In the scorching summer, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees Celsius, it was right at noon.
The asphalt road was mercilessly scorched by the sun until it could no longer bear it and began to secrete a thick layer of tar.
At this juncture of overwhelming heat waves, which everyone was desperate to avoid,
Ke Jin, however, dressed in a crisp suit, clutching a briefcase, raced forward in large strides, his face drenched in sweat but unable to hide his unrestrained joy.
To the uninformed, they might think he had been hired by a Fortune 500 company.
But in reality, this was Ke Jin's 100th interview failure.
In the three months since his university graduation, as a major in game design, he frantically interviewed with 100 gaming companies, but each time he was met with uniform rejection.
Far from being discouraged by repeated defeats, Ke Jin actually grew happier and more motivated with each failure.
The number of interviews he attended swelled from two a day to five and even seven!
Even his family, including his parents and younger sister, began to suspect he'd gone daft from the rejections, privately discussing the possibility of taking him to see a psychologist.
Almost without taking a breath, Ke Jin hurried home and deftly unlocked the door.
Upon entering, one would see a young girl dressed in cool clothing, lounging comfortably on the living room's horizontal sofa, wearing only a camisole, with her delicate and fair little feet held high up, rocking back and forth on her other knee.
A quick glance at the TV in the living room showed something that perfectly matched Ke Jin's stereotypical image of a high school girl—a costume idol drama starring several fresh-faced actors whose names he couldn't recall.
Essentially, they're responsible for acting, while the high school girls are busy swooning over them.
Walking past the sofa, Ke Jin first pulled out a bottle of soda from the fridge and guzzled a few mouthfuls with great relief, then belched satisfyingly.
"Mr. Ke, did the interview go well?" came the young, laid-back voice from the sofa, along with the sound of a commercial from the TV.
Ke Yu, bored out of her mind, got up lazily, her arms lazily hooked over the back of the sofa, kneeling on it as she looked at her big brother's grinning face.
"No."
"I really can't fathom why a man who's just been passed over by a company for the 100th time after graduating from university would have any reason to smile like that after yet another failed interview," Ke Yu said as she snapped her fingers casually, yet no sound came out. She still clamored, "Grab one for me too."
"I've still got half a bottle left here."
"Ew, that's all your saliva..." Ke Yu said with a grimace.
"Nonsense, I licked it clean."
Ke Yu: "..."
Ke Jin casually pulled over a chair to sit down, and said earnestly, "You see, your big brother just realized something—working for others is a dead end!"
"So?"
"I'm planning to start my own business."
"Good idea, so, do you have any money?"
"Don't you have some pocket money saved up? It could serve as our start-up capital."
"Do you have any human resources?"
"Aren't you on summer vacation after finishing your college entrance exams? You could work for me as a temp."
"Oh," Ke Yu nodded, pretending to understand, "So what you mean is, I sponsor you with my money, then help you with the work, and in the end, you use my money to pay my salary?"
"Brilliant and quick-witted," Ke Jin nodded approvingly, his eyes showing recognition.
"Slave masters would weep and acknowledge you as their ancestor," Ke Yu said, clutching the pillow tightly, about to throw it, when she heard Ke Jin continue.
"No point talking about other things, bring a flashlight to my room. After hearing my big plan for starting a business, I guarantee it'll dazzle you!"
"So, it's the flashlight that will be shining, right?"
"It could also be the big plan!" The main reason Ke Jin was so confident about starting a business was because,
he was a transmigrator.
Three months ago, he had crossed over from Earth to the current parallel world, Blue Star.
Here, the development trajectory in other aspects was almost identical to that of Earth in his previous life.
Except, the game industry's development seemed to have taken a peculiar turn and continued to stray further.
To date, without exception, all games on the market were of the pay-to-win variety.
Open any game at random, and a dazzling array of microtransaction pages pop up like concubines vying for favor, with options ranging from a 1-yuan starter charge to 64,800-yuan double top-ups, catering to every possible level.
But what is utterly lacking is gameplay.
The gameplay of all the popular games in this world, if not described as heavenly, can at least be considered intellectual.
The mainstream gameplay at a glance is all the simplest turn-based play, or it's match-three games, or pushing boxes, minesweeper, and so on in a series.
Combine that with gorgeous character illustrations and perfectly designed characters and voice acting that precisely captures the players' G-spot, and you can evoke players' desire to spend.
After deeply experiencing it for a while, Ke Jin had only one conclusion — they could have directly stolen money, but instead they went to the trouble of making a game for us to play.
Ke Jin had pondered deeply about the reasons.
He realized that on Blue Star, people's lives were moving at such a fast pace, their stress even greater than that of people in his previous life.
When the stress became too great, it was natural to want to indulge and decompress.
Apart from the physical sense of bodily relaxation, there was also a need to cool down mentally.
Therefore, the games on Blue Star, whether it be spending money on virtual wife avatars,
Or the power-ups one could get immediately after microtransactions,
Had all become the top choices for relieving stress.
'Either don't play at all, or if you play, you have to spend,' such a consumption concept was deeply ingrained in the mind of every Blue Star person.
It was as natural as eating when hungry.
As a native of Earth who had experienced countless works acclaimed as triumphs of the Ninth Art, Ke Jin naturally couldn't accept such a low-grade gaming environment on Blue Star.
Fortunately, based on the theory that all transmigrators come equipped with systems,
Ke Jin also had his own compatible system.
[Free Game Production System]
The system was simple to use.
As long as the game he produced passed the system evaluation and was given a time limit, and within that period not a single player made any microtransactions,
Then Ke Jin would receive the ultimate reward package — [Earth Game Collection Schemes Compendium]
The package contained perfect design schemes for all games from his native world, including a series of perfect optimization codes.
When the time came, Ke Jin could make whatever game he wanted at whatever price he wished to set, without further restrictions from the system.
And the experiences would be of versions optimized to the utmost, without any flaws.
As a game and money enthusiast in his previous life, whether it was a future fortune to rival nations or the perfect gaming experience, the temptation was like a pair of seventeen or eighteen-year-old twins, stunningly beautiful and insistent on being your girlfriend, absolutely irresistible.
However, the system initially had a starting condition for unlocking.
Ke Jin needed to accumulate 100 instances of work experience in the gaming industry.
As the saying goes, the master must prove his reputation, just playing games certainly wouldn't cut it, you have to understand a bit about the process, right?
Ke Jin didn't hesitate, with a flick of his mind, he immediately exploited a bug in the system.
He found out that every job interview, regardless of whether it was successful or not, counted as a work experience.
So he purposefully played dumb in front of a host of HRs, and in a mere two months, he successfully gamed the system to unlock it with speedruns.
He was also rewarded with a newcomer's gift pack, which contained a niche but thoughtfully designed single-player game from his former world.
After getting the game, the first thing Ke Jin did was to fly home at lightning speed, ready to start his own small game studio!
One should not allow benefits to leak to outsiders; the gaming resources he held were equivalent to blockbuster bombs, and he was not about to let them slip through his fingers.
Ke Jin had also planned out the situation for the studio.
In the early days of financial straits, he would take on the roles of game producer, planner, publicist, and paid posters himself. His younger sister, Ke Yu, who had just finished her college entrance examination, was directly admitted to a top domestic art school for her exceptional talent in art. She also had a pleasant voice, tender without being shrill, sweet without being piercing.
She could help with the art and voice acting part-time.
Done deal!
"As long as the players don't spend, I can get the ultimate reward? Heh, that's easy enough, I just won't create a recharge page." Ke Jin thought, rubbing his hands together excitedly in his mind.