Chapter 153: Incompatible (Part 5)

After the battle between the players and the evil spirits, a new idea materialized in Lu Wu’s mind. It was to subdue the Rock Ghost King for their own use.

After all, what Lu Wu lacked most now was a real dominant power.

Although the Beiqi Army was already considerably powerful, it was still quite weak when facing high-level enemies.

Just like in this current battle, when confronted with an Evil Ghost General, if a player did not possess enough strength to slay it immediately, then the evil would not be eliminated.

Similarly, when a player encountered other powerful creatures, they could be easily defeated. However, it was not a child’s play if you wished to keep or kill it.

Currently, there was no one of Ghost Commander Level or above worth showing off on Lu Wu’s side, apart from Tong Gua, whose power was remarkably unstable. This was an absolute disadvantage for a player’s power.

Therefore, Lu Wu started to ponder if he could tame the Rock Ghost King as part of the power of Beiqi for his own use, then digitize them. If that was successful, he would be able to make up for the players’ weakness, allowing the overall strength of the Beiqi Army to rise to another level.

Of course, this was merely one of Lu Wu’s many plans for future development. After all, there was still no corresponding power and strength to implement it.

……

The day after the evil invasion crisis ended…

The three-month exclusive authorization signed by Lu Wu and Wu Guoyi had finally reached its expiration date.

These few days, Lu Wu would receive plenty of calls from other gaming platforms each day, in hopes of negotiating for cooperation.

This gave Lu Wu an intense headache, but he naturally would not refuse. After all, this was helpful in promoting the game.

Needless to say, Lu Wu would not give any of these platforms conditions for cooperation that were as great as those he offered Wu Guoyi. In addition to not providing advertising fees, he also stipulated that these few platforms must allow the game Battle Online to appear once a month on the promotional page of their homepage.

In comparison to the terms and conditions that other games put forth for paid advertisements on said platforms, Lu Wu’s demand was undoubtedly harsher.

This time, however, none of the platforms rejected Lu Wu’s suggestion.

This was because anyone who had gaming knowledge and had experienced the game itself knew how impactful the game would be in the future.

Besides, Lu Wu rejected all suggestions for a face-to-face discussion by the gaming platforms. He ordered for the contracts to be mailed to him, as he refused to discuss them in person.

He did not have that much time to meet them one by one.

After spending a tedious couple of days to read through and sign the several heaps of contracts, Lu Wu could finally let out a sigh of relief.

However, that was not the end of Lu Wu’s duties. Once he managed to settle the cooperation matters with local gaming platforms, another swarm of foreign game developers constantly called him, hoping to obtain authorization as international agents as soon as possible.

Yet, Lu Wu turned them all down after detailed discussions.

The reason was pretty simple. The way that they planned to promote Battle Online was different from what Lu Wu had in mind.

The terms that they proposed were basically a one-time buyout of foreign operating rights of the game, on top of a request to activate the soul coin top-up function in the foreign version for profit.

Though they offered high prices, even he himself was short on soul coins. So how could he possibly let them put it on sale? Hence, he declined without a second thought.

However, now the problem was that if the soul coin top-up function was not activated, foreign agents would not be able to use the game Battle Online to earn money. That way, no profit could be generated for them. Not to mention the costly agent fees that they were required to pay, which made this, all in all, a loss-making trade.

Hence, they came up with the buyout system. If they run the game on a buyout system, as long as the game content was attractive enough, it would still be profitable for them.

However, Lu Wu still refused in the end, as a one-off buyout would surely drive out a portion of players. Besides, it was also not agreeable to him.

Lu Wu’s firm attitude dismissed a fraction of the agents. But soon, new foreign gaming agents approached him. They made it clear that they could give up the game top-up and buyout system, but asked to slot advertisements into the game in exchange. This was their strategy to make a profit.

Lu Wu still declined the offer.

After all, the gaming agents merely desired profit, while Lu Wu actually cared about how the players’ strength could be raised. If advertisements were planted into the game, it would unmistakably tarnish the game experience. So, Lu Wu refused again.

After rejecting all the calls from foreign gaming agents, Lu Wu was faced with a challenging issue. How could he promote the game overseas?

As if he could read Lu Wu’s mind and sense his troubles, Wu Guoyi called him that day. He told Lu Wu that he had a plan to expand the gaming platform’s market, Platform173, as well as taking in a handful of agents for Battle Online.

Wu Guoyi’s idea was simple.

He was optimistic about Battle Online and felt that the game could gain immense fame overseas. It was as simple as that.

As for profits, he had never once thought to count on Battle Online. What he truly wanted was for this game to boost the impact of their platform abroad, thereby driving income from the other sources.

After Lu Wu seriously considered his proposal, he decided to formally cooperate with Wu Guoyi. This was because Wu Guoyi proved that he would not interfere with any progress in the game and at the same time, as an old player, he clearly knew that Lu Wu would never agree with the top-up path.

Although he had always been unclear about Lu Wu’s thought processes…

…

After finalizing the matter concerning foreign agencies, Lu Wu received another call from the Black Sea Corporation, informing him that the gaming pods would be officially launched in five days.

Meanwhile, the Jie De Corporation’s gaming pods were already officially on sale.

On the day of the release, the Jie De Corporation announced to the public that the game was collaborating with all well-known local game developers. As a result, they could now cancel an array of default limitations set in the game, such as safety timing.

At the same time, they also showcased a series of functions in the gaming pod to the media.

One such feature involved the gaming pods using nutrient solutions to supplement the basic bodily needs of the players after prolonged gaming periods. Another feature demonstrated muscle exercises in order to prevent muscle atrophy. The list was exhaustive.

The emergence of gaming pods instantly exhilarated a majority of domestic players, especially those who had long been dissatisfied with the set safety timing limit of twelve hours on Battle Online. After engaging in the forum discussions, they began to purchase the Jie De Corporation’s gaming pods.

On the first day of release, they had received a whopping four million orders for the gaming pods. Thus, they hastily shipped out the stock they had prepared beforehand in large batches. The higher-ups in the Jie De Corporation realized that staying one step ahead indeed gave them a huge advantage. On the other hand, the Black Sea Corporation could only watch helplessly as their market share elapsed, for they lagged behind.

However, the Jie De Corporation did not expect a significant horde of players to post negative feedback about how disappointing the gaming pods were on their official website. They complained that it was incompatible with game operations.

Confronted by this situation, the Jie De Corporation immediately launched an investigation to track down and interrogate players who gave poor ratings.

The Jie De Corporation’s leaders fell silent after consolidating the results of player feedback.

The reasons behind the low ratings from players requesting refunds were roughly uniform, “Unable to run Battle Online, it’s bad!”

They never anticipated that the gaming pods’ inability to run Battle Online would cause such a huge effect.

Following the incident, they commenced a meeting without delay. At last, they hurriedly ordered the technical department to demolish the shield in Battle Online.

However, just as they thought the problem was finally resolved, the players’ feedback started to become even more intense. Now, the number of people demanding a refund had gradually surged to about two million.

If the gaming pods were incompatible with game operations, then these players demanding the removal of gaming restrictions could simply wait for them to fix the bug.

Unfortunately, the current problem was that even though Battle Online could be downloaded into the gaming pods, once the game icon was clicked, players would be greeted with a game notification that said,

“This game is not compatible with this device!”