Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 607 - 590: Surrogate Liver and Buying Accounts

Chapter 607: Chapter 590: Surrogate Liver and Buying Accounts

Everyone came to the barbecue buffet next to the school, ready for a big feast.

"You guys can earn money playing games; it’s so tempting, I’m thinking about getting into it." Zhang Yuan said while eating barbecue.

Hou Ji nodded in agreement: "Seriously, there are quite a few people making money from Endless Fantasy Legend 2.

"Don’t even mention those studios; many individuals doing substitute gaming can count on it to make money.

"There are quite a lot of people looking for substitutes for stuff like the ’Seventy-Seven Alive Daddy’, ’Night Parade of Hundred Demons’, and ’Story Revisits.’

"If you’re skilled, you could earn one or two hundred bucks in about ten hours, which is pretty worthwhile."

Zhang Yuan asked, "Isn’t it meant to be twenty hours standard time? How skilled do you have to be? In the most proficient scenario, how short can this time be compressed?"

Hou Ji explained: "The standard time is what you see at first, which includes the time spent on plot, puzzle-solving, and detours. If you’re doing it for the second time and you skip through the plot quickly, it’s about fifteen hours.

"If you memorize all the routes and plan in advance to avoid detours, this can be further shortened, even to eight hours.

"Of course, like speedrunning, this requires a bit of practice, as practice makes perfect.

"For substitute gaming, it’s all about efficiency. Completing a version of Fantasy Book typically charges around 100 to 150 yuan, and the faster you do it, the more worthwhile it is."

Zhang Yuan did a quick calculation: "Let’s say it’s 100 yuan for eight hours, 30 days a month, that’s 3000 yuan. That’s not a lot."

Hou Ji was surprised: "Yuan, you’re a rich second generation; you can’t use your income and spending levels to judge the earnings of substitute gaming.

"Which substitute gamer only works eight hours a day? After all, this is playing games not physical labor. As long as you ensure time for sleep and eating, you can spend all the other time gaming. Some people work fourteen or sixteen hours a day.

"According to this method, you can earn five or six thousand a month, and where else would you find such a good deal in substitute gaming for other games?

"Besides, substitute gaming isn’t just about completing Fantasy Books; there’s also managing daily missions or exploring the big map.

"The other services are not as complicated as Fantasy Books; they’re more incidental tasks, and when you add up the prices for those various tasks, the profit is even more considerable."

Zhuge Jun nodded: "Hmm, purely from the perspective of substitute gaming, Endless Fantasy Legend 2 really is a blue ocean. There’s a large demand from a good number of new players and high enthusiasm, naturally leading to money-making opportunities.

"However, from a personal standpoint, I still don’t quite understand why people would want substitutes for this kind of game.

"It’s a single-player game; the main content is the story and exploring the open world. If you hand it all over to a substitute, what’s left for you to play? Are you just content with playing gacha?"

Hou Ji glanced at Zhang Yuan, the richest guy in the whole dormitory: "You wouldn’t understand the world of the wealthy; don’t speculate wildly."

Zhang Yuan pondered: "So, relying on substitute gaming to make money isn’t that easy after all; it’s basically physical labor too. In comparison, it seems more comfortable for Yifu, who makes two thousand just by making videos."

Hou Ji was somewhat speechless: "It’s not that simple! Those videos just happened to predict things correctly, which is why they got such high viewership. But it’s not possible to always guess Nitiandang’s moves correctly."

Zhang Yuan nodded: "True.

"So, would it be suitable for me to get into it now? I checked the official trading platform, and the value of Endless Fantasy Legend 2 accounts is still pretty solid. Accounts with a maxed-out Gerlin and Xing Ying cost at least five thousand yuan.

"The retention of value is quite outrageous."

Zhuge Jun, who was drinking a beverage, nearly spit it out.

"Ah? So that’s how you define getting into the game?

"I just said I completely don’t understand the point of having a substitute for this game, and now you’re talking about buying an account."

Zhang Yuan was somewhat puzzled: "What does substitute gaming have to do with buying accounts?"

Zhuge Jun shook his head slightly: "Of course, there’s a connection!

"Again, even though Endless Fantasy Legend 2 has online gameplay, it’s essentially a single-player game with the main attractions being the story and solving puzzles in the open world.

"Substitute gaming and buying accounts share a fundamental similarity: both mean you’re letting someone else play the most interesting parts of the game for you. So what’s left for you to play?

"Is it just about using a team of maxed-out characters to tackle challenging difficulties?"

Hou Ji also nodded in agreement: "Even though the official trading platform can ensure the fairness of the transaction and there’s no fear of being scammed, and currently Endless Fantasy Legend 2 accounts hold their value well... but... I agree with Yifu’s point."

According to the official platform’s regulations, game accounts are also considered personal virtual property of the players, thus they have the right to trade.

If someone commits fraud during account trading or account hacking, and the amount is significant, it can still trigger a theft charge.

Guided by this thinking, the official platform has a dedicated account trading feature, guaranteed by the official side. Upon completing the transaction, all the related data of that game account will be transferred to the buyer’s account.

The official platform takes a certain amount as a service fee, a portion of which is also returned to the game developers.

Even so, when this regulation was introduced, it faced protests and resistance from many game developers, as the small kickback could not make up for the developer’s losses.

But now, most developers have been forced to accept it.

However, while the official rules are the same, the value retention rates of different game accounts vary significantly.

For some online games, especially those with PVP and GVG gameplay, the accounts tend to retain value better, possibly reaching 10% or even higher.

As for the lower limit, there’s no bottom line—there are even games that have a value preservation rate of less than 1%.

For instance, a whale player who spends a hundred thousand only to be able to sell their account for a thousand bucks—is a circumstance that’s not so rare.

Many manufacturers, though forced to cooperate with official platforms on account trading, have plenty of ways to indirectly resist, such as speeding up the game’s inflation rate, ensuring that whatever players have never retains value, and forcing them to constantly buy the latest equipment or characters.

With such practices, it’s quite normal for account value preservation rates to plummet straight down to below 1%.

Compared to this, the current value preservation rate for "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" is still relatively decent.

The account Zhang Yuan is looking at requires a fully-upgraded Gerlin and a fully-upgraded Xing Ying.

Among them, Gerlin is undeniably the beneficiary of this version; brutally straightforward and no-brain, whereas Xing Ying’s use is quite strong due to her powerful wood elemental attributes.

Just these two characters, at max level, based on the ordinary gacha expectations, would cost almost fifteen thousand yuan.

And since Gerlin is a Permanent Pool character, if someone were to randomly get full stars or pull enough to max her out, they’d certainly accumulate many other five-star characters as well. Thus, when tallied up, it wouldn’t be surprising for the account owner to have invested double the money into this account.

Spending thirty thousand, selling for five thousand, a preservation rate as high as 16%—this is already the upper limit for the entire official platform’s account trading, even higher than the rate for many nation-war online games.

For a single-player game to reach such a state is pretty outrageous.

Zhang Yuan explained: "I really think buying an account is more cost-effective. Look, if I want to max out Gerlin and Xing Ying myself, it’s going to be tough.

"Xing Ying won’t be reissued in the short term, and trying to fish out Gerlin from the Permanent Pool is like throwing money into a bottomless pit—it’s dubious whether thirty or forty thousand yuan would be enough to max her out.

"For five thousand yuan to buy this account, nurture it a bit, and even if its value decreases by the time you sell it, you could still get back three to four thousand yuan. Isn’t this much more economical than whaling it out yourself?

"As for the issues of storylines and world exploration puzzles you mentioned, that indeed is a problem.

"But actually, I’m not particularly interested in the world exploration puzzles, nor do I want to spend so much time farming.

"I just want to enjoy the story, play casually, and then research strategies for high-star characters and tackle challenging difficulty levels.

"As for the story, isn’t there the ’Story Restoration’ and ’Story Review’ feature now? There’s no delay at all."

Zhuge Jun was startled for a moment: "Oh?"

After pondering briefly and furrowing his brow, he realized that what Zhang Yuan said actually made some freaking sense.

The way both parties approach gaming and their methods differ, so naturally their views on "account purchasing" vary as well.

For typical players like Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji, the main pleasure of gaming lies in the story and world exploration; the strength of their team is not as crucial.

No matter how powerful a maxed-out character is, it just speeds up the fights; whereas for characters obtained through random gacha, whether they’re Four Stars or Permanent Five-stars, or even some weaker Limited Pool Five-stars, with the right team composition, one can still progress through the story and explore the world—just at a slower pace.

If you enjoy theory-crafting, beating powerful enemies with a weaker team can even bring greater satisfaction.

Thus, in their view, purchasing accounts is definitely not cost-effective.

Because the account bought has likely already seen most of the story and world exploration played, leaving nothing for the buyer; moreover, there isn’t much sense of ownership over such accounts, making it easy to fall into a cycle of constantly buying and selling accounts.

That’s why they’d rather grind themselves than spend money on leveling services or buying accounts.

Because this is the core fun of the game.

But there are also players who aren’t necessarily fond of world exploration.

They might find these puzzles too simple and uninteresting, and they prefer playing with some powerful characters, or when they encounter XP characters to their liking, they want to max them out.

For them, the joy of playing these characters far exceeds the joy of solving puzzles or exploring.

In such cases, spending their own money on gacha is very uneconomical.

Even for an ordinary maxed-out Limited Pool character, a lucky player still needs to spend over five thousand yuan to get them.

Or they would have to rely on freebies offered by the game, save up for a year and a half, and then possibly get a maxed-out character through gacha.

Regardless, there’s an objective demand for buying and selling accounts.

Those who sell want to recoup investments, and buyers want strong maxed-out characters at a low price—it’s like the second-hand market for many games. Game manufacturers undoubtedly want this eradicated, but for players, having a regulated trading market and stable prices is 100% beneficial.

So, if Zhang Yuan is set on buying an account to play, it wouldn’t be considered a bad way to play the game.

Additionally, there’s a very important point that sets "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" apart from other games: its storyline content can be re-experienced!

With other games, if the original owner has already completed all the storylines, then the account would be useless for experiencing the story again, which would be a significant downside.

But "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" itself has a ’Story Restoration’ feature, allowing players to replay the main story with the account’s powerful characters.

Some important side stories can also be re-experienced through ’Story Review’, taking in a segment each month.

The gaming experience might even be much better than starting anew.

Of course, big map puzzles can’t be reset, so whether or not buying an account is worth it depends on personal preferences and choices.