Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch - Chapter 185
Chapter 185: Chapter 183: Absurd Metropolis News
Translator: 549690339
After Quentina and Cheryl comfort and reassure them, the new employees finally left one by one after work.
By the time Lincoln finished filming “News Weekly”, it was already an hour and a half after the end of work.
He casually uploaded it to Spiritual Rhinoceros and Little Video Station, and then reposted it with his own main account.
Just as he was about to log off after finishing this task, Lincoln suddenly noticed: the number of online users in the virtual studio was showing as 2.
Out of curiosity, Lincoln opened the list to see who was still working overtime at this time, and the ID he saw was “Victoria”.
“Is the princess still here?” Lincoln sent a probing request, which was immediately granted.
He went through the teleportation gate and arrived at Camille Victoria’s Riverside Courtyard, curiously asking her what she was doing.
Princess Camille Victoria beat around the bush, not knowing what to say, and eventually just handed him a cup of coffee.
Lincoln, oblivious to social cues, took it and drank it voraciously, and immediately urged her to log off and eat.
As for Lincoln, between settling matters related to the large-scale neural modem and working overtime for such a long time, he naturally needed to reward himself properly.
“Brother Yue, let’s go, let’s have a feast today!”
While Lincoln and Yue Pengju were taking it easy and heading for a feast, the players quickly flocked to the Spiritual Rhinoceros homepage of Cloud Dream to see if there was any big news.
The Spiritual Rhinoceros Operation and Maintenance team naturally received a special attention alert as well.
‘Lincoln’, ‘6:30 PM’, ‘Post video’.
The combination of these three keywords was enough to set off their PTSD. They didn’t even care what the video was about and immediately yelled at the coworker on shift change in the workgroup: “Add expansion! Add expansion!
Don’t worry about whether it’s needed or not, add it first!”
If it’s not really needed, it can be withdrawn, but if it is needed and it’s not added in time, it’ll be too late to regret it then!
After instructing their colleagues, they finally took a breath and clicked on the video to see what Lincoln had posted.
The video showed a news broadcasting center that looked so real it was hard to tell if it was fake. A man and a woman, both hosts, sat in front of the director’s desk, reading the news from a script with all seriousness.
“Hello, dear viewers! Welcome to Metropolis News.” The female host was dead serious.
“Welcome, welcome.” The male host echoed.
“We received an urgent task to present the weekly news of Metropolis.”
“Yes, weekly news, that is, one report per week.” The male host looked very serious, but his words were far from serious.
“First, some good news, as of now, the sales of the game “Assassins’ Alliance” has successfully exceeded 9-5 million copies! Breaking the sales record for large-scale games priced above 500 yuan!”
“I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the sales records for games priced above 600,
700, 800 yuan, etc., have also been broken in the process.”
The netizens watching this all scoffed at the male host’s commentary: “Nonsense! Do we really need you to tell us that? Are you here to deliver the news or to tell jokes as a sidekick?”
The female host didn’t interact with the male host at all, like she didn’t even have this colleague; she kept a straight face and continued with her calm and cool delivery.
“Of these 9-5 million sales, 2.7 million were from players who have not yet purchased the console. We once again sincerely urge all players to consume rationally.”
The male host, on the other hand, completely disagreed, and had a whole slew of justifications: “Life is so hard, of course we should reward ourselves appropriately. If you like something, you should buy it right away, or else by the time you do, it’s not the same feeling anymore.”
This classic consumerist brainwashing discourse finally provoked the female host’s wrath.
The female host dropped her professional facade, gave the male host a fierce sideways glance, and continued, “Of these 2.7 million copies, 1.8 million are from overseas where the console is temporarily unavailable for purchase.”
The male host didn’t care about the female host’s threat at all, he continued unashamedly: “Ah, this is what truly fanatical fans do! Is it really considered spending money when you’re supporting your idol? It is helping our idols grow, seeing our ideal selves in our idols, and illuminating the path of life.”
Unable to restrain her frustration any longer, the female host picked up a stack of scripts, rolled it into a cylinder, and swung it fiercely at her male co-host causing an overdramatized “PANG!” to appear on the screen.
Struck by this brutally frank hit, her male colleague toppled over his chair, crashing heavily behind the director’s table.
Throwing out a bleeped-out curse under her breath, the female host adjusted her hair back into place behind her ear, unrolled the makeshift bat, and continued to calmly deliver the news as if nothing had happened.
“After a week of effort, 603,282 players have successfully wiped out the Textile Factory, thoroughly eradicating the Alliance, which had turned into an evil organization,” she announced.
No sooner had she finished speaking than the male host retorted from behind the director’s table, unable to reappear in the shot, “But of all these players, less than a tenth succeeded in opening the safe of Alliance Leader Sloan. The price? Ninety-nine percent of them lost their fathers. It really makes you wonder: was it all worth it?”
With an emotionless expression, the female host set down her script, stood up,
and- -showing veins popping in her hands- -lifted her chair high above her head.
The very next moment, accompanied by a grunt of exertion, she swung the chair downward with a forceful motion.
From offscreen came an unfamiliar voice: “Stop! Stop! Stop it now! Stop, Zhen! We’re still on air!”
But the host called ‘Zhen’ showed no signs of calming her temper, as consecutive sounds of the chair smashing down filled the air – each crash sounding more intense than the last. It looked as if she had a dire, irreconcilable hatred against her target.
Growing frantic at his inability to stop what was happening, the director yelled, “Cut to the clip! Cut to the clip! Quick!”
The screen shook momentarily to the sound of electrical buzzing and then switched to a pre-recorded clip.
The audience appeared dumbfounded by what had just transpired, unsure of how to react.
But Lincoln didn’t leave them much time to think, as the video immediately reached its climax.
A group of five players stormed the bank, guns blazing, yelling “Hoorah—” as they charged forward.
But instead of surrendering, the bank’s security team met them with pepper spray, gunning them down in a hail of bullets and turning them into sieves.
After reviving, the players didn’t give up, but instead switched tactics.
They hid their weapons, disguised themselves as customers, and infiltrated the bank’s lobby. After figuring out the locations of the security guards, they initiated an ambush and started shooting!
Amidst this intense battle, a voiceover began to narrate at a leisurely pace.
“In the past seven days, Metropolis had a bustling week, with over 6.63 million bank robberies reported, and only 577,918 successful.”
“Death incidents from robberies exceeded 30 million, far outnumbering those in the resistance against the Alliance.”
The five players coerced the bank staff into opening the safe, pulled out prepared sacks, and began to stuff them with money, their faces overflowing with excitement.
When they finished stashing the money and burst out of the bank with shouts of delight, they were caught off-guard by the awaiting Metropolis Police.
The Metropolis Police showed no mercy, opening fire and instantly killing four members of the team!
Only one player managed to escape back to the bank’s lobby, using the cover of his team’s bodies. He snatched a hostage in desperation, trying to intimidate the cops.
The voiceover resumed:
“In the past week, the Metropolis Police have been remarkably successful, preventing over 5 million robberies and killing over 22,005,120 bank robbers in the process. Throughout this…”
The last of the five robbers, staying behind the hostage with a gun pointed at the hostage’s head, carefully stepped out of the bank.
But no sooner had he stepped out of the bank’s doors than he was met with a hail of gunfire from the Metropolis Police, who showed no hesitation as they opened fire from behind their cars!
The player and the hostage were shot down, instantly becoming sieves!
“During these incidents, an additional 758,762 innocent citizens of Metropolis were killed due to collateral damage,” the voiceover continued.
On the screen, one player lying in front of the bank’s door looked utterly baffled, a look of disbelief etched across his face..
