"We tried that, Frank," she said, her words dripping with barely concealed contempt.
"It was our first course of action… We allocated two hundred copies of the game to our best reverse-engineering and code-cracking teams, Our most advanced decryption suites with our most powerful servers….".
She tapped her tablet again. The screen now showed a forensic report. A list of serial numbers, most of them highlighted in glaring red with the status: `CORRUPTED - DATA LOSS TOTAL`.
-------------------------
"One hundred and ninety of those copies are now completely useless… Bricked, The data isn't just encrypted; it was systematically and utterly scrambled the moment our probes touched it…."
Frank Borrelli's smirk vanished. "What? How? That's impossible! Our security teams are the best—".
"They're the best at dealing with known languages and known encryption," Amelia interrupted, her voice sharp.
"This isn't that… Meteor Studios didn't use C++, or Unity, or VR Codes, OR any known engine or language... They built Silent Hill from the ground up using a proprietary coding language we have never seen before. It's… alien to us…. It's like trying to decipher a message written in a language where the alphabet is made of concepts, we don't even have words for, using a tool that only understands ones and zeros….".
She let that sink in for a beat, watching the color drain from Frank's face. Then, she delivered the coup de grâce.
"We ran what little data we could safely extract through our cryptographic analysis AI…. The estimate it returned wasn't in days, or years…" She paused, making eye contact with every stunned person at the table.
"The estimate was one thousand years... With our current global computational power, it would take a millennium to decrypt and understand the fundamental architecture of this code..."
The number hung in the air, absurd and terrifying. A thousand years. It was a verdict of total and utter defeat. They couldn't compete. They couldn't copy. They couldn't even understand what they were up against.
Robert Eisner finally sank into his chair, the fight gone out of him. He looked every one of his sixty-five years. "So," he said, his voice hollow. "What are our options? Do we just… surrender?"
Amelia's lips tightened into a thin line. This was the part she hated. "We cannot compete on quality... We cannot steal their technology… That leaves us with one viable strategic avenue: perception warfare..."
She brought up a new slide. It was a mood board of sorts, filled with words like "Danger," "Trauma," "Public Health," and "Regulation."
"We reframe the current conversation," she explained, her voice cold and clinical.
"We stop talking about its quality and start talking about its 'dangers.' We leverage our media contacts. We fund 'concerned parent' groups, we find psychologists who will, for a fee, speak out about the 'potential for long-term psychological harm.' We make it so that praising Silent Hill isn't seen as celebrating art, but as endorsing recklessness… We don't need to beat their game, just need to make it too controversial, too tainted, for the mainstream to embrace… for it to be hailed as the greatest…".
It was a dirty, cynical strategy. The strategy of a cornered animal that knows it can't win a fair fight. And from the grim, accepting nods around the table, it was clear it was the only strategy they had left.
The decision in the Thundra Corp boardroom wasn't made in a vacuum. It was a desperate signal flare shot into a sky already thick with panic, the tremor caused by Silent Hill's release wasn't confined to one company; it was a seismic event shaking the very foundations of the global gaming industry.
In the sleek, minimalist headquarters of AE Games in New California, executives watched their flagship fantasy RPG's pre-order numbers stagnate as every news cycle was dominated by the "Silent Hill Phenomenon.".
Over at Macrosoft's Xbox division, strategy meetings were hastily reconvened. The conversation shifted from "How do we sell more consoles?" to "How do we stop our entire upcoming release schedule from being irrelevant compared to this?". The idea of trying to secure console exclusivity was floated and immediately dismissed—how do you negotiate with a ghost?
In the cramped, memorabilia-cluttered offices of Bugtheda, known for their grand titles games that would always sprawling with bug-ridden games, there was a palpable sense of dread. If this was the new standard for polish and immersion, their next release would be dead on arrival, laughed out of the market.
The panic wasn't a Western phenomenon. In Seoul, the executives at NetTrouble—famous for their addictive, monetized MMOs—saw a threat to their entire business model. You couldn't in a game that respected its players too much to include them. In Kyoto, the legendary developers at Jonami and Kony, guardians of beloved but aging franchises, saw the future rushing at them, and it didn't have their characters in it. The message was clear: adapt or die. And none of them knew how to adapt to Silent Hill changing the landscape. And their chosen course of actions, is the same as Thundra Corp. taint it, and slowed down its momentum.
*****************
A week after Silent Hill's cataclysmic launch, the coordinated counter-offensive began. It started subtly, a shift in the wind.
The morning news shows, which had once reported on the record-breaking sales with breathless excitement, now featured segments with ominous titles like "The High Cost of Fear: Are We Playing with Our Mental Health?" and "Silent Hill: Digital Danger or Harmless Fun?"
Talking heads—psychologists with dubious credentials, media "ethicists" funded by obscure think-tanks—were paraded onto screens. The way all of them were speaking sounded too careful, laden with concern, but at the same time also sounded too scripted.
{"We're seeing a worrying trend of players experiencing acute anxiety, sleep disturbances, and even symptoms of PTSD,"} one would say, their face a mask of grave sincerity.
{"The level of psychological manipulation in this game is unprecedented,"} another would opine. {"It bypasses conscious critical thought and attacks the limbic system directly. Should there be safeguards? Should there be regulations?"}
The reports always included the same carefully selected anecdotes: a player who fainted and had to be taken to the hospital, neglecting to mention the player had a pre-existing heart condition, a group of friends who needed "trauma bonding" therapy after a play session, a real term twisted into something sinister, a rise in calls to mental health hotlines from distressed gamers, a correlation presented, predictably, as causation.
The narrative was being meticulously manufactured and amplified. Celebration was being rebranded as recklessness. Masterpiece was being redefined as menace, but the piles were coming way too fast and way too many, after all a lie told one time, is a lie, a lie told a thousand time, is the truth.
**************
At the moment, I was working, well not really, I was just browsing the internet, and it turns out that in this world, there is no Streaming exclusive platform. MeTube monopoly everything from the video sharing platform to streaming services. and most importantly, unlike on my old Earth, MeTube is VERY liberal with what anyone can put online. users will get different access from their age, 16 and below would get the normal, tame experience with adult content sometime passed through. But at 16 and up, MeTube instantly become a matured landscape.
In this world, globally, no one can cheat their age, anyone that born, they are automatically in the system. When each birth was carefully monitored, upon a baby being born, they have already gone their digital footprints registered. And this world doesn't mess with underage, anyone below 16 is strictly off limits, the punishment for even inciting them sexually. Is punishable by death. Every single country has the same rules, no exceptions, sure there are some out there that were still wanted to aim for the younger ones, but every time that sort of things were attempted, they were punished and captured immediately. Even the hip-hop artist, billionaires and powerful people steer cleared to those under 16.
Thankfully, no one can post straight porn on common MeTube, that part is on the next tab selection of MeTube Porn. But for things like blowjobs and everything else, as long as it doesn't show clear penetration, it will not be taken down. Hence why I was really enjoying my MeTube surfing session, looking at all the top Hollywood stars doing naughty things in the Oscars. God, I love this world.
Sunday had been quiet for a while, her processes undoubtedly chewing through the vast amount of new data, since Silent Hill had been making waves, we need to keep a close eye on it.
"[Sir, I am detecting a significant and coordinated shift in media sentiment regarding Silent Hill: First Fear.]". She broke the silent.
"Oh yeah?" I murmured, not particularly concerned. "Let's see it."
Windows began popping up. News articles from outlets I knew were traditionally friendly to the big gaming corps. The headlines were all variations on a theme: "Concerns Grow Over Silent Hill's Intensity,""Is This Game Too Real? Experts Weigh In," "The Hidden Trauma of a Virtual Nightmare."
I watched a clip from a primetime news show. A sharply dressed woman was interviewing a man introduced as a "leading cyber-psychologist."
{"...and we must ask ourselves,"} the psychologist was saying, {"at what point does immersion become intrusion? This game doesn't feel like entertainment; it feels like an unregulated psychological experiment on a mass scale."}
"Wow… They're really trying, huh, Sunday?". I can see that sneakiness, oozing out from their mouths.
"[The attempt is concerted and well-funded,]" Sunday confirmed. Another window opened, this one filled with complex financial data and network diagrams.
"[My analysis of the funding and promotional patterns behind these negative pieces shows a 99.7% probability of a coordinated disinformation campaign. Financial tracing links the primary sources of funding to lobbying arms and PR firms retained by Thundra Corp, AE Games, Macrosoft, and Jonami.]."
A list of company logos appeared on the screen, each one a giant of the industry. They were all huddled together, pouring millions into a campaign to scare people away from my game.
"Figured as much," I said, my voice laced with pure, unadulterated amusement. "They can't beat me. They can't even understand me. So, they're trying to fucking cancel me.".
I looked at the list of terrified titans on my screen. These were the companies that had dominated entertainment for decades. Their logos were recognized in every household on the planet. And they were collectively shitting their pants over something I built in my bedroom.
"Sunday," I said, the grin turning into something darker, more triumphant. "The fact that these billion-dollar giants feel threatened enough to spend millions just to smear me…".
"That's not a backlash…. That's a fucking standing ovation... the best review I could ever get.". I let out a low laugh.
The attack wasn't a threat; it was a validation from them. Honestly it was a bit annoying that off putting that they put me on the target like this, and with them being so powerful and all, decided to go around this route, using a sneak attack. Said a lot, they acknowledge, that they cannot break me in the open, which in its own way, is good enough for me.