My game, you have no right to award

Chapter 134 Green Radish's Dream
"So, I think this game might not be as bad as media like IGN say." Salted Fish God of War paused, "It's more likely that this game is quite picky about players."

"What do you mean?"

The black cat was very interested in what he said, because he actually had a similar feeling in his heart, but he didn't know how to summarize it in words.

"Because you see, those media outlets that gave it five or six points criticized the game's difficulty as too high, believing the difficulty design was unreasonable, and that's why they deducted points."

"On the other hand, the media outlet that gave the game a perfect score also mentioned the high difficulty level, but what they mentioned most was the immense sense of accomplishment after defeating the enemy."

"In fact, these two statements are not contradictory. It may just be that IGN's team is clumsy and can't defeat the enemy no matter what, so they can only feel frustrated."

"Only by defeating the enemy can you experience the fun of the game."

"It's possible that Kuangshi Games designed this game for this second type of people."

The salted fish god of war accidentally guessed the essence of soul travel just by reading a few reviews written by gaming media.

Soul Travel, even Elden Circle, despite providing a variety of wheelchair gameplay and weapons, still requires players to be selected.

Many people think that if they can do it, they also think that everyone can do it.

But in reality, there are still many players who have to look at the keyboard before pressing WASD!

After hearing this, Black Cat suddenly realized that he finally knew where the conflict in his heart came from.

He was instantly delighted. If that was the case, then perhaps the game wouldn't have any quality issues?

"I also feel that way!"

There was a hint of excitement in his voice, as if the injustice in "Netherworld Mountains and Seas" had been vindicated.

A helpless smile appeared on the corner of Salted Fish God of War's mouth. He called just to comfort Black Cat and tell him not to care about this matter.

After all, in his own eyes, does the success of this game have anything to do with the anchors of Bilibili?
The production company didn't pay him.

So, no matter whether the game is ultimately successful or not, what does it have to do with him?

The Salted Fish God of War will not let these things affect his mood.

He is a person with more rational thinking and selfish personality, so he cannot empathize with Black Cat's mood at the moment.

But he cared about Black Cat, so he called to comfort him, and now that he was fine, he should leave quickly.

"Well, I have something else to do, so I'll leave first. I need to go to bed early." said the Salted Fish God of War.

"Okay, then go to bed early. Bye."

"886"

After hanging up the phone, Black Cat was still thinking about what the other party said.

"Pick players"?

I hope I will like this game as well.

I really want to be able to play "Youming Shanhai" as soon as possible.

Why do we have to wait a few more days?
Damn, we should really find the office building of Kuangshi Games, tie up their boss Zhou Kuang in a small dark room, and force him to release "Netherworld Mountains and Seas" today!

……

……

……

On the other hand, Zhou Kuang also saw the review and rating from the well-known foreign media IGN at the first time, but his reaction was exactly the opposite of that of others. He really didn't care at all!
He even yawned and went straight to sleep.

He slept until dawn.

It was not until he arrived at the company the next day that he opened the Metacritic website again and checked the M station score of "Netherworld Mountains and Seas".

At this time, the M station score of "Youming Shanhai" has come out. It is based on the scores given by dozens of media outlets that reviewed and rated it in the first place, and then calculated using M station's own scores.

When he saw the score written in black font in the yellow box, he snorted coldly.

68 points.

mixed reviews.

Zhou Kuang had already expected that the score would not be high, but when he actually saw such a score, especially the number starting with 6, he still felt a little dissatisfied.

This is the first 3A stand-alone game from an inexperienced small independent studio, made in China. Furthermore, there has never been a Souls-like game in the world, so people cannot understand such a difficult game design.

With the three major debuffs stacked up, it is impossible for the Western media to give a score higher than low.

Zhou Kuang was rather surprised. How could "Netherworld Mountains and Seas" achieve such a score despite all the random ratings given by many Western media?
So, he clicked on the media reviews next to the M station ratings, which were the ratings of the gaming media that M station used as a reference.

Surprisingly, I found that the scores given by gaming media in South Asia and South America were quite good.

Three media outlets gave the film a perfect score of 100, two of which were from South Asia, and there were also quite a few media outlets that gave it a score of 80 or 90.

It seems that their scores were combined with the low scores of European and American media, and the score reached 68 points.

Zhou Kuang gradually understood everything.

He walked out of the office, but found that Yang Ji was actually comforting Feng Qi.

This is so rare!

Normally, the roles of the two people are usually reversed.

"Ratings are just ratings. The game hasn't been released yet."

"I know, it's just..."

"Just wait a little longer."

"Ugh."

Seeing Zhou Kuang coming over, Yang Ji patted Feng Qi, who was sitting in the chair with a somewhat depressed look.

"What? Are you depressed?"

Zhou Kuang pulled over an unused chair and sat in front of Feng Qi.

"Kind of."

Feng Qi's voice was a little dull.

As the producer of the game, "Youming Shanhai" is like his own child, and no one can stand his own child being belittled by others like this.

The most important thing is that you clearly know that your child is very good and is definitely not what others say!
Feng Qi originally thought that the game was at least 90 points. Even taking into account his own preferences and possible misjudgments by the media, it should be at least 80 points.

The results of it?
Not to mention 80 points, it’s not even 70 points!

How could he not be depressed?

"Where are the employees?"

"Same."

Yang Ji’s words are concise and to the point.

Zhou Kuang nodded, it seemed like it was time.

"Call everyone, I want to speak."

After he finished speaking, Yang Ji stood there in a daze.

"I go?"

"Then let me go."

Zhou Kuang was joking.

"I'll go."

Feng Qi stood up with a sad look on his face.

……

Zhou Kuang stood in front of all the employees and glanced over. They were all familiar faces, but what he saw on their faces at this moment was not excitement and excitement because of the upcoming release of the game, but disappointment, depression and discouragement.

Obviously, the media's ratings have a much greater impact on them than the players' comments. After all, as gamers, they naturally want to be recognized by "authority."

They were talking a lot and the scene seemed a bit noisy.

Zhou Kuang clapped his hands and people quickly quieted down.

He looked at everyone slowly, then suddenly raised his right hand high.

"Everyone! Forget about those bullshit media ratings! Look up and look at me!"

Sure enough, his words immediately attracted everyone's attention.

"I know how you feel right now: angry, powerless, confused, and sad!"

"Our carefully crafted works of art are being trampled underfoot by others and treated as scraps that can be found everywhere, right?" When they heard him say this, sporadic bitter laughs were heard from the crowd.

"When we fought for three months straight just to change the design of a map!"

"When we were arguing about whether or not to add new monster combat mechanics!"

“When we had to rewrite the code of an entire subsystem just to squeeze out a single frame of frame rate in a scene!”

"Who the hell would have thought that in the end it would be rated over 60 points!"

Zhou Kuang slammed his fist on the table.

There was silence.

"But today, I want to tell you three things!" Zhou Kuang raised three fingers, his face showing an extremely determined expression and his voice was firm.

"First!"

“All the masterpieces that changed the rules of the game in history have been criticized by the media when they were first released!”

“As the saying goes, one step ahead is a genius, three steps ahead is a madman.”

“It’s normal not to be understood by mediocre people!”

"But I want to be both a genius and a madman!"

After Zhou Kuang said this, he saw hope rising in the eyes of his employees.

"second!"

"The true judges are never those high-ranking gaming media professionals, nor the judges of some gaming awards, but the players who have contributed to our sales of over two million!"

The screen behind Zhou Kuang suddenly lit up, and what was clearly displayed on it was the game sales of "Netherworld Mountains and Seas" so far.

2452136.

"Every one of these two million plus players has voted with their wallets."

"They trust us and believe we can give them a fun game."

Every sales figure on the screen represents a real person who bought this work with the money earned through hard work.

The employees were shocked by the numbers.

Normally, when they hear that a game has sold over two million copies, they will just be happy inside and then say "Oh" on the surface.

But when they saw the sales of more than two million turned into a huge number on the screen and heard Zhou Kuang say what these two million people represented, the feeling was completely different.

More than two million people!

Even if a thousand people stood before you, it would already be a huge crowd! And two million people would be a thousand times more!

"There are already hundreds of analysis videos on Bilibili about 'Netherworld Mountain and Sea' that have exceeded a million views!"

"Doesn't this show how much players love our game?"

“And the fans on other platforms are countless!”

"They are the real referees."

Some people in the crowd were moved and began to feel restless.

"third!"

After Zhou Kuang finished speaking, he slowly walked to the front of the crowd and patted an employee on the shoulder.

He remembered that the other person's name was Fu Anle, who was the copywriter of the game and had been in the company long before the demo was released.

"You should know better than me."

“When players were shocked by the boss’ sand wave attack in the gameplay demo!”

"When the outsourcing company was shocked by our original artwork and begged us to come to their company for exchanges!"

"When all the game developers in the country want to work in our company, and all the investors in the country want to invest in our Megvii Games!"

"This is the best proof that we made a 90-point game!"

After Zhou Kuang finished speaking, he jumped onto the table.

“So we’re going to do something different now.”

"Starting tomorrow, the Operations Director will begin warming up for the speed pass event!"

"The first 100 people who complete the game live will each receive a reward of 100,000 yuan!"

"The top three will receive additional rewards of one million, five hundred thousand, and three hundred thousand respectively!"

"The first thousand people who complete the game live will each receive a 10,000 yuan reward!"

"The first five thousand people who complete the game live will each receive a one thousand yuan reward!"

"Anyone who has completed the game and provides evidence will be rewarded 30 yuan each!"

"I don't care how he beat the game, even if he did it by exploiting a bug, as long as it's within the rules, I'll still post it!"

"All rewards can be stacked!"

"The event lasts for one month and is only available to domestic players."

When the operations director heard this, his heart started pounding.

Damn, the boss is crazy!

But I like it!
Zhou Kuang jumped off the table and picked up an A4 paper that he had prepared long ago.

"Remember this shameful 68 points, but don't let this number negate our efforts or become our shackles!"

"It's about letting it be the fuel that propels us forward!"

"A month later, when players are full of praise for our game, I want you to print out the media's ratings for us today—"

Zhou Kuang showed the A4 paper in his hand, on which was printed the score of "Youming Shanhai" calculated by M Station, 68 points.

He tore it into pieces in public and threw it into the air.

The confetti looked particularly psychedelic under the light, and through the mixture of the two, people saw the unbridled smile on Zhou Kuang's lips.

"History is always written by the victors!"

“Winners always win.”

“And winners always win.”

After the words fell, the air froze for half a second.

Xiao Zhang from the programming team suddenly picked up his colleague's digital tablet and slammed it on the table. The metallic sound was like the sound of a war drum.

This young man, who had been arriving at the company early to debug software for several months in a row, now roared with veins bulging in his neck: "Kill them!"

In an instant, the entire office erupted like an ignited volcano.

The original artist tore the book into pieces, threw it into the air, and waved his arms.

The planner hugged his colleagues from the HR department and performed a twisted dance.

Even the operations director took off his tie, stepped on a swivel chair, and waved his keyboard around like a glow stick.

The noises made by more than a hundred people at the same time made the floor-to-ceiling windows buzz. The people downstairs were stunned. Why was there an earthquake upstairs?
Feng Qi felt a gaze coming from behind him and found that it was Yang Ji who was secretly taking pictures of him with his mobile phone.

"What the hell are you filming?"

"Take a picture of you wiping your tears. This is a rare moment."

Yang Ji said this, but the corners of his eyes were obviously red.

What Zhou Kuang said today was exactly what they wanted to say deep in their hearts but dared not think about.

The two looked at each other for half a second, then suddenly burst into laughter and punched each other on the shoulder.

Zhou Kuang raised his head and looked at the sunlight shining in from the window. The shape of the sunlight falling on the ground through the window looked like a soldier charging with a gun.

He smiled, shook his head, and sat down.

In a corner where no one noticed, a green ivy bloomed in the vibration of human voices.

This plant was originally used by the programming team to absorb formaldehyde. Later, after it withered and turned yellow, it was arched up by the employees as a "sacred object". Now it is quietly blooming.

That night, Yang Ji, the art director of Megvii Games, posted an update on his Weibo account.

“It turns out that plants really can understand dreams.”

(End of this chapter)