Qiao Liang was dumbfounded.
That’s it?
That’s the end of the game?
Just one line of text for completing it?
At least give me a trophy! Make a podium!
If you don’t have those art resources, at least give me a cheering sound effect!
How much would a cheering sound effect cost you? Are you that stingy?!
I spent eight hours beating the game, and all I get is a black screen with one sentence mocking me!!!
Qiao Liang felt he couldn’t take it anymore, both physically and mentally.
He had truly immersed himself in the game, and truly felt like crying from anger at this game!
However, despite the breakdown, despite the rage, Qiao Liang felt a small comfort in his heart, a slight… sense of relief?
Not because he was a masochist, but because he knew all this was valuable material!
Seeing an uploader suffer so much, wouldn’t the noble viewers dutifully hit like and share?
Qiao Liang checked once more—the entire eight hours of his gameplay had been recorded completely.
“Just you wait, once I wake up, I’ll deal with you!” Qiao Liang said viciously to the game, then saved the recorded video and collapsed onto his bed, falling into a deep sleep.
…
Three days later.
Pei Qian woke up naturally in his dormitory bed, feeling life was wonderful.
During this time, he had readjusted to university life.
Every day, he slept until he naturally woke up, didn’t have to worry about going to work, felt no pressure from KPIs, and didn’t have to look at a supervisor’s unpleasant face.
In short, it was blissful!
Of course, it would be even better if he were a bit richer.
The first thing he did after getting up was to summon the system!
【Wealth Conversion System】
【Host: Pei Qian】
【Profit conversion ratio 100:1, Loss conversion ratio 1:1】
【Next settlement time: 11 days later】
【System funds: 0 (↓50000)】
【Personal assets: 367】
Seeing that “0” in system funds, Pei Qian felt a surge of satisfaction.
Wonderful!
As for the pitiful number after personal assets, Pei Qian had no solution.
He was already being as frugal as possible, but simply couldn’t save more!
With only one thousand yuan for monthly living expenses, even eating every meal at the cafeteria wasn’t quite enough.
After all, this money couldn’t all be spent on food—daily life required other expenses too, right?
Pei Qian could hardly wait for the settlement, 11 days later, when the lost system funds would be converted into personal assets—that would be amazing.
The system funds remained at 0 because the game platform’s revenue share hadn’t reached the company account yet.
The official ESRO gaming platform distributes revenue once a week, all done automatically by the system. Developers and the platform split revenues 50-50, which was quite reasonable.
If you wanted to check your income and game download statistics before distribution, you could query the editor backend.
During the first two days after the game launched, Pei Qian had frequently checked the editor backend and found that there were indeed about a dozen unfortunate players who had purchased and downloaded his game.
After all, it was a new game that had received some minor recommendation spot—it was normal that a few mindless players might download it to play.
With just over a dozen downloads, after splitting with the platform, Pei Qian would only get a few yuan, which was harmless.
Moreover, these players had indeed all given one-star reviews, making the rating for “Lonely Desert Highway” so miserable that no further mindless players would likely download it.
Having confirmed that his game was doomed to fail, Pei Qian had spent yesterday quite happily without opening the editor to check.
Although he felt that opening the editor backend today wouldn’t show any difference, he still instinctively opened it.
Pei Qian had a peculiar mindset.
Other designers checked their game data, hoping for higher numbers, wishing each refresh would show thousands or tens of thousands more downloads.
But when Pei Qian opened the backend, he hoped his game’s downloads would be as low as possible, preferably a big fat zero.
“If I’m not mistaken, the download count should still be two digits…”
“What the hell?!”
“What happened?!”
Pei Qian was stunned.
He saw that the game’s download count had actually reached four digits and was steadily climbing toward five digits!
“Slap.”
Pei Qian’s right hand hit his forehead; he almost thought his eyesight was in trouble.
“How could more than eight thousand people download my game?”
“And it looks like it’s about to break ten thousand!”
“There are still ten days until the next system settlement!”
Pei Qian panicked, completely panicked.
Things had completely exceeded his expectations.
This was a math problem an elementary school student could calculate: over eight thousand downloads equals over eight thousand in revenue, and after the platform takes half, that’s a net profit of over four thousand.
According to ESRO standards, most games paid only about 5% in taxes, and indie games released on the official ESRO platform enjoyed essentially negligible tax benefits.
This meant that when the platform transferred this money to the company account this weekend, the system funds would become more than 4,000!
What did that mean?
Had Pei Qian earned over 4,000?
No!
On the contrary, Pei Qian had lost over 4,000!
Originally, Pei Qian had lost 50,000 in system funds, which would net him 50,000 in personal assets.
But now with the system funds recovering over 4,000, the net loss would be equivalent to 46,000, and the money Pei Qian could convert had shrunk from 50,000 to 46,000!
Even more terrifying was that the download count continued to steadily increase!
Every time Pei Qian refreshed the backend, the number jumped—sometimes by dozens, sometimes by hundreds.
Each jump felt like salt on Pei Qian’s wound!
However much was earned here, his assets would shrink by that much!
Moreover, there were still ten days until the next settlement. If the downloads increased tenfold during this period…
Yikes…
This was serious!
Pei Qian couldn’t sit still.
“What does this mean? Is there a bug in the official backend?”
“How could such a garbage game have thousands of downloads? Are you fucking with me?”
He still couldn’t believe this reality and quickly opened the official platform to find the comment section for “Lonely Desert Highway.”
To his shock, the game’s rating hadn’t changed much, but the comments had exploded to several hundred!
“Qiao Laoshi observation group!”
“Qiao Laoshi observation group +1”
“I’m dying of laughter, there are such anti-human garbage games! I’ve learned something new!”
“I downloaded it, I challenged it, I retreated in five minutes.”
“One yuan doesn’t seem worth the effort to refund. Let me spit before I leave, heh… ptui!”
“I recommended this game to my friend and told him to persist to the end for a huge surprise and Easter egg. Now my friend wants to break off our friendship. What should I do?”
“Are you even human? I was very honest with my friend, telling him that this game has nothing at the end, just a black screen and one sentence—I even told him the exact sentence word for word. But he thought I was lying and insisted on seeing for himself. He hasn’t finished it yet, but he’s already broken three controllers. I feel like our friendship isn’t far from ending either.”
“Does anyone know the address of the developer? No particular reason, I just want to send him some local specialties.”
“I suggest everyone stop playing and just watch Qiao Laoshi’s full gameplay stream. Qiao Laoshi recorded for eight hours…”
“Heh, let me tell you, this game really can provoke some reflections on life, but you can’t experience it by fast-forwarding through a video.”
“Keep fooling people, go on.”
“It’s true. Didn’t Tang Monk have to overcome eighty-one tribulations to retrieve scriptures from the West? Do you think watching Journey to the West would make you achieve Buddhahood like Tang Monk?”
Pei Qian was dumbfounded.
What was all this?!
Where did all these comments come from?!
Qiao Laoshi observation group???
Had his game been featured by some big influencer?
Pei Qian was completely confused. He opened his browser and searched for the keyword “Qiao Laoshi.”
Soon, he found Qiao Laoshi’s page on Banana Potato Network and saw a video published one day ago.
“Trash Game Rant Series #64: I Spent Eight Hours Continuously Grinding Through a Garbage Game, However…”
The video had already exceeded 200,000 views.
Pei Qian was speechless.
It seemed he had found the culprit.