Restart life

Chapter 154 0151 [Viral Spread: Youke Interactive Game Platform Launched]

Deep city.

QQ Space, which is still in internal testing, has a dedicated team monitoring Renren.com.

The next day, as soon as Zheng Zhihao arrived at the company, the person keeping watch came to report: "Xiaonei.com launched a mini-game called 'Happy Farm,' which is extremely popular. Last night, many users were watching and stealing vegetables!"

"Stealing vegetables?" Although Zheng Zhihao didn't understand, he could roughly guess that it was a game mechanic.

He quickly went to the computer.

Renren.com requires real-name registration, which requires submitting your student ID number, but the company certainly cannot perfectly verify your identity.

If students in a particular class at a certain school discover that someone in their class is an imposter, they can initiate a class vote to report and request that the imposter be removed from the class.

If the class receives more than two-thirds of the votes, the school's intranet will forcibly delete the account.

The QQ Space team had previously registered two accounts haphazardly, both of which were forcibly deleted within three days. To address this, they specifically borrowed an intern to use the intern's real account to experience Renren.com.

After playing for more than ten minutes, Zheng Zhihao said in a daze, "How can this kind of game be popular? I'm not interested in playing it at all."

The intern standing nearby said, "It was all over the place last night, like a virus spreading. At least half of my classmates were playing it. Some people were even too lazy to keep an eye on it and wrote cheat programs overnight to automatically harvest the crops."

"So crazy?" Zheng Zhihao couldn't understand.

The intern said, "Our class's academic representative, who never used to play games, got up in the middle of the night last night to steal vegetables."

Zheng Zhihao remained silent.

He's a newcomer to Tencent, a newcomer from outside the company, and not very familiar with other department leaders. Currently, Tencent is undergoing corporate restructuring, leading to some slight management chaos.

If Happy Farm is truly amazing, then QQ can easily copy it. But that has nothing to do with QQ Zone; that's definitely the game department's responsibility. What does it have to do with Zheng Zhihao?

Tencent ventured into the online gaming industry a couple of years ago, distributing a South Korean game called "Triumph." It was initially quite popular, but server lag was frequent, the monetization model was chaotic, and bug and cheating issues were not addressed promptly. Now, it's barely surviving.

Tencent currently only has one game, "QQ Tang," which is a knock-off of the most popular casual game, "Bubble Fighter."

There is also a game called "QQ Fantasy", which is currently in closed beta.

The rest are card and board games, such as Dou Dizhu and Mahjong.

Zheng Zhihao said, "Keep an eye on it. If Happy Farm continues to be a hit, I will submit it to the higher-ups and get their attention."

Zheng Zhihao was thinking: If Happy Farm is really that great, it's a real shame to let Renren (a Chinese social networking site) operate it; only college students can access it. If QQ were to do it, it could become a game for everyone!
Chen Guiliang, a person who makes the most of resources, would let "Happy Farm" remain confined to Renren.com, waiting for other companies to copy it?
Around noon, Zheng Zhihao received another report: "Xiaonei.com's 'Happy Farm' is driving traffic to a gaming platform!"

"What gaming platform?" Zheng Zhihao asked.

"Youke Interactive Games currently only has four games: a client game called 'Three Kingdoms Kill,' a web game called 'Happy Farm,' and two Flash games called 'Tetris' and 'Amazing Miner.' The latter, 'Amazing Miner,' is very similar to 4399's 'Gold Miner.'"

"It's a bit of a mishmash."

"This Youke Interactive Games platform also has a forum section to encourage players to interact with each other. Once you register an account, you can play all the games on the site without having to register again. Players can also add each other as friends. They also encourage users to create and upload Flash games, and pay creators Youke in-game currency based on the number of times they play the games."

"This Chen Guiliang has big ambitions; he's finally showing his fangs!"

……

Flash games are a product of a specific era.

At that time, web-based games faced many limitations due to technological and internet speed constraints. For example, "Three Kingdoms Kill" was not suitable as a web-based game; to provide players with a better gaming experience, it had to be made into a client-based version.

Flash games, on the other hand, are embedded in web pages as .swf files, and users only need to install the Flash Player plugin to play them. They were essentially an early alternative to web-based games.

At that time, 4399 was full of Flash games.

Of course, Flash games shouldn't be too complicated; simply bringing over the simple Famicom games from the early days is just right.

Moreover, it is extremely simple to make and very inexpensive.

For example, Chen Guiliang commissioned Game Science to create a Flash version of Tetris, while Dong Qianqiu outsourced the programming, art, and sound effects entirely, with the outsourcing development costing only 1000 yuan. Game Science's programmers only needed to test compatibility and bugs.

……

Luo Bingjie is a sophomore at Zhengzhou University. She had never played computer games before.

She logged onto Renren.com last night to catch up on a novel. The novel she liked wasn't included in the official version of the story-sharing game, but she found it even more moving than the official version.

To this end, she even joined a group to discuss the novel and talked with the author about the plot every day.

It was very engaging!

She also particularly liked "The Wind Rises," as if it were a theme song specially made for this novel.

Of course, readers who enjoy other novels also consider "The Wind Rises" to be the theme song for the novels they follow.

The lyrics of "The Wind Rises" are very vague and can be applied to various youth romance novels!
Last night, several friends in the novel discussion group recommended that Luo Bingjie play "Happy Farm". Although she doesn't like playing games, she had to give her friends face, so she started playing it without really understanding why.

Then Luo Bingjie discovered that the friends who invited her to play "Happy Farm" weren't kindly sharing the game. Instead—they wanted to steal the crops she had painstakingly grown!
What a bastard.

Before she could even react, her first batch of vegetables was stolen by her mischievous friends, leaving her with only the bare minimum.

As soon as the morning classes ended, Luo Bingjie rushed towards the dormitory, and quite a few of her classmates followed suit.

The teacher stood on the podium and asked curiously, "What activities does the school have?"

One student laughed and said, "They have to rush back to harvest the vegetables."

"Harvesting vegetables?" The teacher was completely confused.

Back in my dorm, I turned on my computer.

Looking at her farm, Luo Bingjie roared in despair, "Aaaaaah... It's all been stolen! I want to kill someone!"

When she planted vegetables again, she discovered the task system:
"Dear Happy Farm players, in order to let more people enjoy the fun of harvesting (and having their crops stolen), you can help with promotional tasks."

"Happy Farm is now available on Youke Interactive Games. You can generate ten invitation codes every day to invite your real-life friends to register Youke accounts. For every person who registers on Youke Interactive Games, you can receive two Golden Apple Seeds in Happy Farm on Renren.com. Remember, the same IP address can only help you complete the task a maximum of three times on Youke."

Luo Bingjie clicked to view the "Golden Apple Seed" and her eyes lit up instantly.

This item is not for sale; it can only be obtained by completing tasks. She read the task instructions and quickly clicked the link to the Youke Interactive website. Then, using her invitation code, she directly registered three accounts and immediately returned to the school's intranet to claim six Golden Apple Seeds.

You can continue to register a new Youke account, but because the IP address is the same, you will no longer be able to receive the task rewards.

Luo Bingjie quickly recommended it to several friends on Renren.com, but the replies she received were:

"Why is someone recommending this again? It's so annoying."

"I've already registered, you're too late!"

"I'm busy today."

"..."

After thinking for a moment, she logged onto QQ and contacted her old high school classmate.

After asking around, I only sent out five invitation codes.

There are only two left.

She picked up her phone and dialed her home landline. Her mother answered: "Hello, Mom... Yes, I'm doing well at school. It's not that I'm short of living expenses... Okay, okay, is your brother home? Oh, he's already home from school. Can you give him the phone?"

He then lowered his voice and said, "Hey, bro, don't make a lot of noise... I recommend a really fun game that won't interfere with your study time... Yes, log in to QQ, and I'll give you the invitation code and the website... Remember, don't let your parents find out."

After hanging up the phone, Luo Bingjie remembered something else.

She planted seeds in the "Happy Farm" game on Renren.com, and then logged into the "Happy Farm" game on Youke Interactive. The three Youke accounts added each other as friends, and all could steal each other's crops.

Haha, now I have four farms! I'm such a clever little devil!
Luo Yuntao is still in junior high school this year. He felt confused when he received the call from his sister.

My sister doesn't play games.

While his mom was cooking and his dad wasn't home for lunch, he sneaked into his parents' room and turned on the computer.

With the website address and invitation code given to him by his sister, Luo Yuntao registered an account on Youke Interactive Games and then entered "Happy Farm" to plant vegetables, fertilize, and water them.

Not knowing what to do next, Luo Yuntao went to Youke's forum and found that all the users were new users asking to add him as a friend.

Luo Yuntao added a few friends, and one of them told him that "Three Kingdoms Kill" was a lot of fun, so he clicked to download it. It was a game he had never heard of before.

The internet speed is too slow; it won't finish downloading in a while.

Luo Yuntao discovered that his Youke account could also generate invitation codes, allowing him to earn task rewards by inviting friends.

He tiptoed to the landline and called his classmate's house: "Hello, Uncle You, this is Luo Yuntao... I have a math problem I'd like to ask your son You Hao... Yes, could you please have him answer the phone?"

"You Hao? Keep your voice down... I'm going to tell you about a really fun game..."

I made several phone calls, and my mom called me to dinner.

"I'll look up some study materials on the computer right away!"

Luo Yuntao rambled on for a while, then ran back to his parents' room and sat down in front of the computer, only to be dumbfounded.

His first harvest of crops had already been stolen, leaving only the bare minimum!

Frustrated, Luo Yuntao went to the farms of the friends he had randomly added earlier and finally saw a plot of land that was ripe but had not been harvested.

Haha, I stole it too.

"Dinner's ready!" My mom was standing at the door sometime during the day.

Luo Yuntao was so frightened that he almost jumped out of his skin and hurriedly closed the webpage.

His mother thought he was browsing pornographic websites and scolded him, "Open the webpage you just closed!"

Luo Yuntao forced himself to open the webpage and explained, "Mom, I wasn't looking at anything unhealthy, I was just playing a little game. This game doesn't take much time, it's just about planting, harvesting, and stealing vegetables."

My mom looked suspicious.

Luo Yuntao stood up and made way for him: "Try it yourself if you don't believe me."

After Mom sat down, she didn't play games; instead, she checked her browser history. Her husband taught her this, specifically to deal with the kids.

After confirming that she hadn't visited any pornographic websites, Mom finally felt relieved.

Luo Yuntao said, "Mom, this game is really fun. I'll help you register an account, and you can also add friends on the forum. This is my invitation code; I'll send it to you so you can do tasks... You can play right after registering... This is the in-game store, but you don't need to recharge. You can get free regular seeds and low-level fertilizer every day..."

Under her son's guidance, the mother became more and more enthusiastic about playing, but soon realized what was happening and said, "Go eat quickly, and then go to school early!"

"Oh." Luo Yuntao left silently.

My mom, however, was having a blast. She even copied down the generated invitation code and the website address of Youke Huyou.

In the afternoon, I arrived at the company.

The mother said to her colleague, "Sister Gui, there's a really fun online game. I can give you an invitation code to register an account."

"You still play online games?" Sister Gui looked at her with a look of disbelief.

My mom said, "Seriously, it's really fun. When I get home tonight, I'm going to recommend it to my husband, Lao Luo... You should try it, it's free."

"Really, it doesn't cost any money?" Sister Gui asked.

"You can spend money to play, but you can also play without spending money."

"Okay, I'll give it a try."

Another middle-aged woman has been dragged into this mess.

That evening, the Luo couple played games for a while before going to sleep.

In the middle of the night, the husband sneaked out of bed, turned on the computer, and stole his wife's virtual farm.

Then, pretending nothing had happened, they went back to bed and continued to sleep soundly.

(End of this chapter)