Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 302: 300: Mecha Monsters, Men’s Romance!

He’s downstairs in the air defense lab making a post on Spiritual Rhinoceros moments.

The netizens were still debating about his sudden stand in for the princess, so he decided to give a response.

After all, specialized personnel were testing the equipment, and he had already said all he needed to on the upper floor.

Now, he’s just standing by idly, might as well mess with the netizens for a bit.

“What, men can’t be fanboys now? You’re all showing gender bias!

Also, examine yourselves daily: Have you finished your homework? Completed your work? Solved your being-single issue?”

Once this post went out, regardless of whether the netizens believed the first sentence, they all felt provoked by the latter and started commenting:

“Have you finished Night City? Have you installed the screws in the Mirage? Have you sorted the mobile app?

“Aren’t you also a single dog? What gives you the right to make fun of us?”

“Not finished, not done, not resolved, so no more gaming either, goodbye Cloud Dream!”

“So let’s call it a day! Playing any further would be too rude, but still, thank you.”

“Hmm,” Lincoln nodded, “successful topic diversion. Players are as pure and cute as always!

“But, screwing?

The pure and cute players reminded Lincoln of something.

He glanced at the bunch of people still checking on the equipment nearby, and seriously considered upgrading the equipment.

The game cabin was almost ready, and the company had switched to the wireless 2.0 version of The Mirage a while ago. But the first generation wired version was still on the market.

He had a feeling that he was a little ahead of the market.

By time, the first generation had only been on the market for three months.

Most people worry about the latest equipment not being produced, but he was worrying about new equipment being produced too fast…

If he was a pure capitalist, he should keep selling the first generation, until it can’t sell anymore, swallowing up all possible profits.

Then pretend to have a hard time developing new technology, launch the second generation on the market, and harvest another round of “leeks.”

But Lincoln wasn’t like that; he skyrocketed so fast that he didn’t even start the process of mutating into a capitalist creature when he succeeded.

As of now, he doesn’t resemble a successful capitalist at all, more like an ordinary person.

He has ordinary emotions, simple values of good and evil, a lazy bone that always wants to slack off, and a petty mind that must retaliate for the slightest slight.

But there’s a difference: he has a huge influence with tens of millions of fans and a terrifying asset worth hundreds of billions that can be mobilized at any time.

Meaning, at 20-something, he’s already reached the ideal realm of “not overstepping the limits of his heart’s desires,” which ordinary people only hope to reach at 70, in a different way from what Confucius described.

Even though what Confucius described were well-cultivated personal states, and Lincoln didn’t have that cultivation. He purely had cash and status.

He just has to be responsible for “doing what his heart desires,” others will help make his behavior’s “not overstep.”

But all roads lead to Rome, the result is the same anyway.

So at this moment, he followed his heart’s desire, not wanting to be classified as a “player-harvesting capitalist”- even though this was his own classification.

“Even though I’ve inadvertently become the richest man in Daxia, class divisions shouldn’t be determined solely by deposits, but also by ideological awareness!”

“Your ideological awareness has to be high, otherwise, you’ll end up on a lamppost.”

So, Lincoln, who had “high ideological awareness,” decided to go for it: launch the new device early.

That way, there’s a legitimate reason to reduce the price of the old equipment!

The frugal experiences from his previous life made it clear to him: for such large electronic product expenditures, each reduction of 500 dollars will drive a very strong promotional effect, activating a large group of potential buyers.

And Lincoln’s plan was to reduce the price by 1000 dollars directly!

A ten percent price cut, wouldn’t that massively stimulate consumption?

To put it again: sales aren’t the most important, the number of players is the most important!

If a ten percent price cut could bring ten percent new players, then Lincoln would be making a killing!

Once he decided, he immediately began to ponder: at what time, and in what way, to launch the 2.0 wireless version.

The wireless version at this time was just an upgrade with an extra wireless function from the first generation, so Lincoln planned to maintain the original price without adding a penny.

In the three-month interval, Moore’s Law hadn’t even had time to take effect yet. The upstream chips, memory, storage, batteries, and other components weren’t time for an upgrade.

But speaking of which, when they do get upgraded, the Mirage can naturally upgrade to the 3.0 version…

In this way, even if there were no technological innovations in the future, money could still be made for a lifetime…

As for the emergence of more advanced technology replacing virtual reality technology in the future?

Sorry, by that time, Lincoln would have lived his fill and let it be.

While Lincoln was busy daydreaming on his mobile phone, Henry came over.

Henry was quite excited when he arrived. But after hearing from Lincoln about the effects of this gadget, his interest waned considerably.

“This thing has a very low intensity. It’s mainly to prevent the muscle activity of people who don’t exercise regularly from declining, so its enhancement effect can be disregarded.”

This was basically saying that it didn’t have much large-scale application in the military.

Which military doesn’t exercise frequently?

Even if you go to be a cook, you still have to prepare meals for three to five hundred people with eight people.

The amount of exercise for that, doesn’t differ much from regular training…

At this moment, he came over, giving a sense of mystery, and asked in a low voice: “Mr. Lin, I see that you have started a prosthetic limb company, and it is of great help to the disabled veterans. Our people speak highly of you whenever your name comes up!”

? Lincoln looked at him in confusion.

Can’t this sort of thing be openly discussed? Why such secretive behavior?

“I heard that the Retired Veteran Service Center is researching a supportive subsidy policy. They plan to launch it as soon as your company introduces prosthetics for those with limb disabilities.”

In fact, officials from the relevant department have already visited the Prosthetic Journey Company. Lincoln received the reports and wondered why there was no follow-up.

Only now did he realize that after assessing the progress, they planned to launch it simultaneously.

“That’s a good thing.” Lincoln nodded in approval.

Seeing that Henry was still standing there looking at him, Lincoln suddenly realized: “Is there something that you want my help with?”

Henry nodded, finally not hesitating: “Since you can develop a virtual world and brain-controlled prosthetics, is it possible to achieve consciousness exchange?”

“???” This time, Lincoln directly wore question marks on his face, “What do you guys want to do?”

Before Henry could explain, Lincoln staked out his position first: “Let me be clear, I won’t participate in any research involving deep ethical issues!”

Mainly because the topic was too serious and even a bit scary if you thought about it in depth.

“It doesn’t involve any of that! Where is your mind going?” Henry quickly denied.

“We just want to use the neural modulator-demodulator to establish a silent communication method that does not require language and gestures, much like the ‘telepathic communication’ in legends. But we are completely stuck right now, so I wanted to ask if you had any ideas?”

Not that there was no progress at all. With virtual typing, “typing messages by consciousness” is possible, but it’s too inconvenient.

“This…” Lincoln hesitated, wondering whether to answer yes or no.

In fact, this was not a single issue.

Previously, when the “Journey Project” funded the special education school for the deaf and blind students, many netizens queried after watching the short films: “Why not equip students with language disabilities as well?”

Lincoln certainly wanted to, but the technology he possessed couldn’t make a mute speak, and this technical difficulty was completely different from making the blind see and the deaf hear.

Moreover, this technical difficulty is very similar to the “silent communication” that Henry mentioned.

The main issue was distinguishing the neural signals of “thought” and “speech”.

This is actually quite complex.

Although the brain areas controlling “thought” and “language” are not at all connected, unfortunately, the headband only collects the neural signals emitted outside the brain and cannot accurately detect the different areas within the brain.

The instruction sets received by Lincoln have a clear part for the translation of “language” neural signals.

But as for the neural signals of “thought”, it wasn’t clear whether they weren’t cracked or, for ethical considerations, were left out of the instruction set to leave some privacy in the user’s thinking.

Furthermore, considering Henry’s words “telepathic communication”, did he want to share the viewed screens and thought processes too?

Isn’t that a bit too much, brother?!

With this technology, why would I play with your telepathy?

I could directly star in “Pacific Rim”!

I could even integrate fun things like Gundam, 02, and Godzilla.

…But unfortunately, it’s not feasible because of technical limitations.

Why not remove the two-player setting and just let one person operate the mech to fight monsters?

Because Lincoln thinks it’s not stimulating enough!

Fighting small monsters alone in a mech is perfectly feasible.

But two people working together to operate a giant mech and combating huge monsters with oppressive power, how freaking awesome is that!

That’s a man’s romance!

Lincoln didn’t want to give it up. After pondering for a long time, he suddenly felt, “It seems that it’s not entirely impossible.”

He wasn’t sticking to the original work exactly. It wasn’t the first time for him.

If there’s no memory sharing, then so be it. It doesn’t affect operating a mech to fight monsters!

At worst, just alter the storyline a bit?

“Is it possible?” Upon hearing Lincoln’s mutter, Henry’s eyes lit up suddenly.

But Lincoln immediately started to pour cold water, “Don’t even think about a complete version of telepathy. Transmitting images is not realistic, but sound could be possible and achieving sensory communication isn’t too hard.”

“And it’s difficult, it will take a lot of time.”

Even the lite version of “telepathy” is no easy task..