Inside the president's office at Titan Games headquarters.
Brandon Sterling threw a report on his desk with a cold expression. "How do you manage these campaigns? Why are we losing so much ground in the rankings?"
He was the founder and CEO of Titan Games. As the son of Robert Sterling, who ranked third on the national rich list, he'd started his own business and established Titan Games with family support ten years ago, focusing on VR gaming equipment research, development, and sales.
The company was currently the leading VR game equipment manufacturer in the region, occupying half of the domestic VR gaming market.
In addition, their company also developed VR games. It was one of the largest game companies in the country and served as a special content supplier for Infinite Realms in their region, wielding extraordinary influence.
Their "Primordial World" dungeon, which had ranked first in real-time standings for this year's Infinite Realms New World Theme Competition, had been developed by their company.
But just last night, their entry had been overtaken again by the second-ranked "Planet Krall" produced by the American ET company, and they were falling far behind in the metrics.
"ET bought several premium official recommendation slots last night and also launched an event to increase the drop rate of Dark Steel, which is the most critical and rare material for synthesizing their company's best-selling equipment, the Shadow Mech.
So yesterday, many European and American players returned to the dungeon to farm the bosses.
Not only that, they maliciously flooded our Primordial World with bad reviews and negative coverage!" the project manager said with a bitter expression.
"I don't want to hear excuses. I only care about results. I need to see our 'Primordial World' ranked first. We must increase our operations budget. We have to win the championship this time!" Marcus said coldly.
"Understood, Mr. Sterling. I'll arrange it immediately!" the project manager replied.
Meanwhile, the ET team back in the US was working overtime in an impromptu meeting: "Our strategy this time has been very effective. We're already way ahead. Now we're about to enter the final selection phase, and we must maintain our top position for the final month!"
"The next phase is when we'll show our real strength. We'll make those guys stare at our lead and get desperate!"
"That's right, Infinite Realms has always been dominated by us. We'll be champions again this time!"
ET was a rising star in the United States. In just three years, their company had become a top-tier supplier in Infinite Realms. Currently, most of the popular high-level dungeons and best-selling equipment were designed by this company.
They were at the peak of their success and were determined to win the championship of this New World Theme Competition.
In fact, whether it was Titan Games or ET, these companies were veterans who understood the mechanics of Infinite Realms' ranking system perfectly.
They used every method at their disposal: buying official recommendation slots for more traffic, using media hype for promotion, creating topics and buzz, guiding players, encouraging positive reviews, and hiring internet trolls.
Additionally, the performance and reception of both companies' entries were indeed outstanding and nearly matched, so the battle between them was extremely fierce.
So far, the two companies had spent nearly tens of millions of dollars in their battle for the top spot, using every means available.
Of course, this amount of money was nothing to them, and they wouldn't hesitate to spend tens of millions more.
For companies like these, competing for the championship wasn't about the prize money. What they valued was the reputation, influence, and authority that came with the victory.
Once you won the championship, it was equivalent to creating a hit IP. In the future, you could do countless things around this IP, and making money would be easy. Even just selling skins and cosmetics in the game, or selling decorative items, could easily generate hundreds of millions in monthly revenue.
This was why these two companies were fighting at all costs.
After all, people only remember the champions.
But they hadn't noticed that a dungeon called "Avatar" had suddenly appeared at 20th place on the rankings, and was rapidly climbing toward higher positions.
Alex felt like he'd been riding a rocket all day. The skyrocketing data made him experience the thrill and excitement of adrenaline rushes over and over again.
As Avatar launched on several other global servers one after another, and received official recommendations from Infinite Realms, the total number of Avatar players suddenly showed explosive growth.
Within an hour of being featured in the recommended position, the number of new players worldwide surged by more than 6 million, and the total player count was approaching 10 million.
Avatar's score had once reached an unprecedented 9.8 points, but with the surge in player numbers, pleasing everyone became increasingly difficult, so the score was pulled back down to 9.5 points.
In terms of revenue, sales of resurrection items and death limit increase items alone had reached nearly one million dollars.
It's worth mentioning that primary dungeon suppliers could set up to five custom microtransaction items of their own design and twenty existing platform microtransaction items in experiential dungeons.
For example, items that allowed instant resurrection and increased daily death limits were examples of the platform's existing microtransaction options.
The primary dungeon supplier could get a 50% share of the profits generated by all players purchasing and consuming microtransaction items in their dungeon. In other words, Alex could get $500,000 of the current one million in revenue.
However, Alex hadn't set up too many microtransaction items in the game this time. Apart from the death mechanics required by the platform, the rest were just consumable items like healing supplies and ammunition. These items only reduced the game's difficulty and wouldn't truly ruin the gaming experience.
Alex had longer-term plans, so he didn't want to destroy the game's playability and lose players for the sake of immediate profits.
The death mechanics were the platform's requirement, and players were already familiar with them and wouldn't complain about the Avatar game because of it.
Not only that, after less than two days of organic growth, Avatar's topic had successfully entered the top ten trending list of the Infinite Realms Player Community, and had also appeared on the trending lists of European and American communities, receiving continuous praise.
"I accidentally discovered a treasure Avatar, a groundbreaking masterpiece!"
"A friend recommended it to me, and I wasn't disappointed. The completely new worldview is refreshing!"
"This is what a real new world looks like. Such a realistic fantasy world is breathtaking. I've finally found the best work of this competition!"
"This is an unprecedented excellent dungeon. Avatar has raised the bar for dungeon quality in Infinite Realms by several levels!"
"I'm really looking forward to the official dungeon adaptation and the subsequent stories about Pandora and the Na'vi!"
"The final battle was so shocking. When the Toruk came looking for Jake, I got goosebumps. I really want to buy a Toruk as a mount!"
"When will Avatar skins be released? I really want to buy them!"
"Isn't anyone else bothered by how outdated the mech designs are? They're simply unbearable to watch!"
"I agree. The plot is also very ordinary and uninteresting!"
"Stop nitpicking. I bet someone from a rival company is maliciously attacking this!"
"Trolls are everywhere!"
"Is there any expert who can share some strategy guides?"
"The guide is here, but it's only in one language. You can use smart translation, which makes it much easier!"
"Is there any expert who can give me an illustrated guide to the new and interesting plants and animals in Avatar?"
"Yeah, or does anyone know the official website or social media of Avatar's developers? I really want to see official information about the worldview!"
"Same question!"
With the help of countless fans domestically and internationally, Avatar's popularity continued to soar, and it even spread from Infinite Realms' official social platform to other social media platforms. The game's promotional video, CG animations, and gameplay screenshots quickly went viral on major video websites worldwide.
"Is this a movie trailer?"
"This planet Pandora is so beautiful! I'm completely captivated!"
"It's gorgeous. What movie is this? Where can I watch it?"
"It's not a movie, it's Avatar, the new experiential dungeon in Infinite Realms!"
"Oh my god, this is actually a game?"
"Huh? Why haven't I seen this dungeon before? Did it just come out?"
"That's right, it's newly released, and it's currently ranked fifth in the New World Championship. Highly recommended, it's absolutely incredible!"
In this way, in just a few days, Avatar seemed poised to become a massive hit, and the direct manifestation of this popularity was that Avatar shot straight up the New World Competition rankings, and on the tenth day after its launch, it successfully squeezed into the top three.
Throw some Powerstones plz .