Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 195 Not for Sale
The Plaza Hotel is located on 59th Street in New York City.

Open the curtains of your room and you can see Central Park.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the lush forest under the scorching sun exuded a golden glow, as if it was covered with a golden veil, embellishing it with incomparable nobility, but it was also more like brilliant gold foil falling from the sky, making people want to immerse themselves in it and explore the mystery.

If Evelin was here, she would definitely pick up her camera and take some photos, but unfortunately, Ethan was the only one in the guest room at this time. He had no intention of appreciating the painting at all. He got up from the bed and started to wash up, then sat in the dining room of the guest room and enjoyed the brunch brought by the staff.

Atlantic City is only a hundred miles away from New York, and it only takes more than an hour to get there. Ethan left the Holiday Inn at four in the morning and checked into the Plaza Hotel at dawn. After eight hours of rest... he felt like he was fully revived~
After quickly finishing the unpalatable pasta, he called Steve Ballmer, who lived next door, to come for a meeting. The bald guy might have gotten up a long time ago, and he came straight over after hearing Ethan's words.

"Have you eaten?" Ethan asked, looking at Ballmer in a suit.

"Yes, the steak here is good." Ballmer nodded.

"Okay, let's get started." Ethan picked up the coffee sent by the hotel and asked, "What do you think of Holiday International's purchasing behavior?"

Perhaps it was because Ethan had already rated Vacation International's purchase order as troublesome when he left Atlantic City last night, so when he asked Ballmer what he thought of the situation there, the well-prepared big bald man immediately said, "Boss, if we want to judge their behavior, then we must first determine one thing, that is, what is the development plan of our Destiny Game, or in other words, what is the external image of our Destiny Game."

"If Destiny Games is just a video game company, then we can naturally accept purchase orders from Holiday International."

"But if our Destiny Game has its own corporate purpose, corporate culture, and corporate image, then we need to carefully consider whether to accept the order based on these things."

"And all this..."

"I think you have made a decision."

"Isn't it?"

Ballmer put his elbows on the table and looked at Ethan, his rosy face full of smiles.

This rhetorical question also made Ethan nod his head and said, "You are right."

He shook the cup in his hand, and the brown coffee swirled.

"I have indeed made a decision."

To be honest, when Ethan walked into Holiday International in the early hours of the morning and found that the game "Windfall" occupied the entire experience hall, a scene he had witnessed in his previous life suddenly appeared in his mind. It was an arcade with many arcade machines.

There were many adults reminiscing about the past and many children enjoying games inside, but these were not the focus of Ethan's attention. What attracted his attention was a sign at the business counter of the video game arcade.

It says--

'All game coins in this store are not refundable or exchangeable once sold.'

The reason given by the merchant is that once the money is refunded, it would be suspected of gambling.

This does have a legal basis.

In fact, Ethan had long known that electronic arcade machines would definitely be turned into gambling machines as they continued to develop. This was not only because he had memories of his past life and knew that some people did play like this in their previous life, but also because the earliest significance of arcade machines was to provide a place for people to gamble. With this feature alone, Sega had already made a fortune.

Even though he was mentally prepared, he still felt a little uncomfortable when it all really happened.

Firstly, it was the education he received in his previous life that made him understand the real harm of gambling and corruption. These things can really lead to the destruction of a family, so he would never try to touch those things.

Secondly, he really likes video games. No matter in his past life or this life, he has always regarded video games as toys that bring happiness to people. No matter what time, he doesn't want these toys with good nature to be caught up in that disgusting vortex.

Of course, he knew that his idea was unrealistic, because the explosive development of all industries was because the industry could make a lot of money. When capitalists flocked into a field where they could make a lot of money, it became their instinct to make more money on this basis.

To this end, they can even come up with some crooked ideas.

Take McDonald's for example. They are doing real estate under the guise of catering, and they pass all the land purchase costs and bank interest on to their franchisees, thus getting the premium from the land appreciation for free.

For example, Starbucks, on the surface, is a coffee shop, but in fact it is a financial institution that absorbs social funds through anonymous cards. Before Ethan traveled through time, their deposits had even exceeded 2 billion, which was more than the public deposits absorbed by large, medium and small banks. Moreover, not only did they not pay interest, but they also set a useful life for the deposits. Once the time limit expires, they will convert the deposits into non-operating income at a certain rate each year on the grounds of custody fees.

As for the video game industry...

The way they get users to keep paying is by unboxing.

Regardless of whether it is card drawing or strengthening, whether it is monster refining or munitions, as long as it is a game of probability, it is considered unboxing, and these things are a matter of personal opinion.

Because when there are official transactions or third-party trading systems, this is no longer a game of passing the parcel, and their nature becomes very vague.

As for saying that existence is reasonable?

Ah--

The existence that Hegel talked about is the origin and driving force of all things in the universe!
No one has ever said that the fact of killing is justified!
In his previous life, Ethan hated the box-opening game. He felt that this kind of gambling method relied on defense. When he himself was unwilling to eat shit, he couldn't feed shit to others.

He knew that his ideas might be a little idealistic, but when he had the final say in the game of fate and had countless ways to make money in his mind, he would rather avoid doing things related to gambling.

Opening boxes is indeed profitable, but aren’t “Zelda” and “It Takes Two” more fun?
Not to mention--

The female star Lingna Belle makes much more money than any spinach machine.

When Disney has shown the way to monetize intellectual property...

Making a spinach machine is simply stupid!

“The purpose of our Destiny game is to create happiness with heart.”

"So we won't sell the games to the gaming farms for them to use as gaming."

"Be tactful when communicating. After all, we have no conflicts. Ask the marketing department to tell them that our Destiny game has been sold out, and we can't make the 1,000 arcade machines they want for the time being."

“If they ask about the waiting time, tell them more than half a year.”

Ethan's words made Ballmer nod repeatedly.

Then he got up and went to the next room to call the headquarters.

About half an hour later, Ballmer came back and said to Ethan, who was standing by the window overlooking Central Park, "The marketing department has already communicated with the people at Holiday Inn International. Holiday Inn International was very disappointed when they learned that the machine would take more than half a year to complete."

"Yeah." Ethan spoke with the tip of his nose, showing that he understood.

The silence prompted Ballmer to continue, "Then, the marketing department asked, what if there is a sudden surge in orders from New Jersey?"

The question made Ethan laugh.

"You mean Holiday International might ask other merchants to place orders for it?"

"I guess so." Ballmer nodded.

"We just need to have the marketing department record the cumulative order quantity of each customer," Ethan said. "When the order quantity of some merchants is obviously not in line with their operating capacity, we will ask them about the specific purpose of ordering the machine. As long as they can give a reasonable explanation, we will sell it to them."

"Like you said yesterday, we can't stop customers from making secondary transactions." "Holiday International purchases goods from other merchants, and we can't control that."

"But we must clearly control the source and ensure that those games do not flow directly from our factory to external gambling fields, so that even if there are any problems in the future, we can explain them."

At this point, Ethan paused.

After thinking for a while, he said, "Forget it. If we blockade them directly, it may cause dissatisfaction among some normal customers. In this case, you should write me a public statement to express that the corporate vision of Destiny Game is the same as that of Professor Ralph Bell, the inventor of video games and consultant of our company. We just want to bring happiness to people in the world..."

"I think……"

“This statement will make it clear to them where we stand.”

Just as the staff of Destiny Game guessed, shortly after they politely rejected Vacation International due to insufficient production capacity and issued a statement, orders from New Jersey suddenly surged.

At first, an unknown merchant very close to Atlantic City placed an order for 200 units of "Fat Man" at one time. Then the marketing staff of Destiny Game directly rejected the order on the grounds that the company expressly prohibited the second-hand sale of its products.

then……

Orders from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and other places popped up like mushrooms after rain.

This situation caused great pain to the marketing specialists of Destiny Game.

Because they have to compete with those merchants in a battle of wits and courage.

For example, screening reasonable orders.

If the merchant placing the order purchases several games at the same time, such as Snake 2, Skyfall, and Taken, the order will be considered safe.

What if some merchants just purchase large quantities of "Windfall"?
Sorry, the production capacity is insufficient. Please be patient.

For example, determine whether the delivery location is safe.

If the delivery address of those merchants is the location of their store, then Destiny Game will confidently accept the order and ship the goods directly according to the other party's requirements.

But if a merchant said that they did not want land transportation but sea transportation, and the unloading address was the Atlantic port in New Jersey, then Destiny Game would directly refuse and explain their own difficulties, saying that such behavior would harm the interests of the delivery fleet and they were afraid that the workers would cause trouble.

To be honest, when Ethan asked his employees to use the same anti-theft tactics to deal with Atlantic City, New Jersey, the marketing department specialists actually complained, because this crazy screening method simply increased their workload.

But when Ethan said that the base salary of all employees in the marketing department would increase by 10% and overtime pay would increase by 20% in May, June and July, eh... the noisy voices suddenly stopped.

'The company is my home! Development depends on everyone!'

"is it necessary?"

Evelyn pressed down the blades of the blinds with her index finger and stared at the employees coming in and out.

“If you don’t want to sell the machine to Atlantic City, then don’t sell it.”

"If you can't stop other merchants from reselling, then just ship directly."

“Is it necessary to torment the employees here?”

"Of course." Ethan smiled and said, "Although I can't guarantee that the company's games will not flow into major gambling venues, I have to let the world know that I have this idea and have worked hard for it."

"You may think my behavior is crazy now, but it is actually part of the company's self-protection and image building. Today we have treated Holiday International like a thief and protected it. When some arcade gambling machine comes out in the future, people will not be able to hold us responsible."

"Just like the comic case Thomas told us about last time."

"When all major comics are filled with violence, pornography, and drugs, the boycott and opposition from parents will put all companies in danger, forcing them to castrate themselves."

"And castration at that time was actually too late."

"So, if we want to prevent a crisis, we have to start from the source."

"Reject gambling and violence at the source."

"Of course, we are all just human beings, not God. We can't do something perfectly, but it doesn't matter, because when the outside world knows that we did it..."

“Then we have actually done it perfectly.”

In the eyes of outsiders, the order from Atlantic City is just a simple business transaction, but in Ethan's view, it contains a crisis that may come at any time.

Because the phenomenon of game characters bleeding green blood is not unique to the East. In Western countries, video games are indeed regarded as a scourge and a rating system has been created.

In Ethan's memory, the games that were fiercely attacked included "Mortal Kombat" and "Give Him Love". Anyway, they would attack whichever company was popular.
Although it is still some time before video games show real violence, with enemies all around him, he will not let Philips and Warner get any advantage.

He would rather torture himself than see a report in tomorrow's newspaper about the game of fate involving gambling, and the new game becoming the largest source of income for East Coast casinos.

While responding carefully, the corporate image is actually being shaped.

Yes, building a corporate image is actually not that mysterious.

Most of them are shouted out with the mouth.

For example, Disney, which regards itself as the kingdom of children, has repeatedly stated that the company will not get involved in adult and criminal content. Therefore, even if the comics industry encountered social boycotts decades ago, the comic books they produced were not affected at all, because if the promotional slogans are repeated many times, people will remember them.

For example, Google has always used "Don't be evil" as its company slogan. For a long time, many people really believed that they did not do evil. So much so that after the incident that Sergey Brin and Larry Page borrowed from Li Yanhong's hyperlink technology in their paper was exposed, there were still people who were trying to whitewash Google.

The louder the media hype, the better their image.

And if in the process, some companies actually do a little bit.

This kind of indirect confirmation will make their image even more glorious.

These were the things Ethan did, and these words also made Evelin tilt her head and look at him.

"Okay, you have a point."

The girl released the pressed leaf and said, "So you are done now, right?"

"Yeah~" Ethan nodded, "You can have a good rest tonight."

Although refusing to sell is not a complicated matter, it is really tiring to run away.

The affirmative answer made the girl look forward to asking: "Will you attend my graduation ceremony tomorrow?"

"?" This question made Ethan stunned for a moment.

The next second he remembered that his sister seemed to be about to graduate.

(End of this chapter)