Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Overseas players who could connect to the Cloud Dream server were all participating in this grand occasion.

Among them, there was one particular country where playing “Terraria” made it to their trending list along with “massive strike.”

Yes, it’s Germany.

Today was the day Carl called for a nationwide strike online.

However, due to the 7-hour time difference, when the strike began, it was already 4 pm in Daxia, and “Terraria” had been online for two hours.

Players in Daxia certainly had no interest in continuing to fuel the flames of overseas conflict and incite magical warfare.

— Although there was no such level of magical warfare in Daxia, the skill of “putting the hat on others” was a traditional skill that had been passed down for thousands of years.

It’s just that now it has been combined with the features of the new era, and the old trick has been revamped.

So even though Daxia’s netizens didn’t experience such a ridiculous magical warfare in reality, when they really played, they were not much inferior to those veteran overseas netizens.

Of course, it might be because the Daxia netizens were too far away, watching the fire from across the shore, and not afraid of being affected in reality…

In any case, not only the player circles in Daxia but also the hotspots on the Internet were all around “Terraria” that afternoon, and the news of the massive strike overseas instantly lost its popularity.

Internationalism was thrown to the back of their minds.

After all, nobody could stop everyone from playing the new game.

But the massive strike was still going on as planned.

However, even though Carl and the others lacked the support of Daxia’s netizens’ public opinion — if instigating conflict really counted as supporting them, they received subtle support from the “hidden hand” behind Cloud Dream.

Under Lincoln’s instruction, the negotiations between Keli Buli Game Company and Cloud Dream reached a stalemate.

Renee Buri found that Cloud Dream was immune to any form of persuasion, and other domestic game companies began trying to get in touch with the government, wanting to replace his position.

In his panic, he quickly abandoned the data sharing request in order to reach a cooperation with Cloud Dream as soon as possible.

But unfortunately…

It was too late.

This time, it was Cloud Dream that didn’t agree.

Of course, they didn’t directly refuse it either.

As an important figure and genuine executive of Cloud Dream, Jerome took time out of his busy schedule to accompany Renee Buri through the metropolis to taste Chinese cuisine, finishing all five major cuisines in two days.

In between, he also took him to visit the under-construction [Virtual Xiajing].

The exterior of [Virtual Xiajing] was already completed and offered enough scenic views.

However, to finely decorate the interiors of all the extensive modern building, the time and effort required are almost limitless.

Lincoln was considering: since it’s going to take a long time anyway, why not have some people working on something else.

He was planning to take away a third of the skilled workers to build a new city: Luoyang.

But not the current Luoyang, it’s —

[Divine Capital] Luoyang!

After showing off Virtual Xiajing, Jerome finally fulfilled his “landlord’s duty” and gave Renee a relatively certain piece of news:

“Let’s discuss the details next Monday.”

Cloud Dream’s operation directly undermined the German government’s plan to use “we have already reached a cooperation with Cloud Dream” to cancel the massive strike.

That’s just one part of it, it only ensures that those who planned to participate in the strike won’t give up.

As for the more important second part, it was purely coincidental – the launch time of “Terraria.”

When “Terraria” launched, it was 7 am in Germany.

German players, who had just been introduced to virtual reality games not too long ago, were eagerly waiting for the game to go online at the exact time.

Among them, a large number of players initially had no plans to participate in the strike.

Even though they were being very fierce on the internet, it’s well-known that people who are fierce online are not necessarily fierce in reality—many people’s online and real-life behaviors are completely opposite.

Their plan was to wake up early, play the new game for an hour, and then log off to go to work.

The problem was that many people were so absorbed in playing that they forgot about the time…

Because Terraria maintained an open-world weak guidance design style, it gave players enough freedom but also inevitably slowed down their progress.

Players could only learn about many details of the game through the system introduction of various items, as well as NPCs, especially the guidance from the Guide.

The problem was that there were so many items in Terraria, and it was extremely difficult to distinguish the useful from the useless.

Green-quality garbage weapons and white-quality key items were mixed together, and no one knew which was useful and which was not.

The combination of three white materials—Poison Sting, Creeper, and Jungle Spores—could create an orange-quality weapon, the Blade of Grass. Who would have thought of such a bizarre formula without seeing it first?

And there were countless similar things in the game…

So, people had no choice but to store them all, good or bad.

As a result, inevitably, a lot of time was spent on organizing warehouses and studying crafting tables.

And every time they crafted new useful items, they would be filled with a sense of accomplishment.

Plus, there were numerous explorable areas, hidden treasure chests, wandering traveling merchants, and constantly entering new NPCs…

The playable content in the game was overwhelming!

By the time they realized it, they found that it was time to go to work, and many even found out they were already late.

Looking at the half-dug ores, half-explored caves, and half-beaten BOSSes in front of them…

A large number of players changed their minds, using the “support the strike” excuse to persuade themselves to take the day off and stay home to play games.

And with millions of Cloud Dream players in Germany…

Thus, the largest strike in German history began!

Even in the worst estimates made by the government, the expected number of strikers did not exceed 100,000 people.

However, on this day, the number of players supporting the strike indirectly by staying home and playing games far exceeded their estimates, perhaps even several or dozens of times!

The only good news was:

These people were scattered all over the country and were in different industries, so they would not act collectively like a union-organized strike, directly causing paralysis in a certain region.

In the afternoon, when the German Federal Network Security Bureau received more detailed data, a special meeting was held.

At the beginning of the meeting, someone raised anxiously, “If Cloud Dream launches a public opinion offensive against us, or even a color revolution of the new era, can we stop it?”

This question plunged the meeting room into an awkward silence.

This was the reason for organizing the meeting—Cloud Dream’s influence had become undeniable, and even if they continued to block the construction of servers, they could only affect the game experience of their own players while not preventing them from logging into the virtual world.

Therefore, they had to develop effective strategies to deal with a super platform that connects almost all major countries, has hundreds of millions of users, no language barriers, and is almost impossible to control!

The worst part was: this super platform has already taken its initial shape, and now all the governments of the world have to face it!

At this time, the director even envied America.

At least under America’s strictest countermeasures, not to mention servers and games, even a single Mirage Console sent by Cloud Dream would be stopped by customs.

As a result, Cloud Dream was on everyone’s lips in their country but had no real influence.

Although the American government was criticized by its people, they were not as vulnerable as they were, facing possible future risks with no solution in sight.

But it’s useless to regret it now.

They are the Federal Network Security Bureau and must take responsibility. This responsibility not only requires them to be more vigilant about risks than others but also requires them to think of countermeasures in advance.

After a brief silence, someone finally spoke up—

“Can we have Lincoln immigrate here?”

Hearing this, the director looked at the speaker incredulously and asked in surprise:

“Did you leave your brain at home today?”