Alex opened his phone and navigated to the HUNT 5 official website.
Right at the top of the website was the total number of people who had joined the game: 2,019,232,434.
Just two days ago, the game surpassed the 2 billion mark, and in these two days, there were already 19 million more people. This was already around 30% of the adult population who were older than 18 and younger than 65.
He knew the only thing stopping this game from reaching more numbers was the slow operation of injecting the nanocapsule into the brain.
It was not like a VR game where you buy the equipment from the shop. Here, you have to get it installed at one of Hunt's special hospitals.
Even with so many extra steps, the number of people being part of the game continued to increase by thousands each second.
The other restriction was also on the age limit of 18 for the player and 16 for the viewer. There were a few countries that even protested about this limit, but the Gaint Hunt Corporation did not budge on it.
With time, when those countries realized the potential of the new hunt, they just ignored the few who were complaining in their country.
On the website, besides the total number, there was another figure for current active players. This was only 10 percent of the initial number.
This was because this game offered only one life to the players. You died once, and it was already over for you.
In the past three years, many have tried to play again. Some even offered a lot of money to the Hunt organization, but the Hunt did not give anyone a second chance. This also exploded the game's popularity among viewers and gamblers.
The big thing that separated the virtual game from this dream world was that players didn't need any equipment other than the nanocapsule inside their brains.
Even the price of the nanocapsules was dead cheap for those willing to wait. What was more exciting for players was the randomness of the event.
Most of the initial events would start with no warning, while players would get a prior warning just two days before their big-world games.
From his research, he knew this game worked on semi-dream state creation. In this game, players entered the lucid dream that was the game world designed by the capsule.
The biggest innovation in this technology was achieving 100% reality. To this date, the strongest computing power that humans know of is the brain. This game worked by using the brains of players to achieve what was not possible before.
A player couldn't tell the difference between the other players and NPCs inside the game.
Many mysteries still surround this game, from the 100 percent safety claims to how the technology worked.
Still, the reward money offered this time was enough for many to take the risk, including the rich ones.
The winner of this game would get 1 trillion dollars' worth of assets.
Not just individual players, but even billion-dollar organizations and governments around the world went into a frenzy when Sir Mica announced that.
This was especially true when the Dragon Guild received $1 billion of the cash prize after their win.
What was more interesting was that, because of dream reality, no one from outside could interfere with the players inside the game, making it purely dependent on player skills. Something that the virtual reality version couldn't restrict.
The game events themselves were only one aspect. As Alex scrolled through the official website, he saw snippets from many viewers' interfaces.
There were also enhancements in the viewers' experience, from seeing the real-time game happening all over the game world to seeing the animated version of the players' lifestyles.
This also included enhancements to gambling on the game. This game replaced most of the gambling dens all over the world.
The biggest thing was that, even after three years, no one knew what the end goal of the game was.
But that did not matter to many, and the top players in this game could even put to shame the guilds of the last version of HUNT.
A few of the top players even had the power to turn the governments of a few countries on their whims.
The games entered an era where over 100 top players had over 500 million fans on their social media.
The top ten even surpassed a billion supporters, and the main reason these players were so popular was because they were the money-makers of many people around the world.
The special thing was that a player's popularity did not affect gambling chances. Even if all the gamblers chose a single player, each of them would still win if they were correct.
After all, every time these players entered the game, they competed with others on the same level. In the surreal world, it was hard to know who would come out on top just based on their skills.
Alex shook his head and stopped thinking about them.
This game was the reason he worked so hard for the past three-plus years. He wanted to make a name for himself and prove himself.
Whenever he thought of Hunt, an involuntary smile formed on his face. This was the game that snatched so much from him, yet it was also the only hope he had to transform his life.
To him, this game was like the devil's offer.
Alex stopped thinking about all that nonsense and looked at the trending games on his phone.
Most of the games going on right now were low-ranking games.
He scrolled to the last part of the website, where the first interview of Sir Mica introducing the game was.
It was right after the HUNT 4 finals.
He took out the headphones from his pocket and played the video.
On the screen, the commentator shouted to grab everyone's attention, "Guys, Sir Mica has an important announcement."
The old man said with a smile, "I hope everyone enjoyed HUNT 4."
The crowd responded with mixed reactions; some were happy, while many were angry at their team's loss.
Sir Mica ignored them and took out a small blue, pinky-sized, shining capsule. "Well, let me introduce the..."