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Chapter 42 0041 [Let's brag first and talk about it later]

17577 Forum.

The site administrator, Remnant Shadow, is communicating with several partners via QQ.

They have created multiple versions of "17577 Legend", mainly making money by creating private server platforms, private server architectures, and development tools.

"Holy crap, Abyss Legends is packed with 5000 players."

"In all the time we've been running private server platforms, this is the first time we've encountered someone actively disconnecting the download link."

"Yeah, we used to worry about not having enough players, but this time we're actually afraid of having too many players and crashing the servers."

"Just came back from reading the post, it's hilarious."

"What are you laughing at? They're making a killing, okay?"

"Who has gone in and played there?"

"I played until level 19, then I got so stuck that I quit."

"I'm currently running a quest, and I heard that it rewards me with an Abyss Map Teleport Scroll."

"What it is?"

"It's like a ticket that allows you to enter a hidden map. The monsters in the hidden map are incredibly powerful, and the equipment they drop is also incredibly powerful. They make money by selling tickets. Of course, players can also play without spending money; they can get one ticket by completing daily tasks, and there's also a chance to get a ticket by defeating mutated monsters."

"This way of playing is novel; we can do it too."

"What's so new about it? It's just imitating foreign games. The Abyss map is like a dungeon."

"Who cares who it imitates? As long as it makes money, let's make one too!"

"We'll talk about it another day. I'm going to farm the Abyss map."

"How about we develop a cheat program that allows unlimited ticket generation?"

"That's so damn dirty, don't be disgusting, okay? Even if we're making private servers, we have to have some bottom line."

"What the hell are you talking about? You used to make money selling cheats for private servers!"

……

7GG Forum.

This gaming forum is about to overtake others and become the largest private server base in the country.

Because there are so many skilled players, it can be called the Whampoa Military Academy of the private server world!
"Dudu Legend" is one of their products.

"Hey bro, have you played Legend of the Abyss?"

"I was just about to top up my account to farm the Abyss map of Woma Temple when I received your call. It's not lagging much now."

"I'm in the game too. I just recharged my account. Let's go raid the Abyss together! By the way, I'm using my old ID."

"Come here quickly, I'll send you the coordinates."

"The Abyss dungeon gameplay looks really promising. Should we try to replicate it in our private server?"

"Sigh, let's sort out the internal conflicts first. The more money we make, the more opinions the brothers have. If we keep arguing, we'll break up sooner or later!"

"..."

The experts on the 7GG forum are now engaged in serious infighting.

They all thought they were incredibly awesome, but the money they received was too little.

At this very moment, a skilled player, after playing "Legend of the Abyss," has decided to imitate the dungeon gameplay and go solo.

It's estimated that in another week or two, a bunch of private servers focusing on dungeon gameplay will appear.

……

After 10 p.m., the server became slightly smoother, and players' levels increased, leading to a surge in the number of people making recharges.

More people are likely to recharge tomorrow because a large number of players will need to wait until daytime to transfer money at the bank or go through the trouble of going to the post office to send money.

People who choose to send money via post often don't even have a bank account!

These days, UnionPay is still in the promotion stage, so it's perfectly normal for players not to have accounts.

Four people were responsible for communicating with the players who made in-game purchases. They sent the player IDs to Yang Yuhui, who then distributed the tickets to the players. However, the person who confirmed the purchases and tallied the amounts was Chen Guiliang's cousin, Feng Tao.

Feng Tao has a day job, so we definitely need to replace him.

Today, Tao Chenggang arranged for him to tally the recharge amount, naturally to reassure Chen Guiliang.

As for internet cafe players, they would recharge their accounts through the internet cafe manager. The manager would send over the game ID, and Yang Yuhui would then issue tickets to the players. Once the recharge amount accumulated to a certain amount, the manager would deduct his commission and transfer the money to a bank account supervised by Feng Tao.

Tao Chenggang walked around and said, "The work of collecting money and distributing tickets was relatively easy today. Tomorrow will probably be busier, and we'll see if we need to send more people then."

"We trust Brother Gang's arrangements completely," Chen Guiliang said with a smile.

"You little brat... never mind, let's talk about something else."

Tao Chenggang asked, "Would you like to be interviewed by Popular Software?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Accept it. Since we've already made it big, we can make it even bigger and put some pressure on Shanda through public opinion."

Yang Yuhui said, "We still need to keep an eye on cheats; once we find them, we'll ban the accounts!"

“I will arrange for someone to handle this,” Tao Chenggang said.

Not only do legitimate games struggle with cheating software, but so do those running private servers.

The peak season for private server cheats hasn't arrived yet. After the special crackdown around New Year's Day next year, some private server platforms will be scared into shutting down, while others will cease operations altogether. At that time, everyone's income will plummet, and some skilled players will start selling cheats like crazy.

Only after the storm passed and private server platforms became active again did the big names and experts in private server development join forces to suppress the cheating software.

"There's a player who's made a purchase and is called Old Poison. He wants to chat with Drunkard in the Mortal World and Sword Comes from the West!" shouted one of the underlings responsible for liaising with players who make purchases.

"Drunk in the Mortal World" and "A Sword Comes from the West" are two fictional characters created by Chen Guiliang as the initiators of "Abyss Private Server".

Chen Guiliang exclaimed in surprise, "I've met a master!"

This old poisoner is still famous even 20 years later. Who in the world of private servers, web games, and mobile games doesn't know him?
This person later developed a "Little Torch Engine" that could easily create and modify "Legend of Mir".

Chen Guiliang asked Lao Du to add him on QQ: "Hello, I am Zuiwo Hongchen."

"Haha, I've heard so much about you. Your Abyss gameplay is really interesting; I can't resist recharging to farm it myself," Old Poison complimented on QQ.

We'll just chat casually from now on; it's just our initial contact.

Old Poison is also a master on the 7GG forum. He's having a lot of unpleasant troubles there and is thinking of leaving 7GG to go solo.

He is very technically savvy, but not so much at operations.

Therefore, he contacted the Abyss Legends team to explore the possibility of future collaborations and mutual support.

"Guiliang, come here, the interview is starting!"

……

Old Wei, the editor of Popular Software: "Hello, are you drunk in the mortal world or a sword coming from the west?"

"A sword comes from the west," Tao Chenggang replied.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. I also play games frequently. I work at Popular Software, where I mainly write articles related to online games."

"I've heard so much about you. I've loved reading your magazines since I was a kid." "Haha, now that you mention it, I feel old."

"No, no, you are my senior."

Could you tell me about your experiences in real life?

Tao Chenggang turned to Chen Guiliang and asked, "How do we write it?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Nine parts true, one part false."

Tao Chenggang immediately typed a reply: "My parents were both employees of state-owned enterprises, and I also entered a state-owned enterprise after graduating from junior college. But young people can't stand loneliness, so I quit my job and went to coastal cities to make a living. I changed many jobs, even worked as a security guard in a hotel and as a network administrator in an internet cafe. In the summer of 98, I joined Starcom and sold PHS phones in the Yangtze River Delta."

"You're a Starcom employee!" Old Wei immediately became excited. If he included that, his report would be even more marketable.

Tao Chenggang typed: "He's a former employee. After the PHS market in big cities stabilized, I was sent to third- and fourth-tier cities to do promotion. At that time, I found that IC phone cards were still in a relatively early promotion stage in third- and fourth-tier cities. So I resigned from Starcom and went to sell IC cards specifically."

"You've made a fortune, haven't you?"

"I made several hundred thousand yuan in two years. Later, the market became saturated, and the profit from making IC cards was very low, and the competition was fierce, so I went back to my hometown to open an internet cafe. It was also because of opening the internet cafe that I became obsessed with 'Legend of Mir'."

Old Wei found it increasingly intriguing: "Your life experience is particularly exciting; you're clearly someone who dares to fight and take risks."

"Haha, you flatter me."

"How did you come up with the idea of ​​making a private server for the Legend of Mir game?"

"It's just like what was said in the post. Zuiwo Hongchen is a friend of mine in the game. He took the train to come and drink with me. We talked about many people and many things. We were both drunk at the time, and in a moment of impulse, he went to the forum to post."

"Never thought about making money from private servers?"

“I don’t need that much money. I own eight internet cafes and a computer store. I’m too busy with my legitimate businesses to bother with this shady business of running private servers.”

Do you think private server manufacturing is a gray area?

"After the 'Abyss Private Server' scandal broke out, I consulted a lawyer. There are no relevant laws, but it violates copyright law. Private servers are neither black nor white; they can only be considered a gray industry."

Do you support legislation against private servers?

"I support it. I'm just an ordinary citizen with no power or influence, so naturally I hope that the laws of our country will be more comprehensive."

"But it will affect how much money you make from your private servers."

"I don't make money from private servers. If I can't do it, I won't do it."

"But judging from the current situation, Abyss Private Server can make a fortune."

"this is an accident."

"If Shanda (the game company) asked you to shut down your private servers, would you agree?"

"It depends on the situation. 'Abyss Private Server' is no longer just my game; it's a refuge for many netizens. If Shanda wants me to shut down the game, they have to come up with a solution. The players are already refugees in the game; do they want to become refugees again?"

Why do you think "Abyss Private Server" became so popular?

"Players harbor too much resentment towards Shanda, and many of them came here out of revenge."

"Isn't the Abyss map gameplay in the post quite interesting? How did you guys come up with this idea?"

"All of these ideas were provided by netizens. The power of the masses is limitless; they have all sorts of wonderful ideas. All the changes to 'Legend of the Abyss' came from suggestions by enthusiastic netizens; I simply paid to help them implement them."

Upon seeing this, Chen Guiliang gave Tao Chenggang a thumbs up.

Tao Chenggang laughed heartily.

"Do you also harbor a lot of resentment towards Shanda?" Lao Wei asked again.

Chen Guiliang said, "It's my turn."

Tao Chenggang immediately stood up from in front of the computer.

Chen Guiliang said, "I used to have resentment, but I don't anymore."

"Why?" Old Wei asked.

“I was afraid of going to jail, so I consulted a lawyer and looked up a lot of news about Legend. The reason why Legend couldn’t be updated for more than half a year was ultimately because the Korean side had too big an appetite. The Korean side actually wanted to obtain Shanda’s user database, which is a core secret of a game company. If I were Mr. Chen, I wouldn’t agree to it either.”

"So, you think the fault lies with the South Korean side?"

"It's definitely the Korean side. A game development company actually demanding the operator's user database? They're really acting like they're the boss. Boss Chen has already given them a lot of face by sending them a copy of the database according to the contract. Although there are problems with the database, it wasn't clearly stated in the contract. Both sides should have given each other a way out, but the Korean side unilaterally terminated the cooperation. In this matter, it's 100% the Korean side that breached the contract first."

"It seems you support Shanda."

"I don't support any company; I only support morality and the law."

What are your plans for the future?

"Making games is a lot of fun. I might develop and operate games myself in the future. Haha, I definitely don't have enough start-up capital. I hope to get some big investment from a big boss."

"The current Chinese online game market is almost entirely dominated by foreign games. Chinese game companies tend to distribute foreign products. Are you confident that you can develop your own and succeed?"

"Isn't there also 'A Chinese Odyssey'?"

"The four games, 'Legend of Mir,' 'Miracle,' 'Fantasy Westward Journey II,' and 'Westward Journey II,' accounted for 50% of the market share this year. Among them, only 'Westward Journey II' is a domestically produced game. If we include the others, the market share of Japanese and Korean games is over 85%."

"I firmly believe that Chinese people are no less capable than foreigners; we just started later. Within ten years, domestically produced games will regain 75% of the market share!"

"Do you firmly believe that domestically produced games can be revitalized?"

"Yes. The internet has spawned a huge market, and online games are one of them. There are still negative opinions about it, like it's a form of spiritual opium, but one day, the gaming industry will become part of China's economic prosperity. We can't just stand by and watch foreign companies make money off us!"

How do you think the gaming industry should be developed?

"The legislation needs to be improved, which is at the national level. For practitioners, the current stage should be to absorb and imitate foreign game technologies and concepts, and the next step is to innovate while imitating."

"Like building a car?"

"That's one way to put it. But both the automotive and gaming industries have a fatal flaw. Large companies can make money effortlessly by distributing foreign products; some even make money on their knees. Why would they take the risk of standing tall and making money?"

How can we break through this barrier?

"This requires someone to pave the way, and I am willing to be a pioneer in the Chinese game industry! Even if I lose everything, I can learn from the mistakes of those who come after me."

"I'm getting really excited. Good luck!"

"Thank you."

After chatting for a while, Lao Wei asked, "Could we interview Zuiwo Hongchen again?"

"He's a student and doesn't want to be disturbed."

"Still a student?"

"Yes. I can give you his QQ number, but I doubt he'll say much."

"..."

The interview is over.

Tao Chenggang scrolled through the chat history: "Are you showing goodwill to Shanda?"

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "I'll also help you advertise your game; maybe that will attract a few investors."

Just then, one of the underlings shouted, "Boss Tao, someone wants to recharge 3000, and they said their surname is Shi..."

(End of this chapter)