Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

After changing clothes and washing up, he put on the headband and sat down at the dining table to eat.

The headband in his home had undergone another small upgrade – integrating the functionality of [Eight Sides].

Of course, he didn’t use it for visual and auditory assistance, but for the convenience of seeing Mavis.

After the [Sky Players’ Gathering] had ended, Mavis begged Lincoln not to take off the headband, so he kept wearing it back home.

When Yue Pengju asked him why, he only said, “I used to study too hard and overused my eyes, so my vision is not very good. Wearing this helps me see clearer.”

Yue Pengju opened his mouth slightly and closed it immediately.

He was quite clear about Lincoln’s physical examination report, and his vision was completely normal.

But geniuses have unusual thinking patterns, so he didn’t ask further.

After returning home, Lincoln and Mavis researched whether Mavis could directly transmit sensory signals to Lincoln through a portable neural modulator-demodulator, allowing Lincoln to touch Mavis in reality.

The specific method involved Lincoln touching Mavis’s head visually in reality, and Mavis transmitting the visual feedback and touch sensation to Lincoln’s brain, making him feel like he “really touched” her.

Lincoln thought it was technically feasible.

After putting it into practice, he found that there was no major problem, but there were still some minor issues.

First, the portable neural modulator-demodulator didn’t have enough performance. As it was designed for portability, it had some size and functionality limitations. Transmitting simple visual and auditory information was fine, but conveying complex and subtle sensory data was difficult.

– Especially when Lincoln touched not Mavis’s smooth and soft face, but the firm head with countless delicate hairs gathered together to form a soft and fluffy touch, the amount of information involved was completely different.

The [Heavenly Craft] series of prosthetic limbs were used to simulate the accurate sensory experience of the palm touching objects, and the corresponding neural modulator-demodulator was larger than [Eight Sides] and [Journey].

But this was the smallest problem: Lincoln’s house could have a huge wireless neural modulator-demodulator with top-notch power and performance.

At least at home, it could fully meet his needs.

Another issue was that Mavis wanted an ultra-high-definition camera with no dead angle to cover the entire house, not just a few cameras providing fixed-angle views like now.

And Lincoln didn’t like being watched by too many cameras…

Initially, Mavis had to coquettishly persuade Lincoln for a long time before he agreed to place the tablet by the bed.

Last night, Mavis acted cute again for the entire day and convinced Lincoln to upgrade the headband and install more angle cameras in the living room and laboratory.

As for the bedroom, Lincoln didn’t want to wear the headband to sleep anyway, so he refused.

And in the bathroom, as soon as Mavis said seriously, “Mavis can help Master scrub!”, Lincoln immediately refused and said it was never going to happen.

Not giving up, Mavis continued to persuade, “Then Mavis can let someone else scrub for the master! How about the beautiful girls at the Huayin Bubble Bath Shop? Master, please consider it?”

Lincoln refused again, “NO! I won’t consider it! The headband isn’t even waterproof… ugh! Regardless of whether it’s waterproof or not, it’s not happening!”

…

After a busy Sunday, they could at least have a real breakfast together now.

This wasn’t just a simple virtual image; in the virtual room that was built 1:1 with his real house, Mavis was also sitting beside Lincoln’s position, excitedly waving her spoon, talking and eating at the same time.

From time to time, Lincoln could feel Mavis’s thin arms and legs touching him. Each time they touched, Mavis would giggle maliciously, clearly doing it on purpose.

When leaving the house, Lincoln casually put on a pair of shoes and was about to leave when Mavis suddenly stopped him, “Wait for Mavis!”

Looking back, Mavis was earnestly picking out shoes from the shoe rack.

On the originally empty shoe rack, several little girl’s powder-colored small shoes had appeared – clearly, this was an image from the virtual house, where Mavis must have hoarded many beautiful clothes and shoes.

Lincoln thought for a moment, went back, and began cleaning up the scattered shoes on the floor. He gathered his few pairs of shoes on one side of the shoe rack, making room for Mavis.

Mavis laughed happily again.

However, Lincoln couldn’t help but think, “Isn’t this also an application direction for AR technology? A device for long-distance relationships? Co-living from afar?”

Adding the true sensory transmission feature, this…

Many 18+ application scenarios for long-distance couples quickly popped up in his mind.

Lincoln quickly shook his head, casting the messy thoughts aside.

After tidying up the shoe rack, Mavis changed her shoes and obediently held Lincoln’s hand as they left the house.

On the way to the company, Lincoln picked up a call from Henry.

On the phone, Henry asked him helplessly, “Have you really been researching the exoskeleton?”

Lincoln instinctively replied, “Yes, of course! What’s up?”

“You said half a month before, didn’t you? It’s been more than half a month now…”

“Huh?” Lincoln thought for a moment and realized that it was indeed more than half a month. But he wasn’t nervous at all, “I’ve done it, really. Tomorrow when I get off work, you guys can come and pick it up.”

“Really?” Henry couldn’t believe it. Lincoln had been making games, working on the airship, and practicing boxing all this time. He hardly spent any time in the laboratory!

“Really!” Lincoln was full of confidence.

Aside from making the exoskeleton jump several meters, which was absurd, the rest wasn’t difficult for him. He just needed to modify the one stored in the warehouse, and hand it over to Henry, putting in some hard work in the evening.

…

…

As per usual, a summary meeting was held on Monday since “My World” was released last Friday.

“My World” sold 11 million copies on the first day. Compared to traditional games, it’s indeed an outrageous number, but given Cloud Dream’s current user base of more than 200 million, it’s not exaggerated, and it couldn’t be called very impressive.

Little Chun was initially somewhat worried.

But the sales figures of 6 million on Saturday and 7 million on Sunday eased her mind.

Moreover, she breathed a sigh of relief when she found out that the promotion of “Battlefield” did not impact the sales of “My World.”

“The sales curve of ‘My World’ is very healthy, with strong momentum. Considering the stimulating effect of the planned launch of ‘Terraria’ mod, the long-term sales performance of ‘My World’ is very promising.”

“Thank you for your hard work.” Lincoln led the applause for the entire development team of Little Chun.

In total, the three-day sales of 24 million copies and $4.8 billion in revenue, with the potential for four to five times more income in the future, was worth celebrating.

“The bonus will follow the usual rules, ensuring that everyone’s efforts are rewarded. But the vacation will have to be postponed, as the ‘Terraria’ and ‘Witch’ mods still need your hard work for a while.”

Little Chun shook her head: “It’s not difficult at all.”

They always left work on time, and apart from the day of launch, they never had to work overtime. What kind of hardship was this?

Just normal work.

Not to mention the generous bonuses.

Recently, Randall had even discussed with her the idea of increasing the medical team’s staff by tenfold, and even planned to establish a medical research institute dedicated to studying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

This disease has a low prevalence rate, a narrow target audience, requires enormous R&D costs, and offers a low return on investment, so few people are willing to invest in it.

They were no different back then, not daring to think of such a thing due to their financial situation.

Randall saved money initially for a long-term private doctor, and as Little Chun would have to be bedridden in the long run, he needed to save enough money for their future.

Coming to Cloud Dream, their initial goal was to make life a little happier for Little Chun once she was bedridden.

Nobody ever thought that in less than half a year in Cloud Dream, their net worth would skyrocket, and now they were even able to invest by themselves.

The previous unattainable investments worth billions were now seemingly within reach!

Of course, having the money for R&D doesn’t guarantee success, and Little Chun is prepared for this on some level.

However, even so, her resolution not to get married is crumbling, and she has recently been having dreams:

In her dreams, she is always wearing a pure white wedding dress, walking down a path paved with flowers, and Randall is always standing at the end of the path, smiling at her.

Little Chun shook her head slightly, gathered her scattered thoughts and continued her report:

“On the ‘RANK-Public Player Rating Chart,’ ‘My World’ has increased its score to 8.5 and is still slowly rising. Player word-of-mouth has fully turned around, and it can be expected that this will further drive game sales.”

“In the Public World, the chaotic situation has begun to reverse dramatically. A large number of players are no longer engaging in destructive actions.”

“According to a rough tracking estimate, about 30% of the players have greatly reduced their online time and may have already given up on staying in the game; 50% have turned into non-combat players and started exploring and building; and the remaining 20% have gathered in purely combat-oriented worlds like World No.22 for more intense high-stakes confrontations.”

At this point, Little Chun couldn’t help but interject: “World No.22 has started using TNT blocks in large quantities. Almost everyone has a bunch in their inventory and uses them recklessly. The terrain of the surface world has changed significantly due to the explosions! Fixed spawn points nearby have all been blown into deep pits, surrounded by traps, and there are people constantly camping and ambushing…”

“Under the current circumstances, new players can hardly survive. Should we intervene?”

“No.” Lincoln decisively refused, “Leave them be, let them get tangled up.”

Not only did Lincoln not stop them, but he also wanted to experience it himself…

*

While Cloud Dream was having a meeting, NetDragon was also holding a conference.

Before the meeting began, Gary sensed something different: Boss Richard, with a confident and excited look on his face, was a far cry from the sullen and stern demeanor of the past.

As soon as the meeting began, he immediately understood the reason for the boss’s change:

“Everyone! I have some exciting news for you all! Last night, our research team broke through a technological barrier and successfully developed our own virtual reality technology!”

“Starting today, we will be on par with Cloud Dream in terms of technology, and no longer be behind them in any way!”

“Now, all we need is one game to get NetDragon back on top!”

The meeting room was suddenly silent, and everyone was shocked by this sudden news, with their minds going blank!

After announcing this heavyweight news, Richard didn’t stop. He immediately turned to Jason:

“Jason! Starting now, you’ll be NetDragon’s chief designer for virtual reality game development! You’ll oversee all aspects of game development!”

“Don’t refuse! You deserve this!”

“Everyone! Now is our time to strike back!”