The first world war in the gaming industry!

That's right.

Just before this year's Cologne Gamescom began, under Vivendi's covert manipulation, Komera—who had always been at odds with Golden Wind and had clashed with them multiple times—announced merger negotiations with Vivendi, intending to join forces with CloudPower and establish a comprehensive gaming conglomerate alliance that would dominate the industry.

At the same time.

Also under Vivendi's directive, Phantom Dream Group, one of the world's largest commercial game engine development companies, announced adjustments to engine licensing prices and implemented discriminatory treatment specifically targeting Chinese gaming companies, comprehensively suppressing the numerous gaming companies led by Golden Wind that had long relied on the Phantom Dream engine.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Right at the transition between the old and new year, when various manufacturers should have been resting and recuperating.

The gaming industry war brazenly launched by Vivendi suddenly erupted.

The incident occurred abruptly.

But an engine cannot be created in just one or two days.

And under such absolute disadvantage!

The leading representative company of the Chinese Gaming Alliance—Golden Wind, and the face of Vivendi's gaming monopoly alliance—Vivendi Gaming Group, engaged in the first confrontation of the world war at the German Cologne Gamescom!

In almost everyone's view!

This was an arduous battle for Golden Wind, one that could even be said to have slim chances of victory.

After all, during the early marketing phase, CloudPower had already occupied most of the market with absolute advantage, their prestige shaking the heavens, unstoppable!

Perhaps for Golden Wind, the best outcome would be barely holding their ground under CloudPower's suppression, avoiding complete defeat!

But!

When "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" and "My World" appeared on the same competitive stage!

Everyone realized just how wrong they had been!

They never imagined how shockingly low the quality of a game could be, despite having an investment of 500 million and all-out marketing campaigns.

They also never imagined how incredibly high the quality of a pixel-art block game could be, developed in just two and a half months without engine support, purely handcrafted!

This was a contest between breaking the lower limit and breaking the upper limit!

Especially CloudPower!

Their performance without any bottom line was simply jaw-dropping!

Whether it was industry peers, players, or gaming media, everyone found it hard to believe this was actually the flagship 3S title produced by what was currently the world's premier comprehensive gaming company!

[Daily Gaming News: You can hardly imagine this is actually a game produced by CloudPower, with uninspired platform jumping design, bugs deliberately created to increase difficulty, strange and oppressive perspective limitations, and that speechless assassination setting... I simply can't figure out who the target audience for this game is]

[MotionWorld: From a gaming perspective, it's torture for players; from an IP perspective, it's an insult to The Lord of the Rings name! I think no one regrets this more right now than the executives at Warner's New Line Cinema!]

[Black Box Review: Platform jumping + stealth assassination! When these two elements appear together, you might think "it can't be that bad," but when you actually play it, you'll discover that CloudPower has truly managed to turn magic into rot...]

A chorus of criticism!

In China, gaming review media large and small unanimously gave "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" a 1/10 score for its quality performance at the gamescom!

Of course!

Some might say Chinese media gave such evaluations because Golden Wind, as the other main protagonist in this gaming world war, is a Chinese company, so Chinese media naturally favor their own side, disparaging foreign game works as completely worthless.

Well then!

Please take another look at the evaluations from various renowned comprehensive gaming review media worldwide—

[SLGamer: Game design from the beginning of the century! Baffling script design! Idiotic enemies, idiotic protagonist, idiotic gameplay! All idiotic elements combined to form this game's unquestionable 1/10 idiot score!]

[Eurogamer: Usually, it's hard to find a game that's terrible in every aspect, since gameplay, art, story, experience, even text—a game should have at least something worth acknowledging. But "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" completely overturned this perception, showing us what a game with no redeeming qualities looks like]

[SNG: Terrible stealth, boring jumping, incomprehensible story—it's hard to convince yourself to play such a work even if you're utterly bored]

Bad reviews! Bad reviews!

...

"Still fucking bad reviews!"

Although at this moment!

Cologne Gamescom had only been going for one day!

But with this first day of the exhibition temporarily concluded, the outcome was already crystal clear!

This was a brutal one-sided massacre!

At this moment, even Sarah Gascony—who knew nothing about the gaming industry, this core Vivendi board member with quarter Gaul noble bloodline—had a clear understanding of their current situation!

Look at the media coverage of "My World"!

[First Day Concludes! My World Amazes the Globe! SNG Editor-in-Chief Simon Declares "World's Best Game"!]

[Groundbreaking Game Mode! Golden Wind Set to Sweep Through New Game Genre!]

[Triumph of Gameplay! My World Makes Stunning Debut, Widely Acclaimed!]

[First World War? First Bloody Massacre!]

[Crushing! Undisputed King of Cologne! Golden Wind's Premier Studio Golden Experience Strikes Again! Easily Defeats 500 Million CloudPower!]

[If You Want to See the Upper Limit of Today's Gaming Imagination, Come to Cologne! If You Want to See the Lower Limit of Today's Gaming Quality, Also Come to Cologne!]

...

If at the recent Europa Expo, "European Truck" vs "Burning Wheels" was Gu Sheng's clever victory through creativity!

Then this time, "My World" against "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" was an undisputed one-sided crushing massacre!

It seemed only now that Sarah finally understood why, during the marketing phase, Golden Wind hadn't competed for marketing territory with CloudPower like they had previously done with Komera.

Because they simply didn't need to!

This time, Gu Sheng's confidence was unprecedented!

He was certain that even without investing a single bit in marketing, just with this simple pixel-art block game in his hands, he could easily achieve dimensional reduction strike against CloudPower, completely crushing them!

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Gu Sheng had already predicted the outcome even before the war began!

No one could surpass him! No one could stop his momentum!

His confidence in "My World" was even greater and more certain than in their 312 million investment "Call of Duty"!

This was a casual open-world sandbox game gifted to ordinary players.

But for CloudPower, and even for their Vivendi, it was a genuine horror game!

Too terrifying!

In just one day!

The 8.75% market value that CloudPower had previously built up through IP and grand marketing campaigns was beaten back to its original state!

Compared to the beginning of "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" marketing, CloudPower's current market value hadn't grown—instead, it had dropped by 0.2%!

In other words!

The market value they had spent hundreds of millions of dollars and a full month to build up!

Instantly died in just one day, and they even ended up owing 0.2%!

Moreover!

There were still four full days until Cologne Gamescom concluded!

The cliff-like stock price drop driving the market value plunge would continue to affect them until it hit an unprecedented low point!

Clink clink...

Sarah's hand holding the teacup trembled slightly, causing the lid to constantly tremble and chatter against the cup rim.

As Sarah with quarter Gaul noble bloodline knew,

Perhaps it was time to follow the instructions marked on the flag usage manual: when combat fails, cut along the dotted line of the white portion.

We must respond!

After all, if at this moment, as senior management, they didn't take any countermeasures against such a sharp drop.

Then their related chaebol investors would cut along the dotted line of the blue portion; and the studios and basic programmers below would cut along the dotted line of the red portion!

Thus!

Right as the first day of Cologne Gamescom ended!

CloudPower's senior management urgently released an announcement, lengthy and elaborate, talking about how difficult it was for "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" from acquiring the IP to final production completion, how tortuous the project establishment and adjustments were, how much determination they had to produce this "anti-stereotype protagonist" work, blah blah blah...

However!

Although the announcement wasn't short, with various reasons of all kinds.

Ultimately, it really came down to just one sentence—

"...The quality presented at this exhibition does not represent the game's final quality, and we will continue to update and improve it in the future."

Putting down the tablet, Gu Sheng shook his head slightly and chuckled.

He was all too familiar with this routine.

Clearly, CloudPower was already overwhelmed by the sudden sharp drop in stock price and market value.

An 8.77% evaporation of market value was absolutely a painful blow for a major company of CloudPower's caliber.

And now, the best explanation CloudPower could offer was, "Our game isn't finished yet! Don't worry! Don't worry!"

After all, this was just a gamescom, and the games released by various companies were just demos, which indeed couldn't represent the final game quality.

For CloudPower to say this wasn't a bad excuse.

"And afterwards?"

After saying this, Da Jiang sitting on the sofa across asked:

"So they plan to make adjustments, then set a release date and make a comeback? Should we start preparing marketing for the release period early?"

Hearing this.

Before Gu Sheng could speak, Moriya sitting on the other side of the sofa laughed first, taking out a cigarette and handing it to Da Jiang:

"President Xu worries too much, they're most likely finished."

"Ah?" Da Jiang was somewhat confused: "A 500 million dollar project? They're not going to release it? Just cancel the project? Isn't the cost a bit too high?"

"Cutting off the arm to save the body, compared to their evaporated market value, this is already pretty good,"

Facing Da Jiang's question, Lu Bian leaning against the sofa armrest beside him laughed:

"Better to quickly cancel this shitty project now, indefinitely delay the release, rather than stubbornly pushing forward with a 1/10 rating release,"

"Otherwise, not only would the game sell few copies, but when the market value evaporates for the second time and negative public opinion explodes again, forget CloudPower,"

"They might even drag Vivendi down with them..."

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com