“It has only been three months since Mr. Lee Hyun announced that there is more money to be won other than the grand prize and we are seeing the first player in RREV to win such a large monetary reward! Pai Yeong, just beat an B level mission with a reward of $1,000. Pai Yeong, how does it feel?” asked Kilp Woo.
“It is like a dream come true!” spoke a middle aged man, as he cried with a smile. His amour looked toasted and black as if he had just stepped out of an oven. “I shall take my family on a RL vacation this year!”
“So, Pai Yeong, do you now plan to go after the $1 billion mission?”
“Yes!” said Pai Yeong with excitement.
RREV Players divided quests into two categories: quests which had no RL payouts and missions which did. Missions were fairly rare and only began with level C and above. But level C missions only paid at most $10, not that anyone was complaining.
Lee Hyun looked at the news in dismay. My precious money! Precious! It did not matter whether it was $10 or $1. Lee Hyun would not let go of a single won if he had it his way! Each time a player succeeded in a mission Lee Hyun secretly curse bad luck to that player. Although, he was so bitter, he had no choice.
The debut of Shadow had a twofold effect. It initially began with curiosity and a subtle increase in players but then quickly dissolved into a myriad of controversy. First, the media began fussing over the high levels of violence that the game promoted. It then escalated to an intervention by the censor board which brooded over whether Elementarem Vim should be rated for adults only or to be played with parental guidance for younger players.
Given the ambiguity of the future of the game many game critics wrote terrible reviews for the game discouraging new gamers. Lee Hyun knew these game critics better than anyone, they were a group of monopolistic individuals who would write reviews the way one wanted them for a price. In the name of fairness, they could brandish any game as “Epic” or “failure”.
Although it was an open secret within the industry there was no proof tainting these critics and the judgments they passed. Given the fiercely competitive nature of the gaming world, critic reviews were as good as the law. If a game was deemed to hold no future then it was bound to sink. Any investment in terms of time and money would only be loss making for a pro-gamer. For those who made a livelihood on gaming, a loss was completely unacceptable. Thus, critic reviews could make or break a game!
Lee Hyun could only lament when the critics began with discouraging reviews till yesterday they all sang in praise of Elementarem Vim. However, when an opportunity as promising as an intervention by the censor board made its way to the Unicorn Corp doorstep, other game developers had to take advantage of it. Though Lee Hyun was unsure, he instinctively knew that the culprit was probably one of the top VR game developers who feared Elementarem Vim’s rise to the top. It was a pre-emptive strike to stop Elementarem Vim from garnering too many positive reviews and gaining momentum in terms of players.
Unlike the VR world where the rules of fairness govern, reality was much more different than Lee Hyun had anticipated. Even though his hair had now greyed, given his introvert and unsociable nature, he would often mistake peoples motivations and feelings for something they were not.
Shadow’s debut had been no different, although Lee Hyun did not expect that Shadow would have such an early debut into the game, he was expecting a completely different reaction from the world. Shadow’s debut was intended to pique curiosity and excite the players into playing more Elementarem Vim. In an absolute fair world where the impact of cheating would be limited, Lee Hyun would have definitely succeeded with his plans. As Shadows debut did tingle the imagination of every VR player. However, the real world is anything but fair. Even though Lee Hyun did anticipate some level backfiring of his plan, his estimations were completely off. He expected there to be some from the media houses to crib about how scary Shadow and upsetting a few critics. But having the censor board intervene? That was a bit too excessive. Never before had a VR game required an intervention by the censor board after it had been released.
Lee Hyun could only wonder whether they too had been bribed into interfering with his games progression or was it a natural repercussion of grabbing the attention of the government with the grand money prize? Lee Hyun hoped it was the latter. If it was a bribe then it was clear that whoever was out to crush Unicorn Corp did not leave a single stone unturned. It was a bit disturbing the degree to which people were willing to go to, to crush the rise of a new game to the top of the charts but the truth has largely been that the current top three positions have never been broken into over the last decade. There has been no challenger to the occasion regardless how brilliant a gaming concept could have been. The top three VR developers would ruthlessly crush budding potential to maintain their top positions.
Even though many new gaming companies complained foul whether there was any underhanded tactic employed would continue to remain a mystery. Lee Hyun and Elementarem Vim were no exception to the newbie crushing rule. Unfortunately, for the mysterious villain who plotted Lee Hyun’s and Elementarem Vim’s downfall, he underestimated Lee Hyun’s far sightedness into developing contingency plans for worst case scenarios. Just like the countless number of times in Royal Road, Lee Hyun would never reveal his ace until the last moment. His plans may have not panned out as he had hoped that did not mean Lee Hyun was going to be crushed like any other developer.
Lee Hyun had been part of the VR gaming community for over a decade now. Although on paper it appeared he had been completely out of touch for the last twenty odd years, the truth was Lee Hyun and VR gaming were completely inseparable. As Lee Hyun once described in his university interview, he did not distinguish between the VR or RL worlds. Then, how could Lee Hyun be out of touch with what was happening in the VR world? He wasn’t. Lee Hyun was well aware of the newbie crushing tactics involved, the government intervention was a first. But Lee Hyun enjoyed the bitter sweet taste of the challenge, he now knew exactly how far his enemies were willing to go to crush him. Compared to knowing nothing about his enemy’s strength this was a much more favourable position to be in. It is easier to fight the lion outside his den rather than inside the dark den.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Throughout Unicorn’s declining history, the top three game developers would always come up with some marketing ploy or the other to prevent Unicorn specifically from succeeding. History was repeating itself, but Lee Hyun (and Unicorn) was prepared.
Apart from underhanded tactics, the top three game developers had begun placing counter measures to Elementarem Vim’s grand prize of $1 billion. They too now offered massive monetary payouts however they appeared to be holding events where these monetary payouts were being made. Athenos offered 1000 prizes worth $1 million. The payouts of the other VR games were also similar.
VR gaming was increasingly gaining the world’s attention for the ridiculous amounts of money being offered. However, nobody seemed to be offering a single prize as large as RREVs’.
There were several reasons for that. There was the unwritten rule in VR game development was that once a game was completed, developers should never tweak the world the AI controls even if there is a system glitch or some sort of error. The entire system would have to go offline and for maintenance before a glitch can be corrected. Thus, VR developers invested heavily in Beta Testing as going offline was considered same as stabbing yourself to death.
Long ago when AI were just being used alongside games some developers did tweak the world and almost always, the AI system would crash with it – thus jeopardizing and destroying all related hardware. These few companies who did try the tweaking pretty much went bust. Many papers were published as to why it happened so and AI program developers tried to overcome this limitation but to no avail. In the end, VR game developers decided to just stick with perfect beta testing.
Also, developers also didn’t want to copy one for one Unicorn Corp’s marketing strategy. Being labeled as monkey’s or copy cats wasn’t exactly building reputation. Other reasons why the payout was not that large was the associated risk was just too high of players winning the prize money. Nobody was crazy enough to let players win…VR game developers, did consider Lee Hyun crazy. As the saying went they considered, “A fool and his money are soon to part.”
VR gamers offering money payouts were expected. Media attacks and terrible critic reviews was expected. Lee Hyun did not lift a finger. But when the controversy spun into play, the number of new players began increasing at snail pace. It was practically stuck at 17 million. Lee Hyun had anticipated a stagnation given the large negative reviews from critics and government intervention. That’s when Lee Hyun released monetary payouts in quests, commonly now known as missions.
It had been nearly an year since RREV was released, six months since Shadow debuted, four months since Elementarem Vim was embroiled in controversy and three months since Lee Hyun put his counter measure into action.
None of the game developers anticipated RREV to also contain small easy quests which offered money prizes apart from the existing huge $1 billion prize. It stung them badly that they had been out-witted. Three months ago, news of Elementarem Vim’s mission were labeled as a last ditch effort to save a sinking ship. Lee Hyun who was hailed as a potential game changer in the industry was written off as the captain of Titanic (in reference to sinking the ship). All sorts of jokes were made of Unicorn Corp and him. But when players realized that the payout was integrated into the game without it requiring it to go offline, they understood it as a feature that was always part of the game. That alone washed away all rumors of mini monetary missions being a last ditch effort to save a sinking ship. Instead, players focused on Unicorn’s official statement.
“As players are advancing through the game, we would like to inform that level C quests with real world monetary payouts are now accessible.”
Till then, very few players had a chance to complete a level C quest. However, as their numbers grew, few wrote of the receiving monetary payouts of $100! The tides slowly began to change from there. Now, the news of how a common man, not even a professional gamer – just a common man, just made an easy US$1,000, created a lot of interest. It was safe to say that the tides had been reversed.
Thankfully for Lee Hyun, his plan worked, the numbers and metrics were increasing again. He held back his bitter tears, probably because Lee Hyun had anticipated this and considered it an investment? Or maybe his stock was trading at 6,000 won, or may be because the number of new players started rising again?
It did not matter what the reasons were, Lee Hyun had just beaten the critics, beaten the media and the top developers trying to crush him at their own game for now….
“Arrange a conference with the censor board. It’s time to crush Elementarem Vim completely.” Echoed a man’s voice through the other end of the speaker.
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Authors Note:
1. Confusing chapter.....maybe I should work on it a bit more.
2. To summarize, its been 6 months forward since the last chapter in the story time frame.
3. Running busy as hell in RL, so posting will continue to be irregular.
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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo
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