The online talk was meant to get some basic information—like their understanding of the gaming industry, their passion for games, and why they wanted to join the company.
If they seemed like a good fit, they would then be invited to an in-person interview.
The talk with Brian didn't go very well—William could sense the arrogance in his tone. He thought Brian might be a good choice for a management role, but as a regular employee, he would probably be hard to handle, so he decided to pass.
Tina's skills were solid, and she was clearly passionate about gaming. She wanted to switch jobs because she had no chance of promotion in her current role. Even though her work was excellent, the management wouldn't let her take on higher positions because of her education background. William didn't care about degrees, so he decided to keep her in consideration.
Next was Chris. He had marked his resume as "confidential," but during their chat, William learned that his research focus was engine technology. Why engine technology?
On Earth, the film industry and game engines work closely together. Because game engines are easy to develop with, many effects companies combine them with professional software when making visual effects for films, which boosts efficiency and creates better results.
On Blue Star, visual effects technology had hit a bottleneck—there was little room for short-term breakthroughs in visual quality—so people were looking for new directions. Chris's goal was to shorten the development cycle for film effects, which was closely related to engine development.
So William kept him on the list and moved to the next resume.
Marcus left a deep impression on him.
He was the first player to beat the Moonlight Sonata and Flight of the Bumblebee challenges, and the first to win the mystery prize.
When it came to gaming skill, he was top-notch—a strong candidate for a tester.
Marcus was clearly thrilled that his resume had been chosen. In their conversation, he spoke about games with such passion it was like they had given him a second life.
William decided to send him straight to the in-person interview.
Then there was Daniel—compared to the others, he was average in all areas, with no special skills. He was just another worker in a related field, changing jobs for a higher salary, and his enthusiasm for games was only so-so. William decided to pass.
Claire wasn't online yet, but among all of them, William was actually most interested in her.
Her work was more like that of a research assistant—she focused on technical studies rather than hands-on technical work. As people often say, experiments are built on theory, and she was the one who provided the theory. William decided to keep her in consideration.
Leon's case was similar to Daniel's, but with more experience. He had a positive outlook on the gaming industry and no strict salary expectations, so William kept him on the list too.
After meeting those people, William didn't take back his seat from Cynthia. He let her keep relaxing while he started going through the rest of the resumes.
Most of the applications were from young people, with an average age of 27, though there were a few over 40.
The older candidates had very impressive resumes. They were top talents in their fields and clearly worth a lot, but William couldn't afford them. On top of that, they wanted to be involved in big decisions right away, which wasn't what William was looking for.
The rest of the resumes were pretty similar. At that age, they didn't have much experience.
The real difference came down to which projects they had worked on in that short time, which was tied to their previous companies.
Of course, things like project funding, what role they played, and the final outcome also mattered—but William didn't have time to dig into every detail.
After quickly going through the resumes, William realized that the seven people Cynthia picked earlier were already a good sample. She had probably finished the work a long time ago and was just pretending to slack off.
There's a saying: the salary is fixed, but people are flexible. No matter how well you perform, if the pay stays the same, you're just giving yourself more work. Might as well relax and not overdo it.
Even though more resumes kept coming into their inbox, William decided to just interview the ones they already kept. If everything went smoothly, they wouldn't need to hire anyone new for a while.
It was just a shame he still couldn't get in touch with Claire.
The interviews would be held at the main office. To show sincerity, William would cover all travel expenses for the interviewees.
That way, even if they didn't join the team, they'd leave with a good impression of the company. And if they did join, they'd have a good impression of William too.
After finishing all that, William gave the laptop back to Cynthia.
"Boss, how should I choose here?" she called out just as William was heading back to his desk. He glanced at her phone and saw she was playing Life Restart Simulator.
William rolled his eyes and went back to his seat.
Right now, Piano Tiles was closing in on 60 million downloads. The earlier marketing push was still working. Originally, he didn't think it could pass 50 million, but now it looked like hitting 100 million—and unlocking the fifth milestone—was totally possible.
In comparison, 2048 had more stable growth. It had over 43 million downloads so far. With time, it might also hit 100 million.
Classical Poetry Crossword had the highest downloads out of all their games. If nothing went wrong, it would pass 200 million tonight. And even that wasn't its limit.
As for Jump Jump, it still had around 100 million active users online, and its total active users had already reached 2.7 billion. If it crossed 3 billion, they'd likely unlock the next milestone.
Since launch, Life Restart Simulator had stayed hot without showing any signs of cooling down.
Its downloads were about to hit 20 million, and active users were close to 50 million. Total active users were slightly above that, at over 60 million.
Clearly, launching it as a WeChat Mini Program helped boost downloads. Without in-game ads, the studio's main income came from the traffic-based revenue share tied to downloads. That was what William was struggling with—should they launch the previous games as Mini Programs too?
If they could unlock a dual milestone bonus, they'd get extra reputation points—and that was exactly what William needed the most right now.
Being able to download Unity would be a big help for future development, and he wouldn't need to switch engines anytime soon. He could keep using it until he built up enough reputation to download a better one.
After William explained the pros and cons to Cynthia (not including the system stuff, of course), she felt that launching Mini Programs could really raise the studio's visibility—and that kind of attention is hard to buy with money.
Piano Tiles and Classical Poetry Crossword already had great download numbers, so they didn't need to be pushed as Mini Programs for now.
But 2048 wasn't doing as well compared to other games in its category, so it made sense to launch the Mini Program while the game still had some heat and ride the wave a bit more.
After hearing her out, William agreed to go with her suggestion.
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