GTROAE Chapter 95: Special Treat

Chapter 95: Special Treat

The next morning, the first thing William did when he woke up was check his phone for album sales.

1,395,864.

After the platform’s cut, and since Earth Music wasn’t officially registered as a business yet, all the remaining money went straight to William’s bank card. Even though only twenty percent of it was his, the income was still amazing.

Meanwhile, “Happy Mahjong” also showed huge growth. Its total active users had jumped by around 400 million, and online users had nearly doubled. Before, midnight activity was very low because of the time difference, but now overseas users had perfectly filled that gap.

The key difference was that overseas players had no limits on spending. The same number of online users could bring in several times more money compared to domestic players. But because of policy, overseas income couldn’t be settled daily—it had to be yearly. In other words, William wouldn’t get that money until this time next year.

According to the analysts hired by Cynthia and the Mahjong Association, “Happy Mahjong” would earn 1.5 to 2 times more daily revenue overseas than in the domestic market, and it could grow even further. But if domestic rules later lifted spending limits, the income gap might flip.

After all, Mahjong was a national treasure, one of the most important cultural entertainments across the Chinese-speaking world. Foreigners could never truly imagine how deep people’s love for Mahjong ran, just like people in China couldn’t easily imagine the devotion foreigners had toward religion.

Either way, the game’s current performance matched everyone’s expectations. The Mahjong Association set a celebration banquet for Saturday at a private club in Southport, and of course Earth Games received an invitation as a partner. It was said government officials would also attend, since they had provided a lot of support to help “Happy Mahjong” break into the global market.

This wasn’t about pulling strings—it was a proactive move, a cultural shock for the international scene.

Naturally, William would attend. This was his chance to build strong ties with government officials. Right now it was just “Happy Mahjong,” but in the future, more games would come, some filled with violence, gore, and explicit content. If he could help push for a rating system early, then maybe those games wouldn’t need to be censored, and players could enjoy the real, uncut experience.

People shouldn’t think ratings were only about protecting players of different ages. In truth, ratings protect the games themselves. By clearly labeling the suitable age group, games wouldn’t be unfairly blamed.

Think about it: if a seven-year-old plays an adults-only horror game and gets traumatized, is that the game company’s fault or the parents’ poor supervision?

Without a rating system, the blame would always fall on the developer. But with one in place, it’s like putting up a sign in a field saying the vegetables were sprayed with pesticides. If someone still sneaks in and eats them, then gets poisoned, the fault is on them.

Along with ratings, there also had to be mandatory real-name verification. Only then could illegal activities in games be stopped.

The internet isn’t a lawless place, and games can’t become safe havens for criminals.

This was William’s stance—and it was bound to be the stance of the whole industry in the future.

Around nine in the morning, William finally got the long-awaited call from the car dealership. His license plate was ready. He could pick up his car anytime, or have it delivered right to his door.

Who knew how long it would take for the delivery truck, so William didn’t even think twice before calling Cynthia, who had also been waiting for this day, to grab a taxi straight to the 4S shop.

The moment Cynthia sat in the driver’s seat, she couldn’t stop touching everything and looking around. Before William got his license, she was the only one who could drive this car.

“I never thought going to work could feel this good.” Cynthia smiled as she drove.

William felt just as comfortable in the passenger seat. He even thought that once he got his license, he didn’t really want to drive. Since Cynthia liked driving, why not let her keep at it?

When they arrived at the company and stepped through the door, they both got a shock.

Two rows of confetti cannons went off as soon as they entered, colored paper raining down while all the employees stood at the entrance clapping excitedly.

“Boss, you’re amazing!”

“I’m your fan!”

“I bought ten albums!”

“I bought twenty!”

“I bought a hundred!”

...

Looking at their shouting and cheering, it really was like they had turned work into a fan club gathering.

William paid attention to the one who said he bought a hundred albums. If he remembered right, that was Li Rui, a level designer under Claire.

He decided he’d give him some special guidance another day.

At noon, he had no choice but to treat everyone to a big meal. The money came out of William’s own pocket—over two thousand in total—the biggest expense he’d had recently.

In the afternoon, back at the company, William continued on the road with Cynthia, finishing the part he hadn’t explained earlier about the age rating system. Whether it was age ratings or real-name verification, they both needed cooperation from the authorities. Otherwise, just putting a suggested age on the start screen meant nothing.

The details still needed careful planning, since the rating system involved psychological evaluation. Each age group needed a standard. William could find detailed examples online from Earth, but because of cultural differences, he wanted to build a brand-new rating system that fit Blue Star better.

After leaving Cynthia’s office, William called Li Rui into his own office and shared some knowledge about level design with him. Of course, the material came from the “Art Handbook (Beginner).”

The digital version of “Art Handbook (Beginner)” was only open to employees level three and above. This was to stop anyone from grabbing it and then leaving the company to hand it over as a bargaining chip elsewhere. William told Li Rui about the level design section ahead of time simply to thank him for his support, and also to help him perform better among his peers so he wouldn’t get kicked out after the probation period.

This batch of new hires all had one thing in common: their average age was under twenty-eight. Younger meant less experience. For people like Leon, who had years of related work experience, switching careers was much easier. But for these newcomers, most had only been working for two or three years, without much built-up know-how.

The decision came down to many reasons—salary, learning ability, and long-term training.

Their average salary was about half of what Leon and his group made. If the company only hired people with over five years of experience, yearly expenses would shoot up at least 200%. For a new company, that just wasn’t smart.

Then there was the question of learning ability. Older employees often had sharper insight when solving problems, but their way of thinking was more set in stone. Most had their own fixed methods, which meant it was hard for them to learn new things.

New employees, on the other hand, were like clay—easy to shape into whatever William wanted.

Finally, and most importantly, William needed to train managers.

To have management talent, you needed people to manage. If everyone had the same level of experience, no one would be willing to suddenly become someone else’s subordinate. That meant you had to pick people who were open to it.

The problem was that new hires might not be skilled enough to handle the challenges of their jobs. Which meant some of them could be fired during the three-month trial period.