Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

374 Chapter 364: Battle for Multinational Speedrun!

Nick really felt terrible, but there was nothing he could do to his older sister.

Being realistic, with his small streamer income, it would be quite hard to survive in Xiajing. It was only thanks to his sister's support, not making him pay rent, that he was able to hold on for so long.

Even though his sister was not short of money, he had already graduated more than a year ago, and it really wasn't right for her to keep covering his living expenses.

——Of course, if it wasn't for his sister insisting that living alone in Xiajing was lonely and forcing him to stay, he would not have been living here...

While his income in Xiajing was quite pathetic, if he returned to his hometown, with his spending habits, life could be pretty comfortable.

Despite his constant complaints for his sister to find a man, else she'll become an old maid, it was mostly just talk.

Last night, after hearing his plea, his sister got up early in the morning to prepare his clothing, help him with makeup, discuss his looks, and strategized the content for the live stream.

Knowing that he felt embarrassed, she maintained a serious expression throughout, which greatly eased his awkwardness.

She only started laughing hysterically after the live stream ended, as a way of being considerate of his feelings...

Finally escaping from his sister, Nick returned to his bedroom, removed all his clothes, and silicone, and returned to his normal attire.

He tidied up and returned the skirt, high heels, hairpins, earrings etc, to his sister.

His sister looked as though she had become interested, "How about changing into another outfit?"

Nick questioned, "Why would I need to change after the live stream? Are you crazy or am I?"

"It's all about gaining followers! Do it a few more times and you'll be a top streamer!"

"Get lost!"

"It's okay, your resistance is normal. Whenever you change your mind, just let me know." His sister said as she left, "I'll be waiting"

I would have to be crazy to do that again!

After cursing in his heart, Nick turned on his computer and started changing his popular streamer name.

Now that he was moving away from the small streamer category, he needed to take everything into account. So the mildly vulgar name, "Ye Lang a bit big", really needed changing.

——Being realistic, just having his sister find out his nickname was social suicide.

Blaming it all on the fact that he hadn't decided to make this his long-term career when he first came up with the name, he purely did it for fun. However, as time went on, the name became harder to change...

"Anyway, it was a good opportunity. From now on, my ID will be 「Night Lang」! Many old fans already call me that."

Nickname change—submit for validation!

During the live stream, he already felt quite embarrassed, plus all the comments were cringingly terrifying which made him feel more embarrassed, so he had missed some of the comments.

For example——

「Ye Lang can no longer remain "a bit big"! Because he...he doesn't have one!」

If he had seen this comment, he would have definitely reconsidered changing his nickname...

*

Meanwhile, outside of Daxia, players in Izumo and Baekje finally received the news they've been eagerly waiting for——

[Mirage 2.0] Console pre-sale announcement!

Both Izumo and Baekje chose to make the announcement on this day's morning, synchronously on their own company's homepage, and the Izumo/Baekje section of Spiritual Rhinoceros.

——That's right, Spiritual Rhinoceros is a multinational internet company.

Although the majority of users are focused within the Daxia cultural community, and its influence greatly reduces outside of this area.

But that still covers many countries!

In these countries, Spiritual Rhinoceros has a very strong influence!

The fact that Cloud Dream's partner companies in Izumo and Baekje, were able to post announcements on their country's Spiritual Rhinoceros section, attests to this.

After all, reaching to users efficiently, Spiritual Rhinoceros was much better than their own official websites.

To express formality, they adopted an all-Chinese announcement format.

——In fact, both Izumo and Baekje have their own languages.

Although Daxia was their suzerain country for hundreds of years, they weren't always that obedient.

During certain periods, they've had distinct independent tendencies and have created their own written languages modeled after Chinese characters.

But for a very long time, official documents were still composed in Chinese characters.

Even in modern life, even though each nations words have greatly improved and they could fully use their own language to write

However, unfortunately—Daxia grew stronger!

And it was stronger than in any previous era, its political and economic influence on its periphery was incredibly strong.

As a result, they implemented a bilingual system——

That is, all official documents were written in both Chinese and their own language, as a final act of defiance.

Of course, as Daxia became stronger, this kind of defiant attitude became rarer

It's even reached a point where the civilians started to use their own language less and favored Daxia's language.

But the actions of the government remained effective, at least the local institutions, when publishing official documents, would use bilingual language, marking their formality.

Of course, if they wanted to present a "more formal than formal" super formal, then the method adopted is——

To only use Chinese characters.

That was the choice made by Cloud Dream's partner companies in both Izumo and Baekje for this occasion.

The wording was also strikingly similar——

First, it expressed the joy of forming a partnership with Cloud Dream.

——Even though they nearly didn't have any rights, the best benefit being making money, but being able to make a steady and risk-free profit, wouldn't that make you happy?

Then, it mentioned the efforts made to promote console production and server installation after the partnership was established.

——They did indeed work hard. Cloud Dream was only responsible for requirements and inspections, the local work was almost entirely run by them.

Finally, they thanked the players for their patient waiting.

And happily announced: Tomorrow morning, the newest [Mirage 2.0] Console, is going to be officially for sale! A whopping 1 million units will be available!

——Being able to release 1 million units into the market in such a short period after establishing the partnership, represents a testament to their immense effort.

In Baekje, the announcement indeed received a great response.

Players in Baekje were whooping with joy, cheering for Cloud Star's high efficiency, and acknowledging their effort.

This was all part of the regular routine.

In Baekje, the overall sentiment is such, with very few acts of aggression towards Xia Star.

After all, they consider it their "national industry," a "national pride."

However, their counterparts in Izumo are not so fortunate.

The players are practically tearing them apart...

Since they confirmed their cooperation with Cloud Dream, the majority of players have been incessantly urging them to speed up.

Even though they have indeed completed their tasks and started selling, what the players in Izumo see is not their hard work, but the stark contrast- Daxia was able to place 25 million units on the market within a week, while their own companies only managed 1 million.

Hence, instead of cheers and praises, the announcement was met with a torrent of abuse:

"One million units? Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"Not even excited about making money, is there something wrong with your brains?"

"The players in Daxia would think we can't afford to buy it!"

"If Cloud Dream didn't restrict overseas IP purchases, we would have gone cross-border to buy the console long ago, why would we wait for you?!"

"Why couldn't you speed up the launch by a few days? Even if it's only two days earlier, we can play the new games the same day as the Daxia players!"

...

Clearly, the culture of invective and abuse is a universal phenomenon.

Of course, it could just be a sign that the world is converging.

Fortunately, there are still kind-hearted players.

They passionately post their expectations for the virtual world.

Even "Traveler of the Wind," which had reached all-time low levels of discussion in Daxia, was resurrected with a new name.

"Light Encounter," "Paradise," "Assassin's league," all frequently appeared in their posts.

Of course, the most anticipated game is undoubtedly "Speed Chase!"

There's only one reason - it's Cloud Dream's latest masterpiece!

Many people feel that being able to play it tomorrow, only two days behind the Daxia players, they can definitely catch up with their progress!

In the best case, they could even land the first completion of the game!

— Although it's a long shot.

However, successfully joining the Cloud Dream gaming platform discussion group and immersing themselves in the latest game discussions is a natural progression for them, enabling them to find a vast number of people with the same interests and topics.

This also means - they have found their tribe!

*

Nishino Chizuru, seeing posts on the internet bawling about the scarcity of consoles and the fear of not being able to get one, as a proud owner of the limited edition commemorative badge for the first-generation console, felt a sense of superiority.

"Hehe! You guys are just blindly following the crowd! You don't know a thing about virtual reality games!"

And those ridiculously arrogant statements ——

'The moment I get my hands on the console tomorrow, I'll immediately start my speedrun. My goal is – world first!'

"Anyone can see that they are amateurs who've never even held a console before, rambling about securing the first completion despite being 32 hours behind, or even more?

Nishino Chizuru dismissed with disdain: "Childish!"

Then she casually tossed her mobile phone away, sighing with dissatisfaction.

She too desires a second-generation Mirage console.

But after a heavy hit to her wallet, she couldn't afford another console.

Unfortunately, the "trade-in" policy was introduced by Daxia's Cloud Dream headquarters, an option not available in Izumo.

Plus, whether it's Izumo or Baekje, the moment they start sales, it's the second-generation console.

This also means that the discounts offered solely to the first-generation console players, are very likely not going to be available in the future.

The only way to utilize the 500-dollar trade-in is to send the device back to Daxia through the headquarters' channel.

Cloud Dream has not mentioned whether these benefits apply to overseas users through any public channels.

But considering Lincoln's generosity, if someone sent their device, he probably wouldn't object.

However, Nishino Chizuru gave up on this idea after thinking about it.

As for the reason ----

"Start!"

After "Speed Chase" was released, Nishino Chizuru naturally plunged into Night City at the first opportunity!

With the backup of a server in Magic City, the game played smoothly - of course, while racing, be careful not to accelerate too fast and avoid sudden braking.

Other than that, the game is extraordinarily smooth!

What's even better is, the combat system of "Speed Chase" has no change in perception of speed, and the "prompting" effect of skills, is done by real-time calculations on the player's local system!

This extinguishes the biggest impediment to the gameplay.

In other words -

It's possible to speedrun!

In actuality, unlike those on the internet who still fantasized about competing in speedruns two days late, the race of speedruns had already begun among the true virtual reality game players in Izumo!

Right from the moment the game officially launched!

Izumo players are standing on the same starting line as Daxia players.

The reason why they compete with Daxia players, rather than players in their own country, is simple -

At this time, there are too few players in Izumo and winning against them hardly brings any sense of accomplishment.

But it's different with Daxia, they have tens of millions of players!

And as long as they win, they would undeniably be standing on the pinnacle - the world's first!

For any player, the [world's first] is an irresistible accolade.

But they will not jump straight into the limelight before achieving success.

On the one hand, they are focusing on the game and don't want to be distracted.

On the other hand, they want to catch Daxia's players by surprise and give them a shock!

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