I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 179 - 83: Everyone was shocked! Is this a monetization strategy that a human could design? [Extra for the capable boss! _2]

Chapter 179: Chapter 83: Everyone was shocked! Is this a monetization strategy that a human could design? [Extra for the capable boss! _2]

Wang Laoju simply could not keep it together anymore.

"No, hold on... what’s the deal with this top-up situation?"

"I spent twenty bucks in there, not expecting any boosts, but how come it feels even harder now?"

He was utterly baffled and opened the top-up interface in extreme astonishment.

This time, he resolved to brave the risks and directly check out the details of the package.

When the details of the package first appeared on the screen.

Wang Laoju was shocked.

So were all the viewers in the live stream!

Displayed clearly on the screen was the following.

[Top up 20 yuan to get the Supreme Bliss Package, which includes the ’Little Knight Attack Power Halved’ feature. The difficulty won’t be restored until you pass the game. After that, you can choose the difficulty again. Please consume rationally!]

The display of this text nearly made Wang Laoju black out.

The live stream chat exploded!!

The barrage filled the screen like a swarm of locusts, dense and overwhelming, uniformly spewing question marks in madness.

"????"

"??????"

"Ke?"

"Something’s up, we’ve got a problem!"

"Hello? Who taught you how to make a top-up interface like this?"

"This is just freaking absurd!"

"It’s over! I’ve seriously never seen this before! I’ve never seen a game where the option to spend real money increases the difficulty..."

"Damn! Groundbreaking! Ke is literally the archenemy of us tycoons!!"

"Some people at Tengjing go ’make games with feet, design consumption with heart’, but Baby Ke this is more upscale, Baby Ke’s is ’create games with heart, top up you motherf******’"

And that wasn’t even the most absurd part.

Wang Laoju then clicked through the other three package details one by one.

They were nothing short of spectacular.

Each one more outrageous than the last.

Especially that Supreme Bliss Package, roughly translated, meant monster health increased, and you could not upgrade weapons throughout the game, skills could only be used once, then the Little Knight would shatter from a single touch.

This was levels of difficulty above a no-hit run!

The chat was filled with countless mocking comments.

"This is really too blissful."

"Even the Buddha would shake his head and say: ’The Pure Land is just for laughs, true bliss is all about Ke.’"

"666666! First time I’ve seen someone pay to suffer."

"No, really, what’s Baby Ke aiming for...? Scared of making too much money from the game? I just can’t figure it out."

"Just admit it, can you play this game without paying?"

Ke Jin’s move was indeed a stroke of genius.

It fried the players’ CPUs.

With mouths agape, they wanted to rant about something.

But then they realized there was nothing to rant about.

You might say the consumption system is absurd,

But if you don’t spend, isn’t that just fine...

If you don’t spend, you can enjoy the perfect game experience.

A game designer who creates a game that can be played perfectly for free, who would criticise that designer?

They should actually be revered!

We should put him on a pedestal!

But the main thing is this top-up interface... it’s just too abstract.

So Ke Jin, the cyber mother, drifted back and forth in the stratosphere amid the players’ choked back cries.

Wang Laoju, who’d been bamboozled by the top-up interface, simply couldn’t go on with the live stream tonight.

Exhausted, he held his forehead in silence for a moment, then whispered, ’I’m taking a day off tomorrow’.

And quietly ended the stream.

But as a major streamer, his influence was undeniable.

Iconic moments were bound to be cut and edited by fans into clips and uploaded onto various video platforms.

And tonight’s iconic moments were explosively rich in content, full of material.

Soon, Thunderbolt was flooded with a score of clips about Wang Laoju’s live stream tonight.

Even Douyin had its share of new short videos.

"Hollow Knight" thus was set ablaze with this fire, instantly catching on like wildfire!

Within just one week’s time.

The average number of searches on the major media platforms even exceeded one million plus!

It attracted hordes of netizens to closely follow the hype.

Mostly because the game’s setting was too quirky!

You’ve heard of games that force players to spend excessively, soaring to the top search results because of it.

But this was the first time that Blue Star netizens saw a game make the hot search list for avoiding in-game spending—truly an eye-opener.

Besides, if "Hollow" was a crudely made mess of a game, it probably wouldn’t have made it to the hot search list either.

After all, doing something bizarre for the sake of attention is something the abstract-minded netizens of the 21st century are too accustomed to, becoming increasingly desensitized to it.

But of all things!

"Hollow" turned out to be an earnestly made 2D side-scrolling action game, overflowing with ingenuity.

This just left people completely puzzled.

As more and more players started trying out the game.

They found that this game was damn fun indeed!

Matchless controls.

The art style was simple yet far from simplistic, every corner revealing the meticulous polishing by the designers.

And the details—explosive!

Huge amounts of backstory hidden within the game began to emerge as zero-consumption players gradually completed it, revealed on various video platforms.

More and more players discovered.

The entire world of "Hollow" was anything but hollow!

Instead, upon closer examination, countless scattered details compiled into an epic history of a kingdom’s rise and fall!

In this underground world called the Holy Nest, there once existed several ancient Insect Race deities, each with their own followers, dividing this vast subterranean world into their respective territories.

The deities sheltered their followers, and their power also came from their followers’ faith.

Residing on the far left side of Holy Nest, the Moss Tribe revered the laws of nature, worshipping an ancient god named Ouen—a gigantic slug.

The warriors of the Mantis Village believed in supreme honor.

The Bee Kingdom persisted in isolating itself, unwilling to accept the invasion of foreign thoughts.

There was also the leader of a tribe far on the edge of the world in Deep Nest, a powerful beast named Hera.

And then, residing in the realm of dreams, was a high entity, Radiance.

It led a peculiar tribe called the Moth Tribe, capable of freely entering and leaving others’ dreams.

The various tribes of the underground world divided the land and confined themselves to their respective territories, developing independently without disturbances.

Until one day, a monstrous creature from a world beyond Holy Nest, Flying Dragon Wom, came from afar and perished here.

Everything in Holy Nest changed because of this.

The mighty Wom, a superior intelligent being from the outside world, even in death, its vast body and seemingly endless energy silently nurtured the insects of the entire subterranean world.

The insects that absorbed Wom’s flesh and spirit gradually gained the ability to think and be wise.

The insects that gained these abilities began to worship Wom as their new deity.

Even many insects from other tribes also joined Wom’s ranks one after another.

With enough accumulated worship power, Wom was reborn as a higher spirit with intelligence—The Pale King.

And he established the largest kingdom ever in the underground world—Holy Nest!

He expanded the minds of some insects within Holy Nest and endowed them with more advanced wisdom.

He wanted the insects to worship him eternally, to offer their faith to him.

In return, he assured them that the kingdom of Holy Nest would be everlasting.

From then on, the entire Holy Nest began to develop a civilization of unprecedented prosperity never seen before by the insects!

Its influence started to spread wildly in the underground world, almost engulfing all the other tribes.

Even the resisting tribes eventually couldn’t withstand the power of Holy Nest and signed a peace treaty with the Pale King.

Even the Moth Tribe, secluded in the world of insect dreams, began to flock to the Pale King.

And the life of a deity was sustained by the faith of its followers.

As the deity of the Moth Tribe, Radiance slowly found itself abandoned by its own tribe.

This forgotten ray of light was not willing to fade away.

Memories of Radiance began to spread in the kingdom.

Before long, all insects in Holy Nest began to dream of her, that once dazzling light.

This kind of dream shattered the insects’ minds, ultimately breaking their will to serve her, driving them to madness.

The Pale King and his subjects tried to resist these dreams.

And thus, the war of Holy Nest broke out.