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Chapter 412: 396: A Glimmer of Hope?

Last night, Mavis had specifically shown Lincoln the footage of Wu Yu and Fred chatting in the virtual world.

— What happens in the virtual world is hard to hide from Mavis’s eyes, let alone that Lincoln had specifically asked her to keep watch.

Fred’s expression went from confused, to calm with a hint of smug, to puzzled and slightly uneasy, which was a fascinating series of changes.

Especially when Fred enthusiastically asked Wu Yu which department she had joined and her position, offering his help if she needed it.

At the mention of [Emergency Medical Team·Psychological Counselor], Fred’s face turned green.

Lincoln and Mavis laughed heartlessly.

As a result, when Lincoln saw Fred coming over aggressively, it was impossible not to feel guilty.

“Boss, about…” To Lincoln’s surprise, Fred didn’t come over to blame him immediately, but seemed a bit hesitant.

“Can I take a look at Wu Yu’s resume?”

“Huh?” Lincoln looked at him in surprise, “There’s no need for a retaliatory strike, is there?”

“Huh?” Fred was even more shocked, “What retaliatory strike?”

“If you’re not trying to strike back, why do you want to see someone else’s resume?” Lincoln was puzzled.

“Well, I just want to know more about her.”

“Huh?” Lincoln felt like he was playing a game with Fred called [Who’s More Surprised], because he felt even more surprised himself!

“Have you fallen for her? Didn’t you just meet her for the first time yesterday? Don’t you like matchmaking anymore? No, wait, do you really like women?” Lincoln felt a million question marks popping up in his head.

Lincoln had a million question marks in his head, but Fred’s head wasn’t lacking in question marks either—

“Who likes matchmaking! It was a last resort! If there’s a choice, who’d want to go matchmaking?”

Bullshit, you obviously enjoy matchmaking, Lincoln didn’t believe:

“Tell me honestly, have I ever exploited you at Cloud Dream? Did I give you less salary and bonus, or is it that you’re off work too late at 5 p.m., leaving you no time to find a partner so you have to go to matchmaking events?”

“But, that…” Fred was somewhat tongue-tied, “That’s just inertia from the start, isn’t it? I haven’t been matchmaking since either!”

“Isn’t it because you were busy leading the team to develop ‘Speed Chase’ that you didn’t have the mood to even attend those events after work?” Lincoln hit the nail on the head.

Fred seemed to have been hit in a sore spot and couldn’t refute it for a while. But after a moment, he suddenly became depressed.

“Actually, after the game was launched, I went to a matchmaking event. I found myself suddenly in high demand.”

“Huh?” Lincoln didn’t understand why he was saying this: “So what?”

“But I suddenly lost interest.”

“So, why is that?” Lincoln asked hollowly, “Is it because you only enjoy it when no one pays attention to you, and your potential partners all look down on you?”

“What?” Fred was stunned, “No, of course not! I mean, it feels like they’re all after my money and job, all because of my conditions, not me as a person…””

“Ah, is that so…” Lincoln felt very surprised.

He didn’t expect Fred, who had a veteran driver’s attitude in the game, to be rather innocent about this…

“Isn’t your money, your future, your material conditions, part of your talent, values, ideals and ambitions? Is money necessarily more vulgar than talent?” Lincoln tried to persuade Fred.

But as soon as the words came out, he immediately regretted it.

“Forget it, I also think money is more vulgar than talent… let’s skip this topic.”

Lincoln tried to get the conversation back on track: “So, you don’t want to go to matchmaking events anymore, instead you focus on coworkers, and this newcomer immediately touched your heart, but you’re not good at interacting with girls outside of matchmaking, so you want to learn more about her.”

“Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Fred nodded repeatedly.

“The thing is, a lot of the content on resumes is private. Secretly digging into other people’s privacy like that, if found out, you’ll be called a straight man, right?” Lincoln whispered, “I’m willing to keep it a secret for you, but, before you came to me, you didn’t go to Sister Qiao first, did you?”

“Huh?” Fred was taken aback, “I went to her first, she told me to come find you.”

Lincoln covered his face on the spot, “It’s over, do you believe it, now probably all the girls in the company know about this…”

“Ah?!” Fred was shocked, “No way, right?”

“Of course…” Lincoln never doubted everyone’s gossiping.

“What do we do?” Fred was a little panicked.

“…Forget it, just pretend you don’t know.” Lincoln was also helpless.

“Here’s the thing, forget the resume. You probably don’t know, but I have a system here that does a preliminary screening of job applicants’ resumes based on their past Internet footprint.”

“This information is all public, and it’s more helpful for you to understand what kind of person she is than a resume.”

“Alright, thanks, boss.” Fred couldn’t get any excitement, leaving with mixed emotions.

Lincoln shook his head, feeling powerless.

However, he suddenly thought of something interesting.

Cloud Dream’s employees are screened before they join the company, ensuring that they have a relatively normal set of values. After they join the company, they have little work pressure and are well paid.

This basically guarantees that Cloud Dream employees are high-quality candidates for marriage from both “mental” and “material” aspects.

Does this not mean that these people would become quite in demand in the dating market?

I wonder if this counts as making a contribution to society?As Lincoln daydreams in his office, NetDragon gets into a tense state early on.

Not until ten o’clock arrives.

“Blaze 3·Red Flame”, fully launched simultaneously across regions and platforms!

Jason, Gary, and even Richard were all focused on one data point—

The number of players online.

Everyone knew that at this time, there was little hope for sales, as most players who had played the “Blaze 3” base game had access to the free DLC, making it difficult to generate sales.

But as long as the number of players online went up and word of mouth was turned around, there would be hope for both the game itself and this DLC to make a comeback!

And the initial situation was very good!

The online player count of “Blaze 3”, which had already hit rock bottom, suddenly began to grow by hundreds and thousands of times!

By just half an hour after launch, more than three million people were online!

800,000 people in Daxia’s domestic market, while 2.2 million were from overseas regions!

This was happening on a workday morning!

Jason was overjoyed, while Gary immediately left the live broadcast rooms of the partnered anchors to start browsing the entire game live streaming sections.

Soon he found that three major web live platforms in Daxia, two major mobile live streaming apps, and countless anchors had started streaming “Blaze 3·Red Flame” without any prior agreement.

A quick scan showed that it was almost on par with “Speed Chase”!

Except for a few “Paradise” anchor sticklers still stubbornly running the Candy Track, almost all other live streaming screens were dominated by these two games.

And Gary had only signed up twenty-three anchors for this collaboration.

Which meant that most of these anchors were playing the DLC entirely on their own initiative!

The current situation was even better than the best-case scenario Gary and Jason had imagined!

How could this be the decline of VR games? It looked more like they were directly competing with each other, and neither was losing ground!

Even on overseas live streaming platforms, many anchors were streaming this expansion pack.

—Although the titles of their streams still had keywords like “filling the hole”, “repentance”, and “giving one more chance”.

But exposure was still exposure!

This astonishing performance undoubtedly shocked the industry.

Everyone was surprised to find that NetDragon, which had been in decline for several months and was thought to be on the wane, had unexpectedly staged this impressive comeback without any warning!

After the surprise, many people couldn’t help but think: “Could it be that Lincoln’s judgment was wrong, and it’s nowhere near time for VR games to be eliminated?”

As for what the players were talking about online—farewell, last time and so on, it was all just talk.

Seeing was believing, and the current situation where both sides were competing against each other was clearly displayed before everyone’s eyes!

Online rates, popularity, and exposure were all more credible than hollow words.

And NetDragon was on par with Cloud Dream, so who could say that it was inferior!

Countless new players who had never played VR games before were particularly shocked by the scene.

These people had only started playing and learning about gaming due to Cloud Dream’s continuous expansion of the gaming market, so they were especially surprised by what was happening now.

Many of them even took the initiative to learn about VR games.

Because it was obvious at a glance from the live stream: VR games and virtual reality games are two completely different types of games.

And the number of gamers watching live game streams at this time had increased by who knows how much compared to before Cloud Dream was born.

As a result, many people who had no prior understanding of VR games had gained exposure to VR games through this opportunity, even to the point of considering purchasing VR equipment.

After all, people’s needs are diverse, and VR games have developed precisely because they cater to the needs of a certain group of people. With demand, exposure, and available products, there will naturally be sales.

This was another unexpected pleasant surprise for NetDragon.

And it wasn’t just NetDragon that was pleasantly surprised. Wild Island and Flying Fox both got a taste too.

This taste made Flying Fox somewhat hesitant, wondering whether the decision to shut down the factory and completely transition was a bit hasty.

However, this taste also gave Wild Island more confidence: they wanted to explore more possibilities on the path of VR gaming!

Was this a sign that VR games still had greater potential?

Or was it just a brief resurgence?

No one could tell for sure at the moment, not even Zoe—who had previously surveyed both industries in-depth and had the perspective of an outsider.

Everyone needed more time to observe and see the outcome of NetDragon’s desperate battle.

Although the result of this battle was no longer related to the domination of the gaming industry—because Cloud Dream’s position was already unshakable—

the result of this battle could, to a large extent, determine the future direction of VR gaming.