The next morning, Leo walked into his office, a fresh coffee in hand, and logged into the Cyber Platform's developer backend. He navigated to the sales page for Dark Forest, took a sip of his coffee, and looked at the number.
The hot liquid nearly shot out of his nose. He choked, a sputtering cough turning into a full-throated, unrestrained laugh that echoed through the quiet office.
Three weeks. In the three weeks since its launch, climaxing with the release of the official 1.0 version the day before, Dark Forest had sold 1.66 million copies.
He did the math, his fingers flying across his calculator app, his heart thumping in his chest. It was a number so large it felt like a fantasy: nearly twenty-five million dollars in revenue. For a company that was less than a month old, it was more than a little confidence. It was a war chest.
He knew, of course, that the game's quality was only part of the equation. His publisher, Unlimited Online Entertainment, had unleashed a marketing blitz across the entire internet. You couldn't watch a video or browse a forum without seeing an ad for Dark Forest. But the bigger factor was the market itself. He had served a five-star, gourmet meal to a starving populace. They had been so deprived of real horror, of a truly novel gaming experience, that they devoured it.
But he was a veteran. He knew that even the hottest games eventually cool down. The sales would taper off, the hype would fade, and the internet would move on to the next big thing. To keep his first creation alive, to give it the longevity it deserved, he had a plan.
"Time to open the workshop," he murmured, leaning back in his chair with a grin.
He would open Dark Forest to the modding community. The Cyber Platform had a feature similar to Steam's Creative Workshop, a place where players could upload and share their own modifications. By giving the players the tools to create their own content—new stories, new monsters, new mechanics—he could inject a near-infinite amount of freshness into the game.
He thought of Skyrim. A game from his past life that was released in 2011 and was still wildly popular over a decade later, all because of its passionate modding community. They had transformed the game in a thousand different ways, their collective creativity keeping it eternally relevant. That was the power of a dedicated player base.
He made a note to hire a team of programmers. They would handle the work of creating the modding tools and porting the game to consoles. His time was needed elsewhere.
He drafted a quick celebratory announcement for his StreamVerse account, thanking the community for the incredible milestone of 1.5 million sales. Then, at the very end, he added the real message.
"As a thank you for your incredible support, my new VR game, "Blackjack," will be released on the iGame platform, on schedule, as a completely free download for all players. I hope you will enjoy it."
He posted it and immediately closed the app. He knew exactly how the announcement would be received. He knew the players, burned by years of terrible VR games and broken promises, were deeply skeptical. His one-month timeline sounded like a ridiculous, arrogant boast. On the forums, his VR announcement was being largely ignored, dismissed as a fantasy while the discussion around Dark Forest continued to rage.
That was why he was releasing it for free.
It was a calculated risk, a show of supreme confidence. He was removing every possible barrier to entry. In a world where VR headsets were common but quality VR games were nonexistent, he would give them their first true taste of what the technology was capable of. He was so certain of the quality of his work that he knew this free demo would be the most effective marketing tool imaginable. Once they experienced it, they would be hungry for more.
Unlimited Online Entertainment had, of course, protested. They had pleaded with him not to give away a product for free. But he had been adamant. In the end, they had relented, on one condition: their commission on Dark Forest's sales would increase by half a percent. A typical businessman's move. Leo had agreed without a second thought. It was a small price to pay for the revolution he was about to start.
With that settled, he turned his full attention to the task at hand. His impossible one-month deadline was now only a week away.
He opened the development engine. Nina had already completed the main scene, and it was stunning. Her work was a near-perfect, high-quality recreation of the grimy, terrifying basement from the original game. He felt a surge of pride in his new team.
But a new creative problem had emerged. "Blackjack," as a DLC, had relied on the player's existing knowledge of the Resident Evil 7 story and its characters. As a standalone game, it lacked context. The villain, Lucas Baker, would just be some random, sneering man on a television screen.
Leo leaned back, his arms crossed, his brow furrowed in thought. He needed a new antagonist. A new framework. Someone who embodied the idea of a life-or-death game.
And then, a flash of inspiration. A memory from his past life. A movie franchise built on exactly that premise.
Saw.
"Yes," he whispered, a slow grin spreading across his face. It was perfect. He wouldn't use the character of Lucas at all. He would create a new villain, a mysterious, Jigsaw-like figure who communicated through a television, his face hidden by a terrifying mask. He would rewrite the dialogue, transforming it from a simple hostage situation into a twisted test of morality and survival. He would also add more dialogue for the two characters at the table, fleshing out their personalities and giving the players a reason to care about the grim fate that awaited the loser.
He immediately got to work, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he rewrote the script. He sent the new dialogue and a concept sketch for the villain's mask to Unlimited Online, who, true to their word, leveraged their vast network of contacts. In three days, they sent back a set of professionally recorded, encrypted audio files for the voice acting and a new, custom-composed soundtrack.
He imported the audio, and the system's engine seamlessly integrated it, optimizing the sound levels and syncing the lines perfectly.
The final week was a blur of intense, focused work. And then, it was done.
Leo leaned back from his monitor, a deep, bone-weary satisfaction settling over him. He had done it. His VR game, the proof of concept he had promised, was complete. And it was perfect.
PLS SUPPORT ME AND THROW POWERSTONES .