Cannon Fodder Genius Game Producer - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: The 20th Day of a Blockbuster

Inside the conference room of Jixing Studio, the big shots of the studio—Project Manager Wang Fei, Lead Client Programmer Chen Shan, and Numerical Planning Lead Li Sheng—were already seated.

Although today’s Super God update accident was resolved urgently, it remained the most significant malignant incident in Jixing Studio’s history.

From the PC era to the current era dominated by mobile platforms, Jixing Studio had accumulated extensive experience in developing, operating, and releasing hit games. The studio had its own set of formulas to calculate the support and security required for game launches or expansion update tests.

With over twenty years of experience providing escort, not just Jixing, but all projects under the Universal Group had gone years without a “crash upon launch” event.

No one expected this to happen during the release of Jixing’s Super God new expansion.

Furthermore, the accumulated BUGs and various crises were by no means a simple server crash.

Wang Fei’s brow was knit tight, and he was completely surrounded by a low-pressure aura.

“So, what can be confirmed so far is that before the final packaging, each module was audited by us respectively. Only after confirming the version content was correct did we proceed with unified packaging.”

Li Sheng, Chen Shan, and the others present also knit their brows and nodded.

Wang Fei was nearly laughed into anger: “So this update accident was caused by several of us Super God project leads personally joining forces with outsiders to sabotage our own project update?”

Li Sheng and the others also found it ridiculous. Li Sheng knew for a fact that before the final packaging, he had personally checked the data within the final update package. Having followed through to such an extent, he truly didn’t think any accident would occur before today’s mishap.

The other leads present shared the same sentiment.

These leads at Jixing Studio were not purely management roles detached from the project; every one of them had climbed up from technical positions. In their respective professional fields, their technical foundations were very solid.

If they said there was no problem, then there truly was no problem.

Today’s expansion update accident seemed utterly absurd to them. Some of the BUGs discovered in the end did not have a 100% trigger probability; in fact, the trigger probability was extremely low.

Yet in today’s update, these BUGs—which were originally of extremely low probability and technically difficult to replicate—were discovered by players as if they were being given away for free.

Lead Client Programmer Chen Shan joked: “This doesn’t look like a proper client; this client looks completely like a BUG collection pack. If we could have a package like this during normal testing, I’d actually be quite happy.”

This remark temporarily lightened the heavy atmosphere in the conference room.

Wang Fei rubbed his forehead and suddenly asked: “Setting aside how this package ultimately replaced our update package, regarding Teacher Bu Shu’s post about someone placing outsourcing orders in advance—do you have any views on this?”

“This is a provocation against Jixing Studio!”

“Aside from that, the other party has absolutely no reason to do this!”

“Those outsourcing orders are a complete humiliation!”

Mentioning this, everyone was extremely furious.

Wang Fei was also fuming. Logically, he knew this could only be orchestrated by a competitor of Jixing Studio. Yet, for some reason, the thought of the set of solutions Lin Cheng had submitted flashed through his mind.

How did those solutions seem like they were prepared long ago?

Although Wang Fei also felt his own thought was absurd, he still spoke up: “Regarding that Lin Cheng, what do you think?”

The topic shifted abruptly. Li Sheng and the others looked at each other, but they all spoke up.

“Currently, it seems the ability is there, but it’s hard to say regarding his character.”

“I’ve also looked deeply into that ‘True and False Producer’ incident. Although the solutions Lin Cheng submitted today were very well-placed, I still believe that Jiang Ziye more. That kid’s work clearly looks like the work of someone who understands games. As for Lin Cheng, I recently called up the documents he was responsible for writing in the studio. From the things he’s handled, they are mediocre and lack spirit. They don’t seem to match the viewpoints he outputted during his interview. I was quite surprised he could provide so many solutions for today’s update accident so promptly.”

“His numerical sensitivity is average; I haven’t seen anything special in these past two weeks.”

After everyone in the conference room finished their evaluations, a trace of surprise flashed in their eyes. It seemed that everyone’s true internal assessment of Lin Cheng was quite ordinary.

Wang Fei’s finger tapped on the tabletop, and he said in a deep voice: “I suspect there’s a problem with the solutions he submitted today. It’s possible he has a connection with the mastermind behind this attack on Jixing Studio.”

The people seated immediately became serious—but was it possible? Lin Cheng had only been at the company for half a month. How could he bypass so many eyes to interfere in this incident?

On the way to the conference room, Lin Cheng’s face was somewhat pale. He kept calling out to the system in his mind: The people at Jixing won’t find out I swapped the update package, will they?!

Ding, The swapping of the update package was handled by the system. Jixing Studio cannot trace the source.

Lin Cheng had just breathed a sigh of relief when the system issued the next prompt.

Ding, The system cannot guarantee absolute safety for the Host’s actions in the real world.

Lin Cheng’s face turned green on the spot. Then his operations on the network…

In the Daonan Road apartment, after uploading the post, Pei Shu was quietly waiting for the incident to ferment.

There are many technical players on the internet. Previously, no one noticed, but once players took notice, someone naturally followed the clues Pei Shu left behind, starting from the anonymous poster in the WG outsourcing transaction group to dig deeper into the details.

Watching the netizens’ progress, Pei Shu stretched slightly, and then saw a message from Jiang Ziye on WeChat.

Midnight 30: Teacher Bu Shu, is it Lin Cheng?

Pei Shu smiled and didn’t hide it: How did you think of that?

Midnight 30: …It really is him. Teacher Bu Shu, I can’t explain it, but there really is something weird about this Lin Cheng.

Pei Shu: Mm, I know.

There were many flaws in Lin Cheng’s actions. Pei Shu’s post this time was also an attempt to see if there was a chance to expose the problems existing within Lin Cheng to more people.

Would the Plot Will and the system in Lin Cheng allow such a thing to happen?

Pei Shu was very curious about this.

Pei Shu didn’t go into detail about these matters and instead asked Jiang Ziye if his preparations were ready.

Midnight 30: Teacher Bu Shu, don’t worry! My graduation project’s first draft has passed, and I’ve already found a place to stay. I can report to the studio anytime!

Pei Shu: Mm, no rush. Handle your academic affairs well. The studio will likely take about half a month to officially start operating. I’ve discussed the direction of the first game with you. With our studio’s configuration, the combat, numerical values, plot, and systems all need to be completed by us. When you have time, you can do some preparatory work.

Midnight 30: Great! I already have some ideas. I’ll organize them into a document for you to see later!

Looking at Jiang Ziye’s high-energy reply, Pei Shu narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling quite good.

He was originally worried that Jiang Ziye would be unable to emerge from his previous depression, but after clearing the suspicion against him for most people and having a new goal, the young man had recovered rapidly.

What a good kid!

Pei Shu was very satisfied to have picked up such a good employee. He glanced again at the progress of the “detective” deductions by netizens online, and the smile on his face deepened.

On the WG platform’s game forum, the clues and discussions from various “detectives” had all converged here.

This guy who placed the outsourcing orders is either arrogant or stupid. I checked, and the IP addresses are exactly the same—no concealment at all!

Does anyone else find those trolls stirring up drama today a bit weird? They seemed so desperate to trample Jixing Studio down.

Speaking of which, when Jixing Studio was livestreaming the emergency maintenance progress, wasn’t there a group of paid trolls interjecting, looking like they were completely whitewashing Lin Cheng?

Surely not?

I also think it’s unlikely. Mainly, Lin Cheng doesn’t have that much power, right? Using the entire Super God expansion update as a stage to whitewash himself? If he had that capability, I’d have to say I’m impressed.

But I still feel the trolls’ whitewashing of Lin Cheng this afternoon looks wrong. After all, we all know Lin Cheng seemed completely uninterested in games during university, yet he produced Crazy Graduation Season? Everyone was suspecting he lacked the ability and relied purely on plagiarism, but during today’s livestream, I saw many people slapping their own faces, saying they’ve cleared their suspicions of Lin Cheng…

Wait, hasn’t someone already found this anonymous user’s IP? Can some big shot check Lin Cheng’s IP?

Checked. The IPs don’t match.

Sigh, they don’t match… but even if Lin Cheng posted it, he couldn’t be so stupid as to not conceal his IP at all, right?

In fact, Lin Cheng was exactly that stupid.

However, after joining Jixing Studio, he moved from his rented apartment off-campus to an apartment closer to Jixing. The physical relocation changed his network’s IP address.

Thus, he “luckily” avoided the netizens’ tracking of his account IP.

Lin Cheng breathed a massive sigh of relief after the system informed him he had escaped—thank goodness.

But he had only escaped the netizens’ suspicion; the high-level management of Jixing Studio was currently looking at him. Facing such a lineup, Lin Cheng feigned composure while frantically seeking solutions from the system in his mind.

In the conference room, after Lin Cheng entered, Wang Fei gave him no time and asked directly: “Lin Cheng, what are your thoughts on those outsourcing orders in the WG forum’s transaction group?”

Lin Cheng’s knees nearly buckled at Wang Fei’s question, and he almost blurted out, “It wasn’t me!”

The last trace of logic in his mind stopped him, barely preventing him from speaking the words that were essentially a confession. He quickly recalled the discussions in the studio group before he left and forced himself to stay calm, saying: “It’s a provocation against the studio!”

God knows he hadn’t thought about provocation or non-provocation; he hadn’t even thought this would be exposed. For him, of course, he just did whatever was convenient.

He never imagined he would actually face such a scene.

Wang Fei gave an “Oh” and said in a flat tone: “We were just discussing that you performed exceptionally well during today’s update rescue. You’ve shown a comprehensiveness in your personal abilities—not just in system functions, but in game values, programming, and other areas, you have a sufficiently clear understanding. This is very good.”

Although Wang Fei said “This is very good,” his tone made Lin Cheng feel that nothing about it was good at all.

This Wang Fei—he had called Lin Cheng in for a lecture when the “True and False Producer” incident first came out. This time, Lin Cheng had clearly made a major contribution, yet no matter how stupid Lin Cheng was, he could tell Wang Fei was suspecting him.

Damn it, with this Wang Fei around, how could his path in Jixing Studio be smooth in the future?

Lin Cheng truly couldn’t understand why the system gave him a mission to enter Jixing Studio. This wasn’t “cool” at all; how could he happily become some King of Games?

While Lin Cheng was grumbling in his heart, the studio big shots present had already asked him a round of questions.

Lin Cheng was very nervous at first, but with their questioning, he actually became more and more relaxed.

The reason was simple: what Wang Fei, Li Sheng, Chen Shan, and the others asked were all related to the BUG analysis of today’s Super God update, mainly analyzing the causes of the BUGs.

These BUG causes had already been listed when the system’s “One-Time BUG Experience Pack” provided the data. At this moment, Lin Cheng called up the analysis content from the “One-Time BUG Experience Pack” in his mind, responding with ease and composure. Later on, he even forgot his initial panic, feeling that these Jixing big shots weren’t that hard to deal with.

While casually answering Wang Fei and the others’ questions, Lin Cheng asked the system in his mind: That Wang Fei—is there a way to get rid of him?

After answering all the questions, Wang Fei said to Lin Cheng: “Alright, nothing else. You can go out now.”

Once Lin Cheng left the conference room, Wang Fei’s face suddenly darkened.

“There is definitely a problem!”

The group of big shots who were just being amiable and full of praise toward Lin Cheng all had their expressions turn somber now.

Lin Cheng himself was completely unaware. Although the questions Wang Fei and the others asked seemed only related to today’s Super God expansion BUGs, to completely explain the causes of those problems, one would necessarily need a very deep understanding of Super God’s overall systems and functional details.

Including the questions Li Sheng just asked regarding the numerical balance of various classes in Super God—this was confidential even within the project team. Only planners responsible for a single module could temporarily apply to query them when they needed data support.

Yet when Lin Cheng answered these questions, he spoke with absolute fluency as if he knew them by heart.

Where exactly did he get this data?

It was almost as if someone had laid out Super God’s core system design and all functional and numerical plans in front of him and had him memorize them.

“Was this update accident really related to him? But how long has he been at the company? He doesn’t belong to the Super God group either; he had no channel to access the relevant materials before the update.”

Wang Fei shook his head: “Even if he didn’t do it, he definitely has a connection with the people behind it.”

“Then what should we do? Fire him?” Chen Shan asked.

Wang Fei’s finger tapped the tabletop, and he said in a deep voice: “Let’s hold our ground for now. Let’s see if we can draw out who is behind him—to actually spend so much to attack Super God and Jixing.”

Li Sheng couldn’t help but mock: “Who else could it be? People from Alice or Xingyun!”

Alice, Xingyun, and Universal are known as the three giants of the game industry. Each has a “Super S-rank” national pillar game: Universal Jixing Studio’s Super God, Alice’s Xian Yu, and Xingyun’s Magic and Sword.

The three games are of different genres, yet they are subtly rivals.

When anyone speculated on who would attack Super God and Jixing, the first thought was: It should be Alice or Xingyun.

Wang Fei didn’t speak; he didn’t quite agree with this guess. Alice, Xingyun, and Universal had fought each other for too many years; even if they weren’t at the point of knowing each other’s secrets, they could at least be called mutually understood.

Wang Fei didn’t think Alice or Xingyun could do what happened today—if those two had that level of ability, it wouldn’t be three giants as rivals, but one titan with two underlings.

Thinking of this, Wang Fei tapped the table: “Keep this matter confidential. Also, I’ll arrange to isolate Lin Cheng from the project; don’t let him contact too much of our core creative content.”

“Also, have someone check the IP of the person who posted the anonymous transaction posts on the network and compare it with Lin Cheng’s private network IP. If they match, keep it as evidence. Also, check the transactions of the trolls and water army on the network today; keep all evidence. We can use it as material for a lawsuit anytime later.”

After Wang Fei finished giving these instructions, there was a knock at the conference room door. Wang Fei’s assistant entered and said softly: “Brother Wang, the Group Director wants to see you. There’s a group executive meeting in 30 minutes.”

Wang Fei frowned, nodded, and responded: “Alright.”

In the conference room, the big shots who were sitting peacefully all became tense upon hearing who wanted to see Wang Fei.

“Old Wang!”

Every face was full of worry.

Wang Fei looked at his old friends in the room and finally shook his head to stop them: “Today’s update accident was so severe; it’s normal for the group to hold someone accountable. If there is a problem, I should bear it.”

Li Sheng and the others present had worried expressions—since the founding of Jixing Studio, the positions of studio lead and project manager had always been held by the capable.

Each project manager held significant authority, including but not limited to salary authority, bonus authority, and member promotion authority. As the Universal Group grew larger, more and more purely management roles appeared. These professional managers, entering Universal from other non-gaming industries, were all trying to find ways to seize this authority and interest after learning about it.

Even Jixing Studio’s projects were inevitably encroached upon by these managers. Only Wang Fei’s Super God, by virtue of being a Super S-rank project, served as the pride and backbone of Jixing and had never been touched by those professional managers.

But this time… if Wang Fei truly stood his ground against the executives and refused to yield any interest, the only result would be…

“I resign.”

After returning to his workstation, Lin Cheng looked triumphantly at the mandatory mission: Slap the doubters who think Lin Cheng has a problem in the face, increase Life Satisfaction. The progress reached 50%, and the mission settled.

The system, as desired, gave him a choice of mission rewards.

A: A complete set of files for Teacher Bu Shu. B: Wang Fei’s life trajectory shift: Resign from Jixing Studio.

Lin Cheng naturally chose B without hesitation.

That day, an explosive piece of news broke in Jixing Studio—Super God Project Manager Wang Fei resigned as a gesture of taking responsibility for the Super God update accident.

Simultaneously with Wang Fei’s resignation, the water army Lin Cheng contacted pushed the topic of Jixing Studio oppressing capable members back to the top, while guiding the conversation toward the fact that Teacher Bu Shu once worked at Jixing Studio.

Lin Cheng no longer had the panic he felt before entering the conference room in the afternoon. He began to guide the topics online and stir up trouble.

After returning from the conference room to his workstation in the afternoon, he had extracted more details from many people about what kind of person Pei Shu was.

He was just waiting. When the topic of Teacher Bu Shu reached its peak, he would throw this information out to completely overturn the lofty image Teacher Bu Shu had recently built in the minds of netizens—by then, his mission to slap Teacher Bu Shu would be easily completed. Why waste a system option on some complete set of files?

Satisfied with himself, Lin Cheng failed completely to notice that the company IP and network he was using were already under full monitoring. The information he arrogantly used to contact the water army on the company computer was being completely saved. Even in the phone he had plugged into the company computer to charge, background monitoring software had been quietly installed.

In the Daonan Road apartment, Pei Shu was also stunned when he saw the news of Wang Fei’s resignation.

After an afternoon of observation, he clearly saw the netizens’ discussion being led astray; it seemed no one was focusing on Lin Cheng’s information anymore, and no more information was coming out of Jixing Studio.

Pei Shu confirmed the thought in his heart—the Plot Will and Lin Cheng’s system were enough to help him cover up many brainless actions.

But…

No matter how much the Plot Will and the system helped, Pei Shu had already seen through to Lin Cheng’s stupid true colors.

As he bit by bit figured out Lin Cheng’s weaknesses and the support behind him, a plan to completely deal with Lin Cheng formed in Pei Shu’s mind—though this plan still needed some time.

Until then, he would first tease him a bit, letting this Lin Cheng live in a constant state of being startled.

With this thought, Pei Shu opened the WeChat contacts on his phone and sent a message to Wang Fei.

Pei Shu: Old Wang, I’ve started a game studio. Interested in joining?

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