I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 276 - 113: On the Cusp of Trend! Demo Goes Live!_2

Chapter 276: Chapter 113: On the Cusp of Trend! Demo Goes Live!_2

Sometimes, even when the performance at the scene satisfied me, they would still not find it perfect and voluntarily request to go through it a few more times.

"If there’s a chance, we’ll collaborate again in the future," I said.

After bidding farewell with a handshake to each of the three sisters,

I really wanted to just sign them on the spot.

There would be plenty of opportunities to use their talents in future games.

But considering the tight funding situation we were facing recently,

the expense of maintaining a motion capture team is not a trivial matter.

Let’s wait until the company has more disposable funds before reconsidering it.

Time flew by, and it was soon November.

The game development was already 70% complete,

and the progress was a bit smoother than I had expected.

If this trend continued, we should be able to wrap up by the end of November.

The festival’s deadline for submissions was at the end of December, with the results to be announced during next year’s Lantern Festival.

That left us with a whole month to promote and launch the game.

We had a generous amount of time.

During this period,

I had Gou Chehua make arrangements to extract a short playable demo from the main body of the game over the next couple of days.

It was meant to serve as a warm-up for the game’s upcoming release.

This time was different from before; "Infinite" was a project we could openly use to make money, so the more publicity, the better.

However, the company honestly didn’t have extra funds for a large-scale promotion.

So, we decided to release a demo for players to try out first, letting the game’s quality speak for itself, which is more effective than any fancy promotional video.

"Mr. Ke, picking a demo is easy, but... the official selection list might be announced in a couple of days. There could be a big buzz, so should we wait it out? What about releasing the demo a week later, ride the wave of attention and then launch the game a week after that?"

Gou Chehua’s suggestion was quite practical.

The game had already earned a certain reputation within China’s gaming community.

But to the general public, its status was like a viral hit song that came out of nowhere.

You hear a melody and know you’ve heard it before.

But ask me who sang it? I wouldn’t have a clue.

"Pubg" previously went viral outside the gaming sphere, leading to phases where every fried chicken shop used the catchphrase "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner" in their signs without even paying royalty fees.

But if you ask the owner of a fried chicken shop if they know who Ke Jin is,

they’d only tell you, "We don’t sell by the gram or by the kilo; thirty bucks for a fried chicken and you get a free bottle of Coke."

This is the gap between gamers and non-gamers.

It doesn’t matter what gamers think of your first-rate player status.

What matters is that you’ve come to participate in the Art Festival.

You better be prepared for a heavy load.

But Ke Jin simply waved his hand and said it was okay.

A big buzz?

Isn’t that even better?

As the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity, and a dragon is still a dragon even if it’s notorious.

Go ahead and launch it!

Lay it on thick!

Not only do we want to face the music,

but we also want to launch it when the buzz is at its peak!

If the fuss is too small, I might have to clear my throat.

And so, two days later,

the Art and Culture Association officially announced the annual selection of the best artistic works on their official Weibo account.

Most of the works were already established.

Launched since the beginning of the year and well-received in their respective circles over the past six months, they were submitted for consideration.

On the day of the announcement, the Weibo topic #NineArts# instantly gained traction.

Countless netizens began discussing it.

"Ah! My brother’s song ’Clear Day Turns Rain’ got nominated for music arts? Sisters, aren’t we going to vote like crazy?"

"What’s ’Clear Day Turns Rain’? Just a marketing gimmick, a bland pop song. In my opinion, it can’t touch a strand of Wang Yangyuan’s hair in the movie ’Youth Dance Troupe’ he starred in! I wore a wedding dress to the premiere, ah, they were so handsome!"

"Wang Yangyuan? What kind of clown is that? Even the box-office he claimed to have earned makes me cringe."

"Heh, in my opinion, Masa’s street dance show stands the greatest chance this year – it’s sexy without losing innocence. Her eyes killed me!"

Ke Jin scanned the impassioned comments from Weibo users and was rendered speechless.

I seriously thought this annual art selection was a divine battle.

Turns out it’s all just old men pulling the strings from behind?

It’s purely a capital game...

On the other hand, some lesser-followed categories such as sculpture and theater,

featured works with a fair share of artistic merit.

I took a look.

There was a noticeable trend towards commercialization, however.

For example, this year’s drama/opera section’s ’Three Plays of Pear Blossom’ began with the older roles singing with a bright and lofty voice that could also turn soft and tender.

Then all of a sudden, a rap burst into the middle of the performance, almost making my scalp fly off, and I nearly choked on my Coke.

But aside from that intriguing rap, the overall performance was tolerable.

It seemed that on Blue Star, the entertainment-to-death phenomenon had far surpassed that of Earth in my time.

Although several arts had their outstanding works over the years, some of which directly synchronized with parallel Earth works, and others that didn’t appear,

Ke Jin speculated that it was possibly due to an invisible impact of the distorted development of the gaming industry.

After all, among so many pieces of work, there must be many unrelated to gaming, yet the creators were inspired by some game; hence, when their style was introduced, it triggered further emulation and refinement by later generations, a chain reaction.