The approval from the board had given Team 7 a temporary reprieve, but the reality of the industry quickly set in. They had the product, but they had no stage.
"How much is the marketing budget?" Su Qing asked, scrolling through the company's internal finance app on her tablet.
"Zero," Li Wei groaned, kicking his desk. "Finance department flagged our account. They said all promotional funds are currently locked into the *Frontline Duty* 'Summer Offensive' campaign. We don't even have enough for a single banner ad on the District Net."
Chen Hao looked nervous. "If we launch without ads, no one will see it. It'll just sit in the 'New Releases' section for ten minutes before it gets buried by the simulation games."
Zhong Ming sat on the edge of the desk, sipping a cup of hot water. He wasn't worried. In fact, he had expected this. Zhou Kai might be arrogant, but he wasn't stupid. He had likely pulled strings to starve them of exposure.
"We don't need banner ads," Zhong Ming said calmly. "Banner ads are ignored. They are white noise. In this era of information overload, people have developed blindness to traditional marketing."
"Then how do we get players?" Li Wei asked, throwing his hands up. "Telepathy?"
"We use the players themselves," Zhong Ming replied. He stood up and walked to the main screen. "In the 21st century... I mean, in the golden age of the internet I've studied, the most powerful marketing tool was 'Word of Mouth'. But to ignite that, we need a spark."
He pulled up the interface for the District Net—the local internet used by the citizens of Districts 9 through 12. It was a chaotic mix of news feeds, forums, and video streams.
"We need streamers," Zhong Ming said. "Not the big ones. The big ones are contracted to corporations. We need the hungry ones. The ones playing in internet cafes, the ones looking for the next big thing to boost their viewer count."
He turned to his team.
"Li Wei, can you create a 'Share' function? A simple button that lets players clip the last 15 seconds of their gameplay and upload it directly to the District Net?"
Li Wei frowned. "Technically? Yes. The API is open source. But why 15 seconds?"
"The attention span," Zhong Ming said. "People won't watch a 5-minute review. But they will watch 15 seconds of absolute chaos. They will watch a screen full of enemies exploding. We make the game sell itself."
...
That evening, Zhong Ming made a call to his friend, Zhang Kai.
They met at a small, grimy noodle shop in the lower residential blocks. The air was thick with steam and the chatter of the working class.
"I need a favor," Zhong Ming said, sliding a storage chip across the table.
Zhang Kai picked it up, inspecting it. "What is this? The build?"
"Yes. *Survivor's Dawn*," Zhong Ming confirmed. "We launch tomorrow. We have no budget. I need you to do what you do best."
"I make spreadsheets, Ming," Zhang Kai sighed. "I don't have connections."
"You browse the 'Undernet', don't you?" Zhong Ming asked, referring to the unmoderated forums and community boards that existed outside the corporate-controlled main grid. "You know where the hardcore players hang out. The ones who hate the corporate slop."
Zhang Kai paused, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Maybe."
"I need you to seed this," Zhong Ming said. "Don't post it as an ad. Post it as a leak. A 'glitch' in the system. Tell them it's a game that shouldn't exist. Tell them it looks like garbage but plays like crack."
Zhang Kai grinned. "Guerrilla marketing? That's dangerous. If the company finds out I'm shilling for another studio..."
"It's not another studio. It's *my* studio. And if this works, I'm hiring you," Zhong Ming promised. "Just get ten people to play it. That's all I need. Ten people who are bored out of their minds."
...
**The Next Day – 08:00 PM**
The server for *Survivor's Dawn* went live.
The company's official "Launch Notification" was a simple, text-based email sent to a small list of existing users. It was buried instantly under the flashy, holographic newsletters promoting *Frontline Duty's* new "Desert Storm" map.
In the basement, the team stared at the server monitor.
**Current Players: 0.**
"It's over," Chen Hao whispered. "No one is coming."
"Wait," Li Wei pointed at the screen. "Look at the incoming traffic log. There's a... spike? Coming from a third-party forum?"
Zhong Ming smiled. Zhang Kai had delivered.
On a popular underground forum titled "Gamers Resistance," a thread had appeared.
**Subject: FOUND THIS WEIRD THING ON THE DISTRICT NET - IS THIS A GLITCH?**
*Body: This game looks like it was made 50 years ago. Graphics are trash. But I've been playing for 2 hours and I can't stop. My eyes hurt. Help.*
*Attached: A 15-second clip of a character surrounded by thousands of skeletons, exploding into a shower of gold coins while a synthesizer beat dropped.*
The comments section was initially skeptical.
*User1: Trash graphics. Pass.*
*User2: Wait, look at the enemy count. How is that running on a basic handheld? That would crash my device.*
*User3: Link is broken.*
*User4: No, the link works. Just downloaded it. 50MB? Is it a virus?*
Five minutes later.
*User4: ...Okay, what the hell. I just killed 5,000 bats. Why can't I stop?*
*User5: OP was right. It looks like mud but it feels like heroin.*
*User6: SHARED CLIP: "My Deathless Run". Check out the weapon evolution at 0:08!*
Zhong Ming watched the player counter tick up.
**Current Players: 12.**
**Current Players: 45.**
**Current Players: 120.**
The "Share" function Li Wei had implemented was working. The 15-second clips were designed to be flashy—screen shakes, bright colors, massive numbers. They were visual candy, perfectly formatted for the vertical scrolling feeds of the District Net.
By 10:00 PM, something shifted.
A mid-tier streamer named "CyberRat," known for playing bad games to mock them, decided to try *Survivor's Dawn* on a livestream.
"Alright chat, look at this garbage," CyberRat laughed, showing the pixelated title screen to his 2,000 viewers. "This is what the 'World Architect' of Guangyi came up with? It looks like my grandma's old phone."
He started the game.
For the first five minutes, he made fun of the graphics. "Look at those squares. Is that a sword or a toothpick?"
But then, the swarm hit.
"Whoa! Why are there so many? Move! Move!"
His avatar dodged a sea of green blobs. *Ding. Ding. Ding.*
"Get away from me! Oh, level up! Give me the... uh... the laser!"
His avatar started firing beams of light across the screen. The kill counter skyrocketed.
"YES! DIE! DIE! HAHAHA!"
CyberRat wasn't mocking it anymore. He was leaning forward, sweating, shouting commands at the screen. His chat, initially laughing at him, started getting hype.
*Chat: RAT, PICK THE SPINACH!*
*Chat: This looks lowkey fun?*
*Chat: What is the name of this game?*
*Chat: Link?*
At the 20-minute mark, CyberRat died to a boss. He slammed his desk.
"NO! I had it! I had the build!"
He immediately hit 'Retry'.
"Chat, donate the link. Everyone download this. I need to beat this score. This game is broken."
The server monitor in the basement began to flash red.
**Current Players: 1,500.**
**Current Players: 3,200.**
**Current Players: 4,800.**
"Server load at 60%!" Li Wei shouted, his fingers flying across the keyboard to stabilize the connection. "They're coming in too fast! The login server is choking!"
"Let it choke," Zhong Ming said, his eyes fixed on the climbing numbers. "A queue is good. A queue means demand."
He opened his bracelet interface and checked the new System feature: **[Community Sentiment Analysis].**
A holographic pie chart appeared.
**Positive Sentiment: 82%**
**Neutral: 10%**
**Negative: 8%**
Keywords: *"Addictive," "Just one more run," "Can't stop," "Hidden Gem."*
Zhong Ming felt the rush. It was working. The viral loop was closed. The players weren't just playing; they were competing. They were sharing their scores, arguing about builds, and wondering why a simple pixel game felt more alive than the billion-dollar simulations they were used to.
Suddenly, the door to the basement burst open.
It was Zhou Kai. He looked disheveled, his tie loose, a look of panic on his face. He was holding his own tablet.
"What did you do?!" Zhou Kai shouted. "The network traffic logs are going crazy! You're stealing bandwidth from the main server cluster!"
Zhong Ming turned around, his expression calm.
"We're not stealing bandwidth, Producer Zhou," Zhong Ming said softly. "We're using it. The players are here."
"They're just bots!" Zhou Kai insisted, stepping forward. "You bought bots! I knew you couldn't get real players with that trash!"
"Look at the streamers," Zhong Ming pointed to the monitor. "CyberRat. Viewer count 5,000 and rising. He's playing *Survivor's Dawn*. Not *Frontline Duty*."
Zhou Kai looked at the screen. He saw the pixelated chaos. He saw the chat scrolling faster than he could read.
"This... this is a fluke," Zhou Kai stammered. "It won't last."
Zhong Ming checked the player count again.
**Current Players: 8,100.**
"It doesn't need to last forever," Zhong Ming replied. "It just needs to last the night. We're just getting started."
He looked at Zhou Kai, and for the first time, the corporate shark saw a fire in the young man's eyes that he couldn't extinguish.
"Get out of my office, Zhou. We're busy."
Zhou Kai stood frozen, unable to comprehend that a basement team with zero budget had just crashed the district's server with a game made of pixels.
As he backed out of the door, Zhong Ming turned back to his team.
"Li Wei, stabilize the server. Su Qing, start sketching the Halloween event skins. We're going to need them."
The era of the "safe" game was over. The era of the "fun" game had begun.