Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 457: Chapter 440: Card King!

Translator: 549690339

Lincoln plunged into the laboratory, focusing on his work on the airplane simulation.

Upon receiving his message, Fred and Samuel had to start getting busy.

Especially for Fred, who had barely managed to persuade the boss to accumulate the vacation time that he and some employees were supposed to have after completing “Speed Chase” into their annual leave, thereby securing the opportunity to join the “Battlefield” development team at the earliest.

Now, however, he had to put down his current work, halt the solo campaign he just started, and meet up with Samuel to conduct a final check on the preparations for the “Speed Chase” competition.

This competition is crucial.

It’s one of the very few events that could potentially expand Cloud Dream’s user base and even activate its potential middle-aged and elderly users, so it must be taken seriously.

A new day arrived, the freshness of Dinosaur Island was far from over.

In fact, the influence of prehistoric creatures had even surpassed that of the ladies in the mysterious stores in Night City.

Having found the “login point” yesterday, Camille Victoria successfully verified that after death, indeed, one would resurrect from the nearest “login point.”

After that, all players were searching for such supply points on the island.

With everyone’s collective efforts, similar points were quickly found; they didn’t look entirely the same: some were half-buried underground, some were embedded in the mountain body, while some even looked like tree houses.

Nonetheless, the interior decoration style of all of them was very modern, even the furniture was brand new.

Apart from a few unlucky ones who were mauled by packs of dinosaurs, 80% of the players who landed on the island successfully activated their respawn points.

After that, everyone went back to the coast, used the Bathing Girl Lamp, and established a long safe passage on the sea surface, to start ferrying people.

In this process, the satiated behemoth never appeared again, making this construction project much simpler.

A large number of players made their way along this route to successfully reach Dinosaur Island.

Some of them offline satisfied, while some tirelessly began to explore the island.

Also, some returned to the coast to replace the players on the safe passage who needed to go offline to sleep.

—When a player goes offline, their manifested “Bathing Girl Lamp” would disappear, causing a gap in the safe passage.

Through their joint efforts, this passage was busy throughout the night without disappearing.

Not until the morning, under the strong pressure of the workday, did this passage break.

But by now, thanks to their efforts, the number of players on Dinosaur Island had become large enough that it was necessary to divert them.

These people left the coast, spread out in all directions into the forest, and started their own journey of exploration.

—Or a hunting trip.

—Or even a trip to be hunted…

However, by around midday, they all paused, read a message from their friends, quickly opened the panel, and looked at a new video released by Cloud Dream.

The official account of “Speed Chase” synchronized across all platforms—

“Countdown to the opening of the ‘Speed Chase’ National Open Competition!”

The esports clubs had been eagerly anticipating this news for a long time, while the players felt it was a bit sudden.

But that doesn’t affect everyone’s care for this competition.

After all, playing with dinosaurs is just a fleeting novelty, but strategizing against other players is the real eternal fun!

However, neither the clubs nor the players could understand one thing: why had Cloud Dream changed its style and even made a special video?

During the “Assassins’ Alliance” period, wasn’t it finished with just an announcement?

This much pomp and circumstance didn’t seem like Cloud Dream’s style.

With this doubt in mind, the video started playing—

The first shot was a bird’s eye view of the dazzling night view of Night City, and then the camera quickly dropped to — Paradise Casino!

At the entrance of the casino, luxury cars streamed in, men and women in suits, leather shoes, and red gowns got out of the cars, walked onto the red carpet, bathed in the dense flashes of the cameras on both sides, and gracefully entered Paradise Casino.

Inside the casino, all sorts of games like Roulette, dice, slot machines, and scattered card tables had all disappeared.

In front of everyone’s eyes, there were card tables of the same size, neatly arranged, with a supervisor standing by each table.

The camera switched to a higher angle shot showing the entire scene of the casino lobby, which was burned onto the viewers’ retinas.

Then, a few lines of particularly flashy white text appeared—

“Night City’s first national ‘Landlord’ competition

The highest prize is 4 million!

To obtain a unique title of honor – ‘Card King’!

We welcome all players to participate!”

From the moment the interior of the casino was shown, people were baffled. The appearance of these lines of text made everyone’s eyes widen in disbelief.

Especially the managers, coaches, and even professional players of the esports clubs.

“Cards?!”

“Landlord?!”

“What the hell?!”

Everyone was expecting this event so much that many clubs had started training “Speed Chase” players early on, having daily training matches and bouts, waiting to achieve good results in the national competition, but…

You’re telling us the competition is about playing cards??!

Then what’s the point of professional players? The big boss himself can handle it all, right?!

The players’ complaints were comparatively more straightforward—

“Playing a game of Landlord, but setting such a high society scene…”

“Had I not known, I would have thought we were playing a game of Bridge.”

“Speaking of which, if it’s Landlord, wouldn’t it be more about luck?”

“Bullshit! Are you looking down on my card skills as Handan’s Gambling God? This 4 million is mine!”

“All yours? You’re kidding! Have you consulted with me, the Gambling King of Lingshui?”

“Beneath is Liu the Phantom Hand of Jiuyuan, please enlighten!”

The comments section was filled with humorous remarks from the players.

But the video wasn’t over yet.

The lens continued to slowly rise, passing through the floors, and arrived on the second floor of the casino.

Once through the floor, the sound of “hurrah” immediately rang out, even making it seem a bit noisy.

Accompanied by the rising lens, more sounds became clear –

“Bam! Thirty thousand!”

“Bam! Hit!”

“Hurrah, hurrah.”

“Self-draw!”

“Hurrah hoola.”

“Pure suits, dragon, win!”

“East east east east, South south south south, West west west west, North north north north, Fa Fa ha ha ha ha ha!”

All the scenes finally clearly displayed in front of the spectators,

Here were neatly arranged tables and the gamblers and supervisors sitting around them. As for scale, it wasn’t inferior to downstairs at all.

The only difference was: the game here was mahjong.

Everyone was passionately playing mahjong, loudly announcing the cards they were dealing, while the mahjong tiles were smashed hard on the table, making a “papa” noise that never stopped.

Words in the same style again emerged in the center of the screen–

‘Night City’s First National Mahjong Competition

The grand prize is Four Million!

Achieve the unique title of Honor -[Mahjong God]!

We invite all players to participate!’

In the last half second, a trophy, seemingly important, flashes on the screen.

The video finally ended.

A large number of spectators fell into a brief mental blank.

Under the watchful eyes of the public, Super Tomato opened the calendar to check the date.

After looking at it, he was still not sure, so he looked at it two more times, until in the end, he had to admit that it was indeed November, not April.

“So, this isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke?”

“And, this is not illegal?”

—— Of course not. Before deciding to host such a competition, Lincoln had specifically asked the company’s legal department.

The legal department responded: As long as it was purely for entertainment, did not involve the economy or material substances, and there was no substantial gambling, it would not be illegal.

He essentially spent money to earn publicity, inviting everyone to play cards in the virtual world.

The cost for this was not just the prize money for the champions, runner-ups, and third place.

Whether it was Landlord or Mahjong, the top 100 players will all split the prize money!

After a few seconds, whether it was the audiences in the live stream or netizens in the “competition announcement” comment section, everybody regained their senses, starting to madly comment:

“Would Lincoln directly participate?”

“Could you really win four million from playing cards? There’s such a good thing?”

“Great, mom can no longer say that I don’t have a proper job!”

“I want it too, but what should I do if I don’t know how to play cards?”

“Your dad will teach you, dummy!”

Also, the topic that Lincoln expected to appear, unsurprisingly appeared—

“Should I… register my mom?”

“My sister has a high chance of winning at mahjong every year and wins all my Spring Festival’s money. I must ask her to register. I want her to share whatever she wins!”

“Will this remain in the future? If it remains, I plan to buy a Mirage for my old man. It’s safer than him betting his life savings away.

“My grandma loves playing mahjong, but she can’t find anyone to play with. She just sits there in a daze every day. Can I let her come and play in the virtual world?”

“Playing mahjong can prevent dementia. If this event is permanent, I will order one for every elder this Saturday! One for each person!”

The players were overjoyed, while the club managers were dumbfounded.

Quite a few streamers, almost simultaneously, opened the video site and began to search for keywords—

[Landlord rules]

[How to play Mahjong]

There’s no other way around this. They’re streamers and have to participate in this big event no matter what.

But they neither know how to play Landlord nor Mahjong…

There’s probably quite a few players like this.

But it’s okay. If you log into Night City now and enter the Paradise Casino, you will find that NPCs will come up to you and ask if you need a Landlord or Mahjong tutorial.

If you say you need it, the NPC will immediately take you upstairs to the dedicated tutorial room.

The tutorial is very vivid, and there are NPCs as game partners. It assures comprehensive and effective teaching.

But in fact, despite the good tutorials, Lincoln knew very well: these twenty-something-year-old players who can’t play cards probably have had opportunities to learn in reality.

The reason they can’t play is simply because they’re not interested.

Even if they learn, they won’t become very enthusiastic, most are only participating to join the fun.

The main purpose of this event is to pry into the “Chess and Card Games” market.

The main audience of chess and card games are of an older age group.

So, in the final analysis, this is to perfect Cloud Dream’s user ecology and strive for 200 million users.

Of course, according to the expansion pace of Cloud Dream, if it successfully enters the European market next month, promoting national essence and hosting a Global Mahjong Competition is also possible!

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