To ascend, I had no choice but to create games-Chapter 500 - 294 New Beginnings (Part 2)

Chapter 500 -294 New Beginnings (Part 2)

Two disciples of the Food God Sect, each carrying an iron pot on their backs, found Gong Gong’s little shop.

They were surrounded by an air of celestial aura, pride written on their faces. Upon seeing Gong Gong, they simply nodded slightly as a greeting, then spoke indifferently, “Gong Gong.”

“I’m here,” Gong Gong, who was experimenting with new recipes, replied.

“The Supreme Elder is quite satisfied with your performance, so he wants to give you some extra rewards. What would you like?”

Another disciple said coldly from the side, “Think it through before you speak, and don’t ask for too much.”

Gong Gong, sizing up the two of them, felt that they were more temper than talent.

...

If our true bodies were here, even your Supreme Elders would have to toast us, and you kids wouldn’t even have a seat at the table; we’d have to dig out a three-story basement for you.

But now we’re in a game, no point in taking issue with a bunch of NPCs.

So, Gong Gong quickly shared his thoughts with them, “I want the exclusive rights to salt.”

“Just that?” one disciple asked, puzzled. “You could ask for better items, like an Immortal Artifact or higher-level recipes.”

“Salt will suffice,” Gong Gong insisted.

“Very well, as you wish,” they agreed.

With a wave of his hand, a piece of blue paper soared into the sky, and shortly after, a voice announced, “Approved.”

With a slight nod, the disciple of the Food God Sect said to Gong Gong, “There you have it, the Supreme Elder has approved your request. Manage the salt well, and do not replace high quality with low, or we can retract this at any time.”

“Got it, got it. Hey, do you guys want to eat something? It’s on me,” Gong Gong offered.

“No need. Ordinary delicacies do not catch our interest; enjoy them yourself,” the disciples declined.

After they left, Gong Gong regretted not having the chance to poison the two, wondering if he might have gotten some good items out of it.

The Military Governor, standing beside Gong Gong, looked at him speechlessly, lamenting that his moral standards seemed a bit too low.

With the exclusive rights to salt in hand, Gong Gong began considering broader possibilities.

Though just a seasoning, salt is an indispensable part of any dish. With it, Gong Gong could wrestle with the various guilds and completely break the current monopoly.

When ordinary players bought salt, its price remained normal.

However, if guild players came to buy it, the price would drastically increase, causing many guild members to despair.

Large guilds retaliated swiftly, and thus a brutal business war broke out, transforming a pleasant culinary game into a ferocious business warfare game.

The war waged fiercely. Today you dare wage a price war, and tomorrow I’ll play even dirtier.

All sorts of shameless tactics were employed gleefully. If you block my store today, then I’ll find someone to die in your shop tomorrow, ruining your reputation.

The original goal no longer mattered; now the aim was to destroy the rival, so we could comfortably focus on our culinary delights!

Let someone else take the God of Cookery title; we need to eliminate that bastard from the opposite camp first!

The confrontation between the two sides escalated, with countless business strategies emerging. To defeat the rival, culinary innovation continued apace, but taste was no longer the priority; instead, the goal was to maximize profit and take down the competition.

So when Fang Cheng checked the status of the Mysterious Mirror and prepared to observe the situation here, he discovered that the game’s environment had shifted entirely.

Players had artificially split into two factions: the “Freedom Front” led by Gong Gong and the “Gourmet Alliance,” led by the large guilds from before.

They were like fire and water to each other, with members spending their days trading insults online and swearing at each other offline, their cohesion maxed out.

The booming online presence made this game exceptionally lively, lucky for the Game Inn platform, which handled the load well, else it could have been easily overwhelmed.

Every day posts were made, each containing their own analysis and deception, spreading all sorts of false information on the forums, leaving newcomers utterly confused.

As the number of online players grew, the environment worsened, with independent players finding almost no way to survive. To join in, one had to align with a faction, then engage in endless PK (player-killing).

With each article published, the game’s changes became common knowledge. The insane player count and high game time engagement made other developers enviously eager to analyze how Fang Cheng Studio pulled it off.

Back in his office, Fang Cheng had Wang Xiaoying collate the latest news, which he reviewed one by one.

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“A New Form of Conflict: How ‘God of Cookery’ Triggered Players to Fight Among Themselves.”

[As we all know, the best way to infuse a game with vitality is to instill a sense of conflict among players. In the past, this involved artificially created factions that players would then pit themselves against.]

[However, Fang Cheng Studio provided us with an alternative: monopoly vs. anti-monopoly, exploitation vs. anti-exploitation, and the natural conflict between game and capital.]

[Previously, I analyzed Gong Gong’s rise to fame. We can see that this streamer, who initially relied on risqué jokes to gain popularity, showed extraordinary economic savvy throughout the process, leveraging this knowledge to achieve an anti-monopoly feat. It’s surprising how a small-time streamer could withstand the large guilds.]

[The whole process took place without official involvement (Gong Gong claims it was all individual action, which we’ll take her word for), spawned by players themselves, hence it could last much longer.]

[I believe an important factor was that Fang Cheng Studio granted players ample freedom, allowing them to explore the game on their own rather than according to the studio’s narrative.]

[This is a valuable case study that other developers would do well to learn from.]

After reading article after article, Fang Cheng felt as if he’d been undeservedly elevated to a position of greatness.

In their eyes, he was an economic genius, whose clever in-game setups prompted players to embark on economic conflicts naturally, greatly enhancing the game’s competitiveness and playability.

He’d known all along that the gaming industry crowned the successful and dethroned the unsuccessful, that even the most flawed aspects could be celebrated as chocolate ice cream, followed by scores of people earnestly analyzing them.

But their imaginations were overly wild!

What intentional arrangements, what meticulous designs… He just wanted to let them have a good meal; they shouldn’t attribute so much significance to it!

Couldn’t they just play the game honestly?

Looking at Dustfire, now completely transformed, Fang Cheng felt like saying nothing at all.

He was prepared, but this was still more surprising than he had expected.

Seeing Fang Cheng in such a state, Huang Ping and the others’ admiration for him surged uncontrollably like the waters of the Yellow River.

The boss was the boss, even in achieving new game milestones, he pondered how to further delve into the game’s deeper meanings.

We can’t be left behind!

To this, Fang Cheng could only say, “Do as you please, I’m going to lie down for a bit.”

The game’s development continued, the environment nearly set in stone, the battles between players seemingly irreconcilable, destined to fight on until the day the servers shut down.

Many games began to emulate the operating methods of “God of Cookery,” but most couldn’t effectively engage players’ emotions, as many gameplay modes can’t be forced and serendipity plays a role in their success.

But just then, a player finally saved up enough coupons.

One coupon accounted for four hours in a gaming pod, and he had painstakingly collected eighteen.

These eighteen coupons were the rewards of his relentless participation in lotteries and interactive events, gifts he had won through sheer luck, gifts he intended to use to treat himself.

Having requested a week’s leave, he left his humble abode with these gifts and headed to the gaming pod center to start his vacation.

I, Wu Wei, have arrived!