GTROAE Chapter 97: The Livestream Drama

Chapter 97: The Livestream Drama

“What does the streamer think about Crossword Life?”

“Why aren’t you playing Crossword Life?”

“Still clinging to that old Life Restart Simulator?”

…

Marcus’s livestream was hit by a wave of haters. He started the stream planning to play Life Restart Simulator for some classic nostalgia, but by coincidence, it happened to clash with the launch of Crossword Life.

Everyone in the chat knew Marcus worked for Earth Games. His stream even had an official badge under his name, and the platform had signed him with a contract fee, making him the first officially signed gaming streamer on the site.

He usually streamed after work from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., and sometimes during work hours too—but only to promote new games.

Even so, he had built up tens of thousands of followers, and every stream could pull in over a hundred thousand viewers. It was obvious the platform was boosting him on purpose.

Where there are haters, there will always be fans ready to fight back. The chat turned into a war zone, forcing the moderators to go full-on purge mode. Marcus didn’t want this mess to keep going, so now his only choices were to end the stream or play Crossword Life.

The truth is, Marcus never missed a competitor’s game, but he never played them during his streams. After all, he worked for Earth Games. Streaming another company’s game would feel like betrayal.

But now he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If Marcus had known Pig Factory was launching Crossword Life tonight, he would’ve taken the day off. At least then he wouldn’t have chosen to stream Life Restart Simulator. This was like walking straight into the line of fire!

Ending the stream wasn’t a good option either. Doing that would just make the haters stick around every day to stir things up and give the competitors more ammo.

But after accidentally leaking details about The Sims not long ago, if he now streamed a rival’s game, Marcus might as well pack his bags and leave Earth Games.

He muted his mic and called Cynthia, knowing he couldn’t handle this alone.

“I get it. Just keep streaming as normal and say what you need to say.” Cynthia sounded calm.

“Whose call was that?” William vaguely heard what sounded like Marcus’s voice but wasn’t sure.

“Marcus. He’s streaming right now.”

“Then why is he calling you?”

Cynthia explained the situation to William, and after listening, William opened Marcus’s stream.

At that moment, Marcus was already playing Crossword Life because of the flood of requests in the chat. Since William was using a new account with no verification, no one recognized him.

There was no denying it—Crossword Life was way ahead of the other life simulation games. Marcus didn’t want to admit it, but his serious expression mixed with occasional goofy smiles gave him away.

The game was incredibly immersive. It made players really think about what kind of path they wanted to take in life, and the script quality was top-notch. Rumor had it that several well-known writers worked on it together, each handling the parts they were best at.

If there was one downside, it was that the game wasn’t completely free. There were no pay-to-win mechanics, but there were options to watch ads to unlock content or pay for an ad-free experience.

This showed Pig Factory’s smart approach compared to others.

They didn’t sell the game outright. Instead, they gave players a choice: watch ads for more options or pay eight yuan for permanent ad removal—which was basically like buying the game for eight yuan.

With downloads hitting tens of millions in no time, even if only 10% of players paid, the game would easily recover its costs.

Unlike Immortal World Life Simulator or Wuxia Life Simulator, which struggled to break even.

Those games missed the golden policy era and copied Life Restart Simulator’s free model. By the time they added ads, their player base had already left. They completely missed the best timing.

Analysts said that during the early boom of the gaming industry, a game’s popularity could last about 15 days. But as more games came out and release intervals got shorter, that window has shrunk to just three to five days. The really good ones might last a week.

The so-called freshness period means the time when a game sees a big increase in numbers. This is especially true in the first few hours after launch when the data spikes the most. After that, the game’s popularity will slowly drop over time.

When the drop becomes huge compared to day one, it means the freshness period is over. After that comes the decline period, where growth slows down or even turns negative.

Negative growth here refers to active users. For example, Earth Games’ Life Restart Simulator barely gets any new downloads after a few big waves. The number of active players has dropped to a few hundred, and it probably won’t be long before that becomes zero.

Even though William thinks it’s embarrassing that this game keeps getting beaten by others, he can’t deny that thanks to policy benefits, Life Restart Simulator brought in way more profit than other similar games in the market. The generous milestone rewards also mean a lot to William.

In terms of profit, Life Restart Simulator is Earth Games’ most successful game so far, but in terms of reputation, it’s the worst.

He sent Marcus a 1,000 yuan gift to encourage him and also texted him, telling him to stream boldly and not worry about anything.

After doing that, William turned off his phone.

He wasn’t sure what emotion hit him, but he suddenly wanted to draw postcards for Travel Frog. William even planned to auction the design sketches after the game launches, believing many people would join in.

He could even add some extra perks to make the auction more attractive, like early access to Travel Frog’s new map.

After attending Thomas’s charity dinner, he got the idea of hosting a charity dinner for game developers. The auction items could be materials from development or exclusive merchandise.

As for why he wanted to hold a charity dinner, the reason was the same as Thomas—networking.

If Earth Games wants a solid place in the gaming world, it needs both player recognition and a good reputation in society. Making good games is one way; hosting charity events is another.

But right now, it’s too early to talk about that. For now, the best use for the Travel Frog postcards is still game promotion.

This time, William didn’t stay up until midnight. Working outside his special space made him lose focus fast, and his energy and stamina dropped quickly too.

Still, the usual text message came to his phone as always.

00:00

Happy Match Mania: $29.496

Happy Mahjong: $74.980

Happy Landlord: $123.624

Since Happy Mahjong launched globally, foreign players have learned through different channels about the rising game market in the Chinese cultural circle, and they’re starting to request more games to come to their region.