GTROAE Chapter 94: Global Launch Day

Chapter 94: Global Launch Day

Cynthia was thinking about hiring a secretary. After all, Earth Games had grown from a small team of eight to a group of twenty-four, and with that came a lot more chores and random tasks. She couldn’t waste all her energy on management; she still had more important work to do.

After hearing her reasoning, William agreed. With Cynthia’s ability, just being a “housekeeper” was a waste. She wasn’t only his assistant, but also the company’s deputy commander. She should be out there “fighting battles,” not stuck inside “managing the crowd.”

Not only a secretary, they also needed a receptionist.

Back when they were just a small team in a corner office, nobody cared if someone came knocking. Now that they had a proper place with a bigger front, they had to set things up properly.

Otherwise, if a crazy fan or a rival company’s spy came to their door one day, and there wasn’t even anyone to stop them, who knew what trouble that could cause.

Especially after the leak of The Sims, before Honor of Kings was officially released, not a single hint could be allowed to slip.

After finishing Olivia, Cole Yun, and Zhuge Liang, Leon’s next choice was Zhou Yu.

Since there’s Zhou Yu, why must there be Zhuge Liang?

Placing the two together in design naturally sparked a lot of inspiration.

The new artists under him picked Sun Wukong, Diao Chan, Ying Zheng, and Sun Shangxiang.

A monkey, two women, and an emperor.

From the way they designed, it was clear that in their minds there was no “mage” concept. Weapons were either knives or swords, and every character ended up being a warrior.

Although concept art doesn’t decide how characters fight—that’s the combat designer’s job—the issue was that many roles in the industry weren’t clearly divided yet. One person had to juggle multiple tasks.

After noticing this, William gave them extra training before the end of the day, telling them that characters didn’t always need to use cold weapons. In game design, fun from creativity was far more important than sticking to history.

He gave examples from fantasy novels, superhero movies, and more. His goal was to build the idea of a “mage” in their minds, instead of rigidly copying historical figures.

Seeing that they looked half-understanding, William realized they needed a real example. So, he personally drew Diao Chan’s skill set, including her battle animations.

It was just sketches on white paper, not even detailed, but it already opened their eyes to a new world.

Oh, so this is a mage.

William didn’t expect them to design characters exactly like the originals anyway, since cultural background made a difference. He planned to personally adjust all the designs later, aiming to make them closer to the originals while still fitting the cultural setting. In other words, the characters needed to match the needs of the game.

The next step was to train a few full-time combat designers. Right now, the art team still helped with combat design, but specialized work needed specialized people. Having one person do many jobs saved time and money, but efficiency was always an issue.

And once Honor of Kings went live, William couldn’t stay involved with the project anymore. Future updates and maintenance would be handled by a dedicated team. That team had to cover all the needed roles, so having the right people in the right positions was a must.

There would also be a team lead. William had planned from the very start to give that role to Claire. That’s why Cynthia’s little bet was doomed to fail from the beginning. The art lead wasn’t Claire’s best stepping stone—the head designer role was.

Once Claire was familiar with how to operate a game, she would have enough experience to lead her own team in developing a full game.

To celebrate moving into the new office and welcoming new hires, a dinner party was, of course, a must.

By the time William and Cynthia got home, it was almost ten. They were physically tired, but tonight was a big night. After washing up, they sat together on the sofa downstairs, waiting for some big news.

March 1st, midnight.

The Mahjong Association, WeChat Games, and Earth Games jointly announced an important update: Happy Mahjong officially launched overseas in five cultural zones, achieving a worldwide release. It became the first game to break cultural boundaries, following only a few apps like WeChat.

This was truly a historic achievement. Others would follow, but tonight, Happy Mahjong would be written into gaming history.

Since the world agreed on cultural zones, breaking those barriers had always been a hot topic—discussed at dinner tables, hyped in the news, and even hinted at by official media again and again.

But in reality, nothing had ever truly broken those barriers before. Maybe many people didn’t see it clearly yet, but Happy Mahjong’s arrival would surely wake up the sharp ones—this could really shake up the current world order.

Just as people were still shocked by the international release of Happy Mahjong, several other trending topics quickly climbed into view.

“Earth Music officially announced!”

“Earth Games will release its first album with Earth Music!”

“Creator of Piano Tiles and founder of Earth Games, William, will release his first personal music album!”

“The album will include six piano pieces, half of which have never been released before!”

That saying wasn’t quite right, because earlier a short clip of “Castle in the Sky” had already leaked online. Even though it was only a few seconds, it still left a strong impression in many people’s minds.

Even today, people are still split on their opinions of “Piano Tiles.” But no matter if the reviews were good or bad, no one ever said the music was bad. In fact, many of the negative reviews were just asking for a pure music-player mode, since lots of people didn’t want to play the game but definitely wanted to replay those piano tracks again and again.

Back then, many companies tried to recruit William to focus on music, but he refused. When Cynthia first called him, several other calls were also from people looking for the game’s composer. All of them wanted William badly.

Now that William had finally released his first album, his music fans no longer had to play the game to listen. All they needed was to spend thirty yuan on his album and they could enjoy every song he had put out since his debut.

Originally, this album was going to be released with a big-name music company, but to build up Earth Music’s reputation—and since that company had ties with the Tiffany's family—Tiffany stepped in and easily turned it into Earth Music’s project.

As for the price William had to pay… he’d have to visit Tiffany’s family with her sometime soon.

Back to the album, it had been a long time since William saw money rolling in like this.

Even though the income wasn’t instant and had to wait for the platform’s daily settlement, sales figures alone showed what it meant. In just one minute, the album had already sold over 100,000 copies online, matching the level of any top celebrity. And the number was still skyrocketing, showing no signs of slowing down.

One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand…

Tonight would likely break William’s record for his highest one-day income. No—it definitely would.

Of course, not all of this money went straight into William’s pocket. Thirty percent went to the platform, fifty percent to Earth Music, and only twenty percent to William himself.

By market standards, William should have gotten more. But since Earth Music was still just starting out and needed funds, especially with equipment that would rely heavily on borrowing RiverTone Music’s instruments, William gave up part of his share. He considered that his way of paying Tiffany back.

After all, if he tried to give her money directly, she would never accept it, and he didn’t want to owe her a favor. This was the solution he came up with.

At first, everyone opposed the idea. By “everyone,” that meant Aunt Lisa and Tiffany—Cynthia said it had nothing to do with her. But in the end, William insisted, and that was how it was set.

The only pity was that selling albums wasn’t tied to the system. No milestones, no “path of growth” appeared. After checking the income from the three games, William could only look forward to seeing how many copies the album would sell by tomorrow morning.

“Happy Match Mania”: $26.613

“Happy Mahjong”: $70.089

“Happy Landlord”: $113.142