The Game Cafe in Marvel and DC

81 – Unprecedented Growth

While I left Joshua to the poor bastards who decided to take his lessons, I greeted every new and old customer who visited the Cafe. I even saw Poison Ivy return, apparently successful with whatever she was doing.

"So, you plan on making a backup plan for the planet and all of the Flora and Fauna that call it home?" I asked Ivy, curious.

"Yes, Swamp Thing and I have spent the last week focused on gathering as many samples and seeds as possible. However, I've run into a few issues," Ivy began.

"Like?" I asked.

"The main issue is supplies. If we want to guarantee or significantly raise our chances, we will need to build dozens of these Vaults, but just making a Geck is...expensive," She answered, making me chuckle. "I bet I never would have guessed you would have managed to reverse-engineer the technology so quickly, but this Earth is nowhere near the level of Nuclear Technology that Fallout was at. My suggestion? Ask the League for help. Sure, you might have a bad history with them, but if you explain and show off what you are doing and explain why, they'd likely actually help you," I suggested.

"And let them ruin everything? No," She spoke seriously, making me shrug.

"Understandable, they certainly are not good at keeping secrets," I spoke humorously.

"I'm guessing you are going to dive back into Fallout and continue your research?" I asked, getting a nod. Then, I suggest you look into more vaults across the Fallout Games. There are many vaults that ran interesting experiments that would help your cause, and there are many Pre-War companies and groups that were researching and developing technology that would no doubt be useful to you," I suggested.

"Any hints?" She asked.

"Hmm," I  taped my pointed claw on the tip of my head plate.

"Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 76 will have some of the technology you will need," I suggested, thinking back to when I finally put in Fallout 76, which has been running only for a week now and had some players venturing through the Appalachian Wastes.

"Thank you for the advice," Ivy thanked me before walking away to get in her hours for the day.

I suggested those games because of the Think Tank, Garry Vault, Spore Plant Vault, Autonomous Miners, and so much more that were scattered across the three games. If she could research the cloning machines in the Garry Vault, she could easily use them to greatly decrease the size of the storage warehouse she and Swamp Thing would have to build, as the Cloning Machine would only need a bit of DNA or some plant matter to clone Flora or Fauna at the cost of great energy. I honestly thought her idea was good, and with the  Green helping her, they'd have a good chance of guaranteeing the survival of not only the human race but every plant and creature that called Earth home as well. If she worked with Victor as well, they could even make some of these Vaults of theirs capable of lasting millennia, maybe even Eons if they are lucky.

I announced this morning that I'd implement a six-hour gaming policy for the cafe. While I received some negative comments about it, I received far more positive ones. Before, those with a lot of karma or cash spent the entire day in the store on the computers, essentially locking half of my computers to those customers for the day. This made the line of people waiting for a turn unusually long and sometimes even stagnant, as only a few people would get off after a few hours.

Now that customers only had six hours to play on the VR Computers daily, rotations were much more frequent, meaning more customers went out instead of staying inside, waiting, and taking up space. It was a vicious cycle, and after yesterday, I realized that it was the best course of action, as otherwise, I would be dealing with a packed Cafe. That does not mean I haven't expanded my cafe, again, because I did. Now had close to five hundred computers, a larger cafeteria area, and now had people using the Cafe's Gym.

At this rate, the Cafe would resemble more a mall than any sort of Cafe. Luckily, I have gotten even better at splitting my mind. I have over a dozen clones now, both working on games and helping me manage the cafe. Speaking of which, I was nearly finished with the games I had, finishing off Elder Scrolls, with only ESO, Elder Scrolls Online, and final details remaining.

At this point, I had many games available in the Cafe, such as Resident Evil, Minecraft, Elder Scrolls, Bioshock, Ark Survival Evolved, Stardew Valley, Fallout, Project Zomboid, and Infamous.

I had various items and goods for sale in both the Credit Store and the Cafe's general goods.

Examples include the herbs and modern guns from Resident Evil, the foods and exotic goods of Minecraft, and the spell scrolls, tomes, and artifacts of Elder Scrolls. I already knew that some...unscrupulous figures were buying my general goods in bulk. Mostly, the medicinal goods, such as Stimpaks, Herbs, Sierra Madre Martinis, Battle Tartares, Broths of Enlightenment, Medical Brews, and so much more.

Based on the way some of these figures moved, talked, or reacted, I figured that I had the League of Assasins', led by Ra's Al Ghul, attention now. If I had their attention, I probably had the Triads, Hydras, and the other evil organizations' attention as well. I had no doubt that their use of my products would cause me problems later on, but it's not like I'd stop them from purchasing the goods. For example, while Lex Luthor was a villain and had a serious hate boner for Superman, his best interests still lay with humanity.

That does make me wonder why I haven't been approached by any of them. The only one who had was Fury, though he had not approached me himself yet and instead used two of his agents, Hawkeye and Black Widow. I also noticed that the number of his operatives visiting my cafe every day was increasing. By my count, around a dozen SHIELD agents were visiting my cafe daily.

However, I wonder how Fury will react to the new games coming to the store.

Those games? Subnautica, Gears of War, and Diablo.

The first Subanautica game features one Ryley Robinson. Ryley is the sole survivor of a spaceship crash on an Aquatic alien planet with very little landmass above the water. This means most of the playthrough involves the player exploring an aquatic environment. It would certainly be a unique experience for the players, though that would mean quite a few players will likely get thalassophobia and fear of the ocean due to the creatures calling the ocean home. Meanwhile, Subantuica Below Zero, features another character finding themselves on the same planet two years later. I had three clones already working on the two games, and I planned to expand them and refine them to a realistic detail.

The second set of games was none other than a series of games that I played throughout my childhood and teenage years, Gears of War. An Earth-like planet named Sera was filled with unusually strong and muscular people who were nearly exact in appearance to Humanity. These Serans were hardened by war and violence, and with their planet's higher gravity, many of their warriors resembled bodybuilders than normal people. 

Other than that, the planet had another intelligent race of mutated humans hidden below the surface called the Locast Hoard. These humans were mutated by the planet's unique power source, Imulsion, and foreign DNA. In the first game, the players watch as D-Day occurs, and the Locusts invade the surface for seemingly no known reason. There are plenty of secrets and lore of the world that the players will find as they play, but due to the linear path of the story, I did not have to worry much about the world outside the story. However, I still wanted to create an entire world outside of the campaign for those who beat the game on the hardest difficulty as an added bonus.

The last game series, is one I had never played before, but I knew to be loved by many people in my old world. As far as I knew, Diablo was your typical roguelike action RPG game though one with a story. 

I had a bit of work ahead of me, but it should prove to be an interesting experience.