Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

The next day, Saturday, 7:45 in the morning.

Lincoln had already turned off the alarm clock and went back to sleep.

Meanwhile, everyone in the NetDragon R&D Department was already sitting at their desks, opening web pages, taking out mobile phones and tablets, and preparing to buy from three different devices.

Don’t ask why they’re not resting. Isn’t working on Saturdays common?

The pressure in the NetDragon R&D Department had been quite intense lately. Their boss had confidently promised the higher-ups that they would achieve a technological breakthrough within two months.

Now, half a month has passed, and they haven’t even found a clear direction, let alone a breakthrough.

There are some feasible plans, but they all require ten or twenty years of time, and they may not even succeed in the end.

However, Supervisor Warner rejected these plans outright.

He firmly believed that Lincoln’s approach was not a traditional one, and there must be a shortcut they didn’t know about! It was this shortcut that allowed Lincoln to achieve a technological breakthrough in a simple 20 square meter rental room.

The problem was that they couldn’t find this shortcut at all.

When Warner promised two months for a breakthrough to the higher-ups, he planned to buy a Mirage Console online and reverse-engineer it.

But he never expected that Cloud Dream’s console would be so in demand. They missed out on both shipments of 600,000 sets.

Later, unable to bear the pressure from the boss, he shamelessly mobilized all employees to find a way to obtain a Mirage Console for reverse engineering.

In the end, they painfully realized that there were only buy orders and no sell orders for Mirage consoles on various second-hand platforms.

Many people had already offered ten or even twenty times the normal price, but still couldn’t buy a console.

Frustrated, Warner posted a 300,000 yuan buy offer, only for scalpers to report him for fraud and have his account banned on the platform.

In short, Warner tried his best but couldn’t get his hands on a console through other channels.

Finally, they had no choice but to employ this desperate tactic: having all employees try to buy the consoles together, using swarm tactics to secure a few units.

Even if they only managed to get one console, it would be of significant guidance to their R&D.

“Five minutes left! Get ready!”

Warner once again reminded everyone, though he was quite confident.

After all, they were in the R&D center with industrial-grade optic fiber lines and top-of-the-line computers, with much faster speed than ordinary users.

With these advantages and nearly a thousand people working together, it seemed impossible for them not to get any consoles.

If it weren’t for the limited equipment, Warner would pull over even cleaning staff, server room administrators, and warehouse guards in the research center.

But there wasn’t enough equipment, and those people didn’t answer to him, so he couldn’t command them.

“Last minute! Keep your eyes on it! Be ready to order!”

At this moment, people all around the country were sitting in front of their computers, opening Cloud Dream’s homepage, frantically pressing F5 to refresh the webpage, hoping to get their hands on the Mirage console as soon as it went on sale.

Only Mavis, who was staring at the backstage inventory data, could know how many people were competing for the consoles.

08:00

“Start buying!”

Warner shouted while placing an order.

“Delayed response!”

“Ordering, entering payment process, network fluctuation, payment failed!” “Still 1 million units, no response to the order!”

“600,000 left! How many people are buying?!” The employee’s voice trembled.

“What a garbage server Cloud Dream has! It’s stuck again!” Someone was becoming furious.

“It’s not working! Orders are stacking up!”

“Only 100,000 left!” The researcher sounded desperate and panicky.

“Payment processing! Damn it! Payment failed!”

“Sold out!”

“Gone already!”

“Just 2 minutes! Are you kidding me?”

Warner listened to the frustrated curses in the air, and stared at the loading screen stuck at the payment interface, feeling absurd.

1.6 million devices, sold out in 2 minutes?

Over 1000 people, each with three devices, industrial-grade fiber optic dedicated lines, and not a single one got one?

Is this reasonable?

He unwillingly asked in the workgroup: “Did anyone get one?”

There was silence in the group, no one responded.

He felt his hands trembling as he typed on the keyboard, hitting several wrong keys before managing to send another message: “Not a single one?

“Not even one?”

Still, silence in the group.

He wanted to say something else, but didn’t know what else to say.

Finally, he used all his strength to send a message in the group: “Try contacting people who bought the console online and buy it back at a higher price.”

After pressing the enter key, Warner felt completely exhausted. In just two minutes, he felt a deep weariness throughout his body. He slumped onto the spacious real leather office chair, as if he had lost his strength.

The employees who saw Warner’s request sighed privately in their group, “Sold out so fast, Cloud Dream is terrifying.” Meanwhile, they logged onto Spiritual Rhinoceros to search for players who boasted online about getting the console.

This wasn’t hard, as every time Cloud Dream restocked the Mirage Console, it would cause a commotion online.

Those who couldn’t get one complained, vented their anger, or even cursed Cloud Dream for being inhuman, giving away alms to beggars. Some even went so far as to tag Lincoln, urging him to go to the factory and screw in bolts.

Meanwhile, those who got their hands on it cheered and celebrated, showing off their successful orders without caring about other people’s cursing their luck.

Seeing Cloud Dream create such a stir for just restocking their console, they couldn’t help but return to their small group to lament, “Cloud Dream is terrifying. ”

It’s not difficult to find these bragging people, but buying the console from them isn’t that easy.

It’s not that these buyers were Cloud Dream fanatics who wanted to play the game immediately. These employees offered ten times the original price, which was hard to resist.

But after chatting for a bit, the other party’s attitude would shift from very interested to lukewarm, leaving the NetDragon R&D staff clueless.

This happened several times in a row, always with the same outcome.

If their counterparts were from NetDragon’s marketing department, they might have figured out the problem immediately. There must be someone else contacting these sellers and competing with them.

When sellers see competition, they naturally become standoffish and compare the offers they receive to see which is higher.

Unfortunately, the people here aren’t from the marketing department. These R&D folks have no experience with sly tactics.

Having them compete with professional marketers was like fighting a battle at their weakest point, so of course, they kept losing ground.

By the time 10 minutes had passed and they messaged to buy the console, no one even bothered to respond to them. Only a few people replied, “You’re too late.”

Only then did they realize that many others were doing the same thing as them and were more decisive and tactful in their approaches.

Unfortunately, it’s too late by now.

It wasn’t until 8:30 when the excitement from the Mirage console rush had subsided that Lincoln groggily lifted his blanket and got out of bed.

Hearing Lincoln get up, the mobile phone on the bedside table lit up automatically, and Mavis’s voice sounded, “Master, you’re awake! Good morning!”

“Mmm, good morning Mavis. How did the Mirage sell?”

“It sold really well! 1.6 million sets sold out in just under three minutes.” Mavis’s voice was always full of energy.

“Oh, right!” Lincoln suddenly remembered, “Those IPS from the big companies we marked before, have their order requests been handled?”

“Hehe.” Mavis giggled mischievously, “I’ve taken care of everything. They probably don’t even know what’s going on and think it’s their own fault..”