Agreeing to Create Bad Games, What the Hell Is ‘Titanfall’? Chapter 39: It hurts! It hurts so much!

Shen Miaomiao: “????”

She read it twice, back and forth!

After confirming that her eyes weren’t deceiving her, Shen Miaomiao looked up in confusion, her eyes filled with shock. She turned her phone around and showed it to Director Gu:

“Director Gu… was this your doing?”

“Oh, right. The plan was to post this right before the ga’s official launch, but I forgot. Just posted it now, haha, my bad.”

As he spoke, Gu Sheng scratched his head and smiled a little sheepishly.

“We held sothing back at the start of the project.”

“Since all the gas are free-to-play during the festival, and ours is on the smaller side, repeated play would naturally wear out the players’ interest.”

“So, that v1.0 version wasn’t actually complete.”

“We separated out a small portion of the content specifically so we could launch it as an update during the official release.”

“This way, we’d keep the players’ excitent alive—and boost our sales at the sa ti.”

Gu Sheng was a crafty old fox.

After all, he had worked at two major international ga studios in his previous life.

He might not have been in charge of marketing, but he wasn’t clueless either.

This kind of trick? Basic stuff where he ca from.

And the best part—it didn’t cost a di.

It perfectly matched the setup of the current developnt festival.

After saying all that, Gu Sheng raised an eyebrow at Shen Miaomiao and shot her a look:

Surprise!

Shocked? Unexpected?

Hiring as Ga Director is the best thing that’s ever happened to you!

anwhile—

Shen Miaomiao felt like her heart had stopped.

Gu Sheng… had actually launched an update right at the ti of the official release…

And even posted an announcent!

She glanced at Weibo, then at Gu Sheng’s smug and showy grin, emotions tangled in a knot.

Heh.

Gu Sheng, you—CLANG BANG CLATTER DING!!!!

, your grand-%@#—I’m about to snap!!!*

She was absolutely losing it.

So people might look calm on the outside, but in their heads, they were already performing the entire Journey to the West in fast-forward.

Then, the next mont!

That previously steady curve on the sales chart suddenly leapt upward!

“Oh, looks like we weren’t too late. The ga update announcent is working.”

Unaware of Little Nezha’s stormy expression, Gu Sheng kept his eyes on the rapidly rising sales curve.

“Well, it makes sense. This is pri ti for live streaming. So strear probably saw my post. Info spreads fast.”

On his first day on Weibo, Gu Sheng gained hundreds of thousands of followers.

As the voting event heated up, his follower count had shot past a million.

Big nas from the streaming world—Liuliu, Liu Peiqie—as well as major creators like Young Master, Chairman, and Scattered One—had all followed him.

With that many strears, even one of them seeing the ga update post would ensure the news got out fast.

And the update notice wasn’t just on his Weibo.

The YiYou Platform ga detail page had an update notice too—far more detailed than his Weibo blurb.

Give the players a few monts to react and they’d be spreading the word like wildfire.

Naturally, the sales curve would soar.

For Gu Sheng, a seasoned vet of the ga industry, this was nothing new. No big deal.

But for Little Nezha?

This was a fatal blow.

WTF!!!

No no no!!!

Shen Miaomiao wanted to leap up and physically hold that sales curve down!

Can’t you go up slowly?

Like before! Nice and easy!

Why the hell are you flying upward like you’ve hit nitro?! Think of my heart, damn it!

Unfortunately…

The sales curve couldn’t hear Shen Miaomiao’s ntal screams. Nor could it understand them.

It only knew how to reflect the current sales based on backend data.

Three hundred… five hundred… one thousand… five thousand…

It was blowing up!

In the eting room, Chu Qingzhou, Lu Bian, and Da Jiang were getting more hyped by the second.

“Hey! Hey hey hey! It’s climbing again!”

“D*mn… this growth rate is insane!”

“Hissss—at this rate, we might crack ten thousand units in the first hour!”

“Ten thousand! That would break YiYou Platform’s record!”

“And it’s a first-hour record too!”

“You guys are amazing!”

“Heh… Lao Gu deserves most of the credit. Of course, we can’t ignore this brilliant Lead Programr either!”

“Pfft—”

“…”

Only two people at the table weren’t visibly thrilled.

On one side was Gu Sheng.

With his past life’s experience on major projects in the ga industry, he found Vampire Survivors’ sales impressive, sure—but given the low unit price, the actual revenue wasn’t huge.

So, he was pleased, but not exactly overjoyed.

On the other side—Shen Miaomiao…

She looked alive, but was dead inside.

Who am I? Where am I? Will I ever lose money again in this lifeti?

The three great existential questions haunted her.

At that mont, she wanted to ‘peacefully break up’ with Gu Sheng.

Just go, okay? Stop torturing , alright?

Shen Wanlin might be her father by blood, but f**,* Gu Sheng was her real daddy.

No… was he… was he S or sothing?

Why are you always tornting , huh? Daddy?

She instinctively wanted to stay far away from Gu Sheng.

The guy was pure luck. Pure bad luck for her.

But then it hit her—

She couldn’t fire Gu Sheng.

Because the system had bound him as the Project Lead. Forcibly unbinding him would disable the system.

Which ant…

She not only had to keep this walking lucky charm, she had to pamper him—make sure he never got pissed off enough to switch jobs.

Shen Miaomiao was on the verge of tears.

She watched helplessly as the sales curve shot past the ten thousand mark—and then kept going!

Finally—

DING-A-LING—!!!

With one more jarring alarm sound!

Chu Qingzhou let out a cheer!

“One hour’s up!”

“Friends! I hereby announce: Vampire Survivors’ first-hour stats are in—”

“In one hour, we’ve sold 13,333 units! Total revenue: 199,995 yuan!”

“Give it up, everyone!!!”

Just as Shen Miaomiao had predicted—

One hour wasn’t enough to recoup the full cost for Vampire Survivors.

Her personal Hail Mary plays hadn’t gone to waste.

Thanks to the Settlent Ti Reduction Card bug-level buff…

She finally lost money.

But she couldn’t feel happy about it at all…

Ding! Ti’s up! This round of investnt has been settled!

A crisp chi echoed in her head, and the system’s settlent screen popped up:

[Ding! Project loss detected!]

Project: Vampire Survivors

Investnt: 200,000 yuan

Loss: 5 yuan

Rebate: 50 yuan

Settlent Ti Remaining: 0

[Ding! Loss settlent complete. Rebate deposited to host’s personal bank card.]

Right after, Shen Miaomiao’s phone lit up with a ssage:

[Your debit account ending in 1118 received a mobile transfer of 50 yuan on April 23. Current balance: 13,775.23 yuan.]

Shen Miaomiao: …

Wahoo! I finally lost money, hahahaha…

Such a huge rebate, hahahahahah…

Waaaaaa…

F**!!!*

Shen Miaomiao nearly stood up and smashed her phone.

She didn’t even know what expression to make in response to this “massive” rebate.

Her whole body was in turmoil.

This sht’s worse than not losing anything at all!*

A full 200,000 yuan investnt, and she lost just 5 yuan!

The system's tenfold rebate gave her 50 yuan!

And now she had to take this whole crew out for a victory seafood dinner!

And smile and toast like so cuck at a celebration banquet!

Just thinking about it made her heart ache!

So painful!

So, so painful!

And to make it worse, Chu Qingzhou turned to her, beaming:

“President Shen! Say a few words!”

Say a few words?!

Shen Miaomiao was so angry her two bun-shaped hair knots were about to take off.

Say what?!

She raised a weak hand, couldn’t even muster a smile:

“…Eat and drink well, everyone.”

That’s it.

I’m done.

Let it all burn.

She waved her hand to tell them to go ahead to the restaurant. She’d catch up later.

Then, holding her forehead, she sighed.

Sitting alone in the huge eting room, Shen Miaomiao stared at the 50 yuan rebate text, motionless like a grieving widow’s statue.

Did she lose money? Yes.

But maybe not enough.

After a long silence, Shen Miaomiao finally let out a laugh-crying sigh.

Oh well. At least this proves the rebate does exist.

Maybe next ti, the loss will be bigger.

She had to adjust her mindset and focus on the next ga—maybe pour in more cash, and lose all the money she hadn’t lost on the other three.

“I should probably fra this fifty and hang it in my office like a lucky charm…”

As she spoke, she stood up.

But just as she was about to leave—Gu Sheng ca back.

In his hand: a steaming cup of hot water.

“Just now your face looked a little pale… Want so hot water?”