Ke Jin was completely numb.
He watched as only a few minutes remained until midnight.
He was even preparing to get up and fetch a bottle of champagne from the fridge to celebrate.
What's called a big victory?
And what's called a system manipulator?
On his very first day with the system, he completed the ultimate task assigned by it and was heading for the pinnacle of life!
But then, an unexpected text message pop-up, like the white light emitted when "XX, activate!" was invoked, stabbed Ke Jin's eyes.
The text interface, with a white background and black letters, blatantly displayed—
[Agricultural Bank: Your card ending in 6789 received a transfer at... 23:56, amounting to 500.00 units]
"1000 units"!
Someone actually freaking charged "1000 units" into the game just to buy a half-hour speed up card?
No, with that kind of money, why charge it into a game?
If you use it to buy a gift for your girlfriend, she'll give you a sweet kiss.
If you treat your brothers to a meal, they'll call you a righteous father.
If you charge it into a game, the game company will only call you a dumbass!
"Damn! Which little bastard charged me this money?????"
"You, damn it!!!!!"
"I really want to heartily... wish you a long and prosperous life." After some thought, Ke Jin still held back the curse that was on the tip of his tongue.
No matter what, this person genuinely supported him.
Ignorance is no crime, surely they didn't mean to disgust him on purpose.
He still had to thank them.
"Sigh, it's all fate." Ke Jin quickly calmed himself down.
After all, one must always look forward.
This task at least gave a three-day deadline.
If not the first day, there's still the second and third day.
Tomorrow is another day full of hope.
"Sleep!" Pulling the covers over his head, the young Ke Jin laid down and just like that, fell asleep.
In his dreams, he was holding the ultimate gift bag distributed by the system, laughing like a fool, unable to close his mouth.
————
Zhang Heng is a full-time Up in the Thunderbolt game zone.
In his early years, he gained a million equivalent fans by making various game reviews, trial plays, and rant shows.
But his recent harvest has not been very good.
The rise of short videos and the increasing pressure of life have led people to prefer videos that can highlight the core theme in just a dozen seconds.
His style of horizontal long videos, consequently, has seen a decline in click rates day by day.
Watching the play counts that are getting worse and worse.
Zhang Heng, relying on this for his livelihood, was so anxious that he grabbed his hair by the handfuls.
So much so that at three in the morning, with his wife and kids asleep, he couldn't sleep.
The heavy burdens of car and house loans forced him to get up, habitually browse the news across various game platforms, and try to find some new ideas.
There are actually quite a few new games launched every day, but the intense internal competition in the gaming industry in recent years has led to increasingly homogeneous game content.
Take, for example, the game Zhang Heng just opened, "Generals of A Hundred Families," WWgame's hot new release of the month.
As an in-app purchase game, its average daily turnover has already exceeded 50,000 units, which is considered quite good data for a newcomer.
The gameplay is turn-based card strategy.
However, Zhang Heng gave up after trying it for a bit.
Although the game company has put some effort into card illustrations and voice acting, and made quite a few strong cards that made the gameplay more interesting,
these cards could only be bought with real money.
Zhang Heng roughly calculated that the latest limited-time up powerful new card required at least "20,000 units" to bag.
And the effect of this card was to grant an extra turn each round for one's own camp.
For such a powerful attribute as 'my turn, still my turn,' it would naturally be favored by the tycoons.
Playing a game is for leisure; the stronger your attributes, the more the tycoons love it.
Getting this card would provide material for the next video.
But Zhang Heng simply couldn't afford it; an average video generates less than 400,000 to 500,000 views, and the earnings deposited might be just a couple of thousand units.
Charging for such a card is just getting more than one's fill.
He decisively gave up.
He scrolled through the rankings again.
Other games were more or less the same, simply re-skinning, re-skinning, and re-skinning, focusing on in-app purchase content, without any novelty.
"Sigh, can't these game companies survive without in-app purchase content nowadays?"
"Can't even find a decent game honestly, this environment is too foul."
Disappointed to the limit, Zhang Heng was about to shut down his computer and go to sleep.
Suddenly, he saw a game recommended by an inconspicuous "Editor's Pick" section on the WWgame platform.
"Origin of Species"
The recommendation slogan was: Explore the mysteries of life, everything starts from here!
This type of promotion is generally from indie developers with little financial resources, who buy the lowest level of promotion, hardly attracting any attention.
"I'll check out this game before I sleep." Thinking of his car and house loans, even with overwhelming sleepiness, Zhang Heng gritted his teeth and decided to evaluate one more game.
Initially, Zhang Heng didn't hold much hope.
This game, totaling less than 200MB in size, naturally couldn't contain much fancy content.
And within these 200MB, there had to be a grand in-app purchase interface to attract players, leaving even less space for the actual game.
"I'll try it for two minutes, and if it's no good, I'll delete it. It's an in-app purchase game, so no loss for me if I don't spend money," Zhang Heng muttered to himself as he opened the freshly downloaded game interface.
Bored, he started to tap and try out the game.
After playing for five minutes,
Zhang Heng's eyes began to change.
Ten minutes later,
his expression started to turn odd.
Half an hour later, he finally let go of the mouse.
If this were a comic, Zhang Heng's mind would definitely be full of question marks right now.
"Huh?"
This game doesn't have any exquisite character portraits.
The textures that could be seen were the simplest kind, the kind that could be found by the millions with a simple internet search.
There was no voice acting, either.
After all, no one has the ability to voice DNA, atomic nuclei, or spores.
And there was none of those disgusting mechanisms that didn't let you progress without paying.
In this half-hour trial, Zhang Heng, who hadn't spent a dime, didn't feel any blockage at all.
Even the recharge interfaces that would pop up every few minutes in other games, with their various tempting discount figures, were not to be found in this game.
Its shop button was placed in the least conspicuous corner, as if it didn't want to be found by players, hidden in plain sight.
Its gameplay wasn't particularly fresh either.
But for some reason, it was strangely addictive.
Constantly upgrading, unlocking new things, charging towards higher realms.
Just when a player was about to feel tired, it would unlock a newer layer of interfaces for the player to delve into.
It lacked any major impact points, gorgeous images, touching sounds, and even the background music was monotonous and brief, completed by just two or three instruments.
But it was the countless small thrills pieced together that were enough to keep the players addicted and lost!
In today's market, where "finding a game without heavy monetization is harder than finding a guy who doesn't skip scenes while watching adult films,"
the appearance of this game was like a refreshing stream, gently and quietly flowing into Zhang Heng's heart.
"This game... might become popular?" was Zhang Heng's first reaction.
As a video creator, Zhang Heng also had his own group of gamer fans.
Not just him, but many fans in the group had expressed their tiredness of heavily-monetized games on the market nowadays.
Playing those games felt like paying for the sake of it, with no joy unless you spent money.
It showed that everyone was eagerly in need of some changes.
"This game is a good start!" Zhang Heng felt exhilarated, the drowsiness swept away.
"But then again, if there's no paid content, how will this game survive?"
In today's internet explosion, information itself is a costly endorsement.
Take the featured spots in the WWgame's corner for example; Zhang Heng knew they cost at least four to five thousand units each.
In terms of recouping costs, paid content has to split 55% with the listing platform, and if it's on the iOS, a further 50% goes to channel fees, not to mention paying company staff, holiday bonuses, rent, utilities. If it's a joint venture, they also have to share the profits with shareholders.
Even heavily-monetized projects might not make much profit, let alone a game that offers joy without monetization.
What was it going to live off?
With these curious thoughts, Zhang Heng clicked on the shop interface of "Origin of Species."
Just one look.
And he was immediately stunned.
The good news was, this game was indeed different from the other heavy-monetized games; it only allowed you to spend "1000 units," which was pretty conscionable.
The bad news, the game only had a "1000 units" monetization tier...
And the worse news?
The "1000 units" tier in this game was crap...
In other heavy-monetized games, at least you get what you pay for.
If you pay "1000 units," they give you virtual items worth "1000" or even "1200".
This game...
"Half-hour speed up card?" Zhang Heng almost laughed.
"How could a designer capable of making such a game come up with such a foolish paid content scheme?"
"It makes no sense."
"Could it be..." Suddenly, Zhang Heng's expression froze.
As if considering a possibility, he went through the entire logic from the beginning again.
Firstly, the possibility that the designer is a fool can be ruled out, because the game itself is indeed well made.
Secondly, assuming he is a greedy merchant, he should understand the principle of gradual engagement all the more, and the recharge interface would surely gradually entice players to spend more and more.
Not like this, with a wave of monetization with no value for money, directly deterring players willing to pay.
So, there's only one conclusion.
"This is a broke designer who spent all his savings developing this game, and his purchase of the lowest-tier featured spot proves it. He must have encountered some difficulties in real life, hence the desperate monetization method, hoping to quickly recoup his investment."
"But his inner conscience and stubbornness wouldn't allow him to induce too much consumer spending, so after a hard thought, he left only a mid-tier monetization tier, affordable for spenders but negligible for non-spenders... Hiss... he really thought this through?"
"It's good I'm a more thoughtful player, anyone cruder wouldn't understand his intentions..."
After his musings, Zhang Heng felt he couldn't let this rare conscientious creator face disappointment.
Those who provide firewood for others should not be left to freeze to death in the snow.
Especially since he was challenging the entire heavy-monetized gaming market!
So, Zhang Heng immediately opened his fan group and found a night owl group admin who was still online.
He cut to the chase and typed.
"Wang, I've got a game creator with potential here, the game is truly well made, and you can play without spending."
"Play without spending? Humph, how would I play?" The other party started with an air of arrogant affluence.
"Heh, that's not important, what's key is that this newbie seems to have some financial issues, why not check it out and sponsor him a bit? It's a shame if such a conscientious designer fails," Zhang Heng said, pushing the download interface of "Origin of Species."
A few minutes later, the other end replied with a single, succinct word.
"Okay."