Cannon Fodder Genius Game Producer - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The 9th Day of a Blockbuster

The sender of the private message Pei Shu saw was a user named (Midnight 30), a handle that looked a bit “chuunibyou” (edgy/adolescent). He remembered this username; it was a kid who used to frequently leave comments under his unboxing and review videos years ago.

“Plagiarism?”

Pei Shu keenly focused on that word.

In the realm of cultural and creative industries, this is an extremely severe accusation for a creator. Once labeled with it, it becomes a stain that a creator may never be able to wash away for a lifetime.

Pei Shu remained silent for a moment. He didn’t reply to Midnight 30’s message immediately, but instead clicked on the user’s profile.

On (Midnight 30)’s WG personal homepage, there were scattered posts documenting his growth. Around the end of last year or the beginning of this year, he had posted an update stating he wanted to try making a small game.

However, when clicking on the comment section of that post, the comments were entirely negative.

I didn’t expect you to be this kind of person. I used to think you were a great senior, but you’re actually a plagiarizing dog! Plagiarizing dogs shouldn’t talk about trying to make original work, okay?? You actually have the nerve to say you’re the original creator? Senior Lin Cheng’s game was released only 20 days after you posted this update. Are you implying you just had the idea, and Senior Lin Cheng took your concept and finished the planning and production within 20 days? Ziye, if you really did something wrong, don’t be stubborn. Wouldn’t it be better to just apologize? Do you not even have the courage to apologize?

There were many more comments like these. Pei Shu raised an eyebrow as he saw the name “Lin Cheng” mentioned in several of them.

Is it that “Stallion Novel” protagonist?

Pei Shu thought for a moment and searched for the keywords “Lin Cheng, plagiarism” directly in his mobile browser. Several related news items popped up.

Lin Cheng, a Senior at Beijing University of Science and Technology, Creates a Blockbuster Mini-Game! Hit Mini-Game (Crazy Graduation Season) Expected to Win the 2021 WG Platform Rookie Award! A Senior Student Surnamed Jiang at a Beijing University Accused of Plagiarizing Ideas from the Hit Game (Crazy Graduation Season)!

After seeing these reports, Pei Shu confirmed that the Lin Cheng in the news was indeed the protagonist of this world, Lin Cheng. Among the vague memories he received when he woke up, there was a piece of information stating that Lin Cheng created a game called Crazy Graduation Season during university. This game had caused a massive reaction among college students and achieved explosive spread.

Looking at the news photos of Lin Cheng wearing a smug expression, Pei Shu’s eyes grew cold. He originally didn’t care about what kind of life the so-called protagonist would lead. Previously, he hadn’t considered how the protagonist Lin Cheng was able to continuously produce classic game ideas in such a short amount of time in the future.

Now it seemed that in order for this so-called protagonist to have a sufficiently glorious life, there were likely many “cannon fodder” like himself in this world whose original life trajectories had been stripped away.

The good mood from the stream earlier vanished in an instant. Pei Shu’s expression chilled as he opened the private message page with Midnight 30. Before the message Pei Shu had just seen, Midnight 30 had sent him numerous messages intermittently over the past eight years.

Midnight 30: (Peeking.jpg) Teacher Bu Shu! You haven’t appeared in so long. Didn’t you say you were going to do a GM4 unboxing?

Midnight 30: Teacher Bu Shu, I got into my dream high school! Sigh, but my parents said high school work will be much heavier than middle school, and I’m not allowed to play too many games…

Midnight 30: Teacher Bu Shu, I graduated high school and got into a pretty good university! Looking forward to the next four years of university life. Recently, I played through your old games again. I also want to make a game of my own during university…

Midnight 30: Hah, Teacher Bu Shu, let me tell you, life as a university dog isn’t easy either. I thought I’d have more time for games in college, but I’m busy to the point where my feet don’t touch the ground. This isn’t the university life I heard about!

Midnight 30: Teacher Bu Shu, I’m a sophomore now, finally not so busy. I want to try doing something during university, and then I thought of you! I’ve also started trying to do game reviews, and the results are pretty good, hehe!

Midnight 30: Teacher Bu Shu, I’m almost a senior. I scrolled through our old messages; I’ve basically been using this place as a venting hole to chat. Teacher, will you ever come back? Speaking of which, I saw the message I left you in high school saying I wanted to make my own game in college. I want to try again.

Pei Shu scrolled through these messages one by one. It was clear this was a confident and energetic kid who was likely the popular type in university—the kind who, if he were sunny and handsome, might even be a candidate for the “Department Prince.”

Pei Shu glanced at Midnight 30’s WG account. Although his follower count had dropped to less than 30,000, the WG achievement system showed he had already earned the 100k follower achievement. His most popular video had over 2 million views.

This was clearly a rising popular streamer who was just taking a shape, but because of the “plagiarism” incident, his follower count had plummeted.

And that Lin Cheng…

Finally, with a mindset of not wanting to wrongly accuse anyone, Pei Shu searched directly for the exclusive forum of the university Lin Cheng attended. He began browsing through traces related to Lin Cheng as an anonymous visitor.

As a current campus celebrity, Lin Cheng was frequently mentioned as an idol in the university forum, and some people bragged about being his “best bro.”

Does anything even need to be said about Brother Cheng? A genius, badass! He never used to play games before, but the moment he tried, he made a hit! I heard that although the Graduation Season game is free, didn’t it get a lot of product placements later? The income is definitely solid!

I saw with my own eyes when Brother Cheng wrote the proposal. I couldn’t understand the proposal itself, but I could understand that it was badass. When Brother Cheng wrote it, that Jiang Ziye’s game concept hadn’t even been finalized yet, right? He can’t just take some old chat from years ago where he said “I want to make a game about graduation” to prove he didn’t plagiarize, can he?

That Jiang Ziye, he looks decent enough, but what’s the use? He even tried to cause trouble for Brother Cheng. Hehe, Brother Cheng has a chance to win the Rookie Award; would the school protect him instead of Brother Cheng? Look at him now, he slunk away with a demerit on his record. He hasn’t even written his graduation thesis yet, right? What’s the deal? Since he failed at plagiarizing the game, does he not even want to graduate university?

The more he read, the colder Pei Shu’s gaze became, and the deeper the hidden anger grew.

Pei Shu hadn’t truly thought about what kind of person this “Stallion Novel” protagonist was before. He originally thought all the evil was concentrated in the “Plot Will,” and that the protagonist Lin Cheng might have just been a lucky beneficiary.

But now…

Pei Shu suddenly realized: as cannon fodder, he was kept muddled by the Plot Will, but why did the Plot Will have to do this?

If the so-called protagonist was truly outstanding, Lin Cheng could have relied on his own abilities to rise to the top.

If the so-called protagonist was truly outstanding, he could have relied on a vision that surpassed the current era to create independent game ideas, rather than allowing a young man who originally had a bright future to be destroyed by the filth of “plagiarism.”

Hehe, a “Stallion Novel” protagonist?

From the lines of these forum replies, one could sketch the image of this protagonist—greedy, conceited, lazy, incompetent…

How many people’s lives must be destroyed by that so-called Plot Will for the sake of a guy who originally had zero interest in games?

After finishing his reading, Pei Shu barely suppressed his anger.

He clicked on the private message box for Jiang Ziye.

In Jixing Studio, including the main studio group chat, people were already discussing topics related to Teacher Bu Shu.

Zhang Sui and the other console fans were especially excited. They originally thought the afternoon was just for watching a fresh stream of Teacher Bu Shu returning after eight years. They never expected him to first unlock the final secret of Tracer Studio’s Sky Demon Thief and then accurately analyze the difference between the first-gen GM4 and the subsequent standard models.

The segment of the stream where Teacher Bu Shu analyzed the first-gen vs. the standard models had already been recorded and circulated. It could be said that console players worldwide who saw this were screaming in admiration: He is a god!.

The Biak Group, facing this suddenly exposed secret, appeared somewhat disheveled even though they had prepared for it.

The hashtag #BiakGroupApologizes was trending on social platforms worldwide. After issuing an apology letter, the Biak Group finally released an overclocking patch for the GM4—all users of standard GM4 models could choose to download the patch to have the same overclocking experience as the first-gen GM4.

However, the Biak Group also declared that prolonged overclocking on standard GM4 models would cause some damage to the hardware. For the sake of hardware lifespan, players were asked to carefully consider whether to install the overclocking patch.

This overclocking patch, released alongside the apology letter, finally appeased the vast majority of players.

People like Zhang Sui—since Jixing Studio had a dedicated gaming area for employees to experience games, there were five GM4s there. Once it was confirmed that Biak had released the patch, many console players immediately flocked to the gaming area. They downloaded the patch first, and then someone recorded and loaded the final secret of Sky Demon Thief released by Tracer Studio to play it on the overclocked GM4.

Jixing Studio focused mainly on PC and mobile game development. Although they had a small team tentatively trying console game development, the investment was very small—but even if they didn’t make console games, they still had basic aesthetics and common sense.

When the 8-year-old secret effect from Tracer Studio was clearly visible on the large studio gaming TV, everyone in Jixing Studio gasped.

“This visual and effect… it’s incredible…” someone remarked.

“Truly worthy of being the ‘Madman Studio’.”

Lin Cheng was also among the crowd of onlookers. However, seeing their amazed expressions, he felt a bit bored. He had already seen this secret before his rebirth. Furthermore, in the next 10 years, there would be another leap in hardware development, including upgrades to game engines and so on. In ten years, this level of detail in the Sky Demon Thief final secret would be very ordinary.

Lin Cheng looked at the excited crowd with some disdain, thinking to himself—these ignorant fellows, no wonder even the expansion pack for the studio’s pillar project could have a major bug they were helpless against. If not for him, the “Savior,” they’d just have to wait for the studio’s reputation to collapse!

But then again…

Lin Cheng thought about the “Teacher Bu Shu” from the afternoon stream—this person, though he only had this great opportunity because of Lin Cheng’s rebirth, seemed to have a bit of a brain.

As a reborn protagonist with a system, Lin Cheng didn’t think he needed to do everything himself in the future. Haven’t you seen in so many stallion novels how the protagonist has a unique eye for gathering a group of loyal and capable underlings?

He thought this Teacher Bu Shu was decent. If he had the chance later, he’d recruit him as a subordinate. It just so happened that the account had a lot of fame now; wouldn’t it be half the effort to use it for game promotion in the future?

Amidst a group of colleagues heatedly discussing Tracer Studio’s technical standards, Lin Cheng looked around with disdain, feeling a sense of “everyone else is drunk, while I alone am sober.”

Meanwhile, in a dormitory at Beijing University of Science and Technology, a somewhat decadent figure sat heavily in front of a desk. His WG platform page kept making notification sounds for incoming messages, but he had no desire to click on them at all.

Until he suddenly raised his head and saw a line of reply on the page that he had never expected.

Teacher Bu Shu: What? Do you intend to just accept your fate like this?

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