America: My Time

Chapter 23 Slap in the face
Chapter Twenty-Three: Slap in the Face

The idea was good, but reality is cruel! Before the game world opened, all the employees of the game world signed huge breach of contract penalties and non-compete clauses. This immediately weakened Warner Bros.' dark hand. They could ignore the breach of contract penalties, but the non-compete clauses were unacceptable. Unless an agreement could be reached with the game world, employees who resigned voluntarily would be directly bound by the non-compete clauses!

The current head of Warner Bros. is Steve Ross, an old man who is extremely cunning and ruthless. He is furious about the huge loss he suffered in the gaming world this time! If the gaming world continues to develop, it won't be long before Atari, which was acquired at a huge cost, completely collapses, Warner Bros. will suffer heavy losses, and its own position will also be affected!
Warner Bros. doesn't dare to resort to underhanded tactics. John isn't from a small family; he has a powerful family behind him. If Warner Bros. uses normal business methods to deal with John, the family can't say anything or do anything. But if Warner Bros. dares to play dirty tricks, it will definitely face a fierce counterattack from the Bayard family.

A century-old family, its heritage is no weaker than Warner's. Most importantly, Warner dares not offend the public, because the consequences are unbearable. If they dare to break the rules, they will suffer the backlash from everyone protected by the rules!
Warner Bros. couldn't swallow this insult, because they couldn't show weakness. If they didn't even dare to fight back against a junior's provocation, Warner Bros.' reputation would be ruined. They had to fight, no matter the cost, to maintain their prestige.

When the guilds started causing trouble, Warner saw an opportunity and used their power to suppress and smear the game world!
The American guilds are a bunch of bastards, a bunch of attention-seeking bastards. If you pay them any attention, they'll take advantage of you. Now the game world has no choice but to deal with these bastards because it made a huge mistake: no manufacturing company in the entire United States is involved in the production and manufacturing of the game world. This is the biggest problem, the reason the guilds are attacking, and also Warner Bros.' excuse for targeting the game world. And Warner Bros. happens to be a media giant.

With Warner's covert instigation, the guild organizations kept attacking the game world, and other media outlets were equally unafraid of making things worse, frantically reporting on everything in the game world, as if they wanted to take the game world away in one fell swoop and not give it a chance to recover.

Is such behavior useful? Actually, it's not very useful and won't affect the development of the world. The game market survives on quality. No matter how much the media and guilds cause trouble, it won't affect the game world's orders. On the contrary, their crazy promotion will make the game world's reputation grow bigger and bigger!

Seeing that not only had they failed to suppress the game world, but its fame had actually grown, infuriated Warner even more. Soon, with Warner's covert instigation, the game world was besieged by guilds, and the media frantically cooperated with these guilds to put pressure on it!

"Mr. John, don't you think there's a big problem with what the game world is doing? Such a large order, yet not a single local manufacturing company is involved in the production process. Isn't this the game world deliberately being hostile to local companies?"

"Here, I need to clarify something. Your statements are incorrect. It's not that we're unwilling to let local manufacturers participate in the production process, but rather that local manufacturers look down on our small game company. Before the game world even held its press conference, we invited all the local manufacturers to participate in the manufacturing of our game consoles! Unfortunately, not a single company was willing to join. That's the truth, not what you're imagining, that we at Game World are preventing them from participating."

"Hiss! How could this be? He must be lying to us. Things can't be like this!" Some Warner-influenced media outlets are saying.

John sneered inwardly at these people and continued, "Don't even mention domestic manufacturers looking down on Game World; most Japanese manufacturers don't even consider our small company a threat. Game World invited all of Japan's home appliance manufacturers, but only three participated—and those three were authorized by Game World: Panasonic, Sony, and Hitachi. So all your accusations are unfounded. It's not that I'm unpatriotic or don't give American manufacturers a chance; it's that American manufacturers look down on us. The fault doesn't lie with Game World!"

John paused for a moment, then changed the subject and said in a deep voice, "As for the guilds, they're even more ridiculous. They haven't even figured out the truth of the matter before rashly standing up to criticize the game world. Their competence is worrying. If I were a member of their guild, I'd worry about where my membership fees went and whether they even have the ability to protect the interests of their members!"

Although John was telling the truth, not everyone could accept it, especially the media, particularly the WarnerMedia-owned media. They had come here to cause trouble, and naturally, they couldn't just leave like that.

"Mr. John, is it because you didn't explain the situation of the game world clearly, leaving them unaware of the details and leading to their wrong decision?" "Ha! I never expected anyone to say such a thing. I worry about your intelligence and feel sorry for the newspaper industry behind you. If you can't even accept a visit invitation, what's the point of discussing anything else? Do you think corporate secrets can be so easily leaked? When the game world opened, even media outlets that weren't properly notified attended, yet they turned a blind eye. You think the responsibility lies with the game world? That's a joke!"

This time, the guild was in deep trouble, directly facing scrutiny regarding the use of membership fees! In the US, guilds have always been arrogant and domineering, constantly opposing corporations. Before their actions, these guilds didn't take the game world seriously, failing to conduct any thorough investigation. All their information came from Warner Bros. and the media; they believed the game world was invincible against guilds. But they were wrong. They hadn't expected a reckless individual to choose direct confrontation, directly slapping them in the face and leaving them thoroughly humiliated!
Without even understanding the truth, they jumped out to cause trouble, and were immediately questioned about the purpose of the membership fees. This was a slap in the face. Although John didn't directly say they had ulterior motives, this questioning immediately led people to that conclusion, and anyone with a little intelligence would have thought so.

The reason why no local manufacturing company participated in the production of the multi-million dollar order is not the game company itself, but the local companies' arrogance and overconfidence, which led to this result.

When the truth came out, the media was shocked and found it hard to accept. These bastards originally thought they were on a high ground, looking down on the game world, but they never expected things to turn out like this.

The media is unwilling to take any responsibility, even if they did not understand the truth of the matter and made subjective mistakes. They cannot admit it. In this situation, they will naturally try to shift the blame and reduce their own pressure.

Manufacturing companies cannot be offended because they have business dealings with the media and advertise on many media outlets. Therefore, the companies cannot be blamed. The best scapegoat is naturally the guild organization, and they are the first to jump out and cause trouble. If they don't take the blame, who will? The guild immediately became the target of everyone's attacks.

For a time, the media focused their attention on the guilds, as if they had committed heinous crimes. As for Warner, he dared not show his face again, fearing that people would find out about the bad things he had done behind the scenes, and could only swallow the bitter fruit!

Faced with such outrageous accusations, the guild was furious. While they acknowledged their mistakes, they were also 'victims.' Their biggest error was believing the false information provided by that bastard Warner, which led to their current situation of being universally condemned. Now, Warner was hiding behind the scenes, remaining silent, and leaving them to bear all the blame—how could the guild accept this!

Guild Leader Qiang also wanted to shift the blame back to Warner and tell the truth, but no one was willing to speak up for them because Warner is a media giant and a Hollywood giant. No media outlet was willing to offend Warner for these guilds. This is the deterrent power of media giants.

In this turmoil, the guild organization was the 'victim,' but it could only swallow its anger because it was in the wrong first. If it had been a little more rational and paid more attention to the game world, and figured out the truth of the matter, it wouldn't have put itself in such an awkward situation and under so much pressure!

Of course, this pressure is nothing compared to the rest. As long as they ignore it, nothing will happen. Once the storm passes, everything will disappear. If all else fails, they can just send out one or two scapegoats and give them some compensation at most.

Remaining silent at this time is the best option. Since no media outlet is willing to speak out for them, they can only endure it and wait for things to end. Moreover, they believe that Warner won't do nothing, and this storm will soon be over. After all, even a rabbit will bite when cornered, and Warner wouldn't dare to go too far. Guilds also have their pride! If they really push the guild organization to the brink, Warner won't have an easy time either!
(End of this chapter)