Plagiarism? I'm Not Worried

After that, the two elders and the younger sister started firing off questions one after another, determined to get to the bottom of everything.

Little Meng even grabbed her brother's arm, her eyes gleaming with an excited look that screamed, 'Bro, we're rich!'

But the elders were more worried and nervous, afraid their son had come by so much money through illegal means.

So Meng Shu, quite helpless, looked up the company's credentials on his phone right there, letting them see the legal representative before they finally relaxed.

Even though the elders still seemed confused.

But as long as they knew it was from a legitimate source, they didn't dwell on it.

Then, under Meng Shu's persuasion, the two elders chose to resign, but said they wouldn't quit on short notice.

After all, quitting abruptly would mean forfeiting that one month's withheld salary. Though it was only two or three thousand yuan, the elders had lived hard lives and knew the value of money—that sum was earned with their blood and sweat, and they refused to give it up.

So Meng Shu, now worth tens of millions, could only helplessly stop trying to convince them.

After finishing the hotpot, Little Meng went straight to her room and searched online for her brother's game.

Half an hour later, she ran into Meng Shu's room holding the VR headset, saying she didn't dare play alone, so she hijacked his computer to play "21 Points" instead.

She ended up playing until past 1 AM, occasionally shrieking in excitement, until Meng Shu, unable to sleep, kicked her back to her own room.

Ever since the "Visage" project officially started, Meng Shu had been swamped with work every day.

He not only had to focus on developing the game but also had to go to the motion capture studio to direct the filming.

On top of that, Xia Nianzhen's mansion scene kept needing revisions from him—the layout was never quite right, and it wasn't done properly.

Considering she wasn't an architect, her grasp of room dimensions and structure wasn't too precise, so this type of game was a challenge and a learning curve for her; mistakes were inevitable.

In contrast, modeler Qiu Yuan and animator Xu Hong were doing much better.

They basically sent him project files for confirmation every day.

Amid this busy environment, the game's development progressed steadily.

So much so that President Meng had no time to hire people for game porting, nor to buy himself a house or scout for a new office space.

He was completely immersed in game production, going all out.

Another month passed, and under his relentless work, all aspects of "Visage" had achieved solid results.

For instance, the scene Xia Nianzhen was responsible for had been restored to at least ninety percent under Meng Shu's guidance; the rest just needed his own fine-tuning.

As for Qiu Yuan, after getting approval, he hired another modeler to share his massive workload, keeping progress stable.

Then there was animator Xu Hong, who occasionally stepped in to participate in motion capture shoots for Meng Shu, then worked overtime to adjust the animation files, fully dedicated.

With the collective effort of the entire company, in just two months, the first two chapters of "Visage" were already developed.

Of course, Meng Shu had done the bulk of the work.

It was also fortunate he had a development engine even a monkey could use, allowing him to finish the first two chapters in such a short time.

In the original world, this game took years to develop!

But it helped that the game's focus was on story and atmosphere, so there wasn't any standout music, saving Meng Shu the trouble of composing tracks.

Still, some basic music was needed—the concept design included sheet music that had been sent to Infinite Network Entertainment, letting them arrange for a record company to produce it, which was part of their job as the publisher.

With this effort, another week passed, and the game's progress was like a train on tracks, moving fast.

But then, Meng Shu received an urgent call from Infinite Network Entertainment.

On the line was Supervisor Lian, who had been his long-term contact.

"Plagiarism?"

In his office, Meng Shu sat with his legs crossed, frowning as he listened to Supervisor Lian's news over the phone.

[Yes, President Meng, haven't you checked the latest game releases? One of them is very similar to "Dark Forest"—also a survival horror game, called "Jungle Terror."]

Meng Shu: ...

Could the name get any lamer?

"Okay, so what's the problem?"

Supervisor Lian on the other end was stunned by Meng Shu's indifferent response and sounded confused.

[President Meng, this game copied your gameplay, and it seems some settings too, while stitching in other game elements. It's basically a reskin of your "Dark Forest" with some extra stuff thrown in, and they've already released it.]

"I know. What's the issue?"

Supervisor Lian: ...

[President Meng, your game has been plagiarized! How is that not an issue!?]

The woman's voice on the phone was incredulous, as if she couldn't understand why a businessman like President Meng wouldn't take this seriously.

In her view, they were using the heat and traffic from his game to sell theirs!

Even if you, the developer, didn't care, we as the publisher had to take a stand!

This was basically riding on our game's coattails to make money!

Meng Shu sat at his computer, shrugged, straightened his posture, and grabbed the mouse.

"Which platform?"

[Huh?]

Supervisor Lian paused, then immediately caught on.

[Cyber Platform and Xiyou Platform. Xiyou is our domestic competitor, backed by a listed company similar to us called Jiyou Network.]

Jiyou Network, huh.

No recollection.

Meng Shu shook his head, directly opened Cyber Platform, and searched for "Jungle Terror."

The moment he saw the search results, he froze, a look of disbelief on his face.

Holy crap!

This game actually...

Sells for 168 yuan!?

Is this a AAA title?

I'm only selling mine for 69 yuan!

"Why is this game so expensive?"

Meng Shu casually clicked in, ready to take a closer look.

Hearing this, Supervisor Lian immediately explained.

[It's Jiyou's usual style. The games they develop are generally priced two to three times higher than average, and even the ones they publish are double the market rate regardless of quality. They've even pulled stunts like raising the price an hour after release if sales looked good.]

Hearing this, Meng Shu frowned. Why did this feel so familiar? But after a moment's thought, wasn't this just the parallel-world version of SE?

The high prices in the Chinese region, the sudden price hike of "NieR: Automata," and the infamous pricing unit of "Octopath Traveler"—all of it treated Chinese players like cash cows.

So much so that when the high-investment "Marvel's Avengers" and "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" flopped in the market, players were all popping champagne.

Meng Shu had little goodwill for such developers. After indicating he understood, he went through all the videos and screenshots in the "Jungle Terror" showcase.

In the end, he reached a conclusion: it was shoddily made.

If "Dark Forest" was intentionally designed as a pixel-art style, then "Jungle Terror" was just outright terrible graphics.

The perspective was a vertical top-down view, but the character movement looked floaty, lacking the weight of "Dark Forest." The shooting feel wasn't clear from the footage—needed hands-on experience—but the sound effects were obviously cheap.

The overall game screen looked very clean, unlike "Dark Forest's" dim and eerie atmosphere.

This clearly meant the textures hadn't been processed during modeling, so the game looked too new and pristine.

As for the rest, he didn't know much yet, since he hadn't played it.

And the developers weren't fools—the images and videos naturally showed the game's best side.

The bad parts only became apparent when you played it yourself.

Meng Shu scrolled down with his mouse and looked at the game description.

There was a lot of text, roughly meaning:

'You are an ordinary intelligence officer. During a mission, you obtain intelligence that could change the outcome of a war. As you flee with the information, you accidentally stumble into this dense forest. There, you discover that this area harbors an unknown presence—a witch! By day, you must explore the forest and search for useful items. By night, you must use those items to fend off the witch's attacks. Your goal is to survive, cross the forest, and deliver the intelligence!'

Hmm. Just from the description, it sounded interesting, but...

Meng Shu looked at the game reviews. They weren't pretty.

"The game came out two days ago, with 96 reviews. Hmm. Mostly negative."

Supervisor Lian nodded in agreement, a hint of a smile on her face.

[Yeah, they didn't copy the game well, the quality's low, and players just aren't buying it.]

Meng Shu glanced at the reviews. Few were positive; most were complaints.

A passerby with 0.4 hours played:

"I thought this was a spiritual successor to 'Dark Forest,' but what the hell is this crap?"

A passerby with 3 hours played:

"Two-minute loading screens, invisible walls everywhere, garbage graphics, random hit detection on shooting, and the witch is just a damage sponge. This game gave me a damn aneurysm, f*ck!"

A passerby with 1 hour played:

"I'd believe you if you said this game was for money laundering. 'Dark Forest' is right there, and you still can't copy it right. Horror games are being ruined by trash developers like you! And this isn't even a horror game!"

A passerby with 1.4 hours played:

"Don't recommend buying. The game clearly isn't polished. The flaws are obvious, the optimization sucks, and the price isn't friendly either. You know what I mean, Jiyou, you've done it again. Wait for a discount. For the same genre, play 'Dark Forest'—that's a real horror game!"

A passerby with 1.4 hours played:

"Do you even know how to make a horror game? If you can't, don't pollute the genre, dammit! See someone else making money and immediately churn out garbage to cash in, selling it for 168. Clearly a quick cash grab before running off. Get lost!"

A passerby with 0.5 hours played:

"I'm an idiot."

After reading the comments, Meng Shu had a general understanding of the game and couldn't help but let out a soft laugh.

This left Supervisor Lian somewhat unable to gauge the young entrepreneur's thoughts.

"President Meng, this game has already been suspected of plagiarism. We're preparing to have the legal department sue them."

Hearing this, Meng Shu shook his head.

"I don't mind. Do whatever you think is right—you're the publisher after all. But like I said before, I'm not worried about other studios making horror games to carve up the market, nor do I care whether they plagiarize my game."

"In a sense, their plagiarism, regardless of quality, will indirectly promote us. That's a good thing. Besides, they only copied the gameplay and some settings; the story is still original. At least they have some professional integrity on that front."

"But if suing over gameplay plagiarism could succeed, half the shooting games on the market would be in trouble. What's more—"

Meng Shu smiled and lit a cigarette.

"—without their mediocrity, how would our excellence stand out?"

"So let them copy. I don't care. But choosing to release during the 'Visage' trailer announcement period—I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not."

On the other end of the line, Supervisor Lian keenly caught the key phrase in that sentence.

"'Visage'? A trailer? President Meng, has your game progressed to the point where you can release a trailer?"

Meng Shu took a drag of his cigarette and slowly exhaled. Hearing this, he chuckled.

"Not only can I release a trailer, but I can also announce the release date. Coincidentally, you can help promote it on Weibo too. After all—"

Meng Shu pressed the switch button, and soon the computer screen jumped to the video upload page of the Danmu Network.

And the progress bar above already showed 100% with an approval notice!

"—after all, the trailer just finished uploading successfully."

It's hard to describe a game trailer, so the trailer will be written in the style of a movie trailer.

Thanks to 'I Want to Eat a Banana' for the monthly ticket support!!