Minecraft Is Loading...

Chapter 1: Minecraft is Loading...

"Boss, this kind of pixelated game."

"Are we really going to release it to the public?"

Inside the conference room, the large screen displayed a game with graphics resembling a mosaic.

The game was pieced together from blocks of pixels, and looking closely, it consisted entirely of one pixelated cube after another.

At this time, game planner Luan Le'an was sheepishly expressing his thoughts.

"If we release this kind of game, isn't it just too... too unfair to the consumers?"

Hearing Luan Le'an's words, Su Ye instead smiled with some excitement: "No need, no need, you guys contact the gaming streamers and get ready to start closed beta testing."

"Starting today, our Starfield will officially step into the sea of stars!"

He stood up, waved his hand, and shouted confidently.

As early as a few months ago, he transmigrated to this world and successfully inherited the family business, which happened to be a gaming company on the verge of bankruptcy.

This should have been a headache-inducing matter for him, but after checking out the games in this world, he knew that this was clearly a blue ocean market.

Because although the technological level of this world far exceeded his previous life, its cultural content suffered a fault.

VR virtual gaming had already reached a mature stage of application, yet the games produced by gaming companies turned out to be nothing more than sightseeing tours and admiring pretty scenery, completely missing the core essence of what a game was.

What is a game?

Passion, thrills, blood-pumping action, and competition.

What climbing snowy mountains simulator, what swimming training, what running race-what kind of garbage games were these?

Making players play such things inside a game was simply an insult to gaming.

With this kind of technology, wouldn't making a Minecraft be a literal dimensional reduction strike, letting all of you see what a real game is?

After hearing the boss's grand and spirited words, the planner fell silent for a few seconds. He didn't understand the boss, but this game... would it really work?

"Then Boss, how much are we setting the price for when this game launches?"

Hearing this, Su Ye snapped back to his senses, waved his hand, and said: "Money? What money?"

"Make it free, release it directly for free."

"What!?"

Hearing what he said, everyone inside the conference room was shocked into speechlessness.

Free? In this day and age, where were there any free games?

With games being free, what would they rely on to make money?

"Boss, our company only has three million left now. If this game is free, we really won't have any money left to make games."

"Besides, former President Xu still owes Qisheng Game Company one million in game engine usage fees; we can't spend it all."

Looking at this group of his employees who had never seen the world, Su Ye smiled and said: "Who says free games can't make money?"

"As for Qisheng's side, aren't there still three months left? What is there to be afraid of?"

"But..."

Luan Le'an wanted to say something else, but Su Ye interrupted him.

"Alright, have the gaming bloggers start closed beta promotion."

"Use all three million for publicity and marketing."

Su Ye revealed an enigmatic smile. Individual sales could never be as expensive as free; free was the most profitable of all.

Late the next night.

Inside the live stream room of a certain well-known gaming blogger.

After finishing his broadcast of Bicycle Simulator, Chen Ze spoke to the live stream room: "Brothers, let me tell you something."

"I took an ad here, so we're going to play it for half an hour later."

"We'll ride the bikes again after the broadcast; right now, riding the bike has gotten a bit tiring."

Only to see inside the live stream room, Chen Ze took off his gaming helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Although Bicycle Simulator was said to be one of the most fun games right now, with countless landscapes inside making people infatuated, playing it too much was also somewhat exhausting.

It was just right to take an ad to rest for a bit and adjust his mood.

[Isn't Brother Ze probably taking a shoddy game ad here.]

[It really is. I looked at this game-it's pixels? What kind of game is this?]

[Brother Ze doesn't have money right now, everyone should still be understanding.]

[Brother Ze is putting together variety shows and show effects all at once now, he really has to cash in some dough.]

Chen Ze glanced at the bullet chat without saying much, instead typing a search into a web page and arriving at a website.

"I'll tell the brothers first, this game is called Minecraft, and I searched for it and downloaded it online."

As he spoke, the game finished downloading. Its total size was only a few hundred MB, less than 1 GB.

Compared to the dozens or even hundreds of gigabytes taken up by any VR game these days, this game was ridiculously small.

"This game's less than a gigabyte. It's so small."

Chen Ze had already put on his gaming headset and was ready to try the game.

The game loaded quickly. Chen Ze glanced at the menu.

[Singleplayer]

[Multiplayer]

[Options][Quit Game]

There were only four options in all. It was very simple.

Chen Ze thought for a moment, then clicked Singleplayer. After all, he was only planning to play for thirty minutes, and he could easily kill that time on his own.

When he saw that the game had difficulty settings, Chen Ze thought for a moment and went straight for Hard.

Loading game...

Chen Ze looked at the pixelated block in the center of the screen and had already lost hope in the game.

The game finished loading, and a grassland appeared before him.

Unlike other games, the graphics here were incredibly low-quality. He felt as if he'd traveled back several decades.

He took a couple of steps forward, and the grass beneath his feet rustled as he walked through it.

"Hey, guys, what can I say about this game? I have no idea what I'm supposed to do."

Chen Ze wandered aimlessly across the grassland, feeling like there was nothing fun about it.

[See? I told you. They shouldn't release shoddy games like this. Putting them out there is just an eyesore.]

"Exactly. This game is really bad for your eyes."

"Just wrap it up. Stop playing."

"I'm out, guys. Let me know when the ad's over."

"Garbage game. What's fun about it? I guess every scene has idiots like Starfield."

For a while, nearly a hundred thousand people in Chen Ze's livestream kept complaining about the game.

At Starfield Game Company.

Luan Le'an, the game designer, was already panicking as he read the comments in Chen Ze's livestream. He looked at Su Ye and said, "Boss, should I go show him how to play right now?"

"A lot of people have no idea how the game works. This is going to hurt our reputation."

Su Ye raised a hand to stop the designer.

"A lot of what makes this game fun is what the players discover for themselves. If you go and show him, you'll take away the fun of discovering it."

"Just watch quietly. I'm sure this will be one of the greatest games of the twenty-first century."

Su Ye wasn't worried at all. He didn't care about what was happening in the livestream. Instead, he was thinking about future development for Minecraft.

Mods, modpacks, texture packs, shaders, servers, and so on.

He planned to make all of those, but he'd have to keep things in check and not follow the path of NetEase from his previous life.

"When will the platform be ready?"

He looked at the designer beside him. This platform would become Starfield's main battleground in the future, so there couldn't be any problems with it.

When Luan Le'an heard his boss ask about the platform, he really couldn't understand what was going through the man's mind.

The game was on the verge of dying before it even got off the ground. Whether the platform was ready or not seemed irrelevant to him. But since his boss had asked, he answered anyway.

"The platform's basic framework is in place. We still need to do some optimization and other work."

"How many downloads has Minecraft gotten?"

"Well... so far, it's only been downloaded 563 times."

Just then, a message popped up on his phone.

[Designer Luan, the game's downloads have suddenly surged by several thousand. Please hurry back and take a look.]

When he saw the message, Luan Le'an's pupils contracted. He looked up at Su Ye and said excitedly, "President Su, the backend says the game's downloads have surged!"

The corners of Su Ye's mouth lifted slightly, and he nodded. His gaze returned to Chen Ze's livestream.