Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 828: Chapter 787: An Equal Match Opponent?

Lincoln’s “Domestic Game Protection Day” campaign garnered a lot of publicity for “Iron Fist”, making it the hot topic among players and netizens.

What made Wild Island even happier was that the sentiment of the game discussion was very positive. @@novelbin@@

Although the popularity was paid for, the game “Iron Fist” itself was innovative enough. Wild Island not only persevered in the face of adversity, but also withstood the pressure and creatively launched a new game format, which was widely appreciated.

So, the paid-for popularity did not backfire, but rather won a great deal of praise.

Even though most of the 200 million domestic players were initially developed by Cloud Dream, and many of them didn’t have VR equipment, there was a saying:

“If you have money, support the scene; if you don’t, support the people.”

People could still join in the excitement and contribute to the popularity!

For Wild Island, the situation was not just a little good, but very good!

The response to various events was also very enthusiastic, and several domestic eSports clubs expressed their intention to participate in the [VR Boxing King Global Championship].

It’s all about making money!

Wild Island’s overseas sales channels were not as strong as NetDragon’s. Although they had over 10 million users in Southeast Asian countries, their competitiveness in the competition was somewhat debatable.

Anyway, domestic eSports clubs believed that the “Global Championship” was only global in name.

In fact, the main opponents were still Daxia players, and even the old rivals from other clubs.

Winning the championship was far easier than in the virtual world.

As one club after another announced their participation, the popularity of “Iron Fist” soared even higher.

In such a heated atmosphere, the [Iron Fist Exhibition Match] naturally garnered a lot of attention.

Under this announcement, Wild Island asked players to vote for their favorite celebrity. Wild Island would do their best to invite the top 10 people with the highest number of votes to participate in the exhibition match.

For this purpose, they set up a massive 50-person voting pool for players to choose from.

To further boost popularity, they even left an [Other] option.

If the vote didn’t include a player’s favorite person, they could also reply to the comment section with their name. The top 5 people with the most likes would be invited by Wild Island as well.

However, what Bob and Tiffany never expected was that the person with the most likes was actually—

[Lincoln]!

260,000 likes.

A whole order of magnitude ahead of everyone else.

In the sub-comments under this name, netizens even fantasized about various bizarre confrontations—

[Lincoln vs Richard]

“Take advantage of the prison visit and have a 1V1 man-to-man duel!”

[Lincoln vs Bob vs Lance]

“Give Wild Island and Flying Fox a chance, to use force to determine who is the real boss in the gaming industry!”

[Lincoln vs Kyo Hayakawa]

“The once-in-a-thousand-years beautiful girl from Izumo, I wonder if she can withstand a punch from Boss Lin?”

[Lincoln vs Joseph]

“In my opinion, the American President is nothing but a grandstander!”

…

All kinds of weird ideas kept popping up, each more imaginative than the last, leaving Lincoln baffled.

What’s even more outrageous is that there were actually a lot of netizens who seriously @ him: “@Lincoln, wanna fight? Boss Lin.”

“Master~ do you want to participate? it looks like fun!” Mavis tugged Lincoln’s arm and added fuel to the fire, “Mavis can cheat for you!”

“What a joke…” Lincoln decisively refused.

“Do I need to cheat in order to beat them?”

He clicked on the comment section and replied with one sentence: [I’m not bragging, but all of these people combined wouldn’t be enough for me to beat.]

Lincoln’s appearance instantly excited the netizens, who thought that the joke might become reality and Lincoln could actually participate in the exhibition match.

Even Mavis got excited, “So, Master, are you going to participate?”

“Of course not.” Lincoln held Mavis’ face in both hands and rubbed it, “We’re both too busy for this. Once it’s released, we’ll just try it out and see the quality.”

“Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm…” Mavis, with her face being rubbed, mumbled in understanding.

“We’re here.” Yue Pengju stopped the car, indicating to Lincoln that they had arrived.

He was already used to Lincoln’s interaction with the “Air.”

He knew that Lincoln wasn’t going crazy, but was interacting with a girl named “Mavis” that he couldn’t see – this was also why Lincoln moved from the co-driver’s seat to the back.

Lincoln also suggested to Yue Pengju to wear the [Eight Sides] headband, so he could see Mavis too.

But after Yue Pengju put on the headband and met Mavis, he took it off again.

He said that he needed to stay vigilant and clear-headed at all times and couldn’t be distracted by the “illusion”.

Anyway, no one could harm Lincoln from the virtual world – if someone actually could, he wouldn’t be able to stop them, so all he needed to do was try his best and protect the real world.

So it turned into the current situation: he drove in the front while watching Lincoln interact with thin air through the rearview mirror.

It was somewhat eerie…

Lincoln and Mavis got out of the car from the back seat without going home and went straight to the underground air defense laboratory.

– There was still lots of time before Lincoln’s break.

*

The next morning at eight o’clock, “Iron Fist” was officially released.

Only now did the final trump card of Wild Island unfold –

2028 World Boxing Championship, 70 kg class champion – [Boxing King Ma Weiguo], appeared as the spokesperson for “Iron Fist,” and live-streamed the game for the first time!

As expected, the internet was shocked, making “Iron Fist” the top trending topic once again.

With this boost, “Iron Fist” sales skyrocketed!

Among them, there were many instances of players teaming up to buy the game at a discount. The original price was 299 dollars, but with the group purchase discount, it was only 240 dollars.

For players willing to spend seventy or eighty thousand on VR equipment, a 240 dollar VR game was unprecedentedly cheap, and they had no hesitation in buying.

Thanks to Tiffany’s all-round marketing strategy, Wild Island released a celebratory poster for the 1 million sales of “Iron Fist” in just one hour.

Three more hours later, Wild Island released another celebratory poster for selling 2 million copies of “Iron Fist.”

Unrivaled in popularity!

Lincoln also contributed to the sales and entered the game experience as soon as possible.

He even chose to experience it in the gym of the company using Wild Island’s VR equipment instead of in the virtual environment.

– When the Wild Island after-sales team went to Cloud Dream’s office building to modify the equipment, they were surrounded by curious Cloud Dream staff.

What was supposed to be a simple modification ended up drenched in sweat.

Lincoln turned on the display in front of him, started the Wild Island launcher, and put on the paired haptic suit – actually just a protective suit making it easier to transmit the force of the traction rope. It wasn’t necessary, but it did feel better when wearing it.

“Iron Fist,” start!

Opening Cutscene –

“On a lost continent, there is an ancient legend…”

“Skip!” Lincoln pressed [skip].

Beginner Tutorial –

“As a novice boxer just starting out…”

[skip].

Select Mode –

“Do you want to fight against the computer to familiarize yourself with combat skills?”

“No!”

“Do you want to start a real player battle match?”

“Yes!”

“Matching in progress…”

“We have found an opponent for you-[Ma Weiguo], wish you the best of luck!”

“???” Lincoln, who was happily pressing the [skip] button, was suddenly stunned, “Who?”

But the external speaker didn’t care about his question and continued on:

“Match countdown-”

“3”

“2”

“1”

“Fight!”