"Boss, should we ban him?" Song Zhicheng held his phone in front of Xu Meng, showing him the operation of this坑爹 (kēng diē - disappointing/坑=pit/爹=father) kid.
"Ban him! Absolutely ban him!" Xu Meng said without hesitation, "But before you do, DM him and ask about the situation."
"Ask him where he got the cheat from, and try to get the seller's information."
"Also, get his personal information."
"Then ask for his home address and his parents' contact information, and say that we are very grateful to him for providing the seller's information. We also want to express our concern for his situation and send him some local specialties."
"Local specialties?" Song Zhicheng asked, puzzled, "Figures?"
Zhang Baiquan had already finalized a cooperative enterprise to produce figures, and the first batch of three figures was already open for pre-order.
These three figures were chosen by all players voting in the game.
The three characters with the highest number of votes were Tong Que, He Yin, and Fei Yun.
The last one, Fei Yun, originally had very few votes.
But with Fang Shuo and a group of abstract meme-loving people frantically campaigning, he went against the trend and took third place.
As a result, when the product page went live and pre-orders actually opened, the number of pre-orders for the Fei Yun figure was much lower than those for Tong Que and He Yin!
Less than one-fifth.
Obviously, a large number of meme-loving people just liked to cause trouble and didn't really want to buy the Fei Yun figure.
When Zhang Baiquan saw this outrageous data, he went straight to Xu Meng's office and asked if they could change the character.
His original words were: "How much less money will we make?!"
Xu Meng denied it.
His original words were: "We don't lack money."
Seeing Zhang Baiquan's questioning expression, Xu Meng had to put away his joking thoughts and explain: "The players' trust is more important than this little bit of money."
So the matter was settled.
Besides these three figures, there was nothing else in the company that could be called "local specialties."
They couldn't possibly have the original artists send signed original artwork, could they?
Xu Meng shook his head frantically: "Still want figures? Don't even dream about it!"
"Isn't he going to be a senior in high school? Send him three boxes of test papers and past exam questions for each subject."
"? ? ?"
Song Zhicheng once again felt the huge difference between his and his boss's thought processes.
Xu Meng still felt unsatisfied: "Five boxes! Three boxes make us look stingy."
"After sending them, tell him that because his identity information shows he is a minor, his account will be temporarily banned."
"When he comes of age, he can bring his ID card number and the five boxes of completed test papers and past exam questions to unban his account."
"It won't be unbanned if he doesn't finish them."
"Who told him to cheat."
"Then… I'll go now?" Song Zhicheng confirmed one last time.
"Go, go quickly." Xu Meng urged.
Okay, now Song Zhicheng could be sure that the boss was not joking. Without saying a word, he began to execute the plan.
Xu Meng reflected on the whole thing, wondering where the problem lay.
In the end, he summed up two reasons:
He thought that minors couldn't play the game anymore, but now this guy taught everyone another lesson.
As for the second reason, it was undoubtedly—
Taro Games!
Without them stirring up trouble, this matter wouldn't have caused such a big wave at all.
Xu Meng hadn't forgotten the grudges between him and Taro.
The reason he hadn't taken action before was to wait for their new game's development progress to move further forward.
Only in this way could Taro Games' sunk costs continue to rise, until they became unbearable.
If it was exposed too early, they would at most just change the name of the project.
Not painful, not itchy, absolutely not acceptable!
Even if he was attacked again this time, Xu Meng didn't plan to change his thinking.
However, he couldn't keep swallowing his anger.
Otherwise, if friendly companies think you are easy to bully, who knows how many disgusting things will happen in the future.
He still had to develop new games and didn't have time to get entangled with these people.
"In that case, then… 'Divine Bird' it is!"
Xu Meng made a decision.
Anyway, they are both Taro's games, it's all the same.
"When is 'Divine Bird' releasing a new character next time?" he asked Song Zhicheng.
"The preview will be on the 25th of this month, and the new pool will be released with the version update on the 1st of next month."
Song Zhicheng was still communicating with Li Xinghao, but when he heard Xu Meng's question, he quickly gave the answer, obviously paying close attention to the competition.
"We're colliding with them?"
Zhumeng updates too diligently, and new news comes out from time to time, so the preview doesn't have a fixed time.
But there will definitely be a major update on the 1st of every month, and next month the 1st will be no exception.
"Yes." Song Zhicheng confirmed.
"Okay, then let's save it up this time and release the preview on the same day."
"In addition to announcing the new character, we will also announce the new Dragon Palace Treasure Hunt mode and the Cologne Game Show news together."
"Since they don't like us, what's the point of always playing dirty tricks? Let's have a fair and square fight."
Xu Meng thought for a while and asked, "When is their next preview?"
Song Zhicheng looked up and calculated slightly: "If there are no accidents, it will be on September 8th or 9th. 'Divine Bird' is basically updated every 45 days, with a preview one week in advance."
Xu Meng nodded: "That's after the Cologne Game Show. By then, our new hardware will also have been exposed. Let's announce the VR Harem and supporting hardware information for 'Frost and Snow Project' that day."
The first VR content Xu Meng planned for "Frost and Snow Project" was an interactive scene, but since the players' demand for the VR Harem is so high, let's announce it together.
Anyway, we're just releasing information, not saying that it will be online immediately.
Xu Meng's set of tit-for-tat arrangements made Song Zhicheng's throat tighten a little.
He reminded Xu Meng:
"This… might not necessarily have a good effect. Even if their popularity loses to us, they will still buy traffic to prop it up."
"Even better!" Xu Meng was not disappointed at all.
"What we want is for them to spend money! The more they spend, the better!"
"If necessary, we can also join the traffic-buying war. If we can increase their traffic-buying costs by three or four times, that would be a great success!"
If they could really do this, let alone making money, Moyu might even start losing money.
Other second-tier game companies would also be half-dead and suffering unspeakable pain along with them.
However, after thinking about that scene, Xu Meng shook his head and changed his mind, "Let's put the traffic-buying war on hold for now and see how things go."
Engaging in vicious competition was not Xu Meng's style after all.
The latest novels are available at 69shuba!
Moreover…
He really didn't want to spend that money.
So much money could be used to develop new games, expand the team, give bonuses to the project team, improve the working environment, upgrade the "Frost Snow Project" servers…
What could be better than burning it all?
So the plan was decided.
In the evening, the official "Frost Snow Project" account released two updates one after another.
One was a clarification—
—
The claim that a player was caught using cheats is purely a rumor. Please follow the official announcement of [Fengcheng Police Affairs].
The player is under 18 years old, abused someone else's identity information to bypass the anti-addiction system, and violated the user agreement by abusing cheats. The account he used has now been frozen.
However, to show Dream Building's care for minors, Dream Building's founder, Mr. Xu Meng, personally funded and sent the user a care package—
Five boxes of high-quality test papers for each subject and past exam papers.
Encouraging him to work hard and study diligently at this critical moment in his life, to get into a satisfactory university, and to contribute his part to the modernization of socialism.
—
The netizens who had been clamoring for Dream Building to severely punish Li Xinghao were instantly thrilled when they saw this announcement:
"Well done! I knew Dream Building wouldn't let me down!"
"I'll say it again, cheaters don't deserve sympathy!"
"But the cheater's mother does! Sending test papers directly is simply a stroke of genius!"
"Hahaha, I can already foresee his life in the next year. Forcing a bad student to study hard, what was Xu Meng thinking!"
"Xu Meng's Admonition to Study"
"Want to see your waifu? If you want to see her, study hard for me! Hahaha!"
…
The netizens were all laughing heartily.
Only Li Xinghao looked at [Account has been banned, remaining time: 358 days], his mouth wide open, on the verge of tears.
Before the players' laughter subsided, "Frost Snow Project" released a second update—
—
["Frost Snow Project" Version Preview Announcement]
Dear players:
Hello everyone!
The "Frost Snow Project" version preview announcement will be broadcast on July 25, 2025.
The broadcast time is:
Noon [12:00]
Or evening [19:00], [19:30], [20:00]
Due to technical reasons, the exact time will be announced separately on the 18th of this month.
Special rewards will also be given out at that time. Welcome everyone to watch!
—
This announcement left the netizens a little confused.
Making a preview announcement more than 20 days in advance is not very common in second-tier games, but it's not too surprising either.
But the date for the preview announcement has been set, but the specific time cannot be determined.
They actually gave four time options!
This is just too ridiculous!
It's a completely unheard-of behavior.
The comment section was full of discussions:
"Is there any expert who can analyze this?"
"I feel like this announcement… is not really about the preview announcement."
"I don't think so either! So many days in advance, and the time hasn't been set, it's like they're waiting for something."
"Waiting for the preview program to be completed?"
"Bullshit! There are still more than twenty days left, making a preview program doesn't take that many hours, right?"
"Ahhh, I'm so uncomfortable, don't make me guess riddles, tell me the answer quickly!"
…
This confusion lasted for quite a while.
Until Orange Juice, a second-tier game content creator who has been playing "Divine Bird", but has recently been facing the crisis of quitting the game because of "Frost Snow Project", accidentally discovered an important piece of information—
The previous four preview livestreams of "Divine Bird" started at:
[June 10 20:00]
[April 26 19:30]
[March 13 19:00]
[January 23 12:00]
Which exactly corresponds to the four time options mentioned by "Frost Snow Project" in this announcement.
And July 25th happens to be the date of the next preview livestream of "Divine Bird"!
With this, everything lines up!
Orange Juice excitedly compiled all this information and posted a dynamic in a picture—
[So, the exact time needs to be announced separately, is it to wait for "Divine Bird" to announce the version preview livestream time half a month later?]
As soon as he reminded them, the players quickly realized:
They are waiting for "Divine Bird" to announce the time, and then "Frost Snow Project" will start at the same time, using the most direct livestream popularity, to compete for a high score!
This is almost pointing at "Divine Bird"'s nose and provoking a fight!
It's already a blatant declaration of war!
3k!
