Agreeing to Create Bad Games, What the Hell Is ‘Titanfall’? Chapter 76: Let the Players Make the Game for Us

Shen Miaomiao’s heart eventually softened.

In her eyes, Gu Sheng had always been that calm and steady figure—like the midday sun, like the early spring breeze.

Gentle, yet brimming with a quiet strength.

It seed like, in the ga developnt industry, there was nothing that could truly stump him. No matter how bizarre or wild the requests or suggestions, he could always handle them with ease.

With that astonishing inspiration and vision of his, he’d weave one magical ga world after another, offering them as gifts to the world.

And yet...

This man—this born supernova of the gaming world—was now quietly sitting here, dejected, because their promotional efforts couldn’t match up to others.

He looked as if he’d accepted that “man proposes, God disposes”—that success and failure were dictated by fate.

And the one responsible for all this?

It was her, Shen Miaomiao!

It was her who’d been holding back the ga’s marketing!

It was her who’d always shied away from publicity!

It was her who’d reduced this once-proud supernova to soone who now smoked away his sorrows, burdened by the weight of helplessness!

I’m guilty, I’m so damn guilty!

The more Shen Miaomiao thought about it, the more guilty she felt. The more she thought, the more she couldn’t bear it. The more she thought, the more she felt she’d gone too far!

What the hell am I doing?

I’m basically strangling a sapling that could have grown into a towering tree!

I’m such a piece of sh*t!

With that thought, Shen Miaomiao steeled herself, gritting her teeth and stomping her foot. She shoved the system and the 100x return card out of her mind.

Even if I don’t get any returns, even if I burn through this billion, I won’t let you sit here all mopey!

Speak—tell , is there still a way to fix this?

The very next second!

Gu Sheng, as if he’d been waiting for this all along, flicked his ash casually and answered without hesitation:

“Yeah, I’ve been ready.”

Wait, what the f***???

That sudden, honest answer nearly threw Shen Miaomiao’s back out!

No, hold up, wait a sec!

What the hell is going on here?!

Shen Miaomiao scratched her head, feeling like her brain had short-circuited.

She looked at Gu Sheng, only to see that this b****** no longer looked the least bit dejected.

Sothing was off. Sothing was seriously, seriously off!

“Uh...?”

Shen Miaomiao’s expression changed, her voice laced with uncertainty and doubt:

“What do you an... you’ve been ready?”

“Fearless Sniper is definitely going to impact our sales,” Gu Sheng said, pointing at the ga screen still playing. He shrugged:

“Two months ago, the mont the Huayu Expo ended, Fearless Sniper announced its delay. Doesn’t that tell you everything? They’re clearly gunning for our second-gen FPS. You didn’t see that coming?”

With that, Gu Sheng gave his forehead a light slap, as if he suddenly understood:

“Oh, right, of course. How could you have seen that? You were busy running off with Secretary Chu at the ti.”

Wait, what the actual f***...

Shen Miaomiao’s brow furrowed.

Was he throwing shade at her for slacking off? Was this a passive-aggressive jab?

Her blood pressure started rising.

And then—

She realized... she was too naive. Her blood pressure spiked too soon.

Because next, Gu Sheng, in order to help her understand the full picture, recounted the entire scene at the Huayu Expo—every detail:

How the competitors had sward in the mont she’d left...

How that top strear Shark had shown up...

How he’d shouted the MFGA slogan...

How the crowd had cheered and the dia scrambled for interviews...

“...Oh yeah, by the way, I’ve been aning to ask you sothing.”

Gu Sheng stubbed out his cigarette, then looked at Shen Miaomiao with a puzzled expression:

“That day at the expo, why did you co over to comfort ? Did soone say sothing to you? I was too wiped to ask you back then...”

Shen Miaomiao: ...

“...Give a sec, I need to take my ds.”

With that, she wobbled to her feet, bracing herself against the wall as she shuffled out of Gu Sheng’s office.

Gu Sheng stood up, concerned: “Hey... are you sick?”

Clatter.

Shen Miaomiao nearly tripped over herself, staggering, and waved a trembling hand behind her:

“...Brain rot.”

Out in the hallway!

Shen Miaomiao’s face was completely green.

Her temples throbbed, veins bulged on her forehead, and her blood pressure was skyrocketing!

So it turns out...

Gu Sheng wasn’t actually dejected that day!

He wasn’t so defeated, dreamless, salted fish!

He was just plain exhausted, sprawled out on the floor like a dead dog because he was too tired to move!

And that’s why the three of them had scarfed down food like they hadn’t eaten in eight hundred years!

It wasn’t so “turning grief into appetite” mont!

Gu Sheng, you absolute b*****d——!

At that thought, Shen Miaomiao let out a long, sorrowful sigh in her heart.

You’re such a damn a******——!!!

It took her a full ten minutes in her office to calm down.

When she returned to Gu Sheng’s office, she was carrying a steaming mug of herbal tea.

“What’s that?” Gu Sheng glanced at the cup in her hand.

“Motherwort granules.” Shen Miaomiao rolled her eyes and lifted the cup toward him: “Wanna try a sip?”

“I’ll pass...”

Gu Sheng waved his hands quickly:

“I don’t have the necessary... organs.”

Pfft—

That deadpan delivery finally broke through Shen Miaomiao’s mood, and she burst out laughing.

Blowing on the tea, she asked:

“So, you already knew Fearless Sniper would release after us, and you were ntally prepared?”

“Yeah, of course.” Gu Sheng nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world: “If I hadn’t seen that coming, I’d be a failure as a ga director.”

“Then why were you looking all gloomy during the livestream?”

Shen Miaomiao was stunned—was Gu Sheng playing her?

“Oh, that.” Gu Sheng chuckled:

“I was just annoyed that they turned our second-gen FPS into that piece of sh*t. It’s an insult to our ga’s creativity—and a disgrace to the industry. It’s like...”

“A turd in a golden bowl.”

Shen Miaomiao: ...

Alright, I really am an idiot—for believing in this guy’s crap.

She downed her motherwort tea in one gulp!

A warm current flowed through her, soothing her chest and belly. Finally, she felt a little better.

Then she asked: “So, what’s your plan?”

Seeing Gu Sheng back in his usual confident mode, Shen Miaomiao knew this round of investnt was probably going to be another scorcher.

But she still wanted to die knowing the full picture.

Gu Sheng pondered for a second, then spoke:

“Let the players make the ga for us.”

“Huh? The players... make the ga?”

Shen Miaomiao didn’t get it:

“What do you an?”

“Literally.” Gu Sheng explained: “We hire players to contribute content to Left 4 Survival—to build on the ga, enrich it.”

Shen Miaomiao seed to understand: “Like hiring an outsourcing team from Ga Factory?”

“Almost.”

Gu Sheng nodded:

“The only difference is... with an outsourcing team, we pay them. But with players...”

“We don’t pay them.”

Wait, what the f***?!

This was a dangerous statent!

Shen Miaomiao felt her scalp tingle. She pushed off with her feet, sliding her chair away from Gu Sheng to a safe distance.

There it was! The capitalist! Holy sh*t!

Shen Miaomiao thought Gu Sheng was even more of a bastard now.

She stood up and walked to the window, staring outside.

Gu Sheng, puzzled, asked: “What are you doing?”

“Looking for a lamppost,” Shen Miaomiao replied, turning back with a righteous glint in her eyes:

“Are you a damn capitalist? You want players to work for free?”

“Yeah.”

To her shock, Gu Sheng didn’t even try to deny it. He admitted it like it was the most normal thing in the world:

“Originally, we could’ve integrated more full-sensory tech into Left 4 Survival—like adding sll or enhanced touch.”

“But we didn’t.”

“We saved that money, and with support from the YiYou tech team, we built a dedicated module inside the ga.”

“Thanks to the motion-sensing pod’s data encryption tech and YiYou’s support...”

“We can let everyone participate in secondary ga creation—modding—without opening up the source code.”

“Players can create custom gun models, character skins, object replacents, sound effects, new maps, even new ga modes...”

“All while keeping our exclusive gunfeel data secure, we give players the freedom to imagine and build whatever they want in the ga.”

“You can think of it as customization, but we usually call it—”

“The Workshop.”

Oh, damn——

Even though Gu Sheng’s pitch sounded super exciting—with all that wild imagination and creativity making “customization” sound incredibly cool...

And even though, if the Workshop mode actually ca together the way he described, the ga might see a huge surge in popularity...

Still!

Underneath all that sugarcoated language, Shen Miaomiao could see the truth:

Freeloading!

Relying on players’ passion for free labor...

Shen Miaomiao wasn’t holding out much hope.

Ga developnt wasn’t the sa as playing a ga!

Coding, modeling, bug fixing—

Every part of it was boring and tedious!

Who the hell would willingly do all that, for free, just to help your ga?

No one had ever seen a gaming model this capitalist in the history of the industry.

So Shen Miaomiao couldn’t imagine anyone having that much ti or energy to enrich a ga for free.

But!

For her, wasn’t that actually good news?

A grin crept back onto Shen Miaomiao’s face.

She’d thought Gu Sheng was about to pull off so mind-blowing, budget-defying miracle and beat Fearless Sniper’s massive marketing campaign...

But in the end?

It was just a delusional pipe dream!

With that thought, Shen Miaomiao relaxed.

“Hmm—”

She nodded, indulging Gu Sheng’s self-satisfied attitude:

“Listening to you, this mode does sound promising. When can it go live?”

“Based on our current progress...”

Gu Sheng smacked his lips:

“Probably tomorrow night.”

Actually, the Workshop module for Left 4 Survival had already passed testing—it could go live any ti.

But before they launched it, the dev team needed to preload so mods as examples and guides.

Like new skins for weapons, tweaking the homade grenade’s explosion effect, giving the main characters new outfits—stuff like that.

Nothing major—just a demonstration.

As for what the players would create with it...

Gu Sheng, who’d once seen a Miku model wield a Golden Dragon AK mowing down Thomas the Tank Engine in a zombie horde, could only say—

I have no idea. It all depends on the players’ ntal state.

...

"40,000 units sold on Day 1! Fearless Sniper is the pride of Chinese-made gas!"

"The true king arrives! Glory Gas leads the single-day sales chart!"

"A perfect shooting experience! Fearless Sniper’s innovative design redefines FPS!"

"MFGA is coming true—just not for Golden Wind."

"Fearless Sniper crushes its debut, Left 4 Survival shows signs of decline."

"..."

Shenzhen, Glory Gas Studio HQ.

Ding Kai grinned from ear to ear as he looked over the dia reports!

Just like he’d said before—when you had enough money for marketing, no one could withstand the montum of XunTeng.

Supernova or not, genius designer or not—

In the face of real capital, you were just a stepping stone—a rock for Glory Gas to trample over.

40,000 units sold on day one!

Crushing Left 4 Survival by nearly 10,000!

Such impressive sales—truly befitting a major ga with massive investnt!

Seeing his boss so pleased, Fang Hongwei also bead with joy, pouring tea for Ding Kai as he spoke:

"Next, we’ll ramp up the marketing push even further, keep chipping away at Golden Wind’s market share, and strengthen our 1 2 shooting model branding. We’ll gradually replace the so-called second-gen FPS definition and rebrand it as—RFPS (Reality First-Person Shooting) gas."

This was XunTeng’s classic strategy.

First, copy a ga’s core, localize it.

Then, through relentless marketing, suppress the original, gradually twist and distort the original gaplay concepts, and rebrand it as their own creation.

And over ti, year after year...

The original ga would lose its foothold, gradually fade from players’ mories.

Until eventually, they could parade it out as "XunTeng’s self-developed, original ga type"—fully whitewashed and taken over.

"Good."

Hearing Fang Hongwei’s smooth plan, Ding Kai nodded in satisfaction:

"Let’s do it that way. Also, keep pushing on poaching their people. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can relax."

"Understood."

Fang Hongwei clinked his tea cup with Ding Kai’s:

"The big picture is set. Everything else will fall into place, haha..."

Yes.

Even though it was only day two of Fearless Sniper’s release, and the weekly sales reports hadn’t been published yet...

The two of them were already popping the champagne.

Because historically—

Once they crushed a ga like this, there was no coming back.

And this ti would be no different.

The crushing day-one sales could only an that the gap would widen further.

What awaited Golden Wind... was slow death in the marketplace.

That was Glory Studio’s confidence.

And the confidence of all of XunTeng Gas.

Up next...

The two raised their cups.

And waited to watch Left 4 Survival fade into obscurity.