Honkai: Star Rail: I'm Developing the Star Rail Mobile Game at the Company Chapter 17

Lao Mu opened his phone and recommended this game to a few of his friends who were also streaming, and the same thing was happening all across the universe—the game was spreading its influence through word of mouth!

Lin Guang had already clocked out and returned to the apartment the company had arranged for him, preparing his plans for the game going forward.

He had always believed in the quality of Honkai: Star Rail, especially in this Star Rail world.

If he wanted the game to take the entire universe by storm, he didn't need to worry about quality at all—with the version content from the game system, all he had to do was go all out on promotion!

Relying solely on the Interastral Peace Entertainment Corporation's marketing wasn't nearly enough; he needed to turn every single player into a promotional resource of his own!

"Let's call it... the Honkai: Star Rail Creator Incentive Program!"

Creator incentives—as long as you posted game-related videos, whether they were story content, walkthroughs, or other fan creations, or even streamed game-related content, you'd receive a certain amount of creative incentive based on data metrics!

The game's official side was directly handing out money to players who made game videos!

Beyond the game section's leaderboards, Lin Guang wanted to flood the gaming community with Star Rail-related videos!

By then, the entire community would be his advertisement—one click and it'd auto-download, straight-up dark takeover!

And this plan would use the game's monetization revenue, not the system's game points!

Although game points could be exchanged for Credits, Credits couldn't be exchanged for game points!

Operating this way saved a lot of points for game promotion, which could instead be used to update game content or boost his own strength, rather than being cashed out for Credits!

Lin Guang looked at the monetization revenue on the official account—since launch, the total revenue had hit a staggering 1 billion!

If it were the old Lin Guang, seeing this income might have gotten him a little excited, but now he just thought it was alright.

After all, he'd seen Asta casually top up 200 million—this amount was just five of those casual moves!

And besides, it would all be poured into the Creator Incentive Program and given out anyway; he might even have to swap some game points in to supplement it!

After setting up all the data standards and rewards for the incentive plan, Lin Guang let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair.

That wrapped up the work on the game; next came his real-world job issues.

Lin Guang didn't have the urge to quit immediately after making money, but he did want to leave the Market Development Department, where he was stuck working overtime every day.

Before, he had no leverage or capital to push back, afraid of demotion or pay cuts, so he just stuck it out.

But now things were different. After some thought, Lin Guang decided—apply for a transfer, to the Interastral Peace Entertainment branch!

Normally, the company didn't allow transfers, but transferring to a branch was fine.

The competition at headquarters was fierce; if a P37 position suddenly opened up, plenty of people would be eager to jump on it.

But transferring to a branch meant that while your rank wouldn't change, your benefits would follow the branch's standards, and promotion prospects were limited, so basically no one actively applied to transfer to a branch.

Lin Guang, however, was different. If he could get to the Interastral Peace Entertainment branch, he could not only escape his current job but also directly join the promotional work for his own game!

Then, as the game's client, he could cut himself a few little perks—wouldn't that make him a surefire branch department head!

Later on, if he wanted to run offline events, coordinating with himself would be a lot smoother too!

After planning out his future arrangements, Lin Guang finally took a look at his current system panel.

Game Name: Honkai: Star Rail

Game Version: 1.0

Registered Users: 3.75 million

Current Online Users: 2.4 million

Discussion Heat: 23.4 million

The launch rewards had given the game another surge in popularity, and the number of game points had reached 35 million.

Although the universe's population wasn't what it used to be, achieving this effect with 200,000 Credits and half a day's time was still decent.

Since most players would start diving into Belobog's story tomorrow, he needed to start preparing the game content for what came next.

"Seele limited banner, limited Light Cone banner, Character PV... there's no companion mission for Seele yet, right... oh right, in 1.0 there's also the Stellaris Gift that gives a free 10-pull!"

Adding up all the costs, tomorrow he'd need to spend 25 million game points, leaving him with 10 million!

So Lin Guang finally got to look into ways to boost his own strength, opening the System Mall's personal items page, where the most expensive option immediately caught his eye.

[Envoy-level Augmentation—Permanent: 10 billion game points]

Seeing that option, Lin Guang couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath!

10 billion—when would I ever earn that much?

But considering the scale of the universe, if he could really spread the game far and wide, it wasn't that outrageous a price!

Though he'd mentally prepared himself, seeing the 10 billion price tag still gave him a jolt.

If Envoys cost this much, Star Gods must be through the roof!

It's just that the System Mall didn't currently have Star God-level augmentations for sale—probably because it knew he couldn't afford them right now.

Even though the 10 billion price tag completely killed any ideas for now, the word "Permanent" caught his attention.

"Does that mean... I can buy a few days' worth of a trial card?"

So Lin Guang checked the other options and sure enough, found what he was looking for.

[Envoy-level Augmentation—1 hour: 1 million Game Points]

"So expensive! One hour for a million points. If I actually had to fight an Envoy-level character, could it even end in a few days and nights?" But as long as he could display Envoy-level power and intimidate ordinary people, that was enough!

Lin Guang spent three million points to exchange for three cards as insurance, then looked at the other options in the mall.

Things like food, books, equipment, even military weapons—Lin Guang had no interest in those for now. His gaze finally settled on one option.

[Stellar Arena: 100 million Game Points] [Item Description: One of the ultra-large ecological ships developed by the Interastral Peace Corporation for crossing galaxies and space navigation. Equipped with the latest AI piloting technology, mainly used for short-range galaxy shuttles...]

There were several other types of starships developed by the corporation, each designed for different galaxy-shuttling needs.

As a behemoth spanning the entire universe, the corporation's fleet had long been able to cross galaxies on its own to reach every corner of the cosmos, without relying on Envoy abilities.

But the corporation's fleet wasn't open to the public. Perhaps the higher-ups thought interstellar travel had no profit to squeeze, so the fleet was usually only used for corporate business.

If he could have an entire fleet...

Then he'd slap Honkai: Star Rail ads all over it and run around the world, or drag players into offline events!

Character crossovers, offline carnivals—show off the power of us 2D fans!

Oh, right—to the people of this world, it probably wasn't 2D!

Chapter 25: No Choice, He Just Offered Too Much

Looking at the starship prices in the System Mall, Lin Guang still couldn't scrape together that many Game Points.

Besides these item options, the System Mall also had a category related to Paths.

The options available for exchange were mostly the same as the blessings in the Simulated Universe—things like Destruction's Battle Will, Preservation's Golden Shield, and so on.

Of course, it also included some characteristics of the Paths themselves. For example, the Memory Path allowed one to shed their physical body and become a Meme, the Erudition Path let the brain enter overclocked computation, the Propagation Path greatly enhanced one's reproductive ability, and so on...

It was also a way to boost personal strength. If someone could collect all the blessings of one Path, even a level-1 nobody might be able to rival an Envoy!

But naturally, the price wasn't cheap. A level-1 White Blessing cost 30 million, a level-2 Blue Blessing 100 million, and a level-3 Gold Blessing 500 million!

All together, it was only a bit cheaper than directly buying an Envoy-level augmentation, but still something Lin Guang couldn't afford right now.

"Sigh, I still need to hurry up and promote the game. Only when there are more players will I have extra Game Points to buy these things!"

Closing the system and returning to reality, Lin Guang opened the game's official account to take a look.

The account's follower count had already reached around 5 million. Having 5 million followers on the first day of launch—while that might seem insane in his past life—was still far too few in this interstellar universe!

To put it more concretely, his current influence probably only covered about half a galaxy!

And in this world, when a game did normal promotion, it would at least span three to five galaxies. The gap was enormous!

From what Lin Guang had learned during his time working at the corporation...

The current cooperation with the local branch, Yan Shi, was only a temporary small-scale promotion deal. It didn't need approval from the headquarters, and its scope of influence was small!

Only by submitting game materials to the headquarters for review and approval could formal promotion be carried out.

But that method took too long and was completely unsuitable for him. It was better to just contact the headquarters directly.

That's why Lin Guang was thinking of quickly boosting his strength. Once he had the means to protect himself, he could cooperate directly with the Interastral Peace Corporation.

With their power, if a deal could really be made, the promotion range would probably cover around twenty galaxies!

At that point, the number of players and the game's popularity would grow exponentially!

And now, that opportunity was right before his eyes!

With the temporary Envoy experience card in hand, Lin Guang suddenly had a lot more confidence!

He looked at the message Yan Shi had sent, which contained the contact info Aventurine had given. Lin Guang used his official account to send a friend request.

It had been two system hours since the message was sent, but after a long wait, the request still wasn't approved.

"Huh? You're ignoring me? Fine, you ignore me too, huh!"

Lin Guang didn't believe Aventurine hadn't seen his message. That guy was definitely holding out, waiting to see if Lin Guang would contact him first!

Otherwise, if he approved the request the second Lin Guang sent it, wouldn't that make it look like he was waiting for Lin Guang?

Hmm, that had to be it!

This was business warfare! A silent battle had already begun!

High-end business tactics were just this simple and unadorned!

"Hmph, add me or don't. I'm going to sleep!"

The next day, Lin Guang submitted a transfer request to his direct supervisor.

"You want to transfer to a branch?"

Supervisor Edson looked over the application carefully. Thinking it was because of the work in the Market Development Department, he immediately started dangling a carrot.

"Xiao Lin, I know the work in the Market Development Department is busy right now, but the company transferred you there to give you a chance to shine. Once this project is over and you come back to the Traditional Projects Department, I'll personally go to the higher-ups to get you a raise!"

Unfortunately, Lin Guang had zero interest in these empty promises now. He insisted on leaving.

After a token attempt to keep him, Lin Guang finally made his way to the Interstellar Peace Entertainment branch—which was, in fact, just the building next door, since the entire planet belonged to the company.

What surprised Lin Guang, though, was that Supervisor Edson had even approved a few days of leave for him. That was rare. Perfect timing—he could use these days to finalize and launch the creator incentive work, and also reach out to a few walkthrough-focused gaming bloggers to produce some launch-day guide videos.

Online, a gaming walkthrough blogger with the ID Yue Ying was uploading a guide video.

As a seasoned gaming walkthrough blogger, Yue Ying's guides covered a wide range—a full twenty games!

And every single guide video was of exceptionally high quality. It could be said that he spoon-fed the content right to the players' mouths, earning him the nickname Yue Ma among the online community.

After uploading the video, Yue Ying started checking his account's private messages, mainly to see if any players had pointed out omissions in his guides so he could patch them up in time.

As his eyes swept over one particular message, Yue Ying's gaze sharpened. It was the official account of Honkai: Star Rail!

The name sounded familiar, like he'd seen it somewhere yesterday. He clicked the message to read it.

It turned out to be an invitation to produce walkthroughs for their newly launched game, with hopes of establishing a long-term partnership.

Business was knocking, and Yue Ying was more than happy to take it. For a gaming walkthrough blogger like him, the main income came from the big spenders behind various games.

After carefully communicating with the other party, Yue Ying discovered that this was actually a game set in a real-world background. But why hadn't he received any promotional material about it before?

Could it be some kind of false advertising?

Yue Ying quickly searched for reviews of the game. If it had a bad reputation, he'd have to tread carefully—couldn't lose the big picture for a small gain.

But after looking around, the game seemed perfectly normal. Probably some other reason for it.

After chatting for a while, Yue Ying looked at one of the requirements the other party had proposed and replied.

Yue Ying: [No issues with the other requirements, but finishing the map's treasure chest exploration guide within two days—based on your game data—is way too tight on time.]

Honkai: Star Rail: [I can add money.]

Yue Ying: [It's not about the money. Exploration plus guide production takes at least three days!]

Honkai: Star Rail: [Each map can go up to 500,000 Credits.]