Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 18: Lincoln's Guarantee

Camille Victoria immediately shared Lincoln's video and didn't forget to share it in her fan group and send it to some friends as well.

She wanted to tell everyone the good news right away, especially the disabled gamers.

The news spread quickly within the disabled community, and Lincoln's fan number skyrocketed instantly, soaring without stopping.

Every time it was refreshed, it would rise by more than a hundred thousand!

People in real life might not pay much attention to the disabled around them and subconsciously think there aren't many of them.

But actually, this is a typical survivorship bias.

How many disabled people are there in Daxia?

Over 85 million, accounting for 6.2% of the total population, 6 out of every 100 people!

When these people suddenly surfaced and rushed to one place, it immediately caused a serious consequence.

The Spiritual Rhinoceros Operation and Maintenance lost their annual bonus.

That's right, Spiritual Rhinoceros' server crashed once again.

Another three minutes passed, and everything was back to normal.

However, the topic had now shifted a bit:

"Since Lincoln can transmit his consciousness to the virtual world, it can't be harder than this for the brain to precisely control the movement of prosthetic limbs, right?"

Lincoln also considered this issue.

In fact, he noticed it not long after the disabled community started speaking up on Spiritual Rhinoceros.

Then he began to think about the problem.

How difficult is it in terms of technology?

Not much.

Even if Mavis didn't have the ready-made blueprints, he could create one with the technology he had in hand.

But this issue is different from making a game, the difficulty lies not in technology but in operations.

Disabled people don't have a one-size-fits-all physique. They have different heights, ages, body shapes, and disabilities. This means that every product needs to be adjusted according to the individual's specific physical condition during installation.

This requires opening a large number of stores, recruiting and training a large number of staff, and continuously innovating technology.

Yes, and also complicated after-sales care. When a child grows taller in a year, the prosthetic limb needs to be adjusted accordingly.

This is just a matter of a snap of a finger, and there might be even more unforeseen issues.

It involves too many complicated matters, and it's not something he can simply solve.

But a game is much simpler. He designs the blueprints and standardized processes, and directly places an order with an unmanned factory.

The fully automatic assembly line starts working, and within a week, the products can be shipped out of the factory.

At most, he will handle some handover matters.

So his best choice is to turn off the computer and go to sleep immediately, pretending he didn't see this troublesome issue.

The online discussion continues to spread endlessly.

People with some scientific and medical knowledge began to popularize the shortcomings of the prosthetic limbs currently on the market: the inconvenience of myoelectric signal control, the invasiveness of implanted brain-computer interface prosthetic limbs, the high price, and the weak neural signal strength, resulting in unsatisfactory actual usage effects.

They have started discussing if such non-implanted brain-controlled prosthetic limbs can really be achieved, how effective they would be if they can be achieved, and whether the cost would be high or not.

Numerous netizens started discussing stories about their elders, children, and friends suffering from disabilities.

Countless netizens lamented, "I've never seen so many disabled people in my life."

***

"Chirp, chirp~" Countless people's special attention notifications sounded.

Lincoln's Spiritual Rhinoceros account, which had already surpassed 8 million followers, suddenly posted a new update.

"Brain-controlled prosthetic limbs can be achieved in terms of technology, but it takes time, and many issues cannot be solved by me alone. However, I can assure you that I will definitely make it happen. Please be patient and wait for a while."

Being too hateful of those who bully the weak and too sympathetic to the misfortune of the weak is often the source of pain for many kindhearted people.

Lincoln was like this in his previous life and is still like this now.

So, while he could scold NetDragon without any hesitation, he couldn't stand idly by when he saw so many pitiful people.

But he really couldn't squeeze out any more time. These days, he had been working day and night on the game and was almost exhausted.

As soon as he woke up tomorrow, there would be a pile of things to be busy with.

Registering the studio, hiring people, determining suppliers, a small-scale test for "Traveler of the Wind", and putting the new game on the agenda, countless tasks to accomplish.

Brain-controlled prosthetic limbs can only be postponed and launched when he becomes stronger, and by then, the efficiency will be higher.

As for where the startup funds will come from, he already had an idea.

He doesn't plan to accept any investment, and the studio must be completely in his control.

So he plans to start pre-orders directly.

Considering the current online popularity and players' expectations, the pre-order quantity will definitely explode directly.

Well, in other words, Lincoln is about to start harvesting the traffic leeks!

He has already decided to sell the virtual reality gaming machine for only ten thousand yuan per set.

This price is only one-fifth of the average price of a full VR equipment set on the market, and one-eighth of the NetDragon equipment.

He has even planned in advance for a subsequent price reduction plan: as long as the startup phase's financial problems are solved, even if the product is iteratively upgraded, the price will only decrease, not increase, unless hardware costs skyrocket.

One of the main reasons for this situation is that Lincoln has significantly streamlined the hardware equipment, especially the biggest and most expensive component, the omnidirectional treadmill, which has been directly kicked off the gaming machine component list.

So even though it's priced at ten thousand yuan per set, the profit margin is still very large.

One set for ten thousand yuan, 8 million fans buying one set each, and a direct income of 800 small goals! Instant retirement!

After stopping the meaningless daydream, Lincoln pondered that it would be best to set up the studio first. Once he hires a professional market manager, he can let him pick the collaborative factory, so he doesn't have to run himself, great plan!

At most, let Mavis supervise, and there's no need to worry about any problems.

Lincoln's post undoubtedly stirred up another wave of heated discussion.

The enthusiasm of netizens did not fade, and Lincoln's fan number continued to rise rapidly.

But Lincoln was a bit fed up and annoyed that NetDragon kept playing dead and not responding.

If you're wrong, admit it. Taking a beating should be done while standing up straight! How is playing dead being a hero?

So before going to bed and washing up, he specially posted another update to disgust NetDragon:

"Almost forgot something, @NetDragon, did you see it? Did you learn it?"

This update immediately reminded the online crowd of the other protagonist in this incident, and the chaos-loving, drama-seeking mentality once again took the high ground.

"@NetDragon, the expert is teaching, come and get educated!"

"@NetDragon, come on, don't miss this opportunity that might not come again!"

"@NetDragon, want to learn? Even if you want to, he won't teach you!"

"Is it possible that NetDragon has already downloaded the video and is now analyzing it frame by frame with a magnifying glass, trying to see if they can learn something?"

"Is there another possibility? That NetDragon won't be able to learn even if they watch it?"

Seeing the netizens whip NetDragon's corpse for fun, Lincoln got up satisfied, planning to take a bath and rest.

Unexpectedly, the door was suddenly knocked on at that moment.

It wasn't a random knocking, but a very polite and gentle one, which didn't sound like fanatical fans or excited media types.

This made him very curious. Apart from these people, who else would come knocking on his door at night?