Chapter 21: The Sea of Stars

While the hero and the demon king were locked in a heated battle downstairs at Maodou, and Gu Meng and his secretary were maneuvering strategically upstairs, Gou Tong’s video teaching players how to trigger the "bug," along with his subsequent full-process walkthrough, continued to gain massive traction.

The two videos—"Brother Dari’s Last Words" and "Pure Love Fighter Simulator? No, Clearly a Cuckold Simulator"—had already reached the top three on the entire Bilibili platform. Combined with Gou Tong’s tutorial series, the "Big Three" were complete. For a time, the top three trending videos on the entire site were all from the "Pure Love" game. Even within the top ten, there were other walkthroughs and analytical videos explaining the cause and effect of the events that had unfolded at Maodou.

Across China, whenever one opened any major website, such news was almost impossible to miss. Reversals upon reversals, the infighting between various factions in the entertainment industry, and a devoted son returning to fulfill his father’s dying wish while breaking through the blockades of powerful enemies—it was incredibly dramatic, more exciting than any blockbuster, and certainly worthy of a film adaptation.

Gou Tong was also working at full speed, setting up accounts on various platforms to repost videos and manage the aftermath. He had become an overnight sensation; if he could harness this massive influx of traffic, his follower count would undoubtedly skyrocket.

On Bilibili, Maodou’s previous operations, Brother Dari’s final words, and the reasons why Maodou had labeled that hidden gameplay a "bug" were being repeatedly discussed by content creators. Some even analyzed the footage frame by frame, word by word, just to prove their interpretations correct.

The game’s popularity was unprecedented. Although limited by its inherent nature and not a AAA masterpiece, "Pure Love" was highly polished, possessed top-tier entertainment value, and offered a strong sense of immersion. Following these twists and turns, sales continued to climb, and by the second day, it began pushing toward the one-million-copy mark. This was achieved without any pre-sales, and the growth rate was only accelerating as more bystanders purchased the game after hearing the news. Even in this parallel world where the gaming industry was relatively more prosperous, this was a remarkable achievement.

With this momentum, it was not impossible to imagine the game reaching tens of millions in sales over the next few weeks. Of all Maodou’s previous works, the highest-selling title had only reached nearly five million copies over four years. It was priced at only 48, lower than the "friendship price" of 68 for this current title—after all, live-action interactive cinema games could generally only command the price of a movie ticket. Maodou’s most profitable game to date had generated roughly 200 million in total sales after accounting for various promotions and discounts.

In this world, major gaming platforms took a smaller cut, usually 20 to 30 percent, meaning most of the profits flowed to the developers. "Pure Love" currently had no discounts; if it could reach ten million sales in a few weeks, the revenue would hit 700 million, which was already quite impressive.

Incidentally, the entertainment industry in this world was lackluster. While it hadn't reached the level of a "Yu-Gi-Oh" scenario where everything was decided by card games, the weight of gaming was significantly heavier. Since ordinary people prioritized gaming in their limited twenty-four-hour days, movie box office, television ratings, and short-form video views were incomparable to those of the previous world. The highest-grossing film in China was capped at around one billion, and with the majority of the box office split between theaters and distributors, the profit for the producers was low. Furthermore, it had been a long time since any film reached that billion-mark, and actors' salaries had returned to a relatively reasonable level.

Hollywood had experienced a golden era a decade ago, with the top-grossing films of the year earning roughly ten billion in RMB. Top actors and directors could command salaries in the hundreds of millions, and entire projects could be compared to high-end AAA games, but now, even Hollywood was in decline. Meanwhile, the most powerful, legendary single-player blockbusters in the gaming world had sold over 500 million copies over several years, accumulating more than 200 billion RMB—data over 2.5 times that of a certain "R-star" blockbuster from the previous world.

Beyond single-player games, there were console giants like Renni and So-Heavenly, mobile giants like Moth Factory, Spider Factory, and Mi-Ho-You, as well as a host of second-tier companies focused on online and browser games. Their performance had seen a degree of growth compared to the previous world—simply because there were more gamers and a larger market.

Compared to those industry giants, even though Maodou had a big reputation—with hundreds of millions of Chinese players having played, heard of, or watched "cloud gameplay" of their titles—it felt somewhat like an empty title. They were merely a very famous mid-sized game company, better than the bottom but falling short of the top. Only after this "Pure Love" title did Maodou finally qualify to try and step half a foot into the ranks of large-scale game companies.

Above that were the global giants at the top of the food chain. Companies like Moth Factory and Renni were the equivalents of Fortune 500 companies in Gu Meng’s previous life—Tencent, Microsoft, Sony, and the like. In the previous world, those giants were rarely just gaming companies, but in this world, the capital and influence associated with gaming were supercharged. Compared to these, live-action interactive games were a truly niche category.

One could make a living when there was no competition. A small studio might invest a few hundred thousand with unprofessional filming, but when Maodou spent several million or ten million, it was considered a meticulous production, and their level of filmmaking was a dimensional strike against the competition. With good luck, they could earn tens or hundreds of millions in profit with excellent word-of-mouth.

But now, it was a "red ocean." As more interactive cinema games emerged, the quality might continue to rise. However, since the gamers of this world had already abandoned live-action film and television to embrace the virtual, Gu Meng was not optimistic about the future of the live-action interactive game industry. It would likely remain stuck at a mediocre level, trapped in a cycle of intense internal competition. Let those entertainment industry peers—who had scrambled from arthouse films to web movies, then to short videos, and finally to interactive games—fight for scraps in this small pond.

"The phoenix rises from the South Sea to fly to the North Sea; it will not rest except on the parasol tree, will not eat except the fruit of the bamboo, and will not drink except from the sweet spring. When the owl finds a rotten mouse, the phoenix passes by, and the owl looks up at it..."

Gu Meng’s vision would not stop here; his target was the sea of stars.

Time passed, and a few days went by. The videos that had previously attacked Maodou had vanished without a trace. The "water armies" hired by competitors could only fan the flames; at first, they had tried to claim this was just a "bug" and that Maodou’s intention was to disgust the players. Unfortunately, this "closer to the truth" narrative was not accepted by intelligent players. Seeing that it had no effect and that they could no longer kick a man when he was down, the competitors naturally backed off.

Tsk, these competitors were truly worried that Maodou might make a comeback and start filming more edgy live-action interactive games to snatch their bread. They didn't know that Gu Meng had long since looked past the meager earnings of the interactive game industry.

Some content creators who had followed the trend of criticism simply posted apology videos and then turned around to play "Girlfriend Master Simulator 2," exploring all sorts of bizarre gameplay. The Easter egg-hunting expert "Teacher Pure-Fan" was surprised that Maodou had managed to pass through the ordeal unscathed, secretly speculating...

Perhaps General Manager Gu’s "deceiving the heavens to cross the sea" strategy had worked; the successive waves of rhythm had escalated the matter so quickly that it became difficult to suppress. Or perhaps the previous street-level slaying, where the police had turned a blind eye and lied, had already consumed a great deal of the dark forces' resources, and they wouldn't be able to stir up trouble continuously for the time being—this was merely a wild, imaginative theory!