

Sorry, from now on, I’m the leader!

All of you sitting here are—

“Ahem! That’s not right, don’t be too proud, or you’ll run into trouble. Better to stay low-profile.”

Lincoln yawned, picked up his phone to check the time, and suddenly exclaimed in surprise, “5 million units sold out in less than 10 minutes?!”

Mavis laughed happily, “Hehe, Master guessed wrong! It’s actually 5 minutes! Are you shocked? Even Mavis was super surprised!”

“5 minutes…” Of course, Lincoln was excited, but after the short-lived excitement, he began to worry.

Previously, when the Mirage was selling out every week, he had no hesitation in investing all his profits in reproduction, taking the biggest possible steps, and in his assessment, the risk of such an operation was completely controllable.

But now the situation is different; the Mirage’s market inventory has reached 10 million units!

According to previous statistics in the gaming industry, there are only about 20 million VR players in total, and this number was cultivated by several generations of VR devices from companies like NetDragon, Flying Fox, and Wild Island.

Given that, is it necessary to continue ramping up production capacity next week? List 10 million units on the shelves?

Lincoln is very conflicted.

If only this time, 5 million units had lasted for more than ten minutes, he would have maintained a 5 million unit production schedule every week.

The remaining funds could then be invested in a wide range of prosthetic limb-related industries.

He’s always kept this in mind, since the miniaturization of the modem was successful, vision and hearing assistive devices for the blind and deaf have also been successfully developed based on the headband.

It’s just that all the funding has been invested in Mirage’s repurposing, fighting for the market share, and even opening up the market, laying a solid foundation for Cloud Dream.

That’s why prosthetics-related matters have been postponed until now.

“Dull-witted!” Lincoln suddenly slapped himself on the head, “Who says that if you don’t make 5 million units, you have to make 10 million? I control my own company, and I decide how many units I want to make!”

Having realized this, Lincoln’s doubts were cleared up: “Sign another short-term contract with an unmanned factory, and increase production capacity to 8 million units next week! The remaining funds will be enough to bring these two specialized assistive devices for the blind and deaf to the market!”

As Lincoln thought more about it, he felt it was right!

He had failed to break free from his previous thinking, always feeling that there wasn’t enough money to accomplish things if it wasn’t fully invested.

But when he thought about it, producing 2 million fewer consoles could save nearly 10 billion!

This is the horror of high profits!

Even if he accounts for the taxes to be paid, for every console sold, he could produce two more!

— This is all because Lincoln tried to expand the user base by lowering the price.

At times like this, he couldn’t help but think: Although the ongoing wars in this world have caused huge losses, these crises have also led major countries to attach great importance to the development of their own national full industrial chains from the very beginning, and Daxia is no exception.

So, in this world’s Daxia, there is no situation where someone else could choke them in the high-end field. Coupled with the popularization of unmanned factories, this has allowed Lincoln to keep the costs so low.

Otherwise, if he sells a Mirage for 10,000, he may have to give 8,000 to others, among which 4,000 would be sent overseas.

Lincoln was still lost in thought when Mavis suddenly woke him up, “Master, don’t you want to know the sales of the new game?”

“Yeah!” Lincoln quickly replied, “How many have been sold? Tell me quickly.”

As he spoke, Lincoln picked up his mobile phone, quickly got up, and went to wash up.

He also wanted to see what kind of fun the players could have. This was something he had been looking forward to for a long time!

Lincoln placed many internet-connected speakers and tablets at home, so it was convenient for Mavis to chat with him anytime, making it easy for her to report the game’s sales performance while he was washing up or making breakfast.

“10 minutes, 5.6 million copies!” Mavis inside the tablet raised both arms very spiritedly, and a big “5.6 million” number popped up.

“What the hell?” Lincoln was so surprised that he almost swallowed his toothpaste.

“Are you sure the count isn’t wrong?” Lincoln quickly rinsed his mouth and asked again.

“No!” Mavis shook her head confidently, then reported a string of numbers,

“Now it’s 5,618,638 copies! The number is increasing every second!”

Lincoln asked, puzzled: “Right now, only 5 million people have consoles, right? Are there people who bought the game before they got their consoles?” Lincoln could only guess that there were quite a few people like this.

Because among the existing 5 million Mirage owners, many of them are not heavy gamers. They bought it for casual games like “Traveler of the Wind.” Whether or not they would buy “Assassins’ Alliance” is still unknown.

Even if Lincoln’s design works out in the end and they choose to buy it, they wouldn’t place an order when the game was just released, and they still knew nothing about its content.

“Not just that!” Mavis seemed to enjoy seeing Lincoln’s surprise, “Many orders come from users who have neither consoles nor can grab them.”

“What?” Lincoln was astonished with his mouth wide open, “They don’t have a console, and they buy the game for collection?”

Mavis shook her pink head, “Mavis doesn’t know either.”

Lincoln was very confused, but he couldn’t control how others wanted to spend their money.

He fried two pieces of bacon, put them on the toasted bread, cut two boiled eggs, half a tomato, spread a layer of salad dressing, stuffed in a lettuce leaf, and sandwiched another slice of bread on top.

In the end, he heated a cup of milk, and it was done!

It may look crude, but this energy-packed breakfast was ready, and Lincoln started wolfing it down.

In the tablet on the dining table, Mavis was also sitting at the table, holding a big hamburger in her hand and chewmg happily.

After finishing breakfast, Lincoln finally logged into the virtual world.

He picked up Mavis, who was running towards him with her mouth shouting “Master”, and sat down on the familiar little sofa again.

“Quick, Mavis, show me what the diaper anchor is up to!” Lincoln was looking forward to seeing what he could do in front of hundreds of thousands of audiences.

“Alright! Leave it to Mavis!” Without any hesitation, Mavis pulled up Yi’s live streaming screen.

In the screen, Yi and a male player Lincoln didn’t recognize, each had a fire axe in their hands.

Amid the horrified screams of a female NPC in the bathroom, they took turns swinging their arms in a circle, smashing the already cracked and thin wooden door with great force.

It looked like it would only take one more axe blow for the door to be broken!