My Dreamy Old Husband novel Chapter 629

Even though he was away, Michael still paid close attention to Sophia and her company.

He had to admit that Stanley’s game, Soul of Sniper, was a pretty fun game. Whenever he had free time after filming, he would play it. Pretty soon, he watched as the game expanded and its player base grew. The game ranked higher and higher on the charts, and the in-game experience improved. In fact, it was a miracle that such a ragtag team had made it.

The gaming company’s initial investment had been sizable; the powerful servers themselves were already a huge investment. However, their monthly profit was substantial since the game had taken off running, and it was bound to increase even more in the future. He had a feeling that this game would become a classic in gaming history.

However, Michael was unable to log into the game when he started it up a few days later. He wasn’t the only one; everyone around him wasn’t able to log in, so he quickly phoned up Stanley.

After he hung up the call, Michael took a look at the time. It was currently 8.00 PM, which was the game’s peak hour. However, such an incident would definitely have a great impact on the players’ enthusiasm for the game.

The company’s employees must be working overtime since the players were unable to enter the game. Michael wanted to call Sophia and ask about it, but he was also worried that he would end up bothering her while she worked. Hence, all he could do was to silently follow the news.

After a night’s worth of emergency repairs, the servers were finally back to normal. Players could log in again, but a lot of in-game data had been lost.

The first thing Michael noticed was that all of his account’s in-game currency had been lost. He had poured in a lot of money into the game too, having spent hundreds of thousands buying expensive gear. In a single night, all of that premium equipment and currency was gone.

Michael wasn’t the only one; many famous players had their accounts altered. Their equipment and premium currency had vanished as well.

Five days after the server fiasco, Michael realized that his lost equipment had been put up for sale on the black market.

There were black markets for online games too. It had plenty of equipment from various games up for grabs, just like an actual black market in real life. However, this was all online, and the goods were virtual items from games.

Soul of Sniper had been a rising star in the gaming world. It was like a dark horse that enthralled the entire nation in just a short amount of time—there were even talks about expanding the game overseas. There hadn’t been any local shooter games worth playing prior to Soul of Sniper’s arrival; all they had were a bunch of knockoffs aping internationally renowned shooters. Those games were constantly criticized, and the graphics and combat fluidity couldn’t be compared at all. Now that Soul of Sniper was born, it filled in this gap in the market, attracting hordes of fans purely for its high production values.

To top it off, this game was created by an entrepreneurial team; it was said that the brains behind this game were university students too. This ruffled the feathers of several local developers in the industry, making them enemies. Now that Soul of Sniper had been dealt a bad blow, those industry players kept striking them while they were weak. Soon, scores of accounts—some actual, some paid—popped up and began flaming the game. They wanted the gaming company to step up and clarify things. There were even people who came storming up to the company’s doors looking for an explanation.

Soul of Sniper had been continually praised since its launch, and its production values were not like that of other locally-developed shooters. This wasn’t a coincidence; every single line of code had been put together painstakingly by the team. All everyone saw was the buzz it got and the high revenue it was pulling in, but no one saw Sophia working overtime into the night despite the late hours. She had headaches throughout that period, but she still insisted on working every day.

The new game was built successfully with the team working overtime, testing and improving it continuously until it was ready for release. No one thought that it would be stolen just like that.

No one knew just how many of those dissenting voices were paid shills, but to a company new to the business, the negative impact was massive. They were most worried that they would lose their player base, and there was a high chance that they would never be able to rise again after this.

She probably feels helpless now… Maybe she’s already crying in frustration.

Unfortunately, Michael wasn’t in Bayside City. He couldn’t leave this place now, so he hastily called up Sophia.

Soon, Sophia picked up his call. She seemed to be working overtime at the company, for her flats made loud, smacking sounds as she walked across the room. Her steps were rushed with a rhythm to them, and the background was incredibly noisy. He could tell from the background noise that the company was working themselves like donkeys. He took a look at the time and realized that it was already 10.00PM.