Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 349: 344: Preparing a Big Bed in Advance

When Kyoto was founded, its name was Heian-kyo.

At that time, it was the peak of sending envoys to China, so the city layout was largely based on Chang’an and Luoyang.

Now, centuries have passed, the capital has moved, but Heian-kyo has retained the name of Kyoto and a rich cultural heritage.

With the influence of the suzerain country, Daxia, some places may give the illusion of being in Daxia when taken a cursory look.

In an old house in Shimogyo ward, Nishino Chizuru typed her last line: “Trash! Go commit Seppuku!”

Then, feeling dissatisfied, she threw away her domestically-produced smart phone bought last year and lay down on the tatami mat.

Although, under the support of Daxia, the suzerain country, surrounding vassal countries are also developing their smart industries, none of the consumers are easy to deceive.

Compared to the minor price advantage, consumers would rather pay more for better products.

Chizuru is like this, she buys locally-made products where compromise is acceptable, but when it comes to important electronic devices, she basically only buys products from Daxia.

She looked at the first-generation Mirage Console on the table and sighed helplessly.

This was bought through her college roommate when studying abroad, and it caused her wallet to bleed heavily.

But after getting it, she discovered that the delay made her very uncomfortable.

She tried to play with the delay, and it was fine for a short time, but as time went on, the feeling of being “out of sync with the rest of the world” made her feel very uncomfortable.

Moreover, the faster the movement, the stronger the feeling of disjointedness.

It even left her feeling a little dizzy when she logged off.

This caused her to put down the console after playing for a short while. Now it sits on her table as an expensive decoration.

But today, after seeing the information about “Speed Chase”, she once again became eager.

Nishino Chizuru! She also wants to take a bubble bath with beautiful girls!

As she reminisced about her high school days when bathing and playing with beautiful girls was a daily routine.

But now, after returning from studying abroad, times have changed, and she becomes more introverted; it seems that the past intimate relationships have gone and won’t return.

Nishino Chizuru! She misses them so much!

Anger rising, she sat up abruptly, put on the headband, and started!

After logging into the empty virtual house, she calmed down as she looked at the few login options in front of her.

She was not a closed beta test player, so she wants to go to Night City now?

Dream on!

“Ah!” Nishino Chizuru’s cute doll face displayed a frustrated expression, “A bunch of useless iron!”

Sighing, she looked at the empty house that had been left undecorated due to high latency, and couldn’t help but say: “If it wasn’t for this latency…”

But before she could finish, she suddenly realized something was off.

She stood up and walked around the house, even jogging quickly.

After a moment, she stopped, her face full of surprise.

The previously troublesome high-latency seemed to have decreased significantly!

Excited, she quickly logged into several different games to check how it would affect her gameplay now.

“Traveler of the Wind,” “Assassins’ Alliance,” “Light Encounter,” “Paradise”…

Nishino Chizuru tried out several games.

She quickly discovered: the latency still existed, and it varied in impact depending on the gameplay.

During “Traveler of the Wind” and “Light Encounter”, walking normally had almost no effect.

But when the speed of spatial change was fast, especially during quick flying, it became unplayable.

She had played “Assassins’ Alliance” before, but now when she played it again, she found that normal play was completely unaffected.

Only one thing: Don’t activate the [Assassin’s Bloodline]!

Otherwise, the effects of sensory acceleration and time slowdown were unbearable.

In the end, the best and most suitable game turned out to be “Paradise”!

Of course, there were restrictions; she couldn’t go on too intense or high-speed rides, and couldn’t enter the speed gate during the [Candy Track] race.

In short, maintaining a fairly constant speed and not going too fast minimized the impact of latency, at least not affecting the gameplay too much.

This already made Nishino Chizuru very happy!

However, before she started playing, she had to do one more thing: post on the forum!

In Izumo now, Mirage consoles are no longer as rare as they were during the initial month.

As Cloud Dream’s output continues to grow, many people with friends or relatives in Daxia can ask for help and buy a Mirage console, which is no longer that difficult.

At most, it’s because those friends or relatives also want to buy the console, the quota is already used up, and they can only ask for help from another person who doesn’t need to buy the console, giving them some money to help.

As a result, there’s already a virtual reality gaming community forming in Izumo and Baekje.

Although the community is still small, by comparing it to the initial month, it’s already quite considerable.

However, even in such a small circle, only a few people play games on their consoles because of the unsolvable latency issue.

But now, for Izumo’s players, the situation seems to be finally improving!

“Latency issue partially solved! Log in quickly!”

After posting, Nishino Chizuru didn’t care about other people’s opinions but started to “decorate” her virtual house.

Her idea was simple

“Light Encounter” has a dog, so the virtual house with a “Light Encounter” theme would have a dog.

So, if “Speed Chase” has beautiful girls, wouldn’t a “Speed Chase” themed virtual house have a beautiful girl to warm up the bed?

Well, it seems unlikely.

But

What if!

She would have to prepare a beautiful bedroom and a big bed in advance, right?!

Nishino Chizuru’s motivation was full!

In the afternoon, the number of Izumo players suddenly increased, which naturally caught Mavis’s attention.

So naturally, Lincoln also realized this.

But after a brief shock, he temporarily put the matter to the back of his mind.

Now there was a more pressing issue for him to decide on: A game company from Annan had come to seek cooperation.

Not via email, not via phone, but the company’s boss and senior management personally flew to Daxia and found the original office of Dream Cloud Studio.

That place had now become a branch of Cloud Dream.

This matter was quite bizarre.

Not to mention anything else, just the first point: Is there any game company in Annan?

Well, there is one.

NaviGame is almost a monopoly in Annan.

In Annan, the company might have even stronger dominance than Cloud Dream in Daxia.

But this is not because they are too strong, but because their opponents are too weak.

Lincoln wasn’t even sure if they had any opponents.

He couldn’t help it; his understanding of that land was really limited!

But one thing he was very clear about: this company didn’t develop games on its own; it only represented other companies’ games.

What’s bothering him now is that the company’s founder has come, and although the company’s strength is far from that of Cloud Dream, he feels it would be a bit impolite not to meet them.

But the problem is – today is the weekend!

Cloud Dream is off work!

He practiced boxing all morning, his muscles ached, and he was exhausted; now he just wanted to lie on the sofa and stare blankly.

Lincoln thought about it and suddenly had a great idea: Why not arrange a two-day tour of Xiajing City for them?

When Cloud Dream goes back to work on Monday, they could talk about business.

Just as he was about to call Jerome and ask him to arrange for someone to go on the tour, Jerome called first.

“Boss, Luzon Entertainment Co., Ltd. has also come over and wants to discuss cooperation with us.”

“Ah? Luzon? There’s a game company in their area too?”

Through the phone, Lincoln heard Jerome sigh helplessly: “Yes! Boss.”

“Alright, I was just about to call you anyway. I plan to send a few people from Annan to Xiajing to have some fun, and since Luzon has also come, let’s arrange it all together. Find a reliable tour guide, and the company will cover the expenses.”

“Ah? Why?”

“Because we’re on vacation! We’re against overtime in principle; we don’t want to encourage bad habits.”

Jerome fell silent but eventually sighed and said, “Alright.”

What else can you do with a boss like this?

If you have any sense, you have to stand up for it!

Lincoln hung up the phone and lay down in the game cabin, logging into the virtual world.

After all, if he was going to rest, it was better to come to the virtual world and be with Mavis.

However, just as he sat down on the small sofa, he heard the sound of a mobile phone ringing.

Mavis magically pulled his phone out of his pocket, glanced at it, and handed it to him, “It’s Jerome again!”

Lincoln had a bad feeling about this.

“Hello, what’s up? Does anyone not like the tour?”

“No, boss, it’s that there are other national game companies coming.”

Lincoln furrowed his brow, “So they’re coming in a group? Which country’s?”

“Siam, Laos, Johor, Zhenla.”

Lincoln’s head ached as he listened.

Many of these names should have been eliminated and replaced, and they shouldn’t have appeared in the same era. Yet they all appeared in the 21st century, right in front of him.

This gave him a very strong sense of magic realism.

“So, these people really came in a group, huh?”

“Yes, the four companies that came this time are indeed together.”

“Every country has a game company?” Lincoln confirmed again.

“They all do.”

“But we can’t collaborate with all of them!” Lincoln was speechless, “How many players do they have all together in all of their countries?”

In Lincoln’s concept, the internet development in these countries was not advanced, and the infrastructure was only built with the support of Daxia. There must be very few players.

So, just give them a tour group, right?

But unexpectedly, Jerome answered without hesitation, “A lot!”

“In several countries, although they don’t have much game development capability and mostly rely on representation, their national players are very enthusiastic. Although they don’t have the strength to keep up with the wave of VR games, their PC and console games, in terms of total quantity, willingness to pay, and payment ability, are growing at an astonishing rate!”

True to his professional elite status, Jerome immediately began to describe the game market overview of the countries where these companies seeking cooperation were located.

Meanwhile, Lincoln’s considerate little assistant Mavis very unobtrusively showed him a piece of content:

「Southeast Asia – The Land of Honey」

Lincoln quickly skimmed it and got the gist:

It was still Daxia’s support for the domestic tertiary industry that caught his attention, and he had only noticed the astonishing upgrade and iteration speed of the domestic game industry.

But he never considered that with such an amazing speed of development and iteration, where would all the eliminated consoles, equipment, and even factory assembly lines go in the end?

He originally thought they were going to a waste recycling station.

But after reading this report, he learned that they all flowed to Daxia’s various subsidiaries, especially the slightly backward equipment in Southeast Asian countries!

Jerome’s introduction continued: “In many countries, the number of game players even exceeds 20% to 50% of the Internet population! The market is very considerable.”

“I got it.” Hearing this, Lincoln immediately overcame his laziness and changed his mind: “Invite them to a dinner, then bring them to the Experience Store.”

Although these countries are small in scale now, considering the astonishing growth rate, it feels like they could gather one or two hundred million players with some time!

One or two hundred million virtual world users!

If you had told me this earlier, I wouldn’t be so tired!