Chapter 11: Free Game and Built-in Revival Coins

“Fuck your mother, system!” Fang Qingzhou could no longer hold back from cursing out loud.

He knew something was off. What kind of game was ever released one stage at a time? Clearly, the system saw that he couldn’t survive the upcoming story, so it had sent him back to release an Early Access version to rake in cash and stock up on revival coins.

In truth, he knew the difficulty would spike drastically going forward. After all, Lickers, Tyrants, and G-Virus mutants hadn’t even shown up yet, and those monsters were a hundred times more terrifying than ordinary zombies.

Still, he had no idea when they would make their appearance, though judging by the system’s warning, there was an eighty percent chance he would run into them next time.

The system warning him and letting him come back to stock up on revival coins seemed decent enough, but if not for this damned system, why would he have had to enter that perilous Resident Evil world in the first place? Why would he have to face those monsters at all?

Right now, he really wanted to smash this scam of a system to pieces.

“System, release the game tomorrow!” Fang Qingzhou called out.

He had originally planned to wait two or three days for the online buzz to build before releasing it, but now he had to move up the schedule. Otherwise, he didn’t even know if he would make it back alive to release the second stage.

“By the way, system, how is the game priced? Do I set the price myself, or do you decide?” Fang Qingzhou asked.

【Game pricing is determined by the host】

“Then can I make the game free, but require players to spend money on revival coins to respawn whenever they die?” Fang Qingzhou asked with a strange expression.

If dying cost him money to buy revival coins, then his players ought to buy revival coins every time they died, too.

【Affirmative】

The system’s reply was short and crisp.

Fang Qingzhou’s eyes lit up completely, the abacus in his head clicking away at full speed.

If the base game was free and players didn’t have to spend a single Fen^[1] to download it, then given the explosive hype around the 《Resident Evil: Raccoon City》 trailer and a billion Yuan of cold, hard cash poured into marketing, the download count would probably be an astronomical figure. Tens of millions? Or hundreds of millions?

In this parallel world where the gaming industry had ballooned into the largest industry on Earth, it wouldn’t be impossible for a truly free, top-tier AAA game to surpass a billion downloads.

And in this world, a free top-tier game had never existed before.

Once players got hooked and were bitten to death by zombies, a prompt would pop up: You have died. Spend 1 Yuan to purchase a revival coin and continue playing?

He wouldn’t set the revival coin price too high. If it was too steep, no one would play, and more importantly, the game only had one stage right now, so he couldn’t charge an exorbitant price.

If he charged per stage, he didn’t even know how many stages there were in total, making it difficult to decide how much each stage should cost.

At 1 Yuan, he was confident plenty of people would gladly spend that much to experience such a blockbuster.

He understood gamers all too well. For a good game, players were willing to spend money; for an addictive game, players were willing to spend a lot of money; and for a game that was both addictive and maddening, players were willing to spend money like crazy.

Take certain top-tier Soulslike games, for example. Players would curse the designers for having shit for brains while continuing to play like masochists.

Fang Qingzhou quickly tallied the math in his head. If a hundred million players died once each, that was a hundred million Yuan. If each died ten times, that was a billion Yuan. If each died a hundred times, then this game shouldn’t be called 《Resident Evil》, it should be called 《Resident Evil: Microtransaction Hell》.

At the thought, the corners of his mouth curved up without him realizing it.

*

Inside the virtual battlefield of 《Battlefield Vanguard》, Liao Yunkai lay inside a bomb crater with an anti-tank grenade in hand, focusing all his senses on the vibrations of the ground.

When the pebbles inside the crater began to quiver faintly, he decisively poked his head out and hurled the anti-tank grenade.

The anti-tank grenade landed squarely beneath a half-track armored vehicle ahead. Moments later, the armored carrier erupted into a ball of fire, wiping out every soldier riding on it.

With the half-track and its soldiers destroyed, the victory icon flashed before Liao Yunkai’s eyes.

Beside him, bullet comments^[2] scrolled continuously across the floating screen.

“Awesome play, streamer! Soloed an entire squad and took down an armored vehicle to boot!”

“Streamer is a real-life soldier king^[3]! I doubt active-duty soldiers are even this good!”

“Streamer is insane! That final counterattack was so damn clean!”

“Yunkai, Yunkai, did you see that Resident Evil trailer?”

“Brother Kai, wanna try out that new game? I heard it’s pretty scary.”

“Forget about Miteng’s games. Don’t dirty Brother Kai’s hands.”

Liao Yunkai glanced at the comments and chuckled. “Resident Evil? Yeah, I saw the trailer. The graphics are seriously top-notch. As for whether I’ll play it, I’m not sure yet. We’ll see once it comes out. If the quality matches the trailer, I might give it a shot.”

Just then, a highlighted message that cost a hundred Yuan popped up with a teasing jab: “Better not. Horror games aren’t Brother Kai’s forte, right? Last time you played that haunted house game, you got so scared you threw your VR helmet across the room.”

Seeing this highlighted message, Liao Yunkai’s expression stiffened with embarrassment. That was a dark mark on his streaming career.

“That was an accident! A ghostly face suddenly jumped right at me. Anyone would’ve jumped out of their skin, okay?” He gave a dry, defensive cough.

A wave of “Hahahahaha” immediately flooded the chat.

“Alright, folks, that’s it for the midday stream! I’m heading off to grab some food. See you all tonight!”

With that, Liao Yunkai closed the stream and took off his virtual gaming helmet.

“Exhausted…” Liao Yunkai rolled his neck and stretched his stiff, aching shoulders and arms. The defined muscle lines on his arms showed faintly beneath his T-shirt, remnants of long years of training that hadn’t completely faded even after sitting in a wheelchair for so long.

He then wheeled his chair out of the dedicated streaming room.

The dining table outside was already laden with food. People from the other rooms finished their streams one after another and came out to eat, greeting Liao Yunkai as they emerged.

“Brother Kai, all done streaming!”

Although Liao Yunkai was in a wheelchair, no one looked down on him. After all, he was currently one of the top streamers in 《Battlefield Vanguard》, drawing a hundred thousand viewers to every broadcast, and sometimes even reaching two hundred thousand.

The bullet comments in his stream flew by too fast to follow. Anyone hoping to interact had to send a highlighted comment for a hundred Yuan each. His earning power was downright terrifying.

“Let’s eat, everyone,” Liao Yunkai said with a nod and a smile, gesturing for them to take a seat. His smile was natural, completely without airs, just like a friendly older brother next door.

A dozen or so people took their seats around the dining table one after another.

“I really envy Brother Kai. He’s so good at the game,” mumbled a small-time streamer named Zhou Luo as he stuffed a piece of braised pork into his mouth, chewing as he spoke. His eyes were filled with undisguised admiration as he looked at Liao Yunkai.

Beside him, another small-time streamer named Shu Yiheng jabbed his ribs with an elbow. The jab was neither light nor heavy, but it nearly made Zhou Luo spit out the meat in his mouth.

“Brother Kai used to be in the special forces and fought in actual combat. Can you even compare to that?” Shu Yiheng immediately lowered his voice to a whisper.