I looked around the virtual room the moment I materialized. I had shown up to the briefing only a minute early, having not felt like socializing, and now I was kinda regretting it. There were more people than I expected, and there were definitely some recognizable faces. Here I thought I'd be the big shot for this project.
“Seeing as everyone has arrived, let's begin our introduction, shall we?” A female voice said as a large screen appeared in front of our small crowd. Endless Paths by Burning Plains Entertainment flashed on the screen in blazing letters, as the dramatic music began building up in the background. I promptly lost interest. It was a trailer I already watched before even agreeing to come here, and VR has been out for over ten years, so trailers don't awe me like they did when I was a kid.
I took this opportunity to observe the possible competition. There were a bunch I didn't recognize which meant their sub count must be low. I mean at 74,000( I like to round up to 75,000 sometimes) subscribers, I can't claim to be a superstar either but I know I'm probably doing better than them. But the faces I did recognize kinda bothered me.
Rigormortis was here, and at over half a million subs, he was probably the biggest streamer here. He was notorious for his necromancers, but he was a damned good magician all around. I should know, I'm one of those half a million subs, and I usually catch his big shows when I can. But he was more of a competitive league guy, not the playthrough type, so his presence confused me.
Shifting my eyes to the head far in front of me, I'm met with a long, thin streak of black hair kept in a tidy ponytail. Fortunately, I saw who it belonged to when I first popped in, the flash from my entry had probably made him turn around. Seika-Ray. Which means this game might be appealing to an international market. Seika-Ray was a ufc fighter, kendo practitioner, boxer, and a bunch of other stuff that involved hitting people. He switched to VR streaming to push his combat abilities to the limit and played exclusively close combat classes. The half-Japanese warrior adapted very well to virtual combat. I subbed to him last month, he had like 100,000 subscribers. Last week, it was double that. He's definitely gonna be a superstar one day, and a pain in my ass in this playthrough if we're anywhere near each other. I pray we aren't.
Those two alone make my chances of coming out on top negligible. I was starting to notice a trend, though. These guys were more competitive players, but Endless Paths wasn't that kind of game, so why-
“So everyone, that was the game.” My inner musings were interrupted by a beautiful young couple, levitating where the video screen used to be. Oooooh, dramatic. I like.
“I and my brother Coulson, the entire development team really, have put our hearts and souls into making this game. We love Endless Paths and sincerely hope that the world will too.” The woman said. So they were siblings. That would explain the matching copper hair.
“So we called you all, ” the man, Coulson said, taking over “ to show the world what Endless Paths is all about. Your unique play styles hold the power to paint the picture of Endless Paths in your own specials\ colors. I want to see it. Celia wants to see it. The people need to see it!” My eyes wander off to see a few of the young faces around me gazing fervently at the two. I sighed quietly to myself. Amateurs.
“For those of you who choose to go forward in this endeavor with us, an agent is going to deal with you personally. I hope to see all of you playing. I hope to see one of you win.” With a flash of light and a thunderclap, the two vanish. If this was my first rodeo, I would probably be very impressed. But being the jaded veteran I was, I was just ready to get to business.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
No sooner than I thought it, did a door appears in front of me. It was teal, a color I tended to wear during playthroughs, and had the mark of a coyote, a symbol I started using during my most famous playthrough. Looking around, it would seem not only myself, everyone got their own individualized door. Alright, that was a nice touch. With a chuckle, I opened and stepped through it to find myself in an all-white office. A man stood behind a desk, fairly young looking for a lawyer, although he looked awfully overworked.
“If you are uninterested in moving forward with this opportunity, please feel free to log out. We at BPE will not contact you any further should you wish it. Otherwise, please take a seat.”
I walked over and did as instructed. The man smiled and sat as well, smoothing out his white suit as he did so. I fought down a chuckle. I don't even know why I found it funny, but I did
“So is the pure white thing mandatory, or do you do it by choice?” I had to ask.
“Studies show that people feel more comfortable in a clean environment and white is the color most associated with clean.” He responded.
“You should have dyed your hair then too, no?”
“Well, that would just look absurd. I'm not old enough to pull that off gracefully. Maybe if I set my eye color to red I could look like an anime protagonist, though.” He said running a hand through his dark hair, his other hand outstretched towards the sky, taking the official Japanese Main Character pose. I liked this guy.
“So down to business then, ” I said. He resumed a professional stance immediately before speaking.
“Right, my name is Al Richter, and I will be your liaison with Burning Plains Entertainment for the duration of your contract, should you choose to accept it. The broad strokes are, we would like you to play the ‘lord’ class. It's exactly what it sounds like. I believe you have some experience in that field?”
I struggled to contain my self-mocking laughter. I was a horrible lord. The one time in my eight-year gaming career I took a city for myself, I put all the city's resources into growing the military. I lost it the very same month, the battle for it was a short but glorious bloodbath. I made sure to give as bad as I got. A shame my dumb ass forgot soldiers, virtual or not, need to eat and drafting all the farmers probably wasn't a good idea. This was the first time I had ever heard of a lord class. Normally, it's a title; anyone could be a lord. Of course, I didn't say any of this out loud, and Mr. Richter continued, ignorant or my inner regrets and speculation.
“Of course, knowing the difficulties of the class, we are willing to give all manner of benefits including, but not limited to extra starting resources, a good starting location, higher grade NPCs, weapons, you get the idea. I've put together a package that I think will be quite competitive.” He said as a file appeared in front of me. Without even looking at it, I respond.
“I'll forgo that, in exchange for a 30℅ discount code that can be used by all my subscribers.” Mr. Richter’s eyebrows rose in surprise at my counter.
“... I truly believe you should reconsider. All the other participants are being offered something similar. You'd lose your competitive edge.” I chuckled, knowing that for anyone else, the warning held weight.
“Mr. Richter…”
“Al, please. We aren't that far apart in age. Don't let the forehead wrinkles fool you, I only turn thirty this year.”
“Al, do you know what my average view count per video is? 60,000, the majority of that being my subscribers, and a small amount being new viewers. Do you know how many views most gaming channels around my size get? Like 20,000 maybe. Only half of those are actually their subs, the other half are new viewers.
“See I may grow slowly, but my foundation is rock solid, and it stays that way for two reasons. One, I neither take handouts nor do I pay to win. I can't claim to be the best gamer out there or even one of the greatest. But when you see me on your screen, you know everything I accomplished, I did it myself, fair and square. Two, I look out for my subscribers. I do giveaways, q&a vids, even in-game meetups, and aid requests from time to time. And when I can, I do big things like this where I get them discounts. I show them love, and they love me for it.”
Al leaned back in his chair, hands folded in contemplation.
“I can't approve this myself, Mr. Frazier. I've been authorized to negotiate your benefits package, hours, even your pay, but I believe this falls out of that scope. I have to take this to my superiors, and we’ll contact you with an answer within the business day. Rest assured, we definitely want the Feral Fiend on our team!” I winced at my channel name, embarrassment coursing like blood through my veins. I thought that was so cool when I was sixteen. TheFeralFiend was the unchangeable name of my channel, though luckily most people just call me by name now. Speaking of which.
“I thought we were on a first name basis, Al? Call me Dante.”