Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

On Thursday afternoon at half past four, under the watchful eyes of the audience, the brand new promotional trailer of the “Assassins’ Alliance” was finally released!

The trailer was simultaneously released on multiple platforms such as the

Cloud Dream Net homepage, the Spiritual Rhinoceros account homepage of Dream Cloud Studio, and Cloud Dream’s official account on the Little Video Station.

Having learnt from their previous experiences, the Spiritual Rhinoceros Operation and Maintenance team had a designated person keeping watch since noon and had prepared in advance for expanding capacity.

With this adequate preparation, even though hundreds of thousands or even millions of players entered this page and started playing the trailer within a very short span of time, only a slight pause was experienced before the video started running smoothly.

The familiar background music slowly resounded, accompanying the narration of a male voice, images appeared one after another, and quickly switched over.

A rather cowardly-looking man walked on the run-down and chaotic streets. Bicycles and trash cans were piled up by the roadside, plastic bags on the street were blown around by the wind, the dilapidated surroundings highlighted the man’s miserable situation.

“My life is meaningless: friends who only want to take advantage, a haughty girlfriend, a fat female boss who squeezes employees mercilessly using a small amount of pitiful authority she has, plus a panic disorder that can barely be controlled by constant medication.”

Laughing friends, disgusted and impatient girlfriend, a fat woman yelling and flying spittle at the camera, the protagonist taking medicine in a frantic scene…

These many scenes appeared one by one in front of the players.

The netizens immediately noticed that this dialogue was exactly the same as in the previous trailer!

Not a single word changed!

But in the previous trailer, from start to finish, the players only saw a loom weaving, leaving everyone baffled about the meanings of these words after watching, shrouded in a fog of confusion.

Now that the scenes are finally out, they clapped their hands over their mouths in excitement, eyes widened, afraid to miss any details.

“Everything is meaningless, I don’t know why I’m alive, why I’m barely surviving.”

The male protagonist, looking worn out, sat in his office cubicle, searching his own name.

The camera switched scenes; the male protagonist, with sagging shoulders, was buying something in a convenience store.

But suddenly! Gunshots sounded violently, a formidable woman appeared by his side, pulled him aside to hide behind the shelves.

She told him, “No! Wesley, you’re wrong! You’re not a nobody, you have extraordinary bloodlines and a lofty mission, it’s just that the time to trigger your destiny hasn’t arrived yet.” The man looked baffled, “What destiny? When?”

The woman handed him a gun, “Now!”

“Boom!” A violent explosion occurred not far from them, shelves collapsed and goods scattered everywhere.

The enemies appeared from all directions, firing and advancing towards them; the intense gunfire sounded incessantly.

In the next moment, the camera switched angles; the woman pulled the man to get in a fiery red Ferrari and launched a life and death speed race with a large number of pursuers amidst heavy gunfire and the roar of the engine.

The protagonist and a strange man were thrashing each other with punches and kicks, swords clashing.

Cries of pain, roars of anger, piercing, sharp noises matched each one of them.

The music became more stirring and impassioned.

“Every mission has a perfect weapon.” An old black gentleman with a meticulously dressed appearance stood on the second-floor balcony, looking down at the protagonist below.

“Coward! Why are you here!” A rough-looking man who was cursing, pounded his fist hard on the protagonist’s face.

“Trust the gun in your hand, shoot!” The woman stood in front of a large chunk of pork, letting the protagonist shoot her with the gun.

“Rats, a thousand…” A man lying in a Sunken square water pit, vomiting blood unceasingly, already on his deathbed, struggling to deliver his last words to the camera.

“You killed my father!” The protagonist, suspended in mid-air but still holding the gun tightly in hand, aimed the muzzle at the enemy, the cry of rage was hysterical!

“We are destined by divine decree!” Standing beside the massive Destiny weaver, the old black man spoke with a stern expression.

At this point, the players were completely stirred up and clenched their fists in excitement, unable to contain themselves.

But at the same time, they were very curious: In the previous trailer, the upcoming scene was a train going over a cliff. But since the original trailer already had that scene, how would they handle it this time?

As the players eagerly waited, the camera finally switched scenes.

A figure burst through a window. A brief full view shot revealed the protagonist that had entered through the shattered window, the cluttered looms in the lobby, and the countless enemies growling with guns in their hands.

The next moment, the music shifted, and the rapid beats of drums sounded. The protagonist fired his dual guns, charging towards the enemy.

During his swift sprint, he fired rapidly while on the move, accurately killing enemies close at hand. At the same time, he discarded the gun that had run out of bullets, snatched the weapon from the enemy’s hands, and continued his violent assault!

A hallway teeming with enemies was cleared by him in just over 10 seconds!

There was not a single second of pause in the middle—smooth and awesome, powerfully overwhelming!

This was captured by Lincoln himself, after two dress rehearsals and four actual attempts to deliver this perfect version!

Finally, the screen faded to black, and the large text appeared— “Assassins’ Alliance

August 24th, 8:00 AM

Official Launch!”

The latter half of the promotional material was so intense that the players didn’t even dare to breathe.

Only when the few minutes of video were completely over could they finally relax. Like prairie dogs, they couldn’t help but squeal with unrestrained excitement.

The streamers who were watching the promotion live were endlessly shouting in surprise, practically jumping in their seats from sheer excitement.

Many of them had watched the previously released trailer countless times, so much that they had memorized the lines. They could recite it smoothly from memory!

Now, seeing the contexstual scenes corresponding to each line in the promotional video was like solving a long-standing puzzle. It was as if the fog had been lifted, bringing about an exhilarating sense of sudden enlightenment.

Plus, the visuals were so thrilling and the climax so breathtakingly compelling —seeing the protagonist kill left and right and charging through the enemy lines, no streamer could keep their calm after watching!

“I want to watch it again!” This was the sentence most frequently repeated by players after the first viewing.

The viewing count of the promotional video visibly soared with colossal momentum!

It was then that Yi finally noticed a strange trend: Surely not everyone in the live broadcast room was there to tease him? Wasn’t there anyone who was telling the truth?

He hurriedly opened the website, went to Cloud Dream’s homepage, and indeed found the latest promotional video.

Opening the page, he noticed it already had nearly a million views. He realized that he had been kept in the dark for quite a while.

He reflexively complained in the comments: “Why didn’t you guys tell me earlier?”

After being showered with a sea of question marks, he quickly regained his senses: Oh, these people had been trying to tell him from the beginning.

But an always competitive Yi would naturally not accept defeat: “It’s all your fault for teasing me all this time! How could I not believe you otherwise, so it’s all your fault.”

Unfortunately, his attempt to deflect blame was only met with a swarm of new comments saying: “Ah yes, yes, yes.”

Yi pretended he didn’t see them and began to watch the promotional video with eyes wide open.

The celebration of players was shared by the game media.

They shared the promotional video immediately, and then analyzed every single frame of the video in detail, hoping to get a share of the substantial traffic.

Even the media outlets that had been blacklisted by Cloud Dream couldn’t resist the lure of this traffic surge.

Even if they weren’t allowed to directly share Cloud Dream’s Spiritual Rhinoceros post, they could use alternate accounts to repost it, then use their official accounts to re-share that repost.

No matter what, they had to get this video onto their account homepage!

As for whether they felt ashamed for trying to share content from a company that had publically blacklisted them?

Well, the allure of money was far more important than their pride!

Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to let pride get in the way of making money?