Chapter 13: There’s Something Missing

Translator: Larbre Studio  Editor: Larbre Studio

His subordinates gave him a strange look. Wu Guoyi immediately sent the trailer to the computer in the meeting room.

“Wear your headsets and watch this trailer.”

Everybody was confused, but they still took up the VR headsets provided beside every seat.

These headsets were often used in meetings since they usually discussed about the platform, game development, and game testing. So they needed the headsets to try out various games. But this was their first time watching a trailer using the headsets.

When he saw that everyone had their headsets on, Wu Guoyi put on his own, and told his assistant to play the trailer.

At the start, the title ‘Battle Online’ was golden-lettered, emerging from the darkness slowly.

The darkness was broken apart, revealing the underworld. A gigantic black dragon came down from the skies while leading countless monsters. It roared at the armored man to show its authority in the land.

When thousands of Yin soldiers appeared from the black fog following Lu Wu’s cry, they were all excited, looking forward to Lu Wu defeating the giant dragon.

The battle scenes that followed were less of a CG short, and more of an epic war movie. The atmosphere was rendered into the video perfectly.

At the end, when the King of Beiqi turned into a ball of fire and plunged toward the dragon, everyone was held in suspense, as if they themselves were part of the Beiqi Army.

In the finale, the world turned into a sea of fire. Sparks lit the Mansion of the Dead on fire and burned the entire land. All the soldiers bowed down their heads and kneeled on one knee, paying respect to the deceased King of Beiqi. As the image dimmed, the title ‘Battle Online’ emerged on the screen once again.

“Actual gameplay footage,” was what the trailer ended with.

Taking off their headsets, the meeting room turned noisy. Everyone was asking what kind of game was this, and how their graphics could be so amazing.

But many of them doubted if the video was taken from actual gameplay footage because it was way too realistic. There wasn’t a single game with this level of quality in the market.

Also, having better graphics on cutscenes or trailers was common practice in the industry.

But undeniably, this trailer had conquered their hearts.

Wu Guoyi smiled mysteriously, “You will know very soon. This game will be on our main page in a few days. You can try it out then. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!”

The meeting continued after that, but on and off they thought about the amazing CG trailer they just watched.

After the meeting ended, Wu Guoyi lit up a cigarette, and furrowed his brows.

Lu Wu had wanted some advice on what to improve in the trailer.

But honestly, he experienced the game first hand, so he knew that the trailer was absolutely actual gameplay footage. So, he was frustrated as he did not know what to comment.

But he still took out his phone and gave Lu Wu a call.

When the call went through, Wu Guoyi answered with a smile, “Hey, I saw your trailer. I can’t believe you did it so quickly! Did you actually prepare it beforehand?”

Hearing this, Lu Wu admitted to Wu Guoyi’s suspicions, since it was unconvincing if he said he dished out the trailer in a day right after Wu Guoyi suggested it.

“Frankly, I can’t believe that nobody knows about your team. Your skills are on top of the world! Can you introduce them to me?”

Lu Wu was in an awkward place. He couldn’t tell Wu Guoyi that he had already met the whole team which comprised of him and Bei Li.

So he kind of danced around the topic.

After awhile, Wu Guoyi suddenly said, “Lu Wu, honestly there’s nothing wrong with your trailer at all, but you lack one thing besides this.”

Lu Wu was stunned. “What is it?” he asked.

“There’s no music. The graphics and the battle sound effects were perfect. But there was no music to uplift the atmosphere. If you want to make your game a hit, background music is one of the most important factors. That’s what you lack.”

Wu Guoyi’s precise opinion made Lu Wu realize their problem. A trailer without background music was a huge problem.

Furthermore, this extended to the other theme songs in the game, which Lu Wu hadn’t thought about.

Unfortunately, Lu Wu was unfamiliar with music, so he asked for Wu Guoyi’s advice.

“Haha, that’s easy! To make a theme song, hire a songwriter and lyricist to make a song. Then, get a pop star to be your singer!”

It was simple for Wu Guoyi to make a suggestion, but they would have to incur expenses to hire someone to compose music and write songs for them, not to mention the heavy expenses of inviting a big artist. It was absolutely impossible for Lu Wu to afford the expenses based on his current budget.

Therefore, Lu Wu decided to abandon the plan for the time being. He will consider the theme song when he is flush with cash after the game development grows in magnitude.

Wu Guoyi was very surprised to hear that Lu Wu had no intention to create a theme song and the background music for the trailer’s battle scene. However, Lu Wu was doing it for the purpose of giving an honest-to-goodness experience for the players.

Wu Guoyi had nothing much to say about this, he simply thought that Lu Wu had quite a different way of thinking and never would have thought that Lu Wu was simply doing so because he didn’t have any money.

After all, in his opinion, although the game development team did not have ample funds in creating a game of such scale, they could not have been short of money to create a theme song.

After hanging up the call, Wu Guoyi logged in to the admin page of Platform173 and went through the fifteen games that were selected and given a score of more than eight by the game evaluators.

Among these, there were three games that had been given a higher score than 9 by the game evaluators.

They were Battle Online – 10, Natural Evolution – 9.2, and The Rise of Protoss – 9.1.

The look on Wu Guoyi’s face said he had expected it when he saw that Battle Online was at the top of the rank. All the eight game evaluators had given a perfect score, unanimously believing in the potential of this game.

Since the evaluation was out, Wu Guoyi made the decision right away to let the players vote and rank the Player Killer charts for these fifteen games, starting from tomorrow.

On the first day of the promotion event, they would obviously start with the three games that received the highest score and complete the promotion event of all fifteen games in five days. After that, they would have to wait for half a month for the final evaluation.

Of course, Wu Guoyi had informed Lu Wu in advance about the news, leaving Lu Wu and Bei Li excited. They believed that, based on the quality of the game, they would absolutely gain many die-hard fans.

Meanwhile, in the general headquarters of Tamron Game Studios, downtown Shenkai City.

“Boss, look, the game evaluation on Platform173 is out!” a small man with spectacles said excitedly while looking at the message on the account on Platform173.

“Holy shit, boss, we got a score of 9.2!”

The man who was known as the boss quickly walked over to the monitor upon hearing that, and a grin rose onto his face when he saw the number 9.2.

It had taken them a total of seven years to come out with Natural Evolution. They had invested an enormous effort in the game.

What lay behind the score was their painstaking efforts of working against the clock, day and night.

“It seems like the number one game” the man was just about to say that the number one ranking was in the bag before he realized that there was actually another game above his game.

“Battle Online, a score of 10!” the smile on Li Tianxia’s face suddenly froze.

He sent away the employee and sat in front of the computer with an uncertain expression on his face.

Li Tianxia was of the view that the game developed by his game studio would be ranked first for sure. However, there was actually another game that received a perfect score. Li Tianxia was unable to accept this for a while, he even suspected that there was an inside story behind this activity. He could not believe that his game would lose to another!

He opened the homepage of Battle Online to have a look. It further affirmed his speculation that there was an inside dope when he saw the brief introduction of the game that received a perfect score. It was written almost 100% real in the introduction.

He took out his phone immediately, flipped through the contact list and gave Wu Guoyi a call when he found his number.

Ring… ring…

The phone got through after a while.

“Younger Brother Li, we haven’t gotten in touch for a long time, how come you have the time to call me today?” Wu Guoyi’s joyful smile could be heard from the phone.

“Older Brother Wu, I treat you as my brother and participated in the game evaluation activity that you planned, but you manipulated from behind the scenes instead. You seriously have no regard for me at all!” Li Tianxia said in a low tone while suppressing his anger from bursting out.

Wu Guoyi was stunned at first when he heard about that, then a fire of anger rose inside him. He thought the person in charge of the activity that he planned was manipulating under the table, which was something that he absolutely could not tolerate.

“Tell me what’s going on, Younger Brother. I will definitely give you an explanation if there’s really something wrong on my side!”

Li Tianxia’s anger reduced after Wu Guoyi gave him the promise, he then opened his mouth and said, “You should know that our team spent seven years developing Natural Evolution, right?”

“Of course, how can I not know about the treasured-sword that your Tamron Game Studios have spent seven years to sharpen? I remember that your game was ranked in the top ten game expectations chart last time.”

“Since you know about it, can you please explain to me what’s the matter with the game, Battle Online!”

Wu Guoyi suddenly came to understand the reason why Li Tianxia called him. He did not know whether to cry or laugh in his mind, “Younger Brother Li is saying that you feel unjust and is not convinced that Battle Online should be ranked first?”

“I would be convinced if the game was well-developed, but the game has a total size of 800 megabytes with an introduction saying that it is almost 100% real, yet you rank it the first and even shamelessly gave it a perfect score. I just want to know how much benefits this game has given to you that you have to promote it in this way. Aren’t you afraid that this will ruin the authority of your platform?”

Li Tianxia spat out everything he wanted to say in one breath.

Wu Guoyi burst into loud laughter at this moment, “Younger Brother Li, I finally understand why you’re being so angry. Alright, since all the games in the top three will be released to the homepage of the platform for promoting them, why don’t you download the game and try? If you’re still of the opinion that this game doesn’t deserve the score of 10, I’ll take it down from the platform myself and put your game as number one. What do you think?”

“I’ll leave the discretionary power to you. I’m showing a lot of sincerity, right?” Wu Guoyi smiled and continued saying.

Li Tianxia intended to raise hell to Wu Guoyi at first but was left in confusion, “Older Brother Wu, what exactly do you mean?”

“You won’t believe me no matter how much I say. The game will be launched on the platform tomorrow, just give me a reply after you have experienced the game yourself. That’s it, I’ve got something else to do. I will hang up now.”

Li Tianxia’s eyebrows were frowning after Wu Guoyi hung up the phone.

He could tell from Wu Guoyi’s tone that he seemed to have no suspicions about this ranking. Besides, apparently he had a lot of faith in Battle Online that he even told him to experience the game. Li Tianxia was unable to make sense of this situation.

Nonetheless, Li Tianxia did not believe that the game developed by his own team would lose.

He would feel better if he were to lose to The Rise of Protoss made by Devil Wolf Studios. After all, many players were anticipating this game when it was still in the development stage. Besides, the public often compared these two games as they would be launched at the same time to see which game was better.

Li Tianxia was in a complete disbelief as he had lost to a game with an introduction that looked extremely unreal, and that was never heard before. This was mainly owing to the reason that all the games with big productions would have been advertised publicly before launching.

“It’s launching tomorrow, right? I would like to see how excellent this game actually is!”

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