Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 209 - 209: 207: Swarm In

After being stunned, Camille Victoria immediately praised her, and she believed that Lincoln would not do any sort of shady business.

Looking back at the vast sea, she turned her attention away and quickly walked forward along the path in front of her.

However, for Super Tomato, who also entered the game, it was a bit different. He walked curiously a few steps into the water and found no obstacles.

What should he do then?

Under the watchful eyes of a million viewers in the live broadcast room, he ignored the path in front of him, leaped into the sea, and tried to swim to the edge of the map.

But the thick clothes made everything very difficult, and he soon found that when he was on the ground, it felt the same as in “Wind Journey”. Gravity was weakened, making walking easier.

However, as he entered the water, the feeling of ease vanished instantly, and it was even harder than swimming in reality!

After struggling to swim less than 5 meters, he found that he could not swim anymore.

So he guessed this might be Cloud Dream’s deliberately designed “map boundary” format, just like the main street in “Assassin’s Alliance” that one

could never leave.

Super Tomato turned around and tried to swim back, but found his body getting heavier and heavier. He desperately swam upwards, but his body fell faster.

Then everything went black in front of his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on the little sandy beach where he started.

“What? I drowned? A few meters away from the shore?!” Super Tomato was very speechless.

However, the audience in the live broadcast room burst into laughter.

Super Tomato could only comfort himself: “Anyway, I have nothing on me, so there’s no loss if I drown. Okay, let’s officially set off!”

Not just them, but all the players waiting for Cloud Dream to start “Light Encounter” 20 minutes early rushed into the game.

In Cloud Dream’s Virtual Office, everyone watched the real-time data displayed in the background, silently counting the number of players entering the game.

Some of the more excitable employees unconsciously raised their voices increasingly louder—

“200,000 players entered!” “600,000 players!”

“2.4 million!”

“3-9 million!”

“4.6 million!”

“5 million!”

After the number of simultaneous online players reached 5 million, it finally began to slow down significantly.

But this was already a huge success!

Bear in mind that it was still 2 p.m. on a workday. Many Mirage owners were either in class or at work and couldn’t log in.

Right now, this online number might be all the players interested in the game and who have the time to log in immediately!

Everyone instinctively wanted to cheer, but just as they raised their arms, they heard a loud bang.

“Bang!”

A huge firework sparked out of nowhere, and colorful confetti fluttered down.

Everyone looked at it in amazement, only to see that it was set off by their boss, Lincoln.

Then—

“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”

One after another, huge fireworks kept exploding, and confetti fell like rain all over the space.

All the employees clapped enthusiastically, celebrating and cheering for the women in the office.

Randall looked at Little Chun, clapping especially hard.

Little Chun, the original art girl, intern Camille Zhu, and the other ladies who later joined the team were all very excited. They looked a bit shy while constantly checking the online player data.

They were also incredibly amazed by this achievement.

“Assassins’ Alliance” didn’t have this many players online right after its release!

Of course, rationally they knew that the 500 -dollar price tag of “Assassins’ Alliance” was different from the free “Light Encounter,” and there were not as many Mirage consoles when “Assassins’ Alliance” was released…

But still, it was so exciting!

“Alright, the celebratory posters can be released now,” Lincoln reminded. Since Little Chun’s team started with art girls, they created elaborate celebratory posters for the game they made themselves – something “Assassins’ Alliance” did not receive.

Even when “Assassins’ Alliance” topped global sales, they only posted a bland update.

After all, it was the weekend, and everyone was resting.

“So, should we only post the 5 -million-player celebratory poster, or start from 1 million?” One girl asked.

Little Chun hesitated and looked at Lincoln.

“We’ve already created them, it’d be a shame not to share them all. Post them one by one,” Lincoln said, respecting his employees’ hard work.

Of course, not only players were interested in the launch of “Light Encounter.”

In fact, every time Cloud Dream released a new game, game developers across the industry would pay close attention.

But this time, PC and console game developers were more concerned than VR developers, due to the multi-platform release of “Traveler of the Wind.”

NetDragon’s Flying Dragon series was naturally banned, but Wild Island and Flying Fox’s VR equipment were still compatible.

However, this compatibility was only at the “playable” level; the actual adaptation was barely passable.

The omnidirectional treadmill for VR equipment could not only turn and run horizontally but also had carefully designed traction ropes in the vertical direction to help players perform more challenging moves.

For example, longer floating time after jumping, combined with the game’s visuals, could create effects like skydiving floating and leaping dozens of meters in one go.

Examples include turning, sidestepping, and even somersaulting in mid-air, but these special vertical actions required special optimization in coordination with the game.

Still, these were relatively short-term movements; the omnidirectional treadmill’s design ultimately served ground-based movements.

But “Traveler of the Wind” was a game where players frequently went flying!

PC and console games didn’t care since they were just typing on a keyboard or pressing a controller.

But this wouldn’t work for VR equipment; any flying movements required special optimizations to synchronize and coordinate with the VR equipment.

Lincoln didn’t know the core parameters of Flying Fox and Wild Island’s equipment— they wouldn’t just share them, and he wasn’t interested in researching them.

Even if Lincoln was willing to optimize, they had to consider whether players’ long time and high frequency floating and flying movements would affect the life of the traction ropes.

In the end, they just gave up: they pretended they didn’t know about it.

They ignored players’ comments and just let them be.

As a result, “Light Encounter,” the sister work of “Wind Traveler,” emphasized flight even more in its trailer, and Wild Island and Flying Fox cared even less, directly citing incompatibility with their equipment!

Just take a quick look, and that’s it.

With big companies “taking a glance” and small companies “studying carefully,” “Light Encounter” official Spiritual Rhinoceros account released congratulatory images—

A tiny figure wearing a green cloak, holding a burning candle aloft in both hands, with a beautiful rainbow halo at the edge of the candlelight.

‘”Light Encounter’ reaches 1 million concurrent players!”

“That’s amazing…” a game developer of a small studio sighed, “right after its launch, 1 million online players. When can we make a game with a million sales?”

No sooner had he finished speaking than “Light Encounter’s” official account released another congratulatory image—

A little figure wearing a yellow cloak, carrying a chair on his back, waving to the small figure in the green cloak in the distance.

‘”Light Encounter’ reaches 2 million concurrent players!”

The developer’s mouth slowly opened wide as he saw its image, now it’s 2 million?

No way….