I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 541 - 175: The Fall of the Godfather of Gaming! (Worldview Completion - , Skip if Disliked)_4

Chapter 541: Chapter 175: The Fall of the Godfather of Gaming! (Worldview Completion Chapter, Skip if Disliked)_4

Moreover,

Sir Ke had taken a step no one in his previous life had ever seen Snake do.

He implanted a ranking system into the local area network.

Humans have an innate desire to compete.

Otherwise, competitive sports would not have developed.

With rankings, people would want to surpass each other and break records.

As more and more people harbored such thoughts,

the number playing this game also gradually increased.

"Point to Face" almost instantaneously became wildly popular within all the major companies in Jianglin.

Moreover, what propelled "Point to Face" to greater popularity was the fact that—almost simultaneously—BBS was born.

Although at that time, forums were not as fast and convenient as they are now.

It was instead a cycle where the main server would refresh periodically, presenting different user data.

But it was a great feat pushing forward the progress of the internet.

People who were slightly further apart could begin leaving messages within a closed community, waiting for the cyclical refresh before they could see each other’s posts.

This multiple-party communication model was clearly more popular than one-on-one phone calls.

And "Point to Face" became highly sought after with the emergence of BBS.

Many people at that time excitedly called it ’the first video game revolution.’

Clearly, it was an epic leap from programming games to pixel games.

However, one aspect of development was very similar to that on Earth in the previous life.

People tend to only remember certain games, like Snake or Tetris,

but the game designers behind them remained largely unknown.

Unless one actively searched, most people would not recognize them.

Sir Ke, who designed "Point to Face," was obviously one of these designers.

Moreover, after "Badminton Game," Sir Ke had begun to realize the importance of copyright.

With copyright, he could sustain his troubled economic situation for a longer period.

However, in the Huaxia Nation of that era...

defending one’s legal rights was nearly an insurmountable challenge.

Ke Xiangyang had succeeded in his game design this time.

But he had also failed.

The so-called rise by BBS, fall by BBS.

BBS made "Point to Face" famous.

But it began to be widely pirated and spread through offices for amusement everywhere, with Sir Ke gaining little profit from it.

Until—a visit from across the ocean arrived.

A computer systems developer from the United States, who came to the Huaxia Nation for business, made a special trip to see Ke Xiangyang.

He mentioned that Ke’s game was already well-known across the ocean.

He asked if Ke was interested in a partnership.

The partnership proposal was to embed "Point to Face" in their upcoming personal computers to boost the desire to purchase them.

Only then did Ke Xiangyang astonishingly discover,

his game had already spread across the world through one local BBS after another.

And in the United States at that time, where copyright protection was already more sophisticated, the rights to the game always belonged to him.

But things were not much better.

He owned the copyrights, but since he was not in the country, the profits were naturally swallowed by some American businessmen.

This time, if Ke Xiangyang agreed and chose to partner with this computer company,

he would be able to permanently secure these profits for himself.

Moreover, the offer they made him was very tempting.

For every computer sold, they would give him a royalty of $0.99.

Although at that time, the price of a computer was still a steep $1500,

$1 might not seem like much.

But in an era when the average salary in the Huaxia Nation was between 30 and 50, the company promised Ke Xiangyang a guaranteed income of at least $500 per month.

Sir Ke was somewhat tempted, but he looked at his son who had just turned one year old, and at his wife who had been working hard.

Ke Xiangyang hesitated.

And then, with a single sentence, the visitor completely convinced Ke Xiangyang to go with him to the United States.

"I can’t remember the exact words. When your grandfather was telling me about his experiences back then, he didn’t go into much detail,"

"Essentially, at that time, personal computers were already becoming common in the United States, and in the Huaxia Nation, no matter how ambitious he was or how good the games he designed were, they were likely to be ignored for a long time."

"Back then, the Huaxia Nation had just begun to open up, and many small enterprises didn’t even have computers for office use, let alone personal computers, which even middle-class families couldn’t afford."

"Perhaps it was to ensure that I would have a better environment to grow up in, or maybe your grandfather had already vowed to make a name for himself, no one knows what he really thought, but in the end, he still went with that person."

After arriving in the United States, Ke Xiangyang indeed began to get on the right track.

A country that protected copyright consciousness was indeed beneficial to creators.

His income started to flourish and yield profits.

He even sent home a transnational letter every month, enclosing a thick stack of money and a paper expressing his longing for his family.

And with better conditions for creation,

Ke Xiangyang lived up to expectations.

He began to produce and iterate on games at an explosive rate.

In an era when pixel art began to rise,

Sir Ke created "Man Eating Apple" (akin to Pac-Man, not elaborated further) and "Galaxy Battlefield" (the progenitor of Blue Star’s bullet hell games, similar to "Raiden").

And after 1985, with further technological advancements,