To ascend, I had no choice but to create games

“Oh, there weren’t.” Fang Cheng replied. “No problem, I’ll add them now… Done.”

After adding them, Fang Cheng was ready to continue discussing the magical weapons in the game when he noticed Huang Ping staring at him in astonishment.

A moment later, Huang Ping asked in confusion, “Boss, what do you mean by ‘add it just like that’?”

“It’s nothing really; it’s my own game, I’ll add what I want. Oh, I never mentioned it before because I didn’t feel it was necessary: ‘Living Immortal’ is also me.”

Covering his head, Huang Ping felt his brain buzzing, and it took him a long while to come to terms with a fact he wasn’t particularly prepared to accept.

The two game creators he admired had suddenly merged into one.

He didn’t doubt that Fang Cheng was lying because there was no need to lie about such a thing.

And boss…

Do you secretly work overtime every day?

It took him a long time to accept this fact. When he turned his head to look at Xiao Douzi, he found that she wasn’t surprised at all, and was even getting ready to restart the game.

“Aren’t you shocked?” Huang Ping asked in a low voice, “The boss is that ‘Living Immortal’.”

“I knew it a long time ago,” Xiao Douzi replied. “The boss’s style is so obvious, I realized it after comparing a few games. I was a bit excited when I found out, but after that, it didn’t matter much to me.”

“The subjects are completely different. You could tell that?”

“Game tags are always a mess.”

“That’s true…”

After thinking about it for a while, Huang Ping found that Xiao Douzi was right.

But then, he asked in confusion, “Then…why?”

“Some game creators do that, too. I know there are a few who had no money and then became adult game creators. Because it’s too shameful, they use pseudonyms. The use of aliases is very common.”

“I know about that, but why did the boss do it?”

“To validate his own ideas, I guess. Some ideas are not convenient to test under his own name, like ‘Spreading Traditional Culture Starting from Me.’ Such a terrifying game doesn’t look like something the boss could make; it’s better to experiment under an alias.”

Huang Ping could more or less understand the reasoning behind it, but still found it hard to believe.

Yet, once he got it, it didn’t bother him anymore.

What the boss wanted to do in his own time was his business. There was no need for him to report everything to his employees.

And no one said that a studio’s boss can’t publish games privately, anyway.

After making sense of it all, Huang Ping decisively restarted ‘Dark Builder’ and, brandishing his magical weapon, asked, “Boss, which magical weapon should I use?”

“None are of much value. Just stick with Xiao Douzi for co-op play.”

“…Alright.”

Afterward, a new question suddenly occurred to Huang Ping, and he asked, “Boss, I won’t inquire into your decision to secretly create games using an alias, but Tianyi is clearly copying your games. Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

Upon hearing this, Xu Qingling had the enthusiasm of a Husky, ready to be unleashed.

At a single command from Fang Cheng, she would morph into a legal advocate and drag Tianyi through every court she could.

Even if they lost the case, it wouldn’t matter; they could just find new reasons to sue them all over again.

But Fang Cheng just shook his head: “It doesn’t matter. Let them continue.”

Xu Qingling sadly bowed her head.

Fang Cheng’s calm demeanor completely put Huang Ping at ease.

For some reason, Fang Cheng’s words always had a special magic that made people feel particularly reassured.

The next day, ‘Dark Guardian’ officially broke through five million downloads across all platforms.

Free to download and with its light pay-for-play setting, this game earned a great reputation.

Nowadays, big company games were all about gacha, MOBAs, and battle royale, a homogenized product range that had left players utterly exhausted, yet the inertia of gaming compelled them to keep playing.

Games from Fang Cheng Studio were all very good, but compared to the vast demand of users, their output was just too little.

And now, with the finely crafted ‘Dark Guardian’ arriving on the scene, those gamers had finally found a worthwhile game to invest their time in.

Under Tianyi’s overwhelming promotion, “Dark Guardian” quickly dominated the sales charts, and the substantial returns allowed KongKong, who had been closely monitoring the data, to breathe a sigh of relief and put the development of subsequent versions on the schedule.

According to his past experience, games with numbers like “Dark Guardian” could be considered S-grade masterpieces in the mobile gaming world, and distribution channels would be eager to promote such a game, turning it into a golden goose.

The upward trend in profits continued for three days.

But on the fourth day, revenue suddenly halved, with the rising trend sharply interrupted, yet KongKong saw no problems with the data.

On the fourth day, profits rebounded by thirty percent, softening the blow slightly for KongKong, but on the fifth day, they were halved again.

He immediately had the operations team pull all the data, and KongKong scrutinized it carefully, but found no issues.

He had the operations team quickly conduct a user survey, only to be shocked to discover that the data had plummeted for two more consecutive days before entering a slower downward trend.

Although it was no longer as frightening as the halving trend, the daily decline was torture in its own right.

Especially for KongKong, who was sure he hadn’t done anything wrong, the invisible torment was all the more painful.

Finally, the user survey done by the operations team arrived.

Eager to see the results, KongKong saw that the operations group had distributed thousands of survey questionnaires.

Furthermore, the operations team had compiled information about the users, including their age, gender, whether they made in-game purchases, and whether they were still playing “Dark Guardian,” culminating in an objective and detailed report.

The overall rating of the game could reach 86 points. Although it was from an initial test, the game’s quality was stunning, and it truly deserved the 86 points.

When asked about the game’s shortcomings, minor pay-to-win elements were the biggest flaw, followed by an abundance of cultivation elements, giving it the feel of a PC RPG. But apart from that, the game was fine.

All things considered, “Dark Guardian” had almost achieved the best results possible, yet it still had an extremely high player churn rate, which was quite incomprehensible.

A significant number of players were leaving even after making in-game purchases; logically, these players should be the most inclined to stay, but they were departing without looking back.

As KongKong looked at the survey results, he felt lost.

He couldn’t understand how he had done everything to perfection, yet the outcome was so absurd.

Where exactly had he gone wrong?

As KongKong wallowed in confusion, the operations director sent over another survey.

“We’ve conducted a survey with the competing game ‘Dark Builder’ as the focus. I think you might need this.”

Staring at the document, KongKong was afraid to read it.

He didn’t know why, but he had the feeling that the document contained something that could shatter his Taoist Heart, even make him fear creating games again.

But he also knew that if he didn’t look, he would never get past this obstacle.

This survey also integrated feedback from about a thousand players who had tried “Dark Builder.”

Right from the start, he saw that this game’s score was only 72 points, which could only be considered good.

The players had a lot more complaints about this game.

“I don’t really like the pixel art style; it doesn’t look as comfortable as 3D.”

“There’s no background music, only ambient sounds, which are particularly scary.”

“No tutorial for beginners, thumbs down. Not enough cultivation elements, can’t spend money, thumbs down.”

“Dying in the dark tide without an option to watch an ad to resurrect, thumbs down.”

“They don’t provide a guidebook for magical weapons, can’t understand how to combine them at all.”

One was overwhelmingly praised, the other overwhelmingly criticized, but KongKong had long known that players are creatures who lie.

They can fool anyone, but not their own hearts.

These people had all played “Dark Guardian” for a while before decisively switching to “Dark Builder,” and their complaints seemed less like grievances and more like advice.

“Kid, you didn’t do well here; do better next time.”

A high or low rating does not reflect the real playability of a game; after all, people are easily attracted by first impressions, but what truly keeps them around is its playability.

Having finished reading the report, KongKong felt his Taoist Heart had shattered.

He knew why he couldn’t produce good games at the moment.

He had grown old.