Sacred Souls: Genesis
Chapter 352 - Chapter 352 Chapter 341 Dont You Have Wallets (First Release)

Chapter 352: Chapter 341 Don’t You Have Wallets? (First Release) Chapter 352: Chapter 341 Don’t You Have Wallets? (First Release) When Jiang Qiao arrived at the backstage lounge, Zhao Mingwei was already surrounded by three doctors in white coats. His consciousness was very clear, but his physical condition was somewhat poor.

Now Zhao Mingwei lacked the strength to even stand, and it was with the doctors’ help that he was seated in a wheelchair, with the worst being his left arm, which appeared to be broken based on the doctors’ examination.

“Doctor, can you wait a moment?” Zhao Mingwei lifted his other, still functioning, hand and opened and closed it, indicating he really wasn’t badly hurt.

The sound on stage was very loud… even in the backstage lounge, they could hear Queen Mei’s voice, and the first sentence she said immediately caught Zhao Mingwei’s attention.

“Once again, thank you, dear Spirits. Next, I have a very important announcement to make.”

“Player Zhao, I suggest you go to the hospital. You can watch the recorded broadcast of this Spirit’s official press conference later, or follow it live on your mobile,” Mr. Yin suggested, glancing at the VR device Zhao Mingwei had used earlier. Although the doctors determined that Zhao Mingwei’s fracture was caused by excessive movements while playing the VR game, and his general weakness was due to lack of rest.

But Mr. Yin always felt that something wasn’t quite right.

“Let’s bring him to our spectator area,” Mo Shigui, who had been silent until now, suddenly said. “Even if we sent this guy in an ambulance now, he would likely find a way to jump out.”

“I wouldn’t do something so horrifying,” Zhao Mingwei muttered in response.

In the end, with the doctors’ permission, Jiang Qiao pushed the wheelchair that Zhao Mingwei sat in to a special viewing area in Shangcheng Gymnasium prepared for Spirit players.

“Eh, why is Mr. Laugher sitting up there?”

“Quiet! Queen Mei seems to have something major to announce!”

Players who had participated in the Black Ash Knight’s campaign, and many special invitees among the Spirit players, were all discussing what major news Queen Mei might announce.

Jiang Qiao took this opportunity to also check his phone, but this time, the live stream room he watched wasn’t the official holographic projection of the event, but Shen Meng’s personal live stream.

The majority in Shen Meng’s live stream were Spirit players, and those who have been following Spirits for a long while, crazily snagging play times day and night…

So the barrage in Shen Meng’s live stream had comments like “Queen Mei’s woman never admits defeat, my kid is so adorable.”

“Are they going to announce open beta? I am so excited! I am so excited! This broken game has been testing for half a year, my late-night scrambling for spots almost gave me dark circles!”

“Open beta! Open beta! Open beta GOGOGO!”

The most common barrage Jiang Qiao saw in Shen Meng’s live stream was the hope for Spirits to start an unrestricted public test, which was the news all fans following Spirits wanted to hear.

Regrettably, Jiang Qiao also wanted a public test, but alas, Hai Lan’s semi-proficient game system of Devouring God simply couldn’t handle so many players. Therefore, Spirits would probably never truly be open to public testing in a real sense. The number of players could only increase slowly as they overcame one strong enemy after another in the game.

However, the news Queen Mei announced today was still something that would excite all Spirit players and those who wished to be one, which was…

“Dear Spirits, starting today…” Queen Mei paused here, and Jiang Qiao could faintly hear the audience unanimously shouting ‘Open beta! Open beta! Open beta!’

But the next words from Queen Mei turned the passion ignited among all Spirit players into bone-chilling frost.

“The Spirit game store will officially launch today!” Queen Mei even used an extremely excited and anticipatory tone.

But the moment the audience heard ‘Spirit game store,’ those who were raising their hands to cheer and jumped up excitedly, as well as the barrage of comments crazily brushing the word ‘open beta,’ encountered an eerie silence.

Jiang Qiao saw a series of ‘?’ in the live stream chat.

Queen Mei stood there stunned as the players shifted from a high excitement to a deep, monk-like tranquility.

She thought she might have read something wrong, but as far as Queen Mei recalled, she was reading from the script given to her by Jiang Qiao…but the reaction from the players was just too terrible.

The silence was so profound it almost made Queen Mei uneasy; logically, there should have been thunderous applause here.

Luckily, Queen Mei saw Jiang Qiao at the very back of the audience. She looked at him, asking with her eyes if she had said something wrong.

Jiang Qiao really wanted to ask Spirit players one thing… ‘Don’t you have wallets?’

But Jiang Qiao still managed not to react rashly; this response was within his expectations, so he gestured to Queen Mei to continue according to the plan.

As for the Spirit players’ reaction to the unveiling of this game store system, Jiang Qiao could tell merely by looking at Mo Shigui’s, Caramel’s, and Black Ash’s unanimously identical expressions of disappointment… how disappointing this decision was in the eyes of Spirit players.

“All online games have a store system now, it shouldn’t be a problem for Spirits to launch a store, right? Haven’t you all been complaining that Spirits was too benevolent and feared that the developers might go bankrupt?” Black Ash quietly complained at this moment.

“It’s not wrong for a game company to make money, the key is to see how this game store is managed, that’s my worry.”

Mo Shigui did not dislike the idea of the Holy Spirit’s open gold coin system, where players were already spending real money to buy in-game Gold Coins. Mo Shigui was worried that the officials of Holy Spirit were finally going to start making real money.

The downfall of an online game’s reputation, where players feel the game design is a scam, has really just one root cause: the need for the game company to make money and the designers to meet revenue targets set by higher-ups. Once these capital maneuvers began, especially with an MMORPG, it started becoming a “scam”.

Mo Shigui also knew that some foreign games were very conscientious, but that simply wasn’t the case with domestic online games. Conflict is just a simple example.

Although Conflict was a foreign game, the domestic operators were quite restrained in the first year of service. The game’s store only sold some cosmetics without attributes, along with mounts and the like.

Later on, it became more and more of a scam. There were attributes-laden costumes, various holiday packages, excessively powerful titles, and even weapon crafting began requiring gold coins.

No problem if you don’t spend money, you would just always be slightly weaker than the top players.

Conflict was already very restrained, which also came from the extraordinary success of the Conflict League competitions, making it hugely popular worldwide.

This meant that the revenue targets for Conflict’s designers could be met just by capitalizing on the sheer number of players, without needing to introduce any obnoxious items that force monetary spending and potentially damage the game’s reputation.

But what about Holy Spirit?

That was where Mo Shigui truly worried. Holy Spirit’s technological capabilities were at least ten times greater than those of Conflict. He truly did not believe that the game was created solely with artificial intelligence.

The game needed massive funds to cover the costs of early production and mid-term operational updates, and currently, Holy Spirit only had 130,000 players.

Even if server expansions doubled the number of Holy Spirit players, this number was still not enough to recuperate the developmental costs, let alone mid-term operations. Maybe it could be achieved if Holy Spirit went to open beta, but… Queen Mei apparently had no intention of announcing an open beta.

So, the real reason Mo Shigui was anxious was… how would the Holy Spirit game company break even and then make money?

During this half-year of closed beta, if it weren’t for Holy Spirit’s Gold Coin transactions being taxed and the introduction of the Holy Spirit Fund, Mo Shigui even suspected that the shadowy game company behind Holy Spirit might have gone bankrupt.

As for all of Mo Shigui’s questions, Jiang Qiao’s answer was that they didn’t need to break even.

Because the cost of financing the production of Holy Spirit was zero, the server maintenance costs were around three thousand a month, not enough to cover the monthly expenses of Hai Lan and Queen Mei plus the five Knights, which totaled around twelve thousand.

It was indeed expensive, causing Jiang Qiao to trend toward bankruptcy, but he personally could afford this expense.

Then, the question arose… how much money could Holy Spirit make after officially launching the store system? Jiang Qiao was certain it would be millions. If the server population increased again, it would definitely reach tens of millions!

All that money, was Jiang Qiao going to hoard it all? No! Of course not…

President Yin was right, Holy Spirit had big ambitions, as did Jiang Qiao, and the advent of the Holy Spirit Fund was to create a system of financial interaction between Holy Spirit and the real world!

As for the specifics…

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Holy Spirit, please do not worry. Regarding the launch of this Holy Spirit store system, we assure…” Queen Mei paused briefly here.

But this pause elicited teasing from the players around Jiang Qiao, especially Black Pot Cooking Meat, who, mimicking someone’s tone and using a weird expression, said,

“We guarantee we will absolutely not sell any unbalanced items that increase game values in the game store.” Black Pot Cooking Meat said.

“Pfft, haha, that’s the line from Conflict’s public beta, right? Black, you’re too much.” Caramel rarely laughed out this time.

As old players of Conflict, they all knew what gag Black Pot Cooking Meat was playing.

Most online games, when launching their game stores, almost always make this promise–that they’ll only sell cosmetics and mounts and the like.

But everyone knows how it ends.

So, these veteran online game players thought Queen Mei was going to say the same.

But… Queen Mei’s next line once again plunged all the joking players into a creepy silence.

“All the money earned will be completely returned to the Holy Spirits!” This statement from Queen Mei not only silenced the audience.

The planners from other games and their development teams were also stunned, and their first reactions were “this AI is insane!” or “this character’s player is insane!” or “this is just a marketing ploy from Holy Spirit!”

What a joke! Games are made to make money. The gold coin system is also for making money. No game in the world takes the money earned from players’ pockets and gives it back to the players.

But Holy Spirit.. can.

Because if Holy Spirit were to be nominated for any awards, it could take home “Best Free Play Game.”

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