Learning Makes Me Happy

Spore Evolution had launched its Second Beta Test.

The internet had already been paying close attention to developments in this area. Even other online game giants were watching. In their view, there had to be a terrifying Black Technology team behind this game, along with frighteningly realistic five-senses simulation technology. This could completely use a game to create a second world.

Leaving that technology aside, the realistic sandbox visuals and physics engine within the game alone probably required several supercomputers just to run this Sandbox World and perfectly simulate countless possible paths of species evolution.

According to modeling analyses by game professionals in related fields, a game server for one hundred people likely needed three supercomputers to perfectly simulate such a realistic environment.

What did that mean? On average, there was one supercomputer serving every thirty players!

Technology was advanced now, but even so, a supercomputer cost at least twenty million yuan, and most large-scale online games could not afford them. A server built on one supercomputer could run multiple online games simultaneously.

Yet one hundred people were using three supercomputers, worth over sixty million yuan in total. Averaged out, every closed beta slot occupied server computing resources worth six hundred thousand yuan! One player's real-time computational load was comparable to half that of a large online game.

It was simply absurdly lavish! At that moment, everyone was waiting for Spore Evolution to open its payment channels and recoup its costs.

In everyone's eyes, this casual sandbox game—with its Black Technology, realistic five-senses simulation, and per-player data processing that surpassed half the computational load of an online game—was bound to target only the wealthiest players.

Some even guessed it would probably use monthly subscription billing, with a month of play costing at least fifty thousand yuan.

A monthly top-up of fifty thousand yuan was naturally nothing to those rich players who casually spent hundreds of thousands on online games. But for ordinary players, it was simply a nightmare, far beyond what they could afford to play.

Yet Spore Evolution was not rushing to recoup costs, nor was it opening any payment channels. Instead, it had added another fifty closed beta slots, directly bringing two more supercomputers online.

More than forty million yuan had been thrown in just like that! What deep pockets!

This game's operators were practically conscientious to the extreme, turning countless freeloading ordinary players into die-hard fans. But this update log before them was hardcore to the extreme as well.

Before long, a post analyzing the update log went viral online.

"Hello, everyone, it's me again! Mount Akina Speed. Don't ask why I'm so fast—I'm a driver. Let me analyze this update log. It is absolutely the most hardcore update in gaming history! First, the additional closed beta slots. It's incredibly generous. Big shots have already analyzed how many supercomputers the servers of this realistic game need to keep running, so I won't say more. Conscientious operation—praise it to the heavens! Other games force you to spend money; this game spends money for you! It takes data processing worth six hundred thousand yuan just to support one person!

"Second, the distribution of Second Beta Test slots. You actually need to write a professional evolution paper to get a slot? (confused Black guy.jpg) You have to write an evolution paper just to play a game—does it get any more hardcore than this? Dog Planner, are you sure this hardcore game was not created by the government to raise the people's knowledge levels?

"Third, there's the elimination system at the end. It's making us closed beta players collapse. Our slots may not be secure anymore. From now on, we can only love studying if we want to happily play the game.

"Finally, there's the achievement system. I don't know how special powerful species are defined, and I don't know what the rewards are. But while this game's planners are hardcore, they're also absurdly conscientious, so it's definitely going to be good stuff! I'm really looking forward to it!

"Alright, that's all for today's review. I'm going back to grind the game. I'll work hard on studying evolutionary theory and absolutely refuse to give up my closed beta slot."

The internet instantly erupted, sparking widespread discussion among countless netizens.

What countless people cared about most was the papers.

For a time, some were delighted while others were worried, but no one had much objection.

The computational load of one player slot was comparable to the enormous data load of more than half a massive online game. So what if the slots had stricter requirements? They were not charging you money.

"Learning makes me happy!"

"My mom was right when I was little. Study hard, and you can become good at gaming in the future too."

Some hardcore grinders were quite pleased with themselves. In anticipation of this day, they had long begun cramming knowledge of evolutionary theory, secretly staying late in libraries to read. Now, the slots would definitely fall into their hands.

Others said, "While you work hard researching, I can take a shortcut. Looks like I'll have to hire someone to ghostwrite it. Copying foreign papers from CNKI probably won't work. I need to find a professional professor at a university and spend ten thousand yuan to have them write a paper full of professional knowledge for me."

"Ten thousand yuan? What a joke! That won't work. A single slot has already been driven up to a hundred thousand yuan on the black market! You have no idea how terrifying the rich players in this world are, the ones who casually spend hundreds of thousands or even millions just to play games!"

A nationwide phenomenon-level game was actually a free sandbox farming game where players could not level up or hunt monsters.

Some city libraries even began to witness astonishing scenes.

Certain citizens poured into libraries like mad, specifically borrowing the most difficult natural science books to study biological evolution, researching the Cambrian explosion in Earth's history, Origin of Species, the Cretaceous Period, and the Triassic Period.

After all, even those who did not want to play wanted to resell the slots. One was worth a hundred thousand yuan.

The bustle in the libraries even drew reports from some local television stations. Many sociology experts who had no idea what was going on offered their guesses. "As people's living conditions improve, many have begun pursuing fulfillment through intellectual knowledge. This is a good phenomenon. As for why they are specifically borrowing the most difficult books on natural evolutionary science, naturally it is because those are the most challenging."

But they were promptly proven wrong, because they soon learned it was all because of a magical casual sandbox game called Spore Evolution.

Countless experts immediately went: ????

For the sake of playing a game? Were these people crazy?

In the eyes of many people before, games made people lose their ambition by indulging in trivial pleasures and abandon their studies. But this game's philosophy was simply hardcore and anti-human: Learning makes me happy?

"This is a good game."

Countless parents cast approving looks.

Wherever there was demand in a game, there would be countless farming crews. Those game studios that farmed gold specifically for wealthy players also began taking action. They put aside their online game farming and power-leveling work and frantically began researching academic papers and professional knowledge.

Xu Zhi watched this game climb to the top of the trending searches and stir up nationwide discussion, yet he remained calm.

"I never expected such an explosive effect. Normally, a game's closed beta slots would not cause such a sensation. But when tied to their imaginary supercomputers—twenty-million-yuan supercomputers, with every closed beta slot occupying computational resources worth six hundred thousand yuan—it became utterly insane. Getting one meant making a profit."

The next day, Xu Zhi received nearly a thousand professional papers.

His inbox had completely exploded! These people were truly fanatical about playing the game. Their articles discussed their ideas for evolving species, how they would evolve them, at great length, citing famous scientific papers from both China and abroad to prove the feasibility of their hypotheses.

Their meaning was simple: Great game planner, I've already figured out how to play this sandbox game and planned how to evolve my species. All I lack now is a spore to practice with, so hurry up and give me a slot!