EWN CH10
#Polaris Game Company’s CEO Appears in SkyShark Game’s Livestream, Donates Over a Million Federal Credits in Two Hours—But Why?!#
#”Ruins of the Future: 2100″ Suspected of Plagiarism?!#
#Polaris’ New Game Set to Launch Across Major Platforms#
#Polaris Game Company CEO Speaks Out on Plagiarism Allegations…#
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It was already late at night.
Yet, the offices of the Emperor Penguin Group were still brightly lit—especially the gaming department.
Department head Xu Huan looked at the trending topics with a grim expression.
What he feared most had come true.
He had hoped the Polaris CEO wouldn’t be a tough nut to crack—but he was.
He never mentioned Emperor Penguin Group by name,
But every sentence was targeted at them.
Xu Huan could already imagine how much attention this guy would stir up with hot search trends before the competition even started.
And just tonight, he had spent millions of federal credits on livestream gifts.
The entire streaming community in the Daxia Federation was in an uproar.
From that alone, it was clear that Polaris wasn’t short on funds. From what Xu Huan knew, Polaris had about 60 million federal credits in total, and they had already burned through most of it. These millions that suddenly appeared could only have come from their game partner fully backing Zhao Ming.
“Cyber Blue Planet: 2077” was already a lost cause.
All that was left was the mysterious new game on Polaris’ official website.
That made Xu Huan furrow his brows even tighter.
What kind of game would have the confidence to still challenge them?
He couldn’t figure it out.
Xu Huan felt increasingly agitated. Damn it.
He hated people like this—eccentric, unpredictable, and completely unforecastable.
Xu Huan stood up and walked out of his office.
Looking at the still-busy team, he asked:
“Any updates?”
“Any new information?”
His assistant stood up to report:
“Director, nothing useful yet.”
“The Polaris official site hasn’t been updated, except they added a countdown timer.”
“We collected everything he said while sending gifts on livestreams this afternoon.”
“But still nothing useful. All we know is the game will launch after the competition starts.”
Xu Huan snapped:
“Isn’t that just obvious?!”
“What about those we sent to get close to Polaris employees?”
“Any word from them?”
The assistant shook their head:
“Nothing either.”
“We reached out to everyone, but after Hao Wen was taken in, no one dares to talk.”
“Also…”
“But based on what we did hear from Hao Wen, the game was supposedly made in a single day.”
“After finding out their game had been plagiarized, Zhao Ming locked himself in his office for a day.”
“By the time the company partner arrived, the game seemed to be already finished.”
“But that’s all we know—Hao Wen had already been beaten half to death by then.”
Hearing that, Xu Huan felt a headache coming on.
One day?!
One day?!?!
Are you f***ing kidding me?
A game made in a single day dares to go head-to-head against the one they spent 500 million federal credits to imitate?
How unbelievably confident is this guy?!
“Keep digging!”
“Search using their game’s name from the official website!”
“Add a new DLC to Ruins of the Future: 2100—one where the world falls into a Second Great War.”
“Get it done before noon tomorrow! Start pushing out promotions!”
“This game cost 500 million credits. If Polaris beats us, everyone’s out of a job!”
If they spent 500 million to plagiarize and still got crushed at the Anti-War Game Expo, not only would Xu Huan’s reputation be ruined, but so would Emperor Penguin Group’s.
He couldn’t imagine the consequences if Polaris won the award.
There was an 80% chance he’d be fired as department head.
“And one more thing.”
“Go hire paparazzi—buy up some celebrity scandals.”
“Flood the trends with those stories.”
“Losing a few B-list celebs is better than letting Polaris steal the spotlight.”
“Go! Now!”
Xu Huan had no idea what kind of emergency PR chaos was going on at Zhao Ming’s end.
But the hype was skyrocketing.
Watching the emotional value increase rapidly in his system, Zhao Ming couldn’t stop smiling.
With more emotional value, he could continue upgrading the game.
He just unlocked a batch of WWII reference materials and made further optimizations to the Normandy Landing mission.
The rule that said dying 100 times would promote you to assault boat commander stayed the same.
But the promotion requirement of killing 10 enemies in one battle was lowered to 5—to reduce difficulty.
After all, if no one could rank up, players would direct their frustration toward him.
But with a slightly easier requirement…
Some naturally gifted players would become commanders earlier. When the game starts, those who qualify as boat commanders would be given 10 regular players on their boat.
And those commanders? Oh, they’d definitely act smug.
But the game is hard.
No matter how you command, it’s cannon-fodder fate.
But with player-commanders taking the heat…
Zhao Ming could already imagine what those 10 regular players would say:
[WTF!!]
[Do you even know how to command?!]
[What the hell are you doing?!]
[Are you brain-dead or what?!]
[You f*ing idiot!!!]**
Redirecting player anger toward each other.
Tsk…
I’m such a genius.
If Shen Qinghan knew what Zhao Ming was thinking, she’d give him a thumbs up.
When it comes to scheming, you’re unmatched.
Though Zhao Ming had never played games before, he had tried several from Blue Star over the past two days, and downloaded data on popular Earth-based shooting games.
Now, he had a decent understanding of gaming.
That’s why he felt confident about the game he made—“World War II: Rise of Empires.”
However, there was an issue with the game’s approval.
The Next Day – Polaris Game Company, Zhao Ming’s Office
Zhao Ming looked over a document handed to him by Shen Qinghan, then signed it and passed it back.
It was the game launch agreement.
Once the rest of the problems were solved, the game could go live at any time.
The only current problem was the CG (cinematic).
Shen Qinghan said:
“Thanks to the packaging and your twisted reasoning,”
“The game has passed review by the Audit Bureau.”
“But the CG was rejected—they want a redo. Reason: the CG overly glorifies war and imperialism.”
“You’ll need to tone it down.”
“Especially that… ‘Emperor of the Empire’ thing.”
She had watched the game CG a few times—it featured the Minister of Propaganda from the Third Empire, delivering a stirring speech in a grand auditorium to tens of thousands of people, riling them up for war.
Clearly, that wasn’t going to fly.
Although the dark tones did convey the oppressive and terrifying nature of that empire…
Still…
It went against the six major federations’ current anti-war ideology.