American History 1988
Chapter 363 - 352: Online Gaming, Click to Play!

Chapter 363: Chapter 352: Online Gaming, Click to Play!

Time had already entered summer, and even the common folk of Silicon Valley felt a different atmosphere surrounding them.

The young people coming out of the sleek office buildings were all discussing computer or network-related topics with great excitement and enthusiasm.

Especially after the National Science Foundation officially announced that it would no longer regulate and supervise the NSFnet, this atmosphere reached its peak.

Silicon Valley, sensing the impending transformation, almost overnight saw the establishment of dozens of internet companies.

Among these companies, search engines were the most numerous, with Yahoo’s presence making search services popular worldwide.

In fact, the trend had already taken shape at the beginning of the year when Steve Kirsch founded the Infoseek search engine in Sunnyvale City in February.

It was the first to propose the advertising models of "pay-per-impression" and "pay-per-click", though it was Yahoo that first applied these models.

Yet, this search engine company would still make history because one day in the future, it might employ an engineer named Li Yanhong.

In addition to Infoseek, there were other search engine projects like Excite, AltaVista, and Inktomi also under development.

In essence, the rise of portal websites made many entrepreneurs aware of the blue ocean market of search engines.

Although Yahoo was the standout among them, other websites were also quickly catching up.

And the internet market around the globe was vast enough to accommodate multiple companies competing and thriving.

Of course, in addition to search websites, other various types of web pages were also being established.

Located in a garage in Seattle’s suburbs, Amazon had finally completed its first online transaction.

A customer named John Wainwright purchased a book on the website, Douglas Hofstadter’s "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought."

Xing Technology had also developed the first StreamWorks system that supported user-uploaded audio and video.

In New York, computer experts Paul Graham and Robert Morris, inspired by convenience stores, created the Viaweb shopping website.

Others such as the online advertising company IAN and website development tool company NetObjects came into existence as a result of the boom.

The entire internet was blooming like a hundred flowers, and the startup craze activated venture capitalists, even attracting capital from around the world.

Of course, the withdrawal of NSFnet brought an even more direct result: an explosive growth of ISP operators.

Last year, there were just over thirty operators across America, but by summer, this number had grown to over a hundred.

Many of these ISPs were located near sparsely populated suburban areas and were mostly operated by individuals.

Just by signing a contract with the local telephone company and then building a simple exchange system, a basic ISP operator was born.

However, over 90% of the mainstream market share was occupied by members of the CIX Alliance.

After NSFnet’s exit from the historical stage, the CIX Alliance temporarily took up the role of this coordinating organization.

By the by, AOL, since introducing its subscription model, had acquired a million new subscription contracts in just one month.

Now, it truly was America’s leading ISP operator, with over five million monthly subscribers.

With AOL’s bold innovation as a precedent, other operators were also considering whether to adopt this new billing model.

And these series of changes brought another transformation: Bit Company’s Toktok began to grow in popularity.

As Dean had predicted, as the first free consumer-grade software, Toktok had no reason not to be popular.

Moreover, as an instant messaging software, the youngsters accustomed to being online now habitually logged into their Toktok accounts first thing upon starting their computers.

Paul was no exception, although today was Sunday. Nevertheless, he still got up early and turned on his computer first thing.

At the party two days ago, he had met a pretty girl from business school.

He mustered up the courage to strike up a conversation and then successfully got her Toktok ID.

Since then, Paul began to pay close attention to the Toktok status on his computer.

Like now, after double-clicking the squirrel-shaped icon on the desktop.

The login window for Toktok quickly popped up, with the account password already saved automatically.

All Paul needed to do was click the "LOGIN" button, and the interface containing the contact list began to load.

Oh right, that cute squirrel clutching an acorn on the desktop was the Toktok shortcut.

It was designed to be very cute, especially appealing to young people like them.

While he was zoning out, Toktok had already completed the login, and the contact list popped up.

Paul directly clicked on the friend group he had named "Sweetheart", which contained only one contact.

However, to his disappointment, the contact named "Littleluck" had a grayed-out avatar.

He glanced at the time; it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, maybe she was still asleep.

Reassuring himself with this thought, he clicked on the chat window.

He wanted to leave her a message to invite her to the movies tomorrow; he had already bought the tickets.

But before he could type a few letters, a constantly changing image in the upper right corner of the chat window caught his attention.

No, this didn’t seem like an image, but a coherent animation.

Video? Paul’s eyes lit up. When did Toktok update with such a feature?

However, after having a closer look, Paul realized it wasn’t a video either.

Because the footage on the image repeated after a few seconds, it was similar to a Gif animation but significantly smoother.

Honestly, the animation captured Paul’s attention, and he ended up watching an entire narrative in just thirty seconds.

The gist of it was a man waking up in the morning to find that the apocalypse had happened.

Zombies were biting people everywhere, and hallways were smeared with blood, looking like tomato sauce on the bodies, torn and damaged.

To survive, the man had to pick up a firefighter’s axe to battle the zombies and gather various supplies.

It was thrilling, and Paul watched with blood boiling, especially as the man found a submachine gun and was about to embark on a killing spree.

He stared at the screen, excited, but—suddenly, the screen went black!

"F*ck!" Paul cursed instinctively.

But at that moment, in the same window where the footage had just appeared, a line of subtitles slowly emerged from the darkness.

"Zombie Apocalypse World, click to play online for free!"

Huh? Paul’s eyes widened slightly. Was this a game?

Free online play? What the heck? Aren’t games supposed to be bought as a CD or a cartridge first?

Despite such doubts, the constantly flashing images kept tempting Paul.

So, without much thought, he clicked on the animated gif with his mouse.

Ding! The Explorer browser on his desktop popped up in response.

Next, without waiting for Paul’s confusion, a new webpage automatically opened and began to load.

The loading screen was a magnified version of what he had just seen in the chat window.

The image was much clearer, and because it took up the entire screen, its impact was even more intense.

Below the apocalyptic scene was a progress bar.

However, limited by internet speed, it could only load bit by bit slowly.

But fortunately, the wait wasn’t too long, and after a little while, the progress bar had already reached 92%.

95%... 98%... 100%, finally, the marathon had reached its end.

If not for the allure of the game, perhaps Paul would have already switched to another webpage.

Usually, if a webpage takes more than ten seconds to load, he would choose to give up.

But today was an exception because it brought a sense of novelty to Paul.

As the loading completed, a piece of music with a slightly horrifying atmosphere slowly began to play.

Then, a somewhat familiar login box appeared on the screen, "Do you want to use Toktok for quick login?"

Is this also a product by Squirrel Studio? Paul couldn’t help but be curious.

But his body commanded his brain, and his fingers had already clicked "confirm" ahead of him.

The login window disappeared, and the first thing that appeared was the user agreement, which was essentially granting Bit Company permission to obtain certain information.

Paul didn’t care about any of this; he just skimmed it and clicked the agree button.

He was eager to see if the game was really free. And a zombie apocalypse theme, that’s interesting, isn’t it?

With the preliminary steps completed, he finally entered the gaming phase.

The opening was a series of frozen comic strips serving as the story backdrop; then, the screen went black, followed by a brand-new image slowly emerging.

How is this different from the animation I just watched? This is too crude.

The game scene now displayed on Paul’s computer was completely different from before; there was no sign of 3D or free-angle views.

In their place was a 2D sidescrolling view. What about the promised epic battle against zombies?

Paul felt deceived and wanted to close the window.

But because it had taken so long to load this webpage, he was somewhat reluctant to leave, so he clicked the mouse in disappointment.

Then a miraculous thing happened; the character on the screen suddenly swung a fist in response.

Not just that, but there was a swooshing sound when the fist struck out.

Kind of interesting~ Paul decided to give it a try since it was indeed free.

After fiddling around, he successfully found a baseball bat in the room.

With a suitable weapon in hand, Paul could hardly wait to find a place to test his skills.

He controlled the character out of the room, and the terrifying zombies quickly shambled towards him.

Bang! Bang! Smack! A flurry of actions and the zombies were swiftly dealt with.

Before Paul could get carried away, a girl’s cry for help came from the rooftop in the game.

A mission commenced, the protagonist needed to rescue the girl, and as a reward, he would receive a submachine gun.

A submachine gun! Paul was intrigued; he almost forgot this was a shooter game.

What boy could refuse the exhilaration of gun battles? Thinking this, Paul started to direct his character towards the mission location.

Being too reckless, he died a few times on the way, but his character quickly revived and re-entered the battle.

Just as he was about to reach the destination, a large zombie appeared and took down Paul’s character in a matter of seconds.

As he waited for his character to revive again, another prompt popped up.

"Character revival attempts are depleted. Would you like to spend a diamond to restore and continue fighting?"

Paul was taken aback. Only then did he notice that he had used up his three revival chances.

But what were diamonds? He tried clicking the "confirm" button, but the revival didn’t work.

Because the system informed him that he had no diamonds in his inventory, and these needed to be purchased separately.

Even worried that he might not find where to, a considerate exchange window popped up.

0.99 US Dollar for three diamonds? This...? Paul was stunned.

The game is free, but the items cost money~

Not to mention the diamonds needed for revival, there was also a special offer: Recharge 6 US Dollars and receive an AK47 as a bonus.

An AK47, Paul salivated a little. He could already imagine the rampage he’d go on with this mythical weapon in hand.

0.99 US Dollars was nothing, and 6 US Dollars seemed quite cheap.

Paul hesitated for a moment, but still, clicked the recharge button.

By the end of ’94, the Clinton administration had allocated funds to establish the Commercial Internet Exchange Association.

This association was tasked with developing security software to protect credit card data, giving rise to electronic payment operations.

With security concerns addressed, many companies began developing their own electronic payment software.

Online transactions were becoming increasingly common, and as an expert in the field, Bit Company naturally had its own electronic payment method.

After entering his credit card information, Paul successfully spent 6 US Dollars to purchase the AK47 he coveted.

However, he didn’t yet realize that this was just the beginning; countless more levels waited ahead for him.

Even more so, he hadn’t even unlocked the game’s store functionality yet.