Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch - Chapter 440

Chapter 440: Chapter 423: The situation is looking great!

Translator: 549690339

After Lincoln and Xiaomeng left, the cave entrance behind them suddenly became lively.

Players continuously passed through the long cave and rushed to the cliff.

Apart from the narrow path at the beginning of the cave, where they couldn’t go too fast, everyone almost sprinted all the way.

Even Yelang, who didn’t participate in the group’s “Blocking Yi Action,” couldn’t wait to leave Night City and head straight to the cliff after learning about the appearance of the dinosaurs.

Streamers arrived slightly later than Yelang, and their actions quickly attracted their fans…

The appearance of “Dinosaur Island” stirred up a player craze at an astonishing speed!

Countless people flocked to the scene.

They couldn’t wait to see these ancient creatures.

In no time, this originally spacious natural viewing platform was packed with players.

Thus, on the wilderness map, a rare dynamic load balancing mechanism was triggered, and players who later came out of the cave were automatically diverted to a new viewing platform.

When Yelang arrived, he even had a few light blue children’s telescopes hanging on his chest, which he had bought while passing through the amusement park.

Although the design and color were cute, their performance did not suffer at all.

Yelang walked to the side of the lost-in-thought Yi and handed him a pink telescope, then raised his own blue telescope to look at the island.

Those large herbivorous dinosaurs that Yi had seen earlier seemed to have huge appetites, as they were still slowly munching on leaves.

Through the telescope, Yelang saw even more details: their majestically broad chests, long necks, and heads that seemed a bit foolish compared to their massive bodies…

At the edge of the forest, several unfamiliar dinosaurs ran freely.

It was just a pity that they couldn’t see any Pterosaurs, which could fly.

“Ahhhhhhhhh Damn it!!!”

While Yi and Yelang were searching for more dinosaurs, a sudden scream interrupted them.

When they looked around, they saw a group friend being thrown off the cliff.

He was screaming as he fell.

“Thud!”

He landed.

The scream stopped.

However, everyone was disappointed to see him turn into light and disappear.

Although they expected it, they were still a little disappointed.

“Can we go around this mountain?”

“Not likely. Somebody on the forum drew a map of the wilderness, and there’s no coast at all.”

“So is this… an instance? Or an Easter egg?”

“It’s hard to say. It could be an update?”

“It’s impossible. ‘Paradise’ is free, so a small update would be generous, but an update this big, with an island and dinosaurs, would be just crazy, right? Aren’t they burning money?”

“Even though you’re making sense, Lincoln is free-spirited… who knows how his mind works?”

“Well, that’s true…”

Everyone discussed it in various ways, but the topic digressed after a few exchanges.

Yi tried to steer the conversation back: “I haven’t played ‘Paradise’ much, and there are many things I’m not clear on. But I saw a hot air balloon when I came over, can we use that to fly over?”

“No!” A player immediately replied, “I’ve been on it, and the hot air balloon has a fixed route. It doesn’t pass here, and there’s no sea at all – just continuous mountains.”

“It might not be impossible!” Another player immediately contradicted: “The fixed route is due to the amusement park staff controlling the hot air balloon. We can just throw the staff out of the basket, and anything could be possible!”

After saying that, he immediately started recruiting teammates: “Does anyone know how to control a hot air balloon? Let’s try it together!”

Unfortunately, no one at the scene possessed that rare skill.

He could only open his panel and go online to look for people.

Hu recalled the rumor about “seeing dragons” and started searching for the original post, hoping to find another path.

Yi’s idea was: could they use a lot of clothing combined with tree branches from the forest to make a simple parachute to fly across from here?

It wasn’t just the Bathroom Group and the Hunting Group.

Countless players, both before and after, arrived here.

After experiencing the excitement of seeing Dinosaur Island and the frustration of having no way to enter, only able to look from afar, they also started racking their brains to come up with ways to use limited conditions to reach Dinosaur Island.

But even if they couldn’t reach the island and could only view it from a distance, a torrent of players continued to flock here, and a sightseeing trend had already formed.

The next morning.

The number of players who had come to “Paradise” to observe Dinosaur Island from a distance had exceeded 5 million.

However, there were still no players who had successfully landed on the island.

This allowed Lincoln to let out a small sigh of relief.

He could have used an air wall to block players from entering the island, but he didn’t. He wanted to use some more complicated methods to compete with the players in a battle of wits.

This process made him very happy.

After finishing a set of punches, Lincoln didn’t go to the company. Instead, he logged into the virtual world and began working at home.

Yesterday, after finishing his call with Zhou Jingzheng, he ordered various materials for making an old-fashioned engine and transmission structure, along with auxiliary devices and components, which would be delivered this afternoon.

To make it easier to pick up goods, he simply worked from home.

Meanwhile, NetDragon was being relentlessly ridiculed by netizens.

The reason was simple—Cloud Dream, Flying Fox, and Wild Island officially announced their collaboration.

Originally, netizens were still paying attention to Jerome’s activities, wanting to see if he would go to NetDragon early in the morning and run through all three major VR gaming companies.

Even some idle netizens had gone specifically to the outside of NetDragon’s office, waiting to see if Jerome would come.

However, netizens did not see Jerome’s post. Instead, they saw Cloud Dream’s announcement—

“We are honored to announce some good news to you all:

Cloud Dream has now officially teamed up with two familiar old friends: Flying Fox and Wild Island.

From now on, players with VR equipment and Mirage consoles will be able to enjoy their favorite VR games in the virtual world.

Physical strength will no longer be a limitation for gamers.

Of course, having a strong and healthy body is a lifelong treasure, so we still recommend players who can use VR equipment to continue doing so when gaming.

At the same time, Flying Fox’s new game “The Last Moment” will be available to play in the virtual world starting on November 15th, its first release date.

We wish everyone a happy gaming experience!”

Upon seeing this announcement, players had mixed feelings, and the comment section buzzed with discussions:

“I knew they were going to collaborate when I saw Cloud Dream visit the other two companies yesterday. Only the games they have on hand are worth collaborating with Cloud Dream.”

“This is disappointing! I thought I could play VR games directly with [Mirage], but I still have to buy VR equipment?”

“Who still plays VR games in the era of virtual reality? Isn’t it redundant?”

“No matter what, it’s a good thing. It makes things more convenient for some people, and it gives VR gaming companies a chance to catch their breath. Otherwise, the entire industry would collapse, causing truly terrifying damage.”

“Terrifying my ass! The scale of Cloud Dream making Mirage has supported so many upstream companies. These companies have earned at least three years’ worth of profits in just a few months!”

“Am I the only one disappointed? I thought Flying Fox and Wild Island would be making virtual reality games in the future!”

Players with different opinions on the matter joined the debate.

But one thing is certain: they all mocked NetDragon.

“Excluding VR nationality,” “Thirty years on each side of the river,” “Mom, he started it first!”

Such mockery even appeared constantly on NetDragon’s comment section.

In NetDragon’s meeting room.

Looking at the popularity of the collaboration between Cloud Dream, Flying Fox, and Wild Island, Gary felt a headache.

However, Jason insisted on starting public relations despite the unfavorable situation. Even if he wasn’t confident, he still wanted to give it a shot.

If he didn’t try his best, he wouldn’t be satisfied.

The participating executives seemed to have become mute, with no one willing to speak up.

In the end, Boss David put down the materials in his hand and made a final decision: “Abandon the Daxia market for the base game of “Blaze 3” and its DLC “Red Flame,” and invest all the promotion funds in the European and American markets.”

According to the data available, “Blaze 3” showed a noticeable rebound in Europe and America.

Furthermore, there were no blockbuster games in the overseas market recently, so it was an excellent opportunity to make a comeback!

He even had the mood to praise and reward Jason: “Well done! You’ve been instrumental in helping the company come out of this slump!”

Jason, however, was weighed down with worries.

In his heart, he didn’t want to give up the Daxia market like this, but he also understood that there was no other way.

With this reluctance, the meeting came to an end.

David, sitting alone in his office, didn’t feel discouraged by this temporary retreat. In fact, he was in a good mood.

This was not only because of the increased cash flow from overseas, which meant that NetDragon could go on for longer and gain more room to turn things around.

It was also because Wesley had reported to him that researchers found that as they cracked more content, the cracking speed increased!

Although the speed increase was not significant at present, it could be predicted that as more content gets cracked, the speed would accelerate.

The time to fully crack the technology would definitely be significantly shortened!

More cash flow, more time, coupled together, even if it couldn’t be said to be a bright situation, it was a hopeful sign of East Mountain rising again!

How could he not be in a good mood?

With this confidence, current difficulties were merely a temporary test.

The ridicule on the Internet was nothing more than background noise.

The current retreat was only a short-term accumulation of strength.

Just like a clenched fist, it had to be deliberately pulled back in order to launch a more powerful counterattack in the future!

Jason’s contribution was not just about saving “Blaze 3” and helping NetDragon generate more cash flow.

Once NetDragon mastered its virtual reality technology, it would have to produce its virtual reality games to compete directly with Cloud Dream.

Jason had already proven his capabilities in game development, making him a strong contender to become NetDragon’s chief producer in the game development field in the future!

In David’s view, with a little more grooming, Jason could become his left and right-hand man!

Thinking about these things, David maintained a calm facade, but his heart was full of passion.

All he could see was a bright future ahead!